John 3:1-10 The Grace of Being Born Again

Scripture Reading

Titus 3:4-7 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Intro

Unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God (John 3:3). You must be born again (John 3:7).

Those are the words for our Savior in one of the most important conversations ever had in human history.

How is someone saved?!

And one thing is clear. The only way you will be saved is if you are born again.

What? What does that mean?

What does it mean to be “born again” and how does that happen?

That is one of the most important questions you could ever ask in your life.

The very question Christ answers in John 3:1-10.

If we better understood this doctrine, the doctrine of the New Birth, it would change everything.

If the Church could grasp what it means to be born again it would revolutionize the Church and our witness to the world tomorrow.

First, It would help us to know how we are saved and give us greater assurance and rest in Christ.

Second, It would be immensely practical for our discipleship by showing us what it means to truly be a Christian and help us understand what that should look like in contrast to the false Christianity that is so prevalent around us today.

And most of all it would magnify God’s grace.

It would help us to see the amazing gift of salvation we have from God, through Christ, by the power of the Spirit with the result that we would love God more and more and live lives that glorify His Name.

So what is the doctrine of the New Birth and what does it mean to experience the New Birth that we might be saved and have eternal life?

Point number 1...

I. We Must be Born Again from Above

John 3:1-3 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

We are introduced to a man named Nicodemus.

Pharisees

And Nicodemus was a Pharisee.

Pharisees were a religious group that was zealous for the Law of God.

The name Pharisee, came from the Hebrew verb “to separate.”

So the Pharisees were the “separated ones.”

Those separated, set apart, holy to the Law of God.

These were people who were very serious about religion.

So serious in fact, that they did not just require strict adherence to the Law, but they also added to the Law all kinds of extra traditions and rules around the Law like a fence to make sure no one even came close to breaking one of God’s commands.

That’s why Jesus said in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines [of God] the commandments of men (Matthew 15:9).

But ironically, in trying to purify religion, the Pharisees had turned the worship of God into external rituals and rule keeping.

Why? Because for them salvation was in the works of the Law.

They trusted in their own righteousness and good works to justify them before a holy and righteous God.

Salvation was something you earned instead of something that was given, the exact opposite of the good news of the gospel.

And its this background Nicodemus brings when he comes to speak with Jesus.

Sanhedrin

He was also a ruler of the Jews.

This means he was part of the Jewish Sanhedrin.

The governing body of Israel under Rome.

Night

This might help explain why Nicodemus came to Jesus by night.

John doesn’t tell us exactly why but its possible Nicodemus was worried about his reputation and didn’t want to be seen meeting with Jesus, who was getting a bad reputation with the leaders of Israel, out of fear of what it might cost him.

Or maybe night was just the time he knew Jesus would have the most time away from the crowds to answer his questions and have a long conversation similar to how John and Andrew asked Jesus where he was staying in John 1.

Either way, Nicodemus came to Jesus and said “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him” (John 3:2).

Nicodemus says we because he is speaking on behalf of others who think like him.

Jesus is obviously someone.

All His signs show that He is no ordinary man, but someone sent from God.

But that doesn’t mean he believes Jesus is God, the Christ, the Messiah, the One who would come and save His people from their sins.

In this way, Nicodemus represents the many who believed in John 2:23-25.

Right before Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, John wrote “many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.”

And then John says there was a man of the Pharisees who came asking about Jesus because of the signs He was doing.

In John 2, Jesus did not entrust Himself to them because they did not believe with true saving faith.

He had no faith in their faith.

But the whole reason John wrote this gospel was John 20:31, That you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

So John brings Nicodemus in to answer the question What does it mean to believe?

How does someone believe in Jesus in such a way that they have life in His Name?

Verse 3...

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Kingdom of God

The Kingdom of God is a massive topic in the Bible and the ministry of Jesus.

We do not have time to cover it entirely here, but suffice it to say, the Kingdom of God is tied to the gospel and salvation.

Mark 1:14-15 Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

The Kingdom of God is God’s Kingdom of life and salvation.

Its Christ’s reign of making all things new. Reversing the curse. Redeeming everything broken in this world.

In John 3, this Kingdom is obviously tied to salvation through faith in Christ.

Throughout the rest of the chapter, Jesus stops talking about the Kingdom of God and instead focuses on eternal life.

Verse 14, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

In Mark 9, this connection between the Kingdom and Eternal life is made explicit when Jesus is talking about cutting sin out of your life.

If your hand or your foot causes you to sin cut it off for it is better to enter life crippled than with two hands or two feet be thrown into hell.

And if your eye causes you to sin gouge it out because it is better to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than Hell with two (Mark 9:43-47).

The Kingdom of God is God’s Kingdom of Salvation. The Kingdom of Eternal life.

Christ Kingdom reign of making all things new which has already begun through His life, death, and resurrection and continues today through the preaching of the gospel.

Born Again

And Jesus says Truly Truly I say to you.

Its double underlined. There’s no getting around it. Pure unvarnished truth.

Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.

He cannot see God’s redemption, salvation, reversing the curse, and making all things new.

He cannot see eternal life.

This is the Christian doctrine of Regeneration. Of being born again.

You were dead in your trespasses sins and made alive again in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:1-5).

Being born again can also be translated as being born from above.

Both meanings come together to give a picture of the whole.

Being born again is being born from above.

In other words, being born from Heaven. Born of God.

This was a gut punch to Nicodemus.

He had been striving His whole life to enter the Kingdom. And now Jesus is saying, striving won’t get you there.

All your striving isn’t even able to make you see it.

You have to be completely reborn. Made new.

Born of God. Born of a heavenly birth.

This is why Nicodemus asked the question How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born? (John 3:4).

Nicodemus isn’t being stupid here.

The idea of the question basically is what Jesus said is just nonsense. It makes no sense.

How is anybody supposed to be born again.

What about the Law? What about the traditions?

In one short sentence, Jesus swept away everything Nicodemus stood for.

His whole life became nothing more than a pile of ashes.

Worthless works. Worthless striving. Worthless everything.

None of it mattered unless Nicodemus was born again.

And that’s true for you and that’s true for me.

Sin has so blinded us and corrupted us, so enshrouded us in darkness that we cannot even see the Kingdom of God and salvation even if it were to stare us right in the face.

We are like a man born blind staring the Sun.

John Calvin said, “We are so entirely controlled by the power of sin, that the whole mind, the whole heart, and all our actions are under its influence” (MacArthur, Biblical Doctrine, 467–468).

Or as Romans says No one understands. No one seeks God. All have turned aside and become worthless. No one does good, not even one…There is no fear of God before their eyes (Rom. 3:10-18).

And our sin has shut us out of the Kingdom.

And that’s not going to be fixed by cleaning ourselves up and making some superficial changes.

It can’t be fixed by adding a little bit of religion to your life and trying to be a good person.

We cannot fix this old person or clean up our act enough to earn our salvation.

That’s what Nicodemus learned the hard way.

We have to be completely renewed. Radically transformed from the inside out,

There is no good in us. Only Sin.

The whole man has to be reborn:

New heart.

New will.

New desires,

New character.

New nature.

We need to be recreated a whole new creation (2 Cor. 5:17).

And unless we are, we will not be saved.

Maybe by this point your asking with Nicodemus: How can a man be born when he is old? How can someone be reborn, recreated?

How does someone come to be born of God?

And in the rest of the passage, Jesus gives us two answers to show us the way to be forgiven of our sin and have eternal life.

The only way to be born of God is through the work of Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Number 2...

II. We Are Born Again through the Work of Christ

John 3:5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

Now we move from seeing to entering.

You have to be reborn to see it, and without being reborn you will never enter it.

And Here Jesus is explaining what it means to be born again. He’s answering Nicodemus’ question.

Being born again, born from above, born of God is to be born of water and the Spirit...That is the Holy Spirit.

Well what does that possibly mean?

Incorrect Interpretations

There have been all kinds of interpretations offered trying to explain what Jesus means in this passage.

Natural Birth

One common one is that born of water and the Spirit refers to someone’s natural birth and then a second spiritual birth.

The water being the breaking of water when a woman goes into labor.

The idea here is that verse 6 says that which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of Spirit is spirit.

Natural birth is not enough. You need to be spiritually reborn to have eternal life.

True enough. Not everyone is saved and being born into a Christian family does not save you.

But born of water and the Spirit are not meant to be seen as two separate births, but one birth explaining what it means to be born from above.

Baptism

Another explanation is that Jesus is making a reference to baptism.

As in, if you want to be born again, you must be baptized.

But, for one thing, Nicodemus would have never understood what Jesus was saying because Christian baptism wasn’t a thing yet.

Some people try and get around this by saying Jesus was referencing the baptism of John the Baptist as a proto Christian baptism, but John himself contrasts His baptism of water with Jesus’ baptism of the Holy Spirit as two separate baptisms.

Here they are together. You must be born of water and the Spirit.

Not only that, but if baptism was what was in view here that would fit easily with Nicodemus’ whole worldview of Laws and religious ordinances and would not have left him so confused.

In verse 9, he’s still asking, How can these things be?

If Jesus had been talking about a religious work of Baptism, Nicodemus would have just said, “Oh! That’s no problem! What’s another religious work on a list of hundreds?”

No. Jesus is talking about something else. And the clue is in verse 10.

“Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?” (John 3:10).

Nicodemus was a Master of the Law. He was THE Teacher of Israel.

Jesus’ question implies that Nicodemus should have understood exactly what He was saying from His study of the Old Testament.

So when Nicodemus heard you must be born again by a powerful work of God and being born again means being born of water and the Spirit, a light bulb should have gone off in Nicodemus’ head that said, “New Covenant!”

New Covenant

Ezekiel 36:25-27 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

The New Birth is clearly being born again in the New Covenant.

God says I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses.

This water is associated with cleansing and purification from sin.

Psalm 51: Wash me throughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. Wash me and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow (Psalm 51:2, 7).

In Jeremiah where he prophesies the New Covenant, he says I will be merciful toward their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more (Hebrews 8:12).

That’s the same idea here.

So clearly being born again involves purification from sin. Forgiveness of sin.

And then God said I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.

That is spiritual death to spiritual life.

Dead in sin, eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 6:23).

And the Spirit God gives is the Holy Spirit. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

There is a radical transformation.

There is water for cleansing and the Holy Spirit for new life.

In the New Birth, the New Covenant, God not only cleanses us of all our sin, but He also gives us the Holy Spirit to transform us from the inside out and make us New Creations.

No longer dead in our sins in Adam, but alive in Christ.

This is what John the Baptist meant when He said Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

Its all talking about the same thing.

The New Birth. The New Covenant. Being born again.

And this New Covenant - New Birth comes through and is made possible only through the work of Jesus Christ.

His blood is the blood that ratified, or put into effect, the New Covenant that forgives all our sins.

Remember what Jesus said in the Lord’s Supper.

Matthew 26:27-28 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

Just as Moses ratified the Old Covenant with the blood of bulls and goats, Christ ratified the New Covenant with His blood on the cross (Hebrews 9:18-19).

His is the blood that washes us whiter than snow.

And God raised Him again by the Power of the Holy Spirit so that we might be raised with Him to New Life.

So going back to Nicodemus the only way to be born again and have eternal life is by being cleansed and made alive through the New Covenant.

Old Covenant works of the Law would never help.

They still left you dead in your sins and no amount of keeping the Law could ever make you clean.

We needed a Savior.

Someone to keep the Law on our behalf, offer to God a life of perfect righteousness...

And someone to suffer and die in our place to pay the penalty our sin deserved.

And that is exactly what Christ came to do.

He shed His blood to make the New Covenant New Birth a reality for everyone who believes in Him.

Through Christ and through Christ alone, we can be born of God.

Jesus said I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me (John 14:6).

Its as if Jesus said…Nicodemus, everyone unregenerate…everyone not born again…is unclean and dead in their sins.

They are spiritually blind, lost, under the wrath and condemnation of God.

And Nicodemus good works cannot get you there. They can’t make you clean. They can’t make you alive. No amount of striving will ever help you enter the Kingdom.

You can’t even see it.

You must be born again in the New Covenant.

God must cleanse you and put His Spirit within you.

You must be purified and raised from spiritual death to spiritual life.

And this is only possible through the work of Christ.

Just a few verses later in John 3:14-15 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

There is no New Birth without Christ.

No cleansing or forgiveness of sins.

No raised to life and new nature.

Its faith in Him and Him alone.

And even that is a powerful work of God. Notice God’s promise of the New Covenant:

I will sprinkle clean water on you.

I will cleanse you.

I will take out your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and rules.

Its all God. God’s work.

No human striving or Law-following could ever to that. That is why you must be born of God.

And the only way to be born of God through the work of Christ is by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And that’s point number 3...

III. We Are Born Again by the Power of the Holy Spirit

John 3:6-7 “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’”

Jesus is very clearly saying only the Holy Spirit can make someone born again.

It is a miraculous work of God.

John 6:63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all.

Flesh gives birth to flesh. Only the Spirit can give birth to spirit.

This verse speaks to the Sovereignty of God in salvation.

Until we are born again, we cannot even see Christ or begin to understand the gospel.

Irresistible Grace/ Effectual Calling

This is the Doctrine known as Irresistible Grace, or better yet, Effectual calling.

The Bible very clearly says we are born again, 1 Peter 1:23, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.

In other words the gospel.

Even Paul says faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ (Rom. 10:17).

There is an outward call of the gospel where God offers sinners salvation in Jesus Christ.

But because of Sin this outward call is ineffectual without the powerful working of the Holy Spirit.

Merely hearing the gospel is not enough. Until we are born again, hearing the gospel has no impact on us.

We do not understand it, nor are we able to understand it.

1 Corinthians 2:14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

We are dead in sin. Seeing we do not see and hearing we do not hear.

And to the extent that we do understand it, to the extent that we do hear the outward call of the gospel and understand what its saying, we hate it. Despise it. Want nothing to do with it.

We are hostile to God with all of our heart. All of our mind. All of our soul. All of our strength.

The word of the Cross, Christ Crucified is a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles (1 Cor 1:23).

Even Jesus himself says in this passage unless one is born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God. Unless he is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter it.

The issue is not permission. Its ability.

All are commanded to repent and believe the Gospel. Indeed, all are invited, to come and trust in Chris.

But we are so dead in our trespasses and sins darkened in our understanding, hostile to God that without the inward, effectual call of the Holy Spirit makes us alive again, we would never choose Christ.

As slaves to our sin, we would always seek to serve the will of our master, choosing sin, drinking it like water, to our own damnation (Job 15:16).

But this is what makes God’s grace so amazing.

When our hearts, minds, souls, and wills were dead set against God, He conquered our sin to show us the glory and beauty of Christ.

By this inward call the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to see the glory of the Son of Man lifted up with the eyes of faith where we see our sin and how Christ is the full and perfect answer to all of it.

Irresistible Grace does not mean God overrides our will. That God saves us against our will as many people who hate Calvinism accuse us of saying.

What it means is that by the powerful working of the Holy Spirit, according to the Sovereign free grace of God, the Holy Spirit renews our will and makes us alive again so that we freely and joyfully choose Christ.

Regneration, being born again, precedes faith.

Faith, true earnest belief in Jesus and love for Him is the fruit of the Holy Spirit making us alive again.

We believe because we are born again.

As Thomas Watson says God rides forth conquering in the chariot of his gospel; he conquers the pride fo the heart, and makes the will, which stood out as a fort-royal, to yield and stoop to his grace (A Body of Divinity, 223).

Just as God breathed into Adam and gave Him life, He breaths into us the Holy Spirit to give us new spiritual life and make us new creations in Christ (2 Cor 5:17).

This is what so perplexed and confounded Nicodemus.

There is nothing we can contribute to being born again. Nothing we can do.

It is a Sovereign work of God’s free grace.

Think about it.

If being born again was the result of us hearing and responding to the gospel within ourselves, that would mean there was some merit or good in us that made it possible.

Maybe we were intellectually smart or enough to see the practicality of the gospel where others can’t.

Or maybe we were more morally inclined to repent of our sin and trust in Christ.

No matter how you put it, it would mean there was something good or meritorious about us that inclined us to salvation when others wholeheartedly reject it.

That would turn faith into a work, and an outright rejection of the gospel of Grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

The very thing Nicodemus had spent his life trying to do.

So what’s the cause? What makes one person born again and leaves another still dead in their sin?

God’s gracious sovereign electing love.

Romans 8:30 And those whom he predestined he also called and those whom He called He also justified.

God called us because He predestined us.

To be predestined is to be chosen before the foundation of the world.

Fore-loved before we had ever done anything good or bad.

And God predestined us according to the good pleasure of His will (Eph. 1:5).

For no other reason than it pleased Him to do so.

There was nothing good in us. Nothing that made us more worthy than another.

Our salvation, all of it, was all of grace.

Left to ourselves, we would have never chosen God.

But Ephesians 2, God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ…by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Eph. 2:4-5, 8-9).

The only way someone can be born again to have faith and be saved by grace is through the powerful resurrection power of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus says this explicitly in verse 8.

John 3:8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

This is an illustration of what Jesus just said in verse 7.

That which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.

Verse 8 explains what Jesus just said.

And He compares the Spirit to the wind, and there’s a bit of a word play there because just like in Hebrew, the Greek word for spirit, breath, and wind are all the same.

And this verse tells us three characteristics of the Spirit’s work in the New Birth like wind.

1. The New Birth is of God’s Free and Sovereign Will

The wind blows where it wishes. So does the Spirit.

Who by the way is not an it. He’s a He.

God is free in who He chooses to save.

He saves not in response to us or anything we do, but according to His good pleasure.

That’s what we saw earlier.

Number 2...

2. The New Birth is Evident in its Effects

You hear its sound.

You don’t see the wind, but you see the effects of the wind.

You hear its gusts…you see it blow in the trees.

This is why I said understanding the doctrine of the New Birth would radically change the church overnight.

Those who are born again are transformed. They are not who they were.

Their whole life is changed. Their loves, affections, desires, and yes even their actions are totally different.

There is no such thing as a carnal Christian. Someone who lives in the flesh.

The Bible calls them unregenerate.

The evidences of the New Birth…how you know if you are really saved is

One: Faith in Christ.

A love and devotion to Christ and commitment to follow Him with all your life.

Two: Repentance from sin.

Someone who is born again lives a holy life. Not perfectly.

But they hate their sin and no longer walk in it.

They intentionally strive to honor God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength and put their sin to death.

And finally the New Birth is evident in a Love for God and Love for others.

Someone born again has a new heart with new desires.

They love God and His people.

They have joy in worship and a hunger for God’s Word.

You might not be able to see the New Birth happen, but you hear its sound.

Number 3...

3. The New Birth is Independent of Man’s Work and Will

But you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

Meaning we do nothing to originate the work of the Spirit or control Him.

That which is born of flesh is flesh.

There is nothing we can do for ourselves to make us born again. We need God’s grace.

And in terms of ministry, there is nothing we can do for other people.

All we are called to do is preach the Word.

We preach the gospel in faith, knowing it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe (Rom. 1:16)…the outward call of the gospel.

But without the inward call of the gospel no one will be saved.

It is God who saves, not our rhetoric, or our wisdom, or our persuasive words.

This also gives us great confidence in preaching the gospel because we can’t mess it up.

All we can do, and all God asks us to do is be faithful.

Big Idea: We do nothing to make the Spirit blow or contribute in any way to our being born again.

He blows where He wishes.

And you do not know where He comes from or where He goes, but you hear His sound.

Conclusion

Helpless

Now if you are not in Christ. If you are not yet a Christian the Doctrine of Effectual Calling or Irresistible Grace can make you feel hopeless.

Helpless. There’s nothing you can do.

You might be saying with Nicodemus: How can these things be?

And the good news of the gospel is that’s the point.

There is nothing you can do.

No hope you have in yourself.

If you are going to be saved from your sin, you must cast all of your life, all of your hope, all of your faith on the goodness of God’s grace and God’s grace alone.

Because here’s the promise...

John 1:12-13 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

Not blood.

Not your family heritage or where you come from.

Nor the will of the flesh.

Any human effort or exertion.

Nor of the will of man.

Not our will or our choosing.

But of God.

To all who receive Him, who believe in HIs name, Jesus gives the right to become children of God born from above.

Receiving Christ is receiving Him as your Prophet, Priest and King.

As Lord and Savior of your life.

And believing in His Name is casting all of your soul on Him and depending on Him alone and His death and resurrection on the cross to wash you clean and save you from all your sins.

You are helpless. And that’s the good news of the gospel.

When Jesus was asked how is anyone saved? He said What is impossible with man is possible with God (Luke 18:27).

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…all are involved in salvation every time a sinner repents.

And our sin, as strong as it is, is no match for the Almighty Triune God.

We are born of God, through the Son, by the Power of the Holy Spirit.

And for Christians, this doctrine should result in praise and thanksgiving to God.

There was no good in us. God saved us solely by His grace.

He had all the praises of the saints and the angels, and He still called you, and made you alive again because it was the good pleasure of his will to do so.

When we truly realize, God did the impossible...

That He overcame all of our sin, rebellion and obstinance that left to ourselves would have kept us enslaved to sin destined for death, wrath, and condemnation to this day...

No wonder Paul says In love he predestined us…to the praise of His glorious grace! (Eph. 1:5-6).

Were it not for God all of us would still be dead in our sin.

The New Birth is a sovereign work of God’s grace through the work of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Let us live all of our lives for Him.

Living out the New Birth...

In the Power of the New Birth...

Giving thanks for the New Birth to the praise and glory of God.

Let’s Pray