Good morning, brethren. Let's
turn our Bibles to John, chapter 1. How are we born? How are we born? Now, speaking of the Word who
was made flesh, the Son of God, we read here in verse 4, in Him
was life. And the life was the light of
men. In the Lord Jesus Christ is life. And that life is the light of
men. He's life, in him is all life. Natural life and spiritual life. It's all of him. Temporal life,
eternal life is of him. And in him is light, natural
light. just natural understanding that
men have, is in Him. And spiritual light is in Him. Note those words there, in Him.
In Him was life. And Christ the life was the light
of men. All light, all life, and all
light's in Him. You know, Colossians 119 says,
it pleased the Father that in Him should all fullness dwell. In Him. And in him is the fullness
of everything he dispenses to his creation. Everything's in
him. In him's the fullness of life,
natural life. Just a man as he's conceived
in his mother's womb and born into this world with natural
life, that life came from Christ. And spiritual life, being born
again, that life is from Christ. light, just natural understanding,
as depraved and as dark as our understanding is, and as ruined
in sin as it is, the understanding we have is from Christ. And all spiritual light is from
Christ. Every person that ever lived,
from Adam to the worst enemy of Christ, to John the Baptist
who laid on his breast in love to it, Every person that ever
lived got their life and their light from Christ. Verse nine
says, that was the true light which lighteth every man that
cometh into the world. Now for the non-elect, those
that God hasn't chose, he never gives them any more than natural
life and natural light. Never any more than just natural
life and natural light. They're under the curse and condemnation
of the law because of Adam's sin and nature is corrupt. We come into the world in darkness,
but we do have the law of God written on our heart. Romans
2 is clear on that. The Gentile who never had the
law, he bore witness that the law is on his heart by nature.
Though it's defiled and though it's ruined in sin, there is
still an understanding of right and wrong. that people have,
and that comes from Christ. But for the elect, he not only
gives natural life and natural light, he gives spiritual life
and spiritual light, a discernment of him, true life that's of him. But we see in that, brethren,
that every person in this world's a debtor to God for life. Everybody is a debtor to God
for the understanding that we do have, because He gave it. And we're without excuse for
not believing on Him. Romans 1 is clear, that which
may be understood of God is seen in creation, so that man's without
excuse. Now, being accountable to God
doesn't mean we have ability left to ourselves, but we still
It's not that God's done anything to make us not come to Him. He
just left us to ourselves. But the life we have and the
light we have, even as depraved sinners, He gave it. He sustains
it. It's from Him. Now, for a believer,
we should understand this, that since all life and all light
is from Christ, even in a natural man, For that unregenerate apostate
sinner who hates God, even the life and the light that Christ
is sustaining in him, it's subservient to and for the purpose of the
good of his people. That's what he's given that life
for. Right now, every spiritually
dead God-hating sinner in this world He can't take a breath
to cuss Christ or to cuss us unless Christ gives him life
to do it. And he can't devise anything with his understanding
against us or for us unless Christ gives him the understanding.
And everything he's doing is subservient to and for the purpose
of his people, for the good of his people. Scripture says, Jeremiah
said, O Lord, I know that the way of a man is not in himself. It's not in man that walks to
direct his steps. We think we're so powerful and
we're doing all the things we want to do. We can't do anything
but what God gives us life and understanding to do. It doesn't
matter who you are. The preparations of the heart
in man and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. Man's
goings are of the Lord. How can a man then understand
his own way? And we can't. Tell me what's
going to happen this afternoon. I have no idea. What's going
to happen tomorrow? I don't know. God knows. He's directing everything. He's upholding life in every
person in this world and light, understanding, in every person
that has it. Some more, some less, but He's the one that gives
it. But all the fullness of spiritual life and all the fullness of
spiritual light is given by Christ. It all comes from Christ. It's
spiritual life freely given. Freely given. The Lord Jesus
gives life to as many as the Father has given him. That's
what he prayed in John 17. He gives life to as many as the
Father gave to him. He's the giver. He gives this
life of reconciliation. He came to to reconcile his people
to God. And he accomplished that by his
blood, by laying down his life. And everybody he reconciled to
God, he's gonna come and make us experience that reconciliation
in our hearts so that we're reconciled to God. And he shall not fail. God said he shall not fail till
he set judgment in the earth. He will do this in the hearts
of his people. And it's life eternal. There's no end to the
life he gives. When he gives spiritual life,
it's eternal life. I give unto them eternal life,
and they shall never perish. This is the simplest way I know
to put the gospel. In him is life, and he that has
the son has life. That's the gospel. If you have
Christ, you have eternal life. And when he gives life, he gives
spiritual light. The light is the light of those
born of him. Now, here's my point in all of
that. Knowing Christ is the life and
that he's the light of all men, even natural men, knowing that,
we see the greatness of our depravity. We see the total ruin of our
nature. in the fact that Christ sends
his witness into this world declaring him, bearing witness of him and
we reject him unless we're born of God. Now that shows you something. He gave us the life we have,
the natural life and the natural understanding we have and he
created this world and created us and sustains us and he sends
his witness declaring him to us and unless we're born of him,
born again, will reject him. That's depravity. The one who's
holding us in life and holding us in understanding, unless he
gives us spiritual life, we'll reject him. It says there in
verse 5, the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended
it not. Now Christ sent John the Baptist
as his forerunner. He sent him as the forerunner
to bear witness of Christ. He says in verse 6, there was
a man sent from God whose name was John. Now think of that.
God himself sent a witness to tell us about him. God himself
sent a man to bear witness of God. to tell us about Him, to
tell us who He is and what He accomplished for His people.
A man sent from God. That's whatever a true preacher
is. He's a man sent from God. A man sent from God. Christ promised
in Jeremiah 3.15, I'll give you pastors after my own heart which
shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. The greatest
gift God ever gave to me was a man sent from God. And here's
why. God sent his man to declare that
Christ alone is the light, verse seven. The same came for a witness,
to bear witness of the light that all through him might believe.
He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that
light. Now that's what a true witness
is. That's what a man sent from God
does. He is sent of God to bear witness
of Christ the light. If God doesn't, If God does what
he did with Jeremiah and doesn't save a single person, he's had
a successful ministry if he came and bore witness of Christ, because
that's all he's been to do, is to bear witness of the light
of Christ. The man God sends will tell you,
just like John the Baptist said, I'm not the light. I'm not the
light. I'm sent to bear witness of the
light. and he sends his witness so that sinners through him,
see there he says through him, there was a man sent, he came
for a witness to bear witness of the like that all through
him might believe, through the gospel he preached that they
might believe. The only thing sinners have to
do is believe on Christ. Believe God's word, cast your
care on Christ, to be saved of him. That's all God calls sinners
to do. That's it. And here's where our depravity
is magnified right here. Verse 9. That was the true light
which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Every
man has his natural understanding from Christ the light who came
into this world. He was in the world. God came
in human flesh, in this world, and the world was made by Him. And the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His
own received Him not. Do you see the depravity magnified
there? Here He is, He's the true light. He's the one from whom every
man has just his natural understanding. He's the creator, He's the one
who created everything. And He came into this world,
sent a forerunner before Him saying, here He is, this is Him. Behold the Lamb of God that takes
away the sin of the world, here He is. But our reception of Christ was,
we received Him not. And even worse, he came unto
his own and his own received him not. It just magnifies our
depravity here. He came to Israel, the one nation
that he separated and formed and gave this great light to. They had heard their fathers.
They had heard how this one called out Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. and promised them he was coming,
the seed was coming, and he was gonna come and redeem all his
elect, and all the nations of the world was gonna be blessed
in Abraham's seed, in Christ. They heard that for thousands
of years. They heard how He came right
at the time He said He would come and He redeemed Israel out
of the bondage of Israel. Showed them a picture of what
He was going to do spiritually when He came and laid down His
life on the cross. Took them out of the bondage of Egypt and
carried them through the wilderness, carried them through the wilderness
and delivered them to the land He promised He'd deliver to them.
Stood up and he said, there's not one promise failed of everything
he promised you. He did everything. They heard
all that. And prophet after prophet after
prophet, he sent to them saying, I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm gonna
send my forerunner before me and he's gonna declare, all flesh
is grass, behold your God, I'm gonna send this forerunner. I
mean, he spelled it out in the scriptures. This is how I'm coming. This is what I'm going to do
when I come. I'm going to give a witness to let you know I'm
here. And he did all that. And he came
to his own and his own received him not. I'm telling you, we
are depraved by nature. We are in total, thorough darkness
by nature. But no sinner can blame God for
it, can we? We can't blame God for it. Look
at what He did. Look at everything He did. Created
our world we live in, sustains everything in it, gave us light,
just a natural understanding, gave us life, sent witness after
witness to us, and yet, left to ourselves, we
receive him not. This is the condemnation, that
light is coming to the world and men love darkness rather
than light because their deeds were evil. Everyone that does evil hates
the light, neither comes to the light lest his deeds should be
reproved. We just won't give up What we
think is our glory, what we think is some wisdom we have and some
ability we have and this polluted thinking we have that we're going
to be able to make God accept us. That's the darkness we love. That's the darkness we keep holding
on to and will not go to Christ alike because of that darkness. So how are spiritually dead sinners
given power to receive Christ? How are we gonna receive him?
Look at verse 12. But as many as received him,
some believed on him. Some believed him. How'd they
do it? To them gave he power to become the sons of God, even
to them that believe on his name, which were born, not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God. Now verse 12, that word power,
it does have the meaning privilege, authority. And indeed, the greatest
privilege you'll ever be given is to be given the privilege
to be the son of God. and only God can give that privilege.
He's the only one that can give the privilege to us of being
called sons of God. But the translators translated
this word power, and that's a good translation because God alone
gives ability. He gives life, he gives light,
and he gives the ability to receive him, the will to receive him,
and he alone gives it. Spiritual life is by Christ the
life entering into a sinner. When the life enters, when Christ
enters, that's when we have life, spiritual life. And he said there,
and the life is the light of men. When Christ the life enters
and you have spiritual life, you're gonna have spiritual understanding.
You'll know him. And it's by Christ's power, When
he's done this, we can do nothing else but believe on him. Can't
do anything else. It's not as the world says, he
gives you this power, you're born again, then you can have
the choice to choose him or reject him. Your choices are when you're
dead in sin. When the Lord spoke through Joshua
and he said, choose this day whom you'll serve, he said, choose
the idols that were on the other side of the Jordan that your
fathers worshiped or choose the idols that are on this side of
the Jordan. That was the choices. You got choices when you're dead
in your sins, all these different choices. But when he's made you
to be born of him, he said, the Lord said this through Joshua,
as for me and my house, we'll serve the Lord. There is no more
choice. Think about it. Think about this. The word is translated, same
word when it said that Christ said, all power is given to me
in heaven and in earth. All power, all authority, all
power, everything's his. And then the same word's used
again when it says he gave to his 12 disciples power against
unclean spirits. to cast them out, to heal all
manner of sickness and all manner of diseases. Same word. We're
talking about power. We're talking about Christ coming
in power. Now, when you were born the first
time, conceived in the womb, and when you came forth from
your mother's womb, He gave you that life. Christ
did. When He gave you that life, what'd
you do? You breathed. You didn't have a choice. It's
not like He gave you life and you said, okay, let me decide
if I'm going to live or not. When He gives you life, you're
going to breathe. Because you're alive. It's not a choice. The power to become the sons
of God is the power to live when Christ becomes your life. You
live. When He makes Himself to be your
light, you see, you behold, you believe, you understand, you
have spiritual discernment. You can't stop believing Him.
When light shines, that word up there where it says when the
light shined in the darkness, the darkness comprehended it
not, it doesn't just mean what we think is comprehension. It
means the darkness couldn't put it out. The darkness couldn't
overtake it. The darkness could not prevail against the light.
When you turn the light on in a room, it doesn't just gradually
get light. You turn the light on, the darkness is gone. And
when Christ turns the light on, In a spiritually dead, dark sinner's
heart, he has light and he can't stop it. You can't stop that
light. You're going to have it. And with that comes a new will. There's a new will that you don't
have a will not to believe him. You don't have a will to reject
him. He gives you a will that by his
power dominates the will of the flesh. And you're going to believe
on him. And you can't stop believing
on Him. He said, thy people shall be
willing in the day of thy power, in the beauty of holiness. When
He's made you holy, you're holy. When He's given you life, you
have life. Whatever He creates is holy, and it's got light.
And you're made willing in the day of that power. From the womb
of the morning, from the new birth, you're made willing. and
you do whatever newborn Son of God does, you receive Christ. That's what the verse means.
It says the power came first from God. Read it again. As many
as received Christ, the reason they received Him is because
to them gave He the power to become the sons of God. He gave
them the power. He gave them the authority to
become sons of God. He did. That's the order He describes
it in Galatians. Because your sons He sent forth
the spirit of his son into your heart and the result was you
received him, you cried Abba Father. But how are sons of God
born? How are we born of God? That
should be a rhetorical question. I mean, how did you become the
biological son of your natural father? Only your biological father made
you be born as his biological child. Nobody else could do that
but Him. Men take this, how to be born
of God. Isn't that a rhetorical question? How to be born of God? I mean,
only God can make you be born of God. The only way we can be a spiritual
son of God is to be born spiritually of God our Father. That's the
only way. which were born, he says, verse
13, not of blood. Sinners don't become sons of
God because their parents are sons of God. It's not of blood. It doesn't run in bloodline.
God doesn't make our children be born of Him simply because
you and I are believers. Abraham was a son born of God.
He'd been born of God. But Abraham, he had two sons,
Isaac and Ishmael. But God didn't make Ishmael to
be born a son of God simply because Abraham was born a son of God.
Jacob had two sons, conceived at the same time in the same
womb. But just because Jacob was born of God, a son of God,
didn't mean God was gonna make Esau be born a son of God. It's
not of blood. Sinners are not born of God simply
because they have a parent that's a son of God. It's not of blood. Nor of the will of the flesh.
Sinners do not become sons of God because it's the will of
those around you. Every believing parent has a
will that desires for their child to be born of God and know God.
believing parent cannot put the incorruptible living seed in
you, the word of God, we can't put that living word in our children
and make them be born of God. We can, the church, each of us
here who believe God, who've been born of God, we want all
that are lost to be born of God. That's our will. And we can pray
for that, but in the end we're gonna have to say, but not our
will, oh God, but thine be done. It's not of the will of the flesh.
And it's not of the will of man. A sinner can't make himself be
born of God by his own will. This is where it gets offensive.
I heard a man not long ago read, supporting faith in Christ, he read verse
12 and he did not read verse 13. He was telling people how
to be born of God. You've read verse 12. Why didn't
you read verse 13? Well, if you say that, that's
going to offend folks. And they're not going to believe
on him if you tell them they can't do it of their own will.
Yeah, but that's the living word. That's the incorruptible seed.
That's the word by which God's going to make his children be
born of God. Go to these dry bones and tell
them, live! You can't do it yourself, though. The Lord's gonna come and enter
in and through that word, he's gonna give life. You gotta tell
sinners that. Why? We need to be offended. I got tickled yesterday. I got
a bulletin from, I got it from Brother Milton Howard, but it
was a, there was an article in there that Brother Jack Shanks
wrote. And y'all heard me talk about
Jack Shanks. He pastored down at New Caney, Texas. And I got
privileged to spend some time with Jack and he was, He was
something else. But he said, somebody stopped
by the churchyard one day. He was outside and they come
by and he lived there by the church. Parsonage was there.
And they come by, you know how people do, and they ask about
the service, when it started and all that. And we got through,
the lady said, well, we might just come. And Jack said all
I could say to her was, well, yeah, and I could just hear Jack
saying this, yeah, you might come, you might not come. If
God's willing for you to come, you will, but if God's not willing
for you to come, you won't. Now reckon how she responded
to that. She looked at him like, I never
heard anything like that. And he went on to say, he said,
I don't want to be mean to folks. He said, but I'm kind of sick
of us when these infrequent visitors show up acting like they've done
some great privilege to the church. These saints who've spent the
money and footed the bill to have the place and to have the
gospel preached, they ought to be thanking them rather than
everybody showering in with Thanksgiving for gracing us with your presence. We gotta be brought down and
made to realize we're not giving God anything. We're not privileging
God. He's privileging us. He's given
us everything. We're not giving him anything.
If we're going to be born, we've got to be born of God. It's not
of him that willeth. It's not of him that works. It's
of God that shows mercy. Before a sinner is ever going
to be brought to the true and living God, he's going to have
to be told about the true and living God. He's going to have
to be told how God saves sinners and that the sinner don't save
himself. What if you packaged it just right and took all the
offense out and got a sinner to believe on this God you've
preached? That's not the true God? What
have you accomplished? He's just a dead sinner who put
on an outfit that looks like a believer and he hadn't believed
the true God. He worshiped in a golden calf.
If God says I'm going to do this through the light, I'm going
to do it through the word, I'm going to do it through the gospel
that declares that I'm the one that gives life, that I'm the
one that quickens, that I'm the one that saves and redeems and
justifies, that I do it A to Z, then that's what we need to
tell sinners. Because that's the message he's
going to bless. And that's what his witness is going to do. God
elected who he had saved by his grace. And Christ came and laid
down His life for the elect and He bought them. He purchased
them. He justified us from our sins
from which we couldn't be justified by the law of Moses or anything
we did. And he's going to come through
this word with this offensive gospel and he's going to bring
his child down to the dust. He's going to give him life and
make him see he's nothing but a sinner, unable to do one thing
to save himself. And God is going to save him
through Christ his Son. And he's going to give God all
the glory for it. That's how God's going to save. Go over
to Galatians 4. I'll end with this. Paul is showing here how the
law and all our earthly elements had us in bondage. And he uses
an heir who's a child. But he's a child. He's an heir,
but he's a child. And look what he says, verse
1. I say the heir, as long as he's a child, he differs nothing
from a servant. though he be Lord of all. He's
gonna have all the inheritance given to him one day, but while
he's a child, he's just a servant. He's under tutors and governors
until the time appointed of the father. This is just an illustration. Until the father's ready for
him to become the son, the heir, he's just being taught by tutors
and he's in bondage. Well, even so, we, and Paul here's
mainly talking to Jews because Gentiles never were under the
law, but we were, we thought we were. Even so, we, when we
were children, we were in bondage under the elements of the world,
the law, and our flesh. But when the fullness of time
was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under
the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might
receive the adoption of sons, that we might be given the adoption
of sons. And watch what happens. and because
you are sons. This is prior to you being born
of God. God knows whose his sons are. He chose them and he sent
his son to redeem them. And because you are sons, though
you're under tutors and under the law and you're dead in your
sins, because you're sons, God has sent forth the spirit of
his son into your hearts and this is always the result. You
cried out, Abba Father. He gave you life and you cried
out, Father, Father. Wherefore, thou art no more a
servant, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. That's how he does it. Nothing's
been out of God's power, nothing's been out of his purpose. He knew
who he was gonna save, send his son who saved him, then he sends
his gospel, his witness to him, and though everybody else doesn't
receive the witness, He sends His Spirit and He makes His child
receive the Spirit, receive the witness. And He does what a living,
believing, born-again child of God does. He cries out in faith,
Abba Father, Father, Father. And that's how you're given the
privilege to become a son of God. It's by God. I pray you'll
bless that. Let's stand together. Our Father, we thank you for
this word. We see so many blessings that you've given us, and even
when we were in our flesh and didn't know you, Lord, you provided
everything. The life and the light we had,
and you're the life of these infants right here in the womb
of their mothers. Lord, we pray that you would
bless this word and cause us to really see what great, great
privilege you've given us freely by your son. Make us see how indebted we are
to your grace. Lord, we're absolute, total,
helpless sinners without you. Everything, everything is of
your hand. Lord, thank you for the blessings
you give us. We're so unthankful. We just take these things for
granted. And Lord, you've given us all these things. And more
than everything else, you've given us Christ and given us
all spiritual blessings in him. Lord, don't let us take it for
granted. Don't let us ever lose sight of where our life and our
light really is. Keep us looking to Christ. Keep
us bearing witness of Christ to each other, to anybody that
you open the door for us to bear witness unto. And Lord, make
us truly, truly cry out in faith to you at Thanksgiving. Lord,
thank you for making us to be born again children of God. What
a blessing. What a blessing. Heirs of God
and joint heirs with Christ. How can we thank you, Lord, but
by telling others about you, trying to stay out of the way,
try to keep the focus on Christ and keep your glorious gospel
going forward. Lord, bless the word. We do pray
for our children. We do pray for those that don't
know you. And we ask you, Lord, if it's
your will, that you'd be pleased to give them life and light.
Forgive us our sins, Father. We ask these things in Christ's
name. Amen.