We're gonna begin our second
service by singing 129 at the cross, 129. And did my Saviour bleed? And did my Sovereign die? Would He devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I? At the cross, at the cross Where
I first saw the light And a burden of my heart rolled away It was
there by faith I received my sight, and now I am happy all
the day. Was it for crimes that I have
done he groaned upon the tree? Amazing pity, grace unknown,
and love beyond degree. At the cross, at the cross, where
I first saw the light, and the burden of my heart rolled away. It was there by faith I received
my sight, and now I am happy all the day. Well, might the
sun in darkness hide and shut his glories in? When Christ the Mighty Maker
died, for man the creature sinned. At the cross, at the cross, where
I first saw the light, and the burden of my heart rolled away,
It was there by faith I received my sight, and now I am happy
all the day. The drops of grief can ne'er
repay the debt of love I owe. Dear Lord, I give myself away,
this all that I can do. At the cross, at the cross, where
I first saw the light, and the burden of my heart rolled away. If you would, turn to 288. Wonderful
piece. We sang this on a Wednesday night,
but we never sung it on a Sunday yet. So we're going to sing the
first four verses and not the fifth one. ? For away in the depths of my
spirit tonight ? ? Rolls a melody sweeter than song ? ? In celestial
like strains it unceasingly falls ? ? O'er my soul like an infinite
calm ? Peace, peace, wonderful peace, coming down from the Father
above. Sleep over my spirit forever,
I pray, in the fathomless billows of love. What a treasure I have
in this wonderful peace, buried deep in the heart of my soul. So secure that no power can mine
it away, while the years of eternity roll. Peace, peace, wonderful peace,
coming down from the Father above. Sweep over my spirit forever,
I pray, in fathomless billows of love. I am resting tonight in this
wonderful peace, resting sweetly in Jesus' control. For I'm kept from all danger
by night and by day, and His glory is flooding my soul. ? Peace, peace, wonderful peace
? ? Coming down from the Father above ? ? Sweep over my spirit
forever, I pray ? ? In fathomless billows of love ? Then methinks
when I rise to that city of peace, where the anchor of peace I shall
see, that one strain of the psalm which the ransomed will sing
in that heavenly kingdom shall be. Peace, peace, wonderful peace,
coming down from the Father above. Sweep over my spirit forever,
I pray, in fathomless billows of love. Thank you. Morning. Turn with me to Ephesians
2. That was one of my dad's favorite
verses of scripture. Ephesians chapter 2, starting
with verse 1, if I can get to the right page. And you hath he quickened, who
were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein times past you walked
according to the course of this world, according to the prints
of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the
children of disobedience, among whom also we all had our conversation
in times past, and the lusts of our flesh fulfilling the desires
of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children
of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy,
for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace
ye are saved, and hath raised us up together, and made us sit
together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages
to come he might show the exceeding riches of all grace in his kindness
toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are ye saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves is the gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. Wherefore remember that ye being
in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision
by that which is called the circumcision, and the flesh made by hands,
that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the
commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise
having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ
Jesus, ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the
blood of Christ. For he is our peace who hath
made both one and hath broken down the middle wall of partition
between us. Having abolished in his flesh
the enmity, even the law of commandments, contained in ordinances, for
to make in himself twain one new man, so making peace, and
that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross,
having slain the enmity thereby, and came and preached peace to
you, which were far off, and to them that were nigh, for through
him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father. Now therefore,
ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens
with the saints, and of the household of God, and are built upon the
foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself
being the chief cornerstone, in whom all the building fitly
framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord, in
whom ye also build it together for a habitation of God through
the Spirit. Let's pray. Father, Thankful for this verse
of scripture. Father, we're thankful for everything. It says that you are our faith. You're our righteousness, that
there's nothing that could be done without you because without
you, we wouldn't do it. We wouldn't have faith. We can't
generate our own faith. We can't generate our own righteousness.
And father, we're so thankful that you did the work for us.
And father, we ask that you watch over us as we make decisions
on buildings, Guide us the direction that we need to go. Father, we
ask that you watch over our pastor as he brings the message. And
Father, that you watch over the churches where this message is
being preached this morning. And we ask this in Christ's name. Okay, brethren, let's turn to
John 3. John 3, we'll be loosely looking at verses 1 through 7.
And I'm gonna begin reading the first
two verses of our passage. John 3, verses 1 and 2. We're told that there was a man
of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. The same
came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, 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. Now there are
some good insights that we could look at in these verses and in
this text, but one thing that I want us to notice here is that
Nicodemus came to the Lord to be taught. He came to Christ
as a teacher, as if Christ was a teacher, and the reality is
based on what our Lord said to Nicodemus, moving right on by
what Nicodemus said, is that it is obvious that Nicodemus
needed salvation. He needed a savior, not a teacher. He needed to hear the word of
grace, and he needed to hear the truth. And so our Lord said
exactly what he needed to hear, And that's in verse seven, which
I think succinctly gets the whole text here, is he said to him
five words, ye must be born again. All right, ye must be born again. And you that are the Lords, you
that have a hope in Christ, You can teach a righteous man some
things. You can spend some time with
them that are righteous, and you can teach them some things
that our Lord would have us to hear. But a sinner, dead in trespasses
and sins, they don't need a teacher. They need salvation. They need
to first be saved by the Lord. Like Nicodemus here, we've got
to hear the gospel. We've got to hear what the Lord
has to say to us. And like Nicodemus, he says,
ye must be born again. It doesn't matter who any of
us are, right? It doesn't matter how long we've
sat in church. It doesn't matter what reasons
we come here for. The truth is even those who don't
go, to church services, there's one message for sinners. It's
ye must be born again. That is the message that all
are to hear. Ye must be born again. And of course the carnal man,
they hear this word and they reject it. It's insulting to
the natural man to be told ye must be born again. and they'll
despise you when they understand to some degree what you're saying,
but the one who's touched by the Spirit, the one who hears
what Christ is saying, they'll be thankful that if you're speaking
to a friend or one that you care for, one that is important to
you or whoever they are, If you preach Christ faithfully to them
and they hear it, they'll be thankful that you remained faithful
and exalted Christ rather than saying things to protect yourself
or to protect your friendship or to avoid those topics that
you know they need to hear, which is, ye must be born again. That
really is the truth of what all men and women need to hear, ye
must be born again. This truth is borne out, as Paul
would say in 1 Corinthians 1.18, that the preaching of the cross
is to them that perish foolishness. And that's what we're talking
about in that truth that ye must be born again, is do we need
a savior? And to them that perish, it's
foolishness. But to those, to them which are
being saved, it's the power of God. We recognize that our God
has saved us and given us life, and that's exactly what we need
to hear, and we wouldn't hear it until he made us to hear it.
You know, we wouldn't even hear it. So, like Nicodemus, many
do come to church, right? They come to church services
to be taught. They want to hear things like,
well, how am I supposed to live? How am I supposed to love my
spouse? How is a husband supposed to love his wife and a wife supposed
to submit to her husband or love him and do things in the spirit
of love and service? How am I to be a good employee? How am I to be a good boss for
my employees? How am I to love my neighbor?
A lot of people come because they think this is salvation.
How can I be more moral? How can I do things better or
right in society? And the truth is that none of
that is what produces salvation. None of that saves us. You can
be the most ethical and moral person in the world and still
be going to hell for your sins because it's not our good works
that save us. What we need to hear is, you
must be born again. That's what we need to hear. And the message that the Lord
sends out to all, right? Everyone, that's true of everyone.
Whether you're an elect chosen child of God or not, you must
be born again. If you're to be saved, you must
be born again. So that word is true for everyone. You must be born again. And so
dead religion teaches men and women about, they teach them,
they teach them how to live, right? That's what a lot of people
get when they go to church services, how, you know, tweaking or perfecting
some little aspect of your life to improve upon it so you can
be a better looking Christian, right? And appear to be more
of a child of God than the next person. And they may even speak
about being born again. There's a lot of people that
will say, I'm a born again Christian. Is there any other kind of Christian
in reality, right? Is there any other Christian
than a born-again Christian? No, the true Christian, all true
Christians are born again. They must be born again. So a lot of people are willing
to say that they're born again and yet have no idea. They're as clueless and lost
about the new birth as Nicodemus was when he heard the Lord say
to him, you must be born again and that's because many people
think that they themselves get themselves born again. We're
taught in religion largely that when you make a decision for
Jesus that then congratulations, you're born again. When you've
made a decision to follow Jesus and to make Jesus your Lord and
Savior, that that is your salvation. And that's not at all what the
scriptures teach. No person gets themselves born
again or makes themselves to be born again. Some people would
teach, well, you've got to show some signs of repentance before
you can be born again, right? And others of us have come up
in services where they said, you know, well, with every head
bowed and every eye closed, raise your hand if you'd like to give
your life to Jesus and make him your Lord, right? And some would
have you walk down the aisle and come to a prayer captain,
you know, a team leader that'll help you pray through the Romans
road And they're good scriptures that they speak of to you, but
that's not how a sinner is born again. That's not at all what
Christ meant. He must be born again. He's telling
us that we need salvation and man, like Nicodemus, has no clue
how to get himself born again. And right there, that statement
is a falsehood, right? Because we don't get ourselves
born again. There's nothing we can do to
get born again or to be born again. And so what the point
that I'm getting at is if your salvation relies on anything
that you do. especially your free will. If
your salvation finds its hope in your free will, your decision,
your choice, you know, I've decided to follow Jesus. If that's your
hope, then you're yet in your sins and you have no life in
the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you perish with that as
your hope, you'll go to hell and you'll suffer eternity in
hell. for your sins because you're
yet in your sins if you're trusting in your own works and in your
own will. And so I want to speak to you
today about what our Lord said to Nicodemus. I want to look
at those five words. The title of the message is ye
must be born again. And so largely this message will
focus on on those five words. Now that comes from verse seven.
He said, marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. So here's the first word, ye,
ye. And that's a personal word, right? The Lord's speaking to each one
that hears it. Ye must be born again, right? That's what he's saying, that
you can't back into this, you can't be, born into it by your
parents. You can't get yourself into it
by your decision or by someone else making a decision for you
or doing things for you. And it's personal. You have to
be born again. Otherwise, you have no part in
the Lord. And so, you know, you might say,
well, I'm a moral person. I'm a good person. And I might
say, yeah, you seem like a trustworthy person, but that's not the new
birth. And you might say, well, I go
to church pretty regularly. I go to church a lot. Well, that's
not salvation. That's not a sign of the new
birth. I read my Bible, and I say prayers,
and my name's on a church membership roll somewhere. That's not salvation. You must be born again is what
the Lord says. And, and, you know, even if we've
been baptized and we tell everybody about the Lord, the fact is ye
must be born again because all those things are not what makes
us saved. They're not what gets us accepted
with the Lord. And so when you think about it,
Nicodemus, he was a fine churchman. He was a leader among the Jews. He was, likely in the Sanhedrin,
those people that would hear the hard cases and make decisions
on religious arguments and concerns in the church and among the people.
He was an important person, and yet Christ said, ye, Nicodemus,
must be born again. And so it doesn't matter what
our background is or what our pedigree is or how much we know
the scriptures, the Lord says, ye must be born again. It's not
for other people. each one of us individually to
hear that word, myself included. Then he says must, right? The
second word is must, ye must. And first that signifies to us
that there is no other salvation than what the Lord is revealing
now to his people. Ye must be born again. There's not many roads that lead
to God. There's not, well, that's good
for you. This is good for me. There's
one way. One name under heaven given among
men, whereby we must be saved. And then must is also revealing
to us the urgency of it. You must be born again. There's
a limit to the day of grace for each of us. We all are going
to die at some point. And he's saying, you must be
born again. If you die without this new birth,
then you have no part in the Lord. And so there is a certain
urgency to it for us to hear what the Lord is saying to us. Then he says, be, ye must be
born again. And this is a passive word, right? It's not something that you get.
He doesn't say, you must get born again, or you must do something
to get yourself born again. He says, ye must. be born again. So it's passive. It's a passive
word, meaning that there's something that's done to you. You're the
passive recipient of something that the Lord must do for you
and to you. He works salvation for you and
in you, is what the Lord does. You know, a good comparison is
to think about your first birth, your natural birth, all right?
You have as much to do with your spiritual birth, because this
is what we're talking about, a spiritual birth. You have as
much to do with that birth as your first birth, all right?
Dad, Mom, I'm ready. Let's get this thing. I've decided
that I want to be born, all right? Did any of us do that and plan
our first birth and decide that we're the ones that are going
to be born? No, none of us did that. That was all a work of
God who created us and worked all that out providentially in
the perfect time of his appointing. Well, so it is with the second
birth. We don't decide when we're going to be born again. It's
a work of God. Paul would write in Romans 9,
16, so then it's not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth,
but of God that showeth mercy. All right, and so that's what
the second birth is. You must be, right, it's a passive,
as far as we're concerned. It's something that God does
for us and in us. And so what we see in the scripture
is that the Lord keeps telling us over and over again that we
can't get ourselves saved. There's nothing we do to effect
this or to make this happen or to improve our chances for it
happening. It really is all of sovereign
God. It's according to his will and
work. I like how I heard Darwin say
it. I think it was actually yesterday,
I think. And he was saying that children of God are the children of God by the
will of God. It's God's will that determines
who his children are. And man's dead religion teaches
that the children of God are the children of God by my will.
I decide whether I'm going to be a child of God or not. The
two aren't saying the same thing. One is of God and one is of man.
And so we're the children of God by the will of God. If we're
his children, it's his will, it's his work, it's his salvation. And so the scriptures are always
teaching us and always attributing our salvation and our hope to
God himself and what he himself does in the time and choosing
of his own will and purpose. And so Titus 3, 4 through 6,
I'll read this. Paul affirms this saying, but
after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man
appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, not by my
raising my hand or walking the aisle or making a decision to
let God saved me to make Jesus my Lord and Savior. That's not
at all how I'm saved. It's not by my works of righteousness,
which I've done, but according to his mercy He saved us, right? He did the work. When it pleased
Him, in the manner it pleased Him, all for the glory and praise
of His name, He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing
of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus
Christ, our Savior. All right, and so we see there
again, wow, it sounds like God's doing everything. He's doing
all the work here, and I'm not doing anything. I'm just a passive
recipient of his grace and mercy. Yes, that's exactly it. And so
then at this time, normally a person who's only heard that everything's
resting on their decision, their faith, their works, right? A
lot of people say, well, I thought that you have to believe on Jesus
for him to save you. I thought you have to believe
on him. And it is true. We must believe on him because
that's the will of God for his people, to believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. So, you know, many who have been
trained in dead religion, they're wondering, well, what part does
my faith play in this? What part does my belief on Christ
play in my salvation? What, what, what do I do in order
to affect this, this birth of happening? And you know, what
the Lord saying to us is there's nothing you can do because you
can't believe except God give it to us. So the scriptures,
it is true that they speak of believers having faith in Christ. That is something that believers
do. They believe Christ. They hope
in Him and trust in Him, but we don't speak of it as our contribution,
as something that's the product of this flesh. Because when we
make it our decision to follow Christ or not, what we're saying
is, I've decided to follow Jesus. This is my faith of my flesh. It's the product of me that recognized
I need to get in this salvation here. as opposed to my neighbor,
you know, who doesn't believe and doesn't see the need for
Christ. You see, and so there's this
boasting of the flesh that has confidence in their believing
rather than seeing our faith as the work of God. It's the
gift of God. It's something that he works
in his people through his salvation. by Christ and through the power
of the Holy Spirit that bears that fruit of faith, that spiritual
work of faith, God bears it in you. And we give Him thanks when
we look to Christ and have no other hope but Him, who do we
have to thank for that faith? But God Himself, because we know
my flesh is corrupt and weak and vile and there's a lot of
faith in the world, right? Disney speaks of faith all the
time, but that's not saving faith. The faith I need is the faith
that God produces in his children that looks to Jesus Christ alone
and I can't give myself any pat on the back for that faith because
it's a gift of of his grace and mercy and so What the Lord is
teaching in His Word is that faith isn't the cause of your
salvation. Faith is rather the result of
your salvation. It comes forth because God has
done a work in you. You don't realize it yet, but
you're already eternally His. You that believe on Him and hope
in Him, you're already eternally His. He did everything in love
and mercy and grace for you while as yet we were yet enemies against
God in our hearts and minds that deep-rooted enmity that deep-rooted
hatred that's what's in us naturally but God in spite of who we are
in Adam and who we are by nature He chose a people. He loved them in Christ. He gave
them to Christ, committed them, and determined to do the whole
work because we're dead in trespasses and sins in this flesh and can't
save ourselves. We can't keep the law. And that's
what the Lord said in John 3, 3. The Lord answered Nicodemus
and said, verily, verily, I say unto thee, accept a man, be born
again. He cannot see the kingdom of
God. How's he gonna have faith in
that which he can't even see or understand? Except God give
him life first and bring forth that fruit by his grace. And so much of man's religion
puts that cart before the horse because they can't understand
that their faith is a work of God. It's his product. Listen to this or go to Ephesians
1 verse 19. Ephesians 1 19 And there he says, you know,
we're gonna know we're we that that are his people We're gonna
know what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us word who believe? And much religion says, see,
there's man, he has to believe first, and God then is gracious
to him. But what he says there, if you
continue on, what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us
were to believe, that is, we believe according to the working
of his mighty power. We're going to witness and bear
witness and see the greatness of our God's mercy toward us
through this faith which is according to His mighty working power in
us. It's all His work that's producing
this faith that looks to Christ and believes Him, rests in Him,
and rejoices in Him as we saw earlier this morning and so that's
that's what our belief is it's according to his working the
working of his mighty power all right and since you're in Ephesians
look at Ephesians 2.8 we see it there Ephesians 2.8 for by
grace are you saved through faith and that that faith is not of
yourselves it is the gift of God and so So you that must be
born again, he's working all things necessary. You cannot
fail because God cannot fail. We fail in ourselves in the flesh,
but God cannot fail. And those whom he loves, they
shall come because it's his will. And he shall bear fruits of righteousness
in you. All right, as we also see in
Ephesians 2.10, for we are his workmanship created in Christ
Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we
should walk in them. And so we rejoice him in his
work. You know, he says over in Romans
7, He speaks of this early in the chapter of Romans 7. He says,
wherefore my brethren, verse four, ye also are become dead
to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to
another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should
bring forth fruit unto God. All right, and so this fruit
of faith, which looks to Christ alone, it's holy fruit. It's born of his seed. We're
not coming as adulterers who bear fruit by the law or bear
fruit by this flesh. We come as faithful to our husband
because he's made us faithful in him and we bear his fruit.
Those are his children. That's his rejoicing. And the
father receives those things because they're his works in
him. And we give him thanks for that. We give him, we rejoice
in him for his for his salvation, all right? And then that word
born. He must be born again. So this birth is the operation
of God. It's his faithful work in us. It's his gift by his sovereign
power upon each of his children, all right? He gives us eternal
life by his power. And so this gift, this birth,
this second birth is not a gift which comes to all. It's given
freely by God Himself. It's given freely to us by God
through the Lord Jesus Christ and what He accomplished for
us. He's our salvation and He gives us life in Him. It's a sovereign choice and will
of God, not a sovereign will and choice of man. It's His sovereignty. This new birth is compared to
a creation. We're created anew in Christ. We're new creatures. He says,
for God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness hath
shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And so he works
that that in us. And so we're created anew in
the Lord Jesus Christ. All right. And then he says again,
you must be born again. And so he's talking about, you've
been born in the flesh, your, your parents, you know, you,
they, they came together and you were born of the flesh. You
need a second birth. You and I need a second birth,
a spiritual birth. And what he's teaching us is
that it comes from above. It doesn't come from, it's not
initiated from below, it comes from above, by God. In James 1, verses 17 and 18,
we're told that every good gift and every perfect gift is from
above. And this is a gift of salvation.
It all comes from above, and cometh down from the Father of
lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of
his own will, see, his will, begat he us, with the word of
truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures
and so we're born in the time that pleases God according to
his purpose and so we understand it now by his power and his glory
we understand that in Adam We only could do fleshly things,
limited by what we are in Adam. But by God's gift of grace and
by his power and spirit, he gives us that gift of life in him,
whereby we bear those fruits looking to our Savior. And so we may have been very
religious, You know, we may have been very good people and maybe
are good people in the flesh as far as man counts goodness,
but we're only sinners in this flesh. And in Adam, we come forth
in the image of our parents, which is corrupt and sinful and
come short of the glory of God and the right, perfect righteousness
and holiness that he requires. And so if it's, if God doesn't
do work for us, then we shall never be saved in our own works. Even the best one among us, as
perfect as they may seem to us, they come short of the glory
of God outside of Christ and have no part in Him. All right?
And so we need that second birth. Nicodemus asked, well, how can
a man be born again when he is old? Can he enter the second
time into his mother's womb and be born? And that just shows
that We don't get it in the flesh. As religious as we are, as advanced
as we are in religion, we just don't understand the things of
God. And so in Adam, at best, we are
children of disobedience, making us children of wrath. But by
Christ, through the faith which he works in us, we are children
of promise. and hear his promises and rejoice
in those promises. All right, and so Christ affirms
in verse five and six of John three. He answered, verily, verily,
I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of spirit,
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of
the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is
spirit. And so the most important thing
you can take away from that is that if faith is of this flesh. Well, Christ said, that which
is born of the flesh is flesh. So all we can do is affect a
fleshly work. But that which is born of the
spirit is spirit. And so if this new birth is a
spiritual birth, it's got to come from God. It's got to come
from our Father in heaven. And it's a spiritual work. And
it means that faith, that saving faith is a spiritual work of
Him and not of us. And, you know, carnal man, like
Nicodemus, doesn't understand, and that's because they don't
have the spirit to understand the things of God. As he says
in 1 Corinthians 2 14, the natural man receiveth not the things
of the spirit, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know
them, because they are spiritually discerned. And so, in the flesh,
we can do a lot of of religious things and things that give the
appearance that we're a child of God. We can reform our lives. We can stop doing certain things
and start doing other things. And we can make a profession
that we're believers and tell others about it. And we can be
baptized and we can get our name on a voter roll and we can do
many things. You could be a pastor and not
be born again. Right? We can, you can, any one
of us can put on a good show and try to convince ourselves
or convince others that we are who we want to be or who we claim
to want to be, who we would like to be. But that's all by our
own flesh. It's all by our own choosing
and making. But Christ said, you cannot see
the kingdom of God except you be born again. So he must be
born again, all right? He must be born of the Spirit
of God. Now, what the Lord is saying
to us in speaking to Nicodemus is that our God has to do a work
for you and in you. And that work for you was done
by the redemption that Christ worked for you. When Christ came
in the flesh, He had to purchase all his people by the death of
himself. He fulfilled all righteousness
for his people. He was born under the law, made
of a woman under the law to work all righteousness and to do that
which we have failed and come short of doing. Being the perfect
sacrifice, the fit sacrifice for his people, he went as the
Lamb of God to the cross to lay down his life, to sacrifice himself
to the Father, to make atonement, to make propitiation for our
sins. meaning that he died in our place
that we should live in him and go free from the punishment that
our sins deserve. Christ accomplished that for
his people. And because he accomplished that
for his people, the father regenerates his people by the Holy Spirit.
He sends the gift of the Holy Spirit to give life in you to
work that salvation in you to regenerate you we call it to
give you life by the seed of Christ so that the spirit takes
the blood of Christ and washes you clean and he calls you through
his gospel and he reveals faith in you whereby you hear his word
and believe Lord you did that for me a guilty sinner a vile
wretched sinner you did that for me Lord And so He reveals
that in you, that this is your hope, and that you have no other
hope but Christ. And He settles you and gives
you comfort right there. And He grows you in that grace
and faith that is your understanding and your knowledge of these things.
You grow in that knowledge all by His power. But it didn't start
from a seed of your flesh, your flesh's faith, it started from
his faith which he revealed in you by the glory and power of
himself. So that's why we say it's for
you and in you, all right. And so all this work, when Christ
said ye must be born again, know that there's nothing we did to,
can do or will do to earn that birth and we can't get ourselves
born. He reveals it in you. what He's
done for you by the Lord Jesus Christ. And so I pray that He
works that faith in you, giving you a hunger and a thirst for
Christ, to know that there's nothing you can do to get yourself
saved or born again. But those who ask, who seek Him,
they do so by His grace. And so those who are seeking
Him, they shall find because it's all His work and to the
glory of His praise that they seek Him. And so I pray the Lord
bless you, His people, that He's gathering you by His grace and
that He reveals His work in you through the faith which He gives
to all His children, whereby they lay hold of His promises
and rest in the Lord Jesus Christ. So I pray He bless that word
to your hearts. and help you to hear what Nicodemus
couldn't hear, that ye must be born again. I'm glad he'd do
that for you. All right, let's close in prayer. Our gracious
Lord, we thank you for your word, which is so truthful and so honest
and necessary for us to hear, Lord. Ye must be born again. Lord, help us to hear it, and
help us to hear it by the gift of your spirit, that you would
reveal that precious faith in us, whereby we behold what our
God has done for us in His Son, Jesus Christ, and that you would
work this salvation in the heart of all your people, that we would
be gathered together by your Great Shepherd, whose voice alone
we hear. Lord, that we would hear Him
and believe Him and be settled in Him. We ask this in the name
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And we pray, Lord, for
your people, for our brethren who are wounded or sick or weary
or tired or discouraged, Lord, that you would lift us up in
Christ, that you would turn us away from self and to behold
your salvation, and that we would indeed be blessed and filled
with the God of hope that you would reveal that joy and rejoicing
and gladness by your spirit. It's in the name of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ we pray this. Amen. Before I forget, let me just
say that there are some directories up here. And Scott, I don't know
if your address is correct. So we're going to need to fix
it on everyone. Did you fix it? Oh, you typed
it in already. Oh, it's already done. Perfect.
OK, then you have that. So if you need one, there you
go. If you want to email, just ask and we can email it because
then you can store it that way. All right. Let's stand and sing Amazing
Grace. 2.36, Amazing Grace. Amazing grace, how sweet the
sound, That saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now
am found, Was blind, but now I see. was grace that taught my heart
to fear, and grace my fears relieved. How precious did that grace appear,
the hour I first believed. Through many dangers, toils and
snares, I have already come. Tis grace hath brought me safe
thus far, and grace will lead me home. When we've been there ten thousand
years Bright shining as the sun We've no less days to sing God's
praise Than when we first begun Thank you. Oh, one more?