Well, we've all been through
it. We've all been born. None of
us remember it. But we're here because we've
been born. And as with all of the things
in creation, God's creation is here to reflect God's salvation. It's here to reflect God's saving
of His people. And so John introduces to us
this topic about being born. I wanted to have a look in this
first little while at what the New Testament says about this
whole business of being born and being born again. And obviously
we are familiar with that passage in John chapter 3 where the Lord
Jesus Christ says, you must, you must be born again. You must be born again. And often, and in that particular
case, the word again means to be born from above, from a higher
place. to be born from a place called
heaven or a man called God. It's to be born from the first,
from the beginning, from the very first. It's to be born anew. It's to be born over again. It's
to be born from above. We preach like as Ezekiel did. We preach trusting that the Lord
would create life. And the evidence of life, the
evidence of the birth is in this verse that we've been looking
at, isn't it? The evidence of being born again, according to
John 1.12, is as many as received Him. Not receiving the things
about Him, receiving Him personally. And it comes with power, power
from on God, a privilege, a right, an authority. He gave that right,
didn't he? The children of God have the
right, the authority, the privilege of declaring themselves to be
the sons of God. To them that believe on his name. So there are the two great evidences
in our text, aren't they, of what it is to be born again,
to be born from above, is to believe on the name, to believe
on the character of our God. We must be born again. We've
all had a birth. We've all had a birth from Adam. All of us can trace our lineage
back to Adam. You shape the family tree of
anyone in this world and what you'll find out eventually will
drop Adam. And it's a common understanding
amongst people that we are somehow all children of God. Aren't we
all children of God, people say? Well, we are all God's creation. There's absolutely no doubt about
us, about that whatsoever. But the scriptures make it abundantly
clear the Lord Jesus Christ talked about people, men, religious
men, whose father was the devil. We are not, according to the
scriptures, all children of God. You turn with me to Genesis chapter
5 and let's see what it is. We do talk about our first birth again and again and again and
it's a birth into, as John would have it, it's a birth that comes
with us being born into that darkness. We have no comprehension
of the light of God. We are born into this world and
the world knew Him not. It's all the testimony of the
Fall. We need a new birth from heaven,
but all of Adam's children... Just read this with me now in
Genesis 5, verse 1. This is the book of the generations
of Adam. In the day that God created man,
in the likeness of God He made Him, he made Adam in the likeness
of God. Male and female, he created them
and blessed them and called their name Adam in the day they were
created. And Adam lived 130 years and begat a son. That a son is
in italics there. Adam begat, what are the next
three words? In his own likeness. All of Adam's descendants are
begotten in the likeness of Adam. So we are not, according to the
Scriptures, all the children of God. We can claim to all be
the children of Adam but the children of God are a very, very
special group of people. They are born from above. They are born by a spiritual
new birth. They are born by an operation
of God. They are born again. They are born again. So this is such
a prominent theme in John's gospel and such a prominent theme in
the scriptures when John introduces something and then he fleshes
it out further on and we see a progression in John's writing
in his gospel and then we see that further elucidated in his
letter, particularly 1 John. So, let's just go through John's
gospel and look at these instances of being born again. In verse
3 of chapter 3 he says, Except a man be born again, he cannot
see the kingdom of God. There is no sight of the kingdom
of God. The kingdom of God is the Lord
Jesus Christ's kingdom, isn't it? He is the king of the kingdom.
In fact, the king has a dominion. you will only ever see the King's
dominion if you are born again. Nicodemus didn't have a clue
what that was and in fact I'm more and more convinced as time
goes on that the Lord Jesus Christ was referring to Ezekiel 36 and
even though Nicodemus knew it off by heart. and could have
given you chapter and verse of all the descriptions of the Messiah. There was the Messiah standing
before him and Nicodemus didn't have a jolly clue because you
cannot, you cannot see. You cannot see the kingdom of
God unless you are born again. Verse 5 of that same chapter. Except a man be born of water
and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. So
there is no seeing the kingdom of God, there is no entry into
the kingdom of God unless you are born of water and the Spirit.
And then in verse 6 he goes on to say that which is born of
the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. The very best that fleshly activities
can do is leave you in the flesh. The flesh will never rise any
higher than flesh. Verse 7, marvel not that I said
unto thee, ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth,
and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it
cometh or whither it goeth. So is every one that is born
of the Spirit. It is a divine blowing of God,
isn't it? It is a divine activity of the
Spirit of God. See, most true believers will
struggle to tell you exactly when they were born again. In
religion, you come forward at some program, don't you, and
you put your hand up and you pray the sinner's prayer, and
then someone pronounces over you that you are now a child
of God. You are now a child of God because
of your activity. Most true believers have difficulty
citing precisely when they were saved and when they were born
again. The evidence, the evidence of being born again is faith. The evidence is in our text,
isn't it? It's receiving Him. It's believing on His name. It's
that new birth that sees the kingdom of God and sees the king
and sees him as glorious, sees him upon his throne, sees him
upon the cross, sees his blood as precious, sees him loving
your eternal soul and shedding his life's blood
because he loved you everlastingly. The Pharisees knew nothing of
him, and they had a blindness which was a culpable blindness.
And when the disciples who were as ignorant as them in so many
ways, they saw the man born blind in John chapter nine, who sinned?
Who sinned? That this man was born blind. He was
born blind because of the sovereign purposes of God and he was left
in his blindness all of that life so that he could be, in
John chapter 9, a glorious testament to what it is to be born again.
What it is to be born again is to have eyes, new eyes, to see
and to see the Lord Jesus Christ. In John 16, the Lord Jesus Christ
talks about the birth, doesn't it? When a woman, it's on 1621,
when a woman when she's in travail has sorrow because her hour has
come. But as soon as she is delivered
of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish for the joy
that a man is born into the world. You women can relate to that,
can't you? We had a friend who had a baby in Sydney and it was
a traumatic birth and almost immediately it was born, she
said, I'm going to have another one. It's remarkable, isn't it? Anyway. It's a wonderful thing,
isn't it? It's a wonderful thing, I'm pleased. But the picture, of course, is
a picture of the fact that the birth is a birth through trial,
isn't it? And at the end of the trial comes
joy. The Lord Jesus Christ spoke of
his own birth. Pilate asked him a question in
John 18, 37. Are you a king? Are you a king? I know a king,
says Pilate. My king is called Caesar. Are
you a king? They call you a king, in mockery. Jesus answered, thou sayest that
I am a king. To this end was I born. And for
this cause came I. into the world that I shall bear
witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth
heareth my voice. I just wanted to continue looking
at some of the other verses in the scriptures that speak of
this necessity of being born again. It's a constant theme
in the scriptures, isn't it? That there is a birth in salvation,
there's a birth of a new creature, isn't it? It's a new man, it's
Christ formed in you, it's Christ in you, the hope of glory. It's
a new man, according to Ephesians 4, created in righteousness and
true holiness. If you think that's got anything
to do with natural birth and human activity, then you have
no idea what any of those words mean. What a glorious thing,
created in righteousness. Whose righteousness? God's righteousness. True holiness. Whose holiness? Certainly not ours. What a glorious
thing to be born again. What a glorious thing to see
the kingdom of God. What a glorious thing to have
the privilege, the right, the power bestowed on you from God. What a glorious thing to have
His name proclaimed. So you can say, that's my Saviour.
That's what the Word says. That's what God says about His
Son. That's what the Holy Spirit testifies of His Son. That's
what He says of Himself. Paul saw himself in 1 Corinthians
8 at 1580 and said he was born out of due time. He wasn't born
as the other apostles. He had a birth from heaven and
you recall that birth in Acts chapter 9. There was a light
that came from heaven and a voice came from heaven and Paul's Ignorance
is displayed. Who art thou, Lord? And Paul
was left in blindness for those three days. What three days they
must have been, as he contemplated. Who is this? Who is this? What extraordinary three days
of travail for him to think and to know that he had met God and
survived what lay before him. So the new birth is nothing other
than being in the presence of God and meeting God and surviving. In Galatians 4, 22 and 29, Paul
talks about The people, the religious people,
he that was born of the bondwoman was born after the flesh. Those who are under the bondage
of works of any sort are the bondwoman. But he who was of
the bondwoman, it's speaking of Ishmael. But he who was of
the bondwoman was born after the flesh. But he who was of
the free woman was born by promise. All of God's children, all of
God's born again children are born of promise, born by promise. And the result of that is then in verse 29, "...but
as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that
was born after the Spirit, even so it is now." The people of
works, the people of legalism, the people in religion, that
is a religion of the works of man, will always be persecuting. They'll never understand. They
cannot see. They cannot enter the kingdom
of God. They can't receive him. They can't believe on his name.
And yet, the greatest blindness they have is all their religion
that declares that they are the children of God. One of the things
that's remarkable, isn't it, about receiving and believing
and being born again and enjoying those blessed privileges that
come by the Spirit of God to the children of God is how rare
it is in this world. You might recall that parable
of the soils, the parable of the seed, the sower goes out
to sow. It's remarkable, isn't it? that
in every one of the three soils, the pathway, the stony ground
and the ground and thorns, in every one of them the seed came,
and it's the word of God and the gospel, and it came and it
took root. And it had for a little while
a life within it. And it had for a little while
a life that seemed encouraging. And yet, and yet, just a quarter. Now, God's mathematics are different
to our mathematics, but there's an extraordinary picture, isn't
it, of the amazing privilege of being someone who believes
in someone who receives the Word of God. The privilege of being
born again. And see, how are they born? 1 Peter 1.23, they're born again. They're born again, not of corruptible
seed, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible by the word
of God, which liveth and abideth forever. Churches, God's churches
that have the gospel just want to preach the gospel and preach
the word of God again and again and again because that's how
people are born again. They are born again by this remarkable,
remarkable fact of God taking his word and making it spirit
and life for people. 1 John, I've just finished with
a few of these verses out of 1 John because I want you to
see how big a theme this is in John's thinking and how important
it is that he lays a foundation, a glorious foundation in the
verse that's before us in John 1, chapter 1, verse 13. In 1
John 2, 29, our God says, If you know that He is righteous,
you know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of Him. 1 John 3 is one of the most remarkable
chapters in all of scripture. In fact, it is so remarkable
that the religious world has to change the verbs to be able
to explain it. You read their commentaries,
I've read stacks of them. They have to change the words
and change the verbs for people to understand it. Behold, let's
read Stalingrad's one. Behold what manner of love the
Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the sons
of God. We should be named, entitled.
Named as God's children, the sons of God, therefore the world
knoweth us not. Please don't be surprised when
people don't understand who you are. God says they can't and
they won't because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the
sons of God, right now. Are we the sons of God? And it
does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he
shall appear, we shall be like him. For we shall see him as
he is. And every man that hath this
hope in him purifies himself, purifies himself as he is pure. Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth
also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law. And
you know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in
him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth
not. And what the commentators do
there is say, whosoever abideth in him sinneth not continually
or habitually. Anyone dare claim that of themselves? God says they sinneth not. In him is no sin. Whoever abideth
in him, in him sinneth not. Whosoever sinneth hath not seen
him, neither known him. Middle children, let no man deceive
you. He that doeth righteousness is
righteous, even as he is righteous. John is talking about the new
birth, which is a new creation. It's Christ in you. Christ cannot
sin. If Christ's in you, Christ has
taken away your sin and your sin is gone before God. That's
what it is to be justified. He that committeth sin is of
the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this
purpose the Son of Man was manifested, that he might destroy the works
of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, because
for his seed, which is Christ in you, remaineth in him. And
he, the seed that's in you, cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are
manifested and the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not
righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth his brother. Let's turn over to 1 John 5. Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ. So John is repeating here what
he has before us in his gospel, hasn't he? Many have received
Him and believed on His name. Whosoever believeth that Jesus
is the Christ is born of God. And every one that loveth Him
that begat. They loveth Him who causes
the birth, the creation. Loveth Him also that is begotten
of Him. And I love the tense of that
word, believeth. Where does the believing come
from? The believing comes from an activity of God. It's in the
perfect tense. It's a perfectly completed activity,
and it's in the passive tense. We are made to believe. We have
a sight of God. What's the... What's the evidence
in 1 John? You love Him and you love the
brethren. It's as simple as that. Love. Love. Verse 4. Whatsoever is born of God overcometh
the world, and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even
our faith. What's the victory? Faith, isn't
it? And faith is looking out of ourselves
and looking to the Lord Jesus Christ for all. Verse 18 of chapter
5, and we know, we know, this is something God's children know,
that whosoever is born of God sinneth not. But he that is forgotten
of God keepeth himself that the wicked one toucheth him not. Born. What a remarkable privilege. Born of God. The power from God. the privilege
of God, the right, the authority to be named as God's children.
Okay, let's have a break and enjoy our time as our visitors.