“You Must Be Born Again”
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A man in Ireland was convicted of his sin and was on the verge of trusting Christ when the devil raised the oft-repeated objection: “If you believe, it won’t last. What about tomorrow?” The worker dealing with him pointed to a water mill nearby. “What turns that wheel today?”
“The stream.”
“What will turn it tomorrow?”
“The stream.”
“And the days after?”
“The stream.” The man was led to see that there was abundant grace to save, keep, and meet all needs.
If the stream does not flow the mill will not go. Many times we can get so concerned with the water mill and what the water mill will do and what the water mill is not doing that we forget about the all important stream. Nothing about the mill is self sufficient. It depends wholly on the stream. It does not matter how well put together the mill is and technologically advanced it is… if the stream does not flow the mill will not go.
It is the same with Christianity and what we lose sight of. Like the mill, apart from the stream it can do nothing. Christian, apart from Christ we can do nothing.
“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.
Sometimes in our Christian walk we can lose sight of this. The pressure to perform the pressure to persevere, the pressure to love our neighbor, the pressure to obey the seemingly impossible commands of God. Our relationships, our marriages, our family members, our employment, our futures we find that we are buried under the stress, buried under the pressure, buried under expectations real or unreal. God never intended us to go about it alone. He will never leave us, nor forsake us. He never intended it from the very beginning… not only does salvation belong to the Lord, it also begins with the Lord.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has become a child of God. And everyone who loves the Father loves his children, too. We know we love God’s children if we love God and obey his commandments. Loving God means keeping his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.
Born Again
The Fruit of this Life
The first thing we will look at today is the beauty of what it means and what it is to be born again. Lastly, we will look at the results or fruit of the new life we have in Christ, the life that he brought to us in grace upon grace.
Thesis: Though sin and the pattern of this world may cause us to lose sight of the continued work of the Lord in every step of our lives, it is the power of the Spirit and the grace of our Lord that will continue to show us that life not only begins with grace but we are to continue to thrive in grace and peace for all eternity.
I. Born Again
- You cannot see the kingdom of God unless you are first born again.
A. One of the first things we need to look at is this all important verse here in chapter 5. The first verse. Now I sometimes hesitate doing what I am about to do, because I am concerned that sometimes people think I am shaking confidence in translations. So let me say first of all that the translation here is a great translation. It is not wrong. ESV NLT …good translations. But missing something.
B. This is the beauty of being able to translate from the greek. The Greek makes clear right here something hugely important. So bear with me here for a minute. The greek for born genao here is the beautiful perfect tense (past action with continuing effects) gegennetai which is more literally “has been born of God” I think the ESV nailed it here. This verb is used with the present tense of the greek word pisteuo. It is a present action. Believing right now presently. The combination of the two illustrates something important. The combination of the present and the perfect.
C. So what we get from this is a clear understanding that our faith in Christ is a result of us being born again. Not the other way around. We are not born again because we have faith in Christ. We have faith in Christ because we are born of God. Faith is a consequence of our regeneration. For added confirmation of this translation of mine… so you know I haven’t lost my mind. Here is some back up.
Dr. John Stott - The combination of present tense and perfect is important. It shows clearly that believing is the consequence, not the cause, of the new birth. Our present, continuing activity of believing is the result, and therefore the evidence, of our past experience of new birth by which we became and remain God’s children.
Dr. Kistemacker - The main verb in the sentence is “born” and the phrase everyone who believes is its subject. This means that the believer is the child of God the Father, for God causes the spiritual birth of his child. The believer’s faith in God is irrefutable evidence of his spiritual birth. He knows that Jesus is the Christ because the believer has been born of God.
D. This is the beauty of this wonderful doctrine called “regeneration.”
Dr. Wayne Grudem defines regeneration - Regeneration is a secret act of God in which he imparts new spiritual life to us. This is sometimes called “being born again.”
E. The first principle of the doctrine of regeneration is that it is totally the work of God. First off, in our passage today we see that the verb born is also passive. Something is applying this action to the subject. The subject is not doing it. We have nothing to do with our regeneration… it is totally the work of God.
They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.
We also see the passive nature of the word born in scriptures like...
He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.
All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation,
F. God’s sovereign work is also clearly seen in the promise of the New Covenant.
And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.
G. Another principle to explore in regeneration is the mystery of it. It is something of a mystery. We know that Ephesians 2:1 makes it clear that we are spiritually dead.
Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins.
And now somehow and someway we are born again with newness of life. But we don’t understand how this happens or what exactly God does to us to give us this new spiritual life. Jesus illustrates this...
The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.”
H. Another principle of regeneration is what is clearly shown in our passage today. Regeneration comes before saving faith. This life that God gives us is the spiritual ability for us to repent of our sins and have faith in Christ. But this action is so closely tied to each other that we don’t think of it as being different moments at all. But we need life before we can believe.
I. Jesus makes this clear when he was talking to Nicodemus about regeneration.
Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.
J. Yes we need to repent and believe to come into the kingdom but Jesus said that we need to be born of water and spirit first. Christ is making it plain that we cannot come to Him on our own something extraordinary must take place.
For no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me, and at the last day I will raise them up.
He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled them.”
One of them was Lydia from Thyatira, a merchant of expensive purple cloth, who worshiped God. As she listened to us, the Lord opened her heart, and she accepted what Paul was saying.
- First the Lord opened her heart, then she was able to give heed to Paul’s preaching and to respond in faith. Now in contrast Paul makes something else very clear.
But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.
K. So why is this important for us to know?
II. The Fruit of this Life
- The implications of being born again.
A. Sometimes people will even say something like, “If you believe in Christ as your Savior, then (after you believe) you will be born again.” But Scripture itself never says anything like that. This new birth is viewed by Scripture as something that God does within us in order to enable us to believe.
B. This is one of the dangers of many of the popular “altar call” methods of todays evangelical churches today. I met an individual who did the altar call at a billy graham crusade and was back living the unrepentant sinful life the next week. Many of you can attest to this. This does not mean that the altar calls at billy graham crusades are bad in it of themselves. But it can cause a crucial confusion. People walked away thinking that they are saved because of a decision and not because they believe. Many believe that this was something that they were convinced of and therefore something they did to earn God’s favor. They accepted and decided to follow and so now God is gonna give them new life. We then do not approach God with the right humility.
C. We do not approach God this way. Understanding regeneration helps us to come humble and grateful to the Lord. We were spiritually dead but now God has made us alive. Understanding our true nature and plight, give us great appreciation for the power of the grace of God and keeps us humble.
D. We experience the reality of the greatness of salvation. We know that we are born enemies of God and we by nature want nothing to do with Him
As the Scriptures say,
“No one is righteous—
not even one.
No one is truly wise;
no one is seeking God.
All have turned away;
all have become useless.
No one does good,
not a single one.”
E. We were slave to sin, But the Lord in his great love got a hold of us. Breathed life into us and set us free. He opened our hearts and minds so that we can know the truth and be free indeed. When we understand biblical regeneration we are filled with joy and tremendous thanksgiving. Salvation is here and Salvation is very very real.
F. A right view of regeneration helps us have a true biblical understanding of evangelism. We know that there is nothing we can do to cause people to be born again because God does that work. So we no longer have the pressure of evangelism. We don’t have the pressure of trying to figure out how to convince somebody, we don’t have the pressure of knowing all the answers, we don’t have pressure of talking to smart people. We preach the gospel and God brings new life to them so that they can repent and have faith in Christ.
G. The biblical understanding of regeneration helps us to see that salvation is God’s work and we don’t manipulate to convince. Therefore we can rely on the Word of God when we evangelize. We recognize that people don’t believe because they wont believe and it is rebellion and not lack of information. They need to hear the law and the gospel and pray that God will open their heart to hear the beauty of the good news.
H. And what beautiful feet these will be. The feet that simply declare that good news that Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures...
I. The declaration that The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus. He became sin who knew know sin...
J. The declaration that all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved and if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your ...
K. And we pray today that the Lord will open our hearts to hear these words and give us life so that we can have faith in Christ and repent of our sins. And when we have faith and believe we know that we have been born of God.