What does First B Jackson teach about born again?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on being born again starts with a question and a specific Old Testament story. In messages from Pastor Brian, Pastor Nathan, and Philip, the new birth is not treated as a vague religious feeling but as a concrete reality Jesus pointed Nicodemus toward by reaching back into Numbers 21. The Israelites in the wilderness sinned against God, were bitten by venomous snakes, and could not heal themselves. God's answer was to have Moses lift a bronze snake on a pole, and anyone who looked at it lived. That is the image Jesus handed Nicodemus in John 3:14-15 before the conversation ever reached verse 16. The logic of the old story is the logic of the gospel: God makes the way, and the only move left is to look to it in faith.
Pastor Brian organized the Numbers 21 passage around three words, sin, sorrow, and salvation, and he carried all three into John 3. The sin is real and named honestly. The sorrow that follows is not the worldly kind that leads nowhere, but godly sorrow that produces honest confession and then petition. Salvation came through a method that made no obvious sense, and Brian made the point plainly: it did not need to make sense. God said it would work, and it worked. That same pattern holds at the cross. Jesus is what you look to.
In the twelve-step series, Pastor Nathan and Philip connected the new birth directly to the question of readiness. Steps six and seven ask whether a person is entirely ready to have God remove what is broken in them, and whether they are willing to humbly ask Him to do it. Philip noted that some people have questioned whether the twelve steps name Jesus explicitly enough, but he pushed back gently: if you follow steps two and three honestly and genuinely turn your will over to God and ask Him to show you the way, God is going to show you Jesus. Humility and rebirth belong together, and the initiative in all of it belongs entirely to God.
Taught from John 3:14-15 · Numbers 21:4-9 · John 3:16 · John 3:1-2 · Romans 3:23
The passage taught · 1 John 1:9
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- September 1, 2024 The Ones Who Looked Lived A Wyoming pastor walks through Steps 6 and 7 of the 12 steps, grounding them in Numbers 21 and John 3: sin, sorrow, and the salvation God makes possible by looking up.
- September 1, 2024 Anyone Who Looked, Lived A Wyoming pastor walks through steps six and seven of recovery, connecting Moses lifting up the bronze snake in Numbers 21 to Jesus and the new birth in John 3.
- March 17, 2019 Look and Live A Wyoming pastor traces the strange bronze snake of Numbers 21 to John 3:16, showing how God's provision in the wilderness points to salvation through Christ alone.
- November 11, 2012 Sin, Sorrow, and Salvation A Wyoming pastor connects Moses lifting the bronze serpent in the wilderness to the cross of Christ, tracing sin, sorrow, and salvation through John 3 and Numbers 21.
- March 18, 2012 The Invasion of God Ron Turpin walks through John 11 to show how God invades a life with resurrection power, calling the bound and spiritually dead to be loosed and set free.
Mentioned along the way
- December 4, 2022 The Word Became Flesh and Pitched His Tent Among Us Pastor Ray walks through John 1:1-18, tracing how the transcendent God became flesh in Christ, and shares three stories of lives changed by the Gospel of John.
- August 19, 2018 Born Again to a Living Hope Peter writes to scattered believers facing persecution, promising an imperishable inheritance, living hope through Christ's resurrection, and God's protecting power through faith.
- August 19, 2018 Standing on the Promises, Not Sitting on the Premises Peter writes to scattered strangers facing real persecution, pointing them to an imperishable inheritance, a living hope grounded in Christ's resurrection, and the mercy of God.
- September 27, 2015 The Love of Christ Compels Us Paul's words in 2 Corinthians push us to see people through God's eyes, not our own, and to let Christ's love compel us toward the one message that changes everything.
- December 23, 2012 The So That of Christmas A Wyoming pastor explores three "so that" clauses in Galatians, 2 Corinthians, and John 3:16 to show why God sent His Son and what Christmas truly offers.