Saved: Regeneration

Introduction

READ Romans 8:1-17

The Titanic

On April 10, 1912, the massive ship, the RMS Titanic set sail for New York with over 2,000 people onboard. At the time, it was the largest movable manmade object in the world. And its builders declared that it was unsinkable.

Their confidence was made evident by the fact that they only brought enough lifeboats for half of the people on board. After all, who needs lifeboats when your boat is unsinkable?

Four days after setting sail, one of the lookouts spotted an iceberg and phoned the captain. The captain called for the ship to make a hard turn which they accomplished, safely avoiding a direct impact. But underneath the waters, a spur on the iceberg tore a 300ft hole into the hull of the great unsinkable ship. That was at 11:30PM. By 2:00 in the morning, the ship was gone from sight, sinking down into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.

And yet, as the ship took on water and began sinking, eyewitnesses say that the people onboard were surprisingly calm. The band continued to play. There was no fighting or arguing for places on the lifeboats. One person said that they wouldn’t have been more quiet or calm if they had been in church.

Why? Well, the ship was unsinkable. What did they have to worry about?

And as many of the women and children made their way into the lifeboats, they didn’t bother heading for help. They stayed right there by the boat. In fact, one first-class passenger, a woman named Elizabeth Shute said that they stayed near the sinking ship because, as she put it, “We all felt so much safer near the ship. Surely such a vessel could not sink. I thought the danger must be exaggerated, and we could all be taken aboard again.”

They felt safer near a ship that was taking on water, breaking up into three pieces, and sinking down to the bottom of the ocean. And that makes complete sense, right? After all, the Titanic was unsinkable.

Our Own Predicament

In some ways, we’re like those passengers. We find ourselves on a sinking ship. But we’ve been convinced that we’re unsinkable. We don’t realize just how a hopeless a state we’re in. And we don’t just need someone to come along and patch the ship of our world or our lives. We need to be rescued. We need to be saved.

Why? Well, scripture tells us that we’re in an awful place. And if we look around ourselves - or even within ourselves - we’ll see that it’s right.

In Genesis 1-2, God creates a good world and fills it with everything we could ever need - food, pleasure, companionship, family. Genesis 1 says that he made humankind as his imagers or representatives. We were given the privilege of being God’s voice and hand toward creation. Genesis 2 describes God declaring “It is not good for the man to be alone.” And so he makes a woman, a companion for the man so that they can begin a family and enjoy real community. And God himself comes and walks with them in the cool of the day, speaking with them as friends.

We were created with everything we could ever want: our physical needs were met. We were given a unique identity as God’s representative. We had a family and community where we could experience unbroken love and peace. And we had a task, to tend to God’s world and cultivate new life.

What more could a person want?

Genesis 3 tells us. We could want to grasp for more than just representing God. We could want to be God. And that’s our problem. We try to take God’s place. But we don’t realize that by doing that, we separate ourselves from God - and from all his gifts. This is why God told Adam and Eve that if they ever ate the fruit, they would die.

Rebellion - sin, idolatry, selfishness - these things cut us off from God and his presence. And the result is that we shrivel up and die.

We’re like branches on a grapevine. You may be a beautiful branch, producing bunches of fruit, but if you’re torn from the vine, you’ll quickly dry up.

And that’s our predicament. Our sin has torn us from the presence and blessings of God. And because of this, we’ve lost the gifts of God...

We no longer can experience the presence of God. So we look for experiences that will fulfill us. We search for adrenaline rushes. We look for just the right job. We read self-help books and come to church looking for an experience that will make us feel warm and tingly inside. But we’re always searching, because we’re meant for the presence of God.

We no longer can fulfill our identity as imagers of God. So we run after other identities and invest ourselves in them, hoping they’ll fulfill us: as husbands or wives, as an employee or an entrepreneur, as a man or a woman, as a particular race, or as any number of other things. But we’re always searching, because our identity can only be found in God.

We no longer can accomplish the mission we’ve been given. So we look for other missions, for political or religious missions that will make us feel like we’re making a difference in the world. We want a job that makes us feel like it matters. But we’re always searching, because our mission can only be found in God.

And as time passes, we begin to dry up, like a branch torn from a grapevine. We get sick. Our bodies quit working like they used to. We grow weary. We watch loved ones succumb to sicknesses and old age. And then, finally, we lay down on our beds ourselves. And we die.

And for some reason, we’ve gotten it into our minds that when we die, God will receive us with open arms simply because we’re human beings. We’ve allowed the enemy to lie to us, just as he’s lied to our ancestors, and fool us into believing that we can live our lives torn from God’s presence here but somehow we’ll be joined back to the vine in death.

In other words, we’ve fooled ourselves into thinking that our ship is unsinkable. Even as it breaks up and falls down to a watery hell, we stick by its side - this massive thing we’ve made.

But if we live our whole lives torn from the vine. Then why would death reattach us?

No, our predicament is far worse than we’ve ever imagined. Paul puts it this way in his letter to the Ephesians: “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.”

Our rebellion - our sins and trespasses - have left us spiritually dead. And that spiritual death will lead to actual, and then eternal death if something isn’t done right away. Every act of rebellion pushes us further and further toward the brink. And eventually, we’ll go over the edge.

We’re dead men walking with no hope of life. Because as many things as we’ve invented, we still haven’t figured out how to raise men from the dead. And we never will.

That’s why God sent his Son 2,000 years ago to come and live a perfect life and reveal God’s true intentions for us. That’s why Jesus went to the cross and suffered and died. That’s why he took on our sins, our guilt, our shame, our idolatry, and he put them to death on the cross.

Because God so loved us. And he wanted us grafted back into the presence of God. He wanted to save us.

You see, salvation is far more than a ‘Get Out of Hell Free’ card. It’s an inward and outward transformation that gives us back our identity. It ushers us into God’s presence so we can quit searching for transcendent experiences. It offers a mission that’s bigger than ourselves which we can take part in. It leads to peace and love and reconciliation and joy and so many other things.

Being saved doesn’t just change our eternal destiny. It changes everything.

Our predicament is far worse than we thought. But our salvation is far greater and far better. And we can see this fact as we look at how God saves us. And that’s what Paul is focused on as he writes this chapter of Romans that we’ve read.

So, what does salvation look like? Well, it begins when we hear the message of God, the Gospel: that Christ has died for us and been raised so that we might live. Paul later says in Romans that faith comes by hearing this good news. So, as we hear it, faith is stirred within. And we’re confronted with a choice: Will we continue to put our confidence and loyalty in ourselves? Or will we give it to Christ and be saved?

Imagine a rescue boat coming to those dozens of lifeboats floating by the Titanic. Someone onboard calls out and says, “I’ll rescue you! All you have to do is come aboard and trust that I’ll take you to safety.” But then the person floating in the icy waters responds, “No thanks. This ship is unsinkable. We’ll be back in working order in no time.”

That’s what Christ does for us.

When we respond in faith - not just with our minds but with our lives - Christ does something supernatural. He regenerates us.

That’s what Paul is talking about throughout Romans 8. He says that we have been given God’s Spirit. In other words, we have restored to us the first thing we lost when we rebelled in Eden: God’s presence. We are grafted back into God and receive his Spirit. And that sets us on a course that changes everything.

Paul says in verse 5 that, when we have the Spirit, our minds are set on the “things of the Spirit.” In other words, God begins to change the way that we think and we are reborn in our minds. We start to look at others as sons and daughters of God rather than objects to be used or taken advantage of. We begin to see and think about things from God’s perspective. When difficulties arise, we face them with the knowledge that God is in control - even when things feel out of control. When people wrong us, we’re reminded that God is this world’s judge and he will right every wrong in the end.

The Spirit changes our thinking.

But he also changes the way that we live. We are reborn in our actions. Paul says that we can “walk according to the Spirit.” That means our whole manner of lives - from our attitudes and words to our deeds. Later on in the chapter, Paul says that the Spirit empowers us to “put to death the deeds of the body.” Those sinful actions - the gossip, the lust, the anger, the lies - God’s Spirit takes up residence in us and gives us the ability to put those deeds to death.

In Galatians 5, Paul tells us that those sinful deeds are replaced by the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, etc.

But Paul goes on to say that we’re also changed in our orientation or outlook. He says that we have receive a “spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.”

We are brought into God’s family. And we have that community restored to us when we are regenerated. We’re part of the worldwide people of God. We’re given assurance that we really are beloved by God. We no longer have to wonder, since we’ve been given the greatest gift God could give: his self. And because of this, we’re able to live in eternal hope right now.

I don’t have to fear death or separation from God. Why? Because as Paul says, “if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” Christ offers me hope.

When we are regenerated, we are made new. We receive God’s Spirit and are utterly transformed, from the way that we think to the way that we live. After all, God now dwells within us. That should make a pretty significant difference in our lives, don’t you think?

So, how can we experience this regeneration?

Jesus describes this in John 3 when he tells one of the Pharisees, a man named Nicodemus, that “unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” He then explains what it means to be “born again” by saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”

We must be regenerated, born again, born of water and the spirit.

So, what does John mean here by “born of water and the spirit”? One of the things you’ll discover if you read through the New Testament is that baptism is closely tied to this new birth, this regeneration. We see it in Romans 6. Listen to what Paul says:

“How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.”

Paul says that in our baptism, we are united to Christ. We’re freed from the power of sin and Satan and death. We’re given the ability to walk in newness of life. In other words, everything changes.

But does this mean that baptism is something magical? That its waters regenerate us?

No. Just listen to what Peter writes in his first letter: “Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you—not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ...”

Peter says that it isn’t about the “removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience.” It’s not the water that regenerates. It’s something else...

When we read through the book of Acts, we discover a very clear pattern: People hear the gospel. They profess their faith. And they are baptized.

I think one of the reasons that baptism is so closely tied to regeneration is that baptism is our first act of faith. It’s the first thing we do that makes our loyalty to Christ evident. In other words, we must have a living faith. And when that faith becomes more than just a thought - when it becomes genuine commitment, then God sends his Spirit. And we are transformed.

I could tell you about the transformation I’ve experienced. Many others here could as well.

But it’s not meant to just be talked about. It’s meant to be experienced. If you’ve not been regenerated, you’re in far worse shape then you realize. Your ship is sinking. There is no hope in clinging to it. And death won’t save you. You need to be reunited to God in this life if you want to enjoy his presence in the next.

His regenerating power awaits. The only question left for you to answer is: Will you respond?

In regeneration, our old self dies.

In regeneration, we are reborn through the Spirit.

In regeneration, we experience hope.