Hello, and thank you for joining me today. I'm Steve Blayer, the pastor here at Hillside Christian Fellowship in Millersburg, Pennsylvania. And this is the first part of a year-long series called Restored, a 52-part devotional to help you jumpstart your journey with Jesus. If you're watching this, you're either new in Christ, and I want to welcome you aboard to the most exciting ride of your life that you could ever have. Or maybe you've been in Christ for some time, and you've never really taken the time to intentionally lay a foundation in Christ, which means to be really intentional about feeding this new thing that happened that completely and radically transformed your life. Either way, I'm really glad that you've chosen to join me in this journey and those that have helped me write this curriculum.
I'm excited to enter in and help you to grow. I myself was born again 35 years ago, and I had a wonderful pastor who came into my life just a year after I had made my confession and decided that Jesus would be all for me. And the times that I had with him one-on-one, working through what it meant to be born again, working through the issues of my life that needed to be conformed to Christ, man, I was a wreck, an absolute mess when I came to know the Lord Jesus Christ. And many of you probably were too. And the exciting news is it only gets better from here. So welcome to your new life. Welcome to the kingdom of heaven, which can never be shaken.
And welcome to the family of God. And that's where we want to begin our time together. The writer of the Gospel of John, who is John the disciple, then John the apostle, he wrote a letter to some of his friends, 1 John. And that's what we call it anyway, 1 John. And he said, Behold the manner of love which the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God. Just take a moment to let that soak in. You've had your eyes opened, as I did 35 years ago, that God didn't create us to be slaves.
He didn't create us because he was bored and needed some amusement, which we've provided him with plenty of that, haven't we? He created us because his nature of love. He said, Be a father unless you have children. What we got awakened to when we were born again, as we'll look into in a moment, is that we were made to be children of God himself, made in his image and likeness, where we can say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And the truth is that you and I were made in the image and in the likeness of God himself. And what happened when you said yes to the Lord and stood under that waterfall of grace that was being extended to you, was, I want to be restored and I want to be a son in your house.
And that's why we have the name of this series as Restored. Because the truth is that God never intended us to be separated from him. He never intended us to feel unloved and distant and far away from the God of heaven and earth. He created us to be part of a family, a loving family. Imagine a family where everybody's laughing and enjoying a meal together around the table without the tension and strife that many of our families have, but only just like a glorious family reunion. And that's what happened when you were born again. So that term born again, let's look at that for this first week together.
And then I'll share some practical tips to get started. This series is not meant to be done alone. So I hope that you already have somebody close to you in your life. Maybe it's the person who helped you come to know Jesus in the first place. Maybe it's two or three people that you met at church. I don't know. But this is not meant to be done alone, as you'll see a little bit later today and throughout the series. We were never made to journey alone. Just like imagine being in a family if you're an only child.
And I recognize you might be an only child. But if you have siblings or you can imagine a family with many siblings who get along with one another, how much more fun it is to be all together. The truth is that God never made us to just be alone, but to have fellowship and community with others of like and precious faith, as the Bible puts it. So I hope that you'll find somebody to do this with you. But let's look at what it means to be born again. That phrase actually, Jesus only used it one time. And it was when a Pharisee or a teacher from Jesus's day had a one-on-one conversation with Jesus.
And this guy was one of the top 70 rabbis in the whole world, top 70 teachers about the law of Moses and the prophets of old. And so if anybody knew the Bible, this man knew the Bible. And he had a curiosity about Jesus because he saw him working miracles. And he saw that he was different than all the other rabbis he'd ever seen. And he knew there's something about this man. And maybe he recognized that I think this might be the Messiah, the fulfillment of all these things. So he had questions for him.
And Jesus answered his questions and said, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Well, Nicodemus had the same kind of question you and I would have asked. He said to him, how can a man be born when he's old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born, can he? That's the obvious question. And we all understand that Jesus was giving a metaphor. We don't physically have to be born a second time. But there is something on the inside of us that desperately needed to be born afresh or born anew.
And Jesus explained, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. That which is born of flesh is flesh. That which is born of the spirit is spirit. So don't be amazed that I said to you, you must be born again. In other words, we all had a natural birth. Every one of us came out from the inside of a mama. Every human being alive has been born from the inside of a woman. That's without question. But what happened on the inside of us, there was something that was just not alive.
There was something that, as the scriptures describe it, we were dead in our trespasses. In other words, our spirit, the deepest part of us, that part that brings life and that part that makes life worth living, that part in us that gives us an open door access to eternal life. When we were born, that part of our being was not alive at all. And being born again means you have the first birth out of your mother's womb, but now you've been born again by the spirit of God. And what that means is so much. We get a brand new start. We get as if it's the first day.
This is the first day of the best days of our life. I'm so excited for you if you're new in Christ, because every day from here on out, the progress of your life is only going to get better. Proverbs 4.18 says, But the path of the righteous is like the morning sun, and it grows brighter and brighter until the fullness of day. It only gets better from here. That's not to say that every day is going to be a cakewalk. If you've come out of some deep addictions or things like some things that I was into, there might be some struggle in the day ahead. But I'm talking about the trajectory of your life.
Being born again means everything that happened before the day you said yes to Jesus, you can bury that and leave it in your past, and you get a bright start. It's a brand new clean slate. The sun's coming up now, and it's only going to get brighter and brighter. Some clouds may come across the horizon, and they may cover the sun even for a little while, but the sun is getting brighter and brighter in your life. That much I can guarantee you. And so Jesus finished this statement, the wind blows where it wishes. You hear the sound of it, but you don't know where it comes from and where it's going.
And so it is with everyone who's born of the Spirit. When you came to Christ, you know, maybe you can identify the exact moment that you know. This was my turnaround moment. I remember when it happened for me. There was a moment in my life I'll never forget. I felt touched by something deep on the inside of me because of words that somebody was saying, but I stopped listening to the preacher because something on the inside of me was happening, and I couldn't explain it. I just knew this is awesome, and whatever that is, I want more of that because I felt like I was breathing for the first time.
It felt like clouds were beginning to part, and I could see for the first time. I felt like I was waking up from a dream, and that reality was crashing in, and the reality was good news. Good news that I wasn't made for the junk I was into at that time, but that life really could be fun and fulfilling without all that extra stuff. And in that moment, I knew that something was happening, but I couldn't identify it. And maybe you have the same experience as I did. You just say, man, I don't know what hit me, but I just feel like something's different on the inside of me. That's what it feels like to be born again.
So Jesus was talking to this teacher. He's an intellectual. He knew the Word. He studied the Bible all the days of his life, but Jesus was telling him, don't try to figure this out. You won't be able to figure out what happened inside of you with your mind anyway any more than you could figure out where that gust of wind started from. And I want to encourage you to just enjoy the journey. Just have a blast, man. There's so much you're going to learn over the next few years of your life.
There's so much that's going to happen in your life right out of the gate. Don't let any stress or striving just right now enjoy it. Just enjoy the fact that the God of heaven and earth touched you, and he's making you into something brand new. So one more scripture for you for today, and for you to look into this week. And then I want to give you some practical tips for getting started on your journey with God. This is something that Paul wrote in a letter he wrote to some friends in a church that he established in an ancient city called Corinth. And he wrote a letter to them to help them deal with some problems.
But then he wanted to help them understand the nature of who they actually were. So I'll be in chapter 5 of 2 Corinthians. And by the way, I know I'm in the Bible right now. And maybe you've never opened one before. Don't stress over that either. I won't even make you try to find where 2 Corinthians is. I'll give you some tips on Bible study in a minute. But just soak this in for a minute while I read this to you. The love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died.
Now next week, we're going to look into what happened when we came to Christ, that we were crucified with Christ on that cross, that supernaturally and spiritually, God took it as though we were in Christ when he was crucified on that cross 2,000 years ago. And so what we were in that moment, all of the sin, all of the pain, the things that had been done to us, the things we'd done to others, that all of that was put to death on a cross with Christ. That's exciting. And that is what the good news is, that we were crucified. So we died, what we used to be anyway, died so that we could be born again, right?
There's where that again part is. Now we get a fresh start, something new bubbles up on the inside. Then he goes on, he says, and he died for all so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and rose again on their behalf. Therefore, from now on, we recognize no one according to the flesh. In other words, stop judging based on what you can see with your eye and what you think you can judge with your natural opinions. From this point onward, we're going to learn, and we're going to learn this together during this course, how to view life spiritually. Because I'm going to tell you one thing about God right now.
He doesn't see things the way that we see them. We have to learn how to see things the way he sees things. And the fact of the matter is, God is so much more loving, so much more gracious, so much more merciful and forgiving than any of us ever could have imagined. So he goes on and he says this, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation or a new creature. The old things have passed away. Behold, new things have come. That's the reality of your life right now.
That's the reality of my life and our lives for the rest of time until we go to rest or until Jesus returns, that new things are coming our way every day. Behold, Jesus says, I make all things new. That's going to be a memory verse for you this week. And now I'll get into some of the practical things I wanted to encourage you to do as you're growing in Christ. And you can begin all of these things right away. And one of them is to begin to memorize scripture. Now, don't let that be a daunting task for you.
You're going to find now that as you read the Bible, now that you love God and now that you know that God loves you, you're going to find that reading the Bible is a whole new experience for you. And there are going to be some parts that are a little bit confusing. You can skip over those parts in the beginning. Don't worry about it. Some of the Bible, when you read it, it helps if you know what some of the rest of the Bible says. Like we have the Bible's divided into two parts. There's the Old Testament, which is everything that happened from creation till about 400 years before Jesus came.
And that's what we call the Old Testament. It's got the Psalms in it. It's got Proverbs in it. It's got a ton of history in it. It also has all of the law of Moses in it and some of what the prophets said about the coming of the Messiah and so on. Those things we'll get to at some point. Right now, the most important thing, as you'll see in the next couple of weeks together or the next couple of months together really, is learning how to just rest in the fact that you now have a direct connection with the Lord of heaven and earth.
That the Father loves you. That the Father has accepted you. That you don't need to do a thing to earn his favor or his love for the rest of your life, but just respond to his love day by day and watch how he does the impossible, changing us from dark to light, from sinner to saint, and all of the rest that comes in between. So let's start with this. Begin to feed the new life that's in you. There is something alive in you. You felt it the moment that you received the Lord and maybe you've been feeling it often ever since.
For some of us, it erupts in tears. That's how I usually respond. When God gets a hold of me and when I know he's moving inside of me, I just begin to weep, which was a miracle work of God because I'm from New York City and I grew up on the streets of New York and you don't cry. But I found that my heart got cracked open and all of a sudden I'm easily moved by the Lord of heaven and earth. And that's a beautiful thing. Sometimes it's laughter. Sometimes it's just a plain old peace, but it's evidence that something's going on on the inside.
And I just encourage you to be responsive to that. If you can, I know that sometimes God shows up like that when we're in the middle of work or doing something that we can't stop. But if you can, whenever that feeling comes upon you, just stop. Connect with God and let him do what he does. Learning to live responsibly to the Spirit of God alive on the inside of us is the single most important thing that you can do right now to feed the life that's alive inside of you right now. So let's talk about what our spirit needs. Our spirit, just like our body, needs to be nourished.
Our soul needs to be nourished, right? We have soul food, we call it. I'm not talking about food that you ingest through your mouth. Soul food is doing things that make us laugh, make us cry, make us shout, make us just enjoy life. But our spirit needs to be nourished too. And unfortunately for many, even those who are in Christ, our spirit gets kind of the leftovers of our time and attention. Here's how you feed your spirit. First thing, spend some time each day connecting with God. I've already said to you, respond when you feel the Spirit of God beginning to bubble up as a way of putting it on the inside of you.
Stop everything and just ask, okay, Lord, what do you want to tell me right now? Or what are we connecting about right now? And the longer you can give yourself over to that until the wave of his grace, as I would call it, passes, the better. But be intentional each day of taking time to pray. All I'll say about, we'll have a whole teaching on prayer at some point soon, but all I'll say about prayer right now is it's just having a dialogue with God. It does involve pouring out your heart, talking to him about the things that are concerning you, the things that you're anxious about, or even the things that you're excited about.
You know, why only the bad stuff when we're talking to God? Prayer is expressing gratitude and thankfulness, like keeping an eye out for what God's done during the day and expressing that. That's part of prayer too. But it also involves being quiet and listening. And sometimes you'll hear it. Very few people actually hear like an audible voice when they pray, but many people have like an impression or a thought that will pop in the mind. Stick your, set your mind on God and be attentive to him and just start keeping track of what he says.
I'd encourage you, if you're inclined, to keep a journal of some sort. Write down the things that you hear during those quiet moments of prayer. I began sharing with you about the importance of reading the word. If you're going to track with this course that we're doing together, you'll have scriptures to read each week for the rest of the year. And that'll be really helpful to you. They're all very basic, foundational, first things first kind of things to know. If you're going to read the Bible, please don't start in the book of Revelation.
It's a problematic book, not because there's anything wrong with it, but because it really requires that you know the rest of the Bible to understand it in any meaningful way. It's actually got more quotes from the Bible than any other book of the Bible. But until you've read it, it doesn't make much sense and it can really just bring anxiety. So don't start there and I'll encourage you as we go, start in one of the letters in the New Testament. I like 1 John. Start by reading a gospel. The gospel of Mark is a really good one to start with.
Gets right into the action. Gospel of Matthew is a great story gospel. Gospel of Luke is a great story gospel. Gospel of John can be a little like, wow, man, that's really deep. You might want to hold off on that one for a little bit so you get some basic concepts down, but you can't go wrong really opening up the scriptures and reading the word. But for now, like I said, track with the scriptures that we're studying in this class together, meditate on them, really think about it, pour it into your heart and watch what God does. If you're like me, you love music.
I love music. I play drums. I've always been into music. I was a rock and roll, 70s rock guy growing up and, you know, British invasion music. And I still to this day, if you would start any song from the 70s done by any rock band, if you'd sing a line or two, I could probably finish the song. That's the power of music. So I've got thousands, tens of thousands of songs maybe stored up somewhere in the recesses of my mind and it only takes a little bit of a riff from one of those songs and it's right there again.
Well, if you're like me and you've spent your whole life filling your head with all kinds of music like that, it's time to start filling your head with other kinds of music. Music's a powerful tool. It makes your soul meditate on the words of a song. You know, kids these days, well, kids always will say, well, I just like the music. I don't listen to the lyrics. And I'm like, well, why do you know all the lyrics then? Because that's the power of music. Worship. We've never been, there has never been a better day for worship music.
There are so many great Christian bands doing all kinds of great worshipful music. Find a style that suits you and begin to play that. Find a band or two that you really love. I really encourage you especially to go for the ones that are worshipful. In other words, when I say that, worship is when we're, our heart and our mind is directed toward God. There's all kinds of music that's more like exhorting us or saying things to us. I'd encourage you to find worship where you can begin to sing along and the subject of the song is God himself.
That's what I would say is worshipful. Take the songs that you're singing in church on Sunday. If you're part of hillside, we keep most of our music directed toward the Lord. Make that your playlist now. Maybe it's time for a new Spotify playlist and fill it with worshipful music. Sometimes you can even just listen to the music and let it soak deep into your spirit. That's ministering to your spirit and feeding your spirit. So those three things, pray, reading the word and worship. Start with those and see what you can do to make it a daily practice.
It could be in the morning, could be in the evening, could be whatever suits your schedule. It could be scattered throughout the day, however it goes. But do be intentional about that. Walk with somebody. This class, as I shared earlier, is not meant to be done alone. Discipleship is not meant to be done alone. This whole walk with God in the family of God is not meant to be done alone. So find somebody. Maybe if you're new in Christ, you might want somebody who's been walking with God for a few years.
You're going to learn how to pray, not by reading a book and not by this. You know, I'm talking to a camera right now. Hopefully we're connecting somehow through that. But you want somebody that you can actually pray together with. The disciples were with Jesus one time. They saw what happened when he prayed. And so they said, Jesus, teach us to pray. And you want to be with somebody that you could say, hey, teach me how to pray like you do, because it seems like you really connect with God. That's the best way to learn how to pray.
Surround yourself with people who help you connect with God. Now, if you're like me, I've always had a great group of friends. And when I came to Christ, things began to change a little bit. And I started to notice some of my friends were making fun of me for my newfound faith. Some just didn't understand it and weren't interested in what was now becoming the most important part of my life. I had a connection with God. That outranks every single other thing. And so I realized I need some other friends in my life, people that are going to help me keep my mind and my heart steered toward God as I walk this thing out.
So it might be time for you to consider adding some friends into your life. Doesn't mean you have to ignore all of your friends that don't know the Lord or that aren't interested in this newfound faith you have, but you do need people in your life. I've said this to all my kids and I believe with all my heart, it's all throughout the Proverbs, that I can basically tell where you're going in life by the five people you spend the most time with. So take a look at your five. Overall, are they steering your heart toward God? Are they, if you reach rock, reach rock bottom at some point, are they ones who are going to turn your face back toward the God that you've given your life to? Or are they going to be ones who help you find a path away from God?
That's a really, really important, I think almost more important than most other things in determining whether we succeed at this walk is who we hang out with. On that same note, then connect with your local church. And I don't mean just attend on Sunday mornings. For a while, sit, learn, connect, that's great. Make some friends at church, gather together with them, like be there when the church is open. When I was new in Christ, I was so excited about the things I was learning. I was there every time the doors were open.
I was excited to learn about the Word. I was excited to connect with the men of the church, because I'd never been around really good godly men. And it was exciting to me that, hey, these guys aren't, you know, these prissy, whatever things I used to think they were. These guys were man's men, and like legit. And I really began to grow by hanging around the other men of the church. So gather with them, make friends, and find a place to serve. Now, you're not going to be preaching next week at the church, and you probably shouldn't be ministering right away until you learn some things and begin to grow.
But I also don't think you need to wait like years down the road before you begin to serve. So maybe there is something you could do. Help, you know, serve food at the next potluck, or help greet people when they come into the church, or find a place, serve the coffee. Find a place to serve, and that's your way of getting connected with the body and serving a function within the body of Christ, which is the church. And I'm just going to leave you with this. Don't try to finish by striving what you began by grace. Be patient with yourself.
That you got, we all have a lot of growing to do. Like I said, I'm 35 years old in Christ this year, and I'm still finding things that are like, wow, I can't believe I still do that. I can't believe I just said that again. It's going to be a process. Be patient with yourself. The Lord accepted you while you were yet a sinner. While we were yet sinners, the scripture says, Christ died for us. He already decided long before we did that his posture was going to be love. His posture toward us was going to be merciful.
He's already made that decision. We accepted it. His last words, some of his last words on the cross were, it is finished. It's finished, which means on our end of the equation, we have nothing to add to this, but our following. Just continue to follow. Be responsive to that inner voice. You're going to find yourself now not liking things that you used to enjoy. You know, for me, I used to get drunk five nights a week, four or five nights a week. I was drunk. All of a sudden, within days or weeks after really giving my life to the Lord, I was sitting in front of a pitcher of beer, and I realized I don't even like the taste of beer.
Some things were beginning to change on the inside of me, and what I'm telling you is learn to respond to that inner voice. Your appetites will begin to change. Your desires will change. God's given you the secret weapon of a conscience. Honor your conscience. Do whatever it says you can do. Don't do what it says you shouldn't do, and you'll do well in the Lord. Don't try to add anything to your salvation except your loving embrace of Jesus who reached out and gave you his loving embrace. So one final thing, and this is kind of your homework for the week that you should discuss with your mentor, whoever you're walking with.
Share your testimony. Tell the story, and here's what a testimony looks like. It's a story that goes something like this. This is what my life used to be like. I used to do this. I used to think this. I used to believe this, and here was some of the consequences of what I used to be, and who I used to be. Then I met Jesus, and here's how I met Jesus. Maybe it was a preacher. Maybe it was just some crazy encounter that you had somewhere. Maybe it was a podcast.
Maybe it was one of those gospel tracks. People do get saved sometimes with those old things, and then the end of the story, the exciting part is, and here's the difference that he's made in my life. That is your story. That is what you'll be able to cling to. You had a real encounter with a living God. It wasn't pretend. It wasn't fake. You weren't just responding emotionally. Something changed on the inside of you. Don't let it go. The first way you don't let it go, tell your story. So learn how to tell your story.
Maybe tell your story in five minutes to somebody. Practice telling it. Rehearse it in your mind, and you're rehearsing gratitude. You're rehearsing the reality of God touching you, and filling you, and transforming you, and because of that, that's going to be the beginning of you having a message to share with the world, which is really just good news. Thank you for joining me today. This is part one, and we'll be back again for part two next week. These will be released every Sunday for the next year, and I hope to see you again next time.
God bless you.