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. I'm glad
you could join us today. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to be preaching starting off with
John chapter 3, the third chapter of the Gospel of John. And the
title of the message is, You Must Be Born Again. You must
be born again. Now we're going to talk about
the new birth. And the Lord Jesus Christ here speaking to a man
named Nicodemus, who was a ruler of the Jews. Nicodemus was a
Pharisee. And the Pharisees, as you know,
they were religious people. They were very sincere and dedicated,
very astute at trying to keep the law, obey the law. But they'd
also perverted the law. A lot of people think that the
Pharisees were just political, religionist, and they were all
hypocrites, but you have to understand something about hypocrisy. Any
sinner who seeks salvation by their works is a hypocrite before
God. But some of these Pharisees were
sincere in their false religion, in their legalism. The Lord showed
us really what a Pharisee is in the book of Luke chapter 18
beginning at verse 9 when he spoke a parable. It's the parable
of the Pharisee and the publican. And he said he spoke that parable
to those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and
despised or rejected others. In other words, they were religionists
who said, we're righteous and others are not. They made that
judgment. They said, we're saved. We're
members of God's family and others are not. And then he spoke the
parable of the Pharisee who stood outside the temple and prayed
thus with himself, God, I thank thee that I'm not like other
men. I'm not an extortioner, an adulterer, all of that. And
I fast twice a week. I give tithes of everything.
Not like that publican. And so that was a Pharisee. A
Pharisee in that sense, encapsulated the whole nation of Israel under
the law in their perversion, which Paul described in Romans
chapter nine, when he talked about how they sought righteousness,
not by faith, not by faith in Christ, not by looking to and
resting in Christ, but they sought righteousness by their works
of the law, by their obedience. And so they believed that salvation
was conditioned on man. And the conditions that they
had was keeping the law. The Pharisees and the Jews, the
unbelieving Jews, they basically had three things that they boasted
in that they thought proved they were children of God. Number
one, they boasted in their physical connection with Abraham. They
would always say, we are Abraham's seed. And then secondly, they
boasted in the circumcision of the males, which represented
the whole family. And in fact, they became known
as the circumcision. And they called the Gentiles
uncircumcised, the uncircumcised. So they boasted in that. And
that's why Paul wrote very plainly in Galatians 6.14, he said, God
forbid that I should glory, boast, or have confidence in anything,
God forbid that I should glory, except or save in the cross of
our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me
and I unto the world. And in verse 15 he says, for
in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision,
but a new creature, a new creation. And there he's talking about
the new birth that we're going to be speaking of here in this
message. You must be born again. Circumcision,
physical circumcision under the law that was given to Abraham
and continued through Moses and the old covenant law, was a picture
or a type of spiritual circumcision, which is circumcision of the
heart. And Paul spoke of that over in the book of Romans chapter
2. At the end of that chapter, in verse 28 of Romans chapter
2, he made this statement. He said, for he is not a Jew
which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is
outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew which is one
inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart. Now spiritual
circumcision is circumcision of the heart. He says in the
spirit and not in the letter. In other words, not a physical
thing under the written law whose praise is not of men but of God.
In other words, he's speaking here of spiritual Jews. Now there
are physical Jews. A physical Jew can be a believer
or an unbeliever. But then there's spiritual Jews,
spiritual Israel. And those are the elect of God,
chosen by God before the foundation of the world, given to Christ,
justified in Him, that is, they're forgiven of all their sins and
declared righteous before God, based upon Christ's righteousness
imputed to them, Christ as their surety, and then those for whom
Christ died, His sheep, His church. That's the elect of God, that's
spiritual Israel. And they are known by their spiritual
circumcision, which is the new birth. Regeneration and conversion. And that's circumcision of the
heart. The heart being the mind, the affections, the will, the
conscience, the inner man. And so, that's what the Jews
boasted in their physical circumcision. And Paul said, well, that doesn't
mean anything. If you're physically circumcised, that doesn't mean
a thing as far as a right relationship with God. That does not make
you righteous. That does not prove you to be
a child of God, to be saved by the grace of God. And if you're
uncircumcised, that proves nothing too. He says, for in Christ Jesus,
Galatians 6.15, for in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor
uncircumcision. Means a thing. Availeth nothing,
he says. Means nothing but a new creation,
a new creature. And that's what Christ is talking
about here in John chapter 3 on the new birth. He's talking to
this man. Now, let me say this, I told
you. The unbelieving Jews boasted in their physical connection
with Abraham, their physical circumcision, and they boasted
in the fact that they bragged that they kept the law of Moses.
Now they didn't keep the law of Moses, but they thought they
did and boasted that they did. And a lot of what they were doing
under what they called the law was a perversion of the law,
which Christ called the traditions of men. He says you've rejected
the law of God and you've replaced it with the traditions of men.
And that's what false religion does. That's what a lot of people
today who call themselves Christian have done. They've taken the
things of the Bible and they've either rejected them or twisted
them and just ignored them and replaced them with their own
ideas. So understand that. Now this Nicodemus here in John
chapter three, verse one, says there was a man of the Pharisees
named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. Now not only was he a Pharisee,
but he was a Pharisee who had risen to heights of authority. A ruler was a member of the court
that judged the people. in civil matters and religious
matters. It was called the Sanhedrin. Nicodemus was that sort of person. Now you understand that the greatest
enemies that Christ had in his earthly walk were the religious
people of his day, especially the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They were two different sects
of Judaism. The Pharisees were, you might
say, the conservatives, the law keepers. They read the scriptures. Christ said in John chapter five,
you do search the scriptures, for in them you think you have
eternal life, but you've missed the point of the scriptures.
They which testified me, he said. And so they were the very constrict,
conservative, they were like the moral majority. And then
you had the Sadducees, they were the liberals. They read God's
Word, but they didn't believe it was totally inerrant. They
didn't believe it was the final authority. They had their traditions.
They denied, for example, the bodily resurrection, things like
that. At the time of Christ, when He
came on the earth, the Sadducees were in control of the temple
and the priesthood. But it was vying back and forth.
Now there were other sects of Judaism. There was a mystical
sect called the Essenes. There was the warlike people
who wanted to get free from Rome by force. They were called the
Zealots. But Nicodemus was a Pharisee,
a ruler of the Jews. And apparently he saw something
in Jesus of Nazareth that some of the others did not. Most of
the Pharisees just totally rejected Jesus of Nazareth and called
him a blasphemer. But some of the Pharisees recognized
that this man from Nazareth, this man from Jesus, named Jesus,
that he had to be sent of God or he could not do the things
that he did. In, for example, here by the
time we get to John chapter three, he performed his first miracle
and the marriage feast of Canaan, turning water into wine. But
there were other things that came about and his miracles. And this is what Nicodemus said.
Look at verse two of John three. Nicodemus, it says the same,
Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, and that was probably because
he didn't want to be seen consorting with this blasphemer. Now Nicodemus did not think Jesus
to be a blasphemer, but a lot of his compadres, a lot of his
colleagues did. So he came by night. And he said
unto him, now the first way he addresses him is rabbi. And that means teacher. A rabbi
in the Jewish religion is one who is a teacher of the Word,
the teacher of the Bible, especially the first five books of the Bible,
the Pentateuch, the Torah. Back then, it was someone who
studied the Scriptures and who was a teacher, who had the knowledge.
And so Nicodemus said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art
a teacher come from God. See, Nicodemus had a little bit
higher, well, I'd say a lot higher view of Jesus of Nazareth than
many of the other Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Sadducees,
they looked at him as an insurrectionist. He was trying to stir up trouble
against Rome. The Pharisees looked at him as
a blasphemer who was speaking by the devil. But Nicodemus and
some of his friends in the Pharisaical religion, they thought of him
as a teacher come from God. And so Nicodemus had higher thoughts
of Jesus of Nazareth, but listen to me, not high enough. Nicodemus thought of Jesus of
Nazareth simply as a moral teacher. And he says, again, We know that
thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these
miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. So Nicodemus
looked at Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, as he saw him, he didn't see,
the word, Christ means Messiah, the anointed one. And Nicodemus
certainly did not look at Jesus as being the Christ, being the
Messiah. sin of God to save his people
from their sins, the Savior, the King of Kings, the God-man,
all that the Old Testament said of him. And so he says, but you're
a good teacher. You're a man who is sin of God,
but just a man, not the God-man. He said, no man can do these
miracles, he said, that thou doest, except God be with him.
So Nicodemus did not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. You
understand that. He was a kind man, and apparently
he was a very, someone who was somewhat of a seeker here, but
he didn't believe in the Lord of glory. Nicodemus was just
as lost as any of the Pharisees. Nicodemus believed that salvation
was conditioned on man. and that man must meet certain
conditions in order to cleanse himself from his sins and to
make himself righteous before God. Now that's false religion
right there. If you have to do anything for
yourself, upon your own will and upon your own power to cleanse
yourself from sins or to make yourself good enough or righteous
enough or holy enough to please God and to be accepted with God,
that's false religion. That's works religion. The Bible
tells us salvation is not by works. Salvation is by grace. And it tells us that grace is
the unearned and unmerited, undeserved favor of God and all the blessings
of salvation. The Bible tells us that grace
reigns or rules or dominates by righteousness unto eternal
life by Jesus Christ our Lord. That's Romans 5.21. Nicodemus
didn't believe that. Not many in that day believed
that. Not many today believe it. Oh, they'll say they believe
salvation by grace. But I'm afraid if they would
look into the Scriptures and examine themselves by the Word
of God, Now, what they would find is they really believe in
a cleverly disguised system of works, and they call it grace. You remember I told you about
the Pharisee in Luke 18, who said, God, I thank thee that
I'm not like other men. Now, many people would call that
salvation by grace. That is salvation based upon
what God has enabled you or me to do. But that's not what grace
is. That's just as much works, but
it's more subtle. It's a little more deceptive.
You understand? Grace means this. It means all
of my salvation was conditioned on Christ and Christ by Himself,
as my surety, having my sins imputed, charged, accounted to
Him, as my substitute who took my place under the law and went
to the cross of Calvary to die for my sins, and as my Redeemer,
He paid for those sins with the price of His blood and fulfilled
all the conditions, all the requirements that ensures my salvation. unto eternal life and glory.
That's what grace is. Grace never fails. Grace is not
God trying to save anybody. Grace is God saving all whom
he intends to save. Christ said it this way in John
6, 37. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. and him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. He went on to say, this is the
will of him that hath sent me, that of all which he hath given
me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the
last day. So Nicodemus comes to Christ.
And here's what Christ told him. Verse three of John three. Jesus
answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, accept
a man be born again. He cannot see the kingdom of
God. Do you see that? Except a man
be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now, born
again, what does that mean? You may have a concordance in
your Bible, and it may have the words from above, and that's
a good translation. To be born again, you must be
born again. To be born again is to be born
from above. And so he's talking about a new
birth, a rebirth. He's talking about being born
again of God from above. That's what he's talking about.
That's what the new birth is. That's what the scripture tells
us in so many passages and in so many different ways. That
the new birth is not of man, the new birth is not by the works
of man, but the new birth is the work of God over in verse
18 of the book of James chapter one. James chapter one in verse
18. He speaks of the new birth. And
it says in verse 18 of James chapter one, of his own will,
that's God's own will, begat he us, that's begotten, that's
the new birth, with the word of truth. That's how we know
he's talking about the new birth here. This is a rebirth, a regeneration,
and a conversion, all right, that comes by the word of truth.
And he says that we should be kind of first fruits of his creatures. So it's of the will of God. Now
back over in John 3. Accept a man, be born from above.
Now, the first birth, the first birth is the physical birth. Where you were conceived in the
womb of your mother, her father and mother got together and you
were conceived, and then you grew physically, in the womb
of your mother and you were born the first time. That's physical
birth. Now that physical birth cannot
save anybody. And he tells us that over in
verse six here of John chapter three, that which is born of
flesh is flesh. The first birth, the physical
birth that we have all gone through is not a spiritual birth. Now
we're born body and soul, but in our first birth, the Bible
teaches, now listen to this very carefully, and this is why we
must be born again. Now Christ said it, except a
man be born again, born from above, he cannot see the kingdom
of God. Now normally, when a baby is
born, That baby has physical eyes to see physically. He can
see light. When it's dark, it's dark. He's
got eyes. When that baby's born, normally
he's got physical ears that he can hear. But what he doesn't
have, what she doesn't have, is spiritual eyes and spiritual
ears. The Bible says that we talk about
sometimes the three R's. of salvation. The first hour
is ruined by the fall. The second hour is redeemed by
the blood. The third hour is regenerated
by the spirit. That's the new birth. Now that
first hour, why do we have to be born again? Because if we're
not born again spiritually from above with the word of truth
by the Holy Spirit, We don't have spiritual eyes to see and
desire and discern and to value spiritual things. The things
of the glory of God. The things of salvation. We don't have eyes to see that.
Oh, we can hear facts from the Bible, but we can't see the value,
the beauty of these things. until God gives us spiritual
eyes, we can't hear the glory, the value, the pureness, and
the melody of the gospel, you see. Because having been ruined
by the fall, we fell in Adam into a state of spiritual death
and sin. The Bible teaches us that. We
fell in Adam. And you know, somebody, people
wanna reject this, but this is what the Bible teaches. Listen
to this in Romans 5 and verse 12. It says, wherefore, as by
one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and
so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned, or
literally, all sin. Adam, as the representative of
the whole human race, when he sinned, he plunged the whole
race of humanity into a state of spiritual death and sin. And therefore, we are born spiritually
dead in trespasses and sins. And that's what Paul was describing
in the book of Ephesians chapter two. Over in Ephesians chapter
two, And verse one, it says, and you hath he quickened who
were dead in trespasses and sins. Now in that passage there, that
quickening, hath he quickened is in italics, it wasn't in the
original. But the truth of that is in the Bible. To be quickened
means to be given life. Spiritual life. And so he's saying,
you who were dead in trespasses and sins, spiritually dead, God
has given life. And he says, wherein, in verse
two of Ephesians two, wherein in time past you walked according
to the course of this world, according to the prince of the
power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children
of disobedience. A child of disobedience is an
unbeliever. And understand there, he's not
just describing what the world calls immorality. He's describing
anybody who's in unbelief, whether they be moral in the eyes of
men or religious. And he says in verse three, among
whom also we all had our conversation, our walk in times past in the
lust of our flesh. Could have been a religious lust.
He says, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind
and were by nature, as we are naturally born, children of wrath
even as others. That's why we must be born again,
or we cannot see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
We cannot hear the gospel, which is the power of God and the salvation,
wherein the righteousness of God is revealed. I need a righteousness. And until I'm born again, I'm
not gonna see that and believe it, and I'm not going to embrace
the righteousness of God. which is the entire merit of
the obedience unto death of Jesus Christ for my salvation. 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
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31707. Contact us by phone at 229-432-6969
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today and may the Lord be with you.