Welcome to Reign of Grace. This program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening.

And now for today's program. Welcome to our program today. I'm glad you could join us. And if you'd like to follow along in your Bibles, I'm going to be preaching through the book, John, the gospel of John chapter three, John chapter three. It may take me two or more messages to go through this chapter. But it's one that's probably familiar with everybody, most people who claim to be Christian, because it concerns the new birth. And that's the title of the message. You must be born again. You must be born again. It's where Christ speaking to a man, a Pharisee, a religious man named Nicodemus. And he tells him these things. It's the chapter that has the famous verse that people love to quote, John 3, 16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And so this is a chapter that you may be very familiar with. You may have certain ideas about it. And I'm going to go through it within its context. And I want to talk to you about the new birth, being born again by the Spirit, born again from above. And we'll talk about that. You may have some ideas, and they may be right, they may be wrong. Let's check them out with the scripture. That's what we want to do.

But let me begin this way. Let me introduce it this way. You know, salvation. We talk about being saved. Salvation is, in its scope, a very big term in scriptures. We can talk about, in the Bible, you'll see certain aspects of salvation in just about every verb tense, past, present, and future. It's often said that you'll find passages that say something like this, you have been saved, or I have been saved, past tense. And then you'll find scriptures that talk about you are at present being saved. And then future, you will be saved.

Now, the past tense of salvation has to do with what I call the eternal aspect or eternal realm of salvation, where you find in the Bible in places like Ephesians chapter one, God chose a people before the foundation of the world to save and gave them to Christ. And 2 Timothy 1 even says this, I believe it's verses 9 and 10, it talks about a salvation that was given to God's people in Christ before the world began. And if it's before the world began, it's certainly past tense. And then some people speak of salvation in the realm of the legal aspect of it, the legal realm, which is the believer's death in Christ, Christ being their representative, Christ being their surety, having their sins imputed, charged to Him, Christ being their substitute, He went to the cross and took the place of His sheep, and died for their sins, washed them clean. And so that's the legal aspect. That's a past tense for us in the New Testament. It was future tense for those in the Old Testament. The Old Testament believers looked forward to the coming of Christ in the future. And He did come and He died for their sins and settled the debt, paid their debt. He's their Redeemer. He bought us, lock, stock, and barrel, His people, God's elect. And so we in the New Testament who are saved, we look back at it, it's past tense.

And then there's the spiritual aspect or realm of salvation, and that would be the new birth. You see, when we fell in Adam, even those who are believers, just like those who go through life in unbelief and die in that state, we all fell into a state of spiritual death, depravity, unbelief, with lack of understanding, lack of desire to bow to the things that honor God and His way of salvation. And we fell into that state.

In Ephesians 2 and verse 1 it says, and you hath he quickened. What's quickened mean? They were dead, now they're made alive. So we're in this dead state. But in time, God sends the Holy Spirit to bring us under the gospel and give us life from the dead, a new heart, a new spirit, new life, new eyes, eyes to see and ears to hear the things that we couldn't hear and see in faith before, gives us faith.

Now that's the new birth and that's the spiritual. That's when God's people who are born in sin and who are alienated in their minds from God in wicked works, that's when they are brought spiritually as to their experience into a spiritual faith union with Christ. That's the new birth. And we'll talk about that in just a minute.

It involves both regeneration, quickening, which is the giving of life. It's actually a resurrection from the dead spiritually. And then they are brought to conversion, faith in Christ and repentance of dead works. And these come together. under the preaching of the Word of God, the Gospel, which is the power of God and the salvation.

There's another aspect of salvation. We are being saved, and that has to do with preservation. Those who were saved in the past, in the mind and purpose of God, who were redeemed at the cross and who have been born again, are being preserved by God. They're being kept That's what he says. The Bible says he's able to save to the uttermost them that cometh unto God by him.

Paul said, I know whom I have believed and I'm persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. Christ said, my sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me. He said, no one is able to pluck them out of my father's hand.

So they're being saved in the fact that they're being kept and they will be saved future when they either die and go to be with Christ, or when He comes again. If you're alive when He comes again, this vile body will be changed and you'll dwell with Him in glory forever and ever. And all of that involves salvation.

Most people, if you ask them, are they saved? They go back to a time when they believed they were born again, whether they understand the new birth or how they're born again, whatever. And that's usually what most people are talking about. A lot of people today, many, many today think, well, that's when they made the decision to let Christ into their heart. Now that's not biblical.

See, it's not that we of our own free will ask Jesus to come into our life. He gives us a new heart, a new life. And listen to what he says here to Nicodemus. Look at verse one of chapter three. Now, we're talking about the spiritual realm of salvation, spiritual aspect. In verse one, it says, there was a man of the Pharisees. Now, you know who the Pharisees were. They were the religious elite in Judaism, in Israel, especially in Jerusalem, around the temple. They were the most dedicated, moral, sincere people of their day, but they had a problem. They were lost in their sins because they sought righteousness, not by faith, which is looking to Christ. They didn't seek righteousness by God's grace in Christ, but they sought righteousness by their works of the law.

And that's why Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 in verse 20, except your righteousness exceed, go beyond the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. You see, they sought righteousness by their works, but they didn't make it. They didn't meet up to the standard. And why is that? It's because Christ and His righteousness is the standard. It's the perfection of the law without any taint of sin that can only be found in Christ.

When the Bible says in Romans 1, 16 and 17, that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, And those who believe are those who have been born again by the Spirit. He says to the Jew first, and the Greek also, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, and it is written, the justified shall live by faith. Means living by looking to and resting in Christ for righteousness.

See, that's what we don't need in order to be saved. We do not need any righteousness that we can produce because the best we can do falls short of the perfection of righteousness that God requires. That's what Romans 3.23 means when it says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So it doesn't matter who you are or what you do, in trying to make yourself clean enough pure enough, holy enough, righteous enough to be saved, you fall short. I fall short. The Bible says man at his best state is altogether vanity.

So if you reject Christ as being your righteousness, and that's His righteousness imputed, charged, accounted to us, it's one that He did, He worked it, He accomplished it in His obedience unto death, It's not ours, not what we do, not what we decide. It's not by the free will of man making the right choice because without being born again, we won't make the right choice. It's by Christ crucified and risen from the dead. It's the perfection of righteousness that can only be found in Christ. And that's what God imputed, charged, accounted to his people for their justification. Anything less than that perfection is wrong and will not save you. So that's what the Bible says in Romans 10 for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes it.

Now, salvation, when we think about salvation, as I said, we've got all those different aspects of it. Context in the Bible tells us what we're talking about, what we're reading. There's basically two things that have to happen. If God has chosen you before the foundation of the world, In order for you to know that, the legal charges against you and me, sin, must be totally removed. And that's why Paul wrote in Romans 8.33, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. Who can condemn us? It's Christ that died. yea rather is risen again and seated at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us. That's the legal aspect. That's the ground of salvation. And from that, out from that as the fruit of that comes spiritual life in the new birth.

And so Christ says here to Nicodemus, let's read it again, verse one, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, that means he was one of the judges on the court of the Sanhedrin. It says in verse two, the same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God.

Now right away, we notice that Nicodemus recognized that Jesus had some gifts from God. We know that you're a teacher, a rabbi sent from God. But he did not recognize Jesus as being God manifest in the flesh, the anointed one, the holy one of Israel, the Messiah. the Savior of the world, the Savior of his people all over the world.

So he says, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man, he's looking at Christ as a mere man. Now Christ was a man, a perfect man, but he was not only man, he was God-man and is God-man, both divine and human without sin. He says, no man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him.

Many of the Pharisees didn't even recognize what and attest to what Nicodemus is saying here. Many of them called him a devil. Many of them said that he was working under the power of Beelzebub, Satan. But Nicodemus, he recognized that Jesus couldn't do the things that he does unless God sent him, but he didn't recognize him as the Messiah.

And so if you're born again by the Spirit, the new birth, you recognize and submit to him as God, manifest in the flesh. So Christ tells him in verse three, Jesus answered and said unto him, verily, verily, truly, truly, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, and that means literally from above, born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Unless you're born again, you don't have spiritual eyes to see. You don't have spiritual ears to see. You remember in Matthew 13, when Christ was going through the kingdom parables, talking about the spread of the gospel around the world, and he began to speak in parables, and the disciples asked him in Matthew 13, I believe it's verse 10, they said, why do you speak to them talking about the audience that included the Pharisees, why do you speak to them in parables? And he said, because seeing, they refused to see. They had physical eyes, but they would not believe in him. They didn't have spiritual eyes.

If you have spiritual eyes, you see the glory of God in Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead. They didn't see it. And he said, hearing, they hear not. The words of the gospel, the words of the glory of God, the words of salvation, they refuse to hear. They're insisting on their own way, which is death. But he told the disciples, he said, but blessed are your eyes. for they see. Blessed are your ears for they hear.

Do you see it? Do you hear it? And I'm not just talking about with physical eyes, I'm talking about with spiritual eyes to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, the Savior, the surety, the substitute, the redeemer, the preserver, intercessor of his people. That's what he's talking about.

So Nicodemus didn't see that at this point in time. He saw Jesus, a good prophet, a man who God was with, and that's it. And so Christ said, accept a man. Verse three, be born from above, born of God. And that's where the new birth comes from. The new birth does not come from in you or in me or by our free will choice.

Years ago, a famous preacher wrote a book, How to Be Born Again. That book should have never been written. Christ, even here, doesn't tell Nicodemus how to be born again. He shows how a person is born again, but how to do that, we can't do it. That's the work of God, born from above. and it's not by the works or the wills of men look over at john chapter one and look at verse eleven it says in john chapter one verse eleven he meaning christ came unto his own now most commentators say that's his own nation and his own received him not the jewish people as a whole did not receive and believe in the lord jesus christ Jesus of Nazareth.

Now, there were multitudes that followed him throughout his earthly ministry, but they only did so for the miracles and the loaves and the fishes and the healings, but not because they believed him to be the Messiah. And even some who claimed that he was the Messiah rejected him later on. So as a whole, they rejected him.

But he says in verse 12, but as many as received him, Now there were some, a few, who received Him as the Lord God of Israel, the Holy One of Israel, the Messiah, the Savior, the Lord their righteousness. And so it says, but as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God. That word power there doesn't mean ability. It means the right. the privilege. It's like saying if you claim to be a child of God, if you claim to be saved, a son or a daughter of God, spiritually, eternally, what gives you the right to make that claim? And that's the power that he's talking about. To them gave he power, the right, the privilege to become or to be called thy sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.

Now his name there is not just a label, it's who he is, what he did, why he did it, where he is now. Who is Jesus Christ? He's God manifest in the flesh. He's the Savior, the Lord, and the only one. The way, the truth, and the life. No man comes unto God but by him. And what did he accomplish on Calvary? He saved his people from their sins. He didn't make sinners savable if they would cooperate, because they won't cooperate by nature.

Let me show you that. He says in verse 13, those who received him, which were born, not of blood. Now this new birth is not of the physical birth, has nothing to do with it. You don't get it because your parents were believers. It's not passed down in your genes. And it says, nor of the will of the flesh. That's the works of the flesh. They were born not by a physical birth and not by the works of the flesh. And then it says, nor of the will of the flesh. It wasn't by their will, their free will choice. You don't choose Christ and then get born again. You're born again by the Spirit, and as a result, you choose Christ. And that's what he's saying, which were born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but born of God.

And that's what he's telling Nicodemus over here, except a man be born from above, of God. He cannot see the kingdom of God. Now look at verse four, John three. Nicodemus said unto him, how can a man be born when he's old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born? See, Nicodemus didn't understand this thing of the new birth, even though it was taught in the New Testament. Well, God said, I'll give you a new life, new spirit, a new heart, all of that. I'll cause them to walk in my statutes. And so he was thinking, well, that's like physical birth. The Jews held onto that because they thought that their physical birth made them children of God because they were related to Abraham, descendants of Abraham. But that's not so, that means nothing as far as salvation.

So he says, can you enter into your mother's womb and be born the second time? Verse five, Jesus answered, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Now, most commentators have two ways of looking at that verse. Born of water. They say, well, that's the physical birth, but that doesn't save you. Born of water. A water birth. Physical. But that doesn't save you. Born of water. You've got to be born of the Spirit. Born of God. Others say that the water here, born of water, means the Word of God, which is the Word of Life. and empowered by the Spirit. Unless he's born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

Now, either interpretation there would be fine, but the Bible does say that those who are born again are begotten again by the word of truth. So there's the two elements by which God gives life to a dead sinner in the new birth. It's the Spirit of God empowering the Word of God, the Word of Life. Now Christ Himself is the Word, but it's also the preached Word. He's the subject of the preached Word. And that message, the Bible says, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. In other words, the preaching of the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit as it is giving life to dead sinners is evidenced by their faith in Christ. power of God into salvation to everyone that believe it. Believing doesn't bring about the new birth. The new birth brings about believing.

And so, Jesus said, Verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Verse six, he says, That which is born of the flesh is flesh. All the flesh can produce is flesh. And that which is born of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is Spirit. The only one who can give me spiritual life spirit, a new heart, a new mind, new affections, new will, change my desires, turn away from self and to God is the Holy Spirit. He's the sovereign agent in applying the life of Christ to God's people in the new birth.

So Christ says in verse 7, marvel not that I said to you To thee, you must be born again. You must be born from above. That's obvious. Without the new birth, you will not believe. Again, it's not a matter of you exercising your free will choice. Man's will is just as dead as his spirit. Man's will is away from God, turn away from God. Like Adam and Eve, when Adam sinned and brought the whole human race into a state of death and depravity, the first thing they did was hide from God, he and Eve. Sewed fig leaf aprons together to cover their nakedness. But God said that won't work. you won't do it. If you're going to be submitted to Christ as the Lord your righteousness, you're going to have to be born again. And the way that God does that is bringing you under the true gospel and empowering it to your life, spiritual life, spiritual mind, new heart, new eyes, new ears. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God.

I hope you'll join us next week for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, write us at 1102 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia, 31707. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969 or email us through our website at www.TheLetterRofGrace.com. Thank you again for listening today and may the Lord be with you.