Gospel of John chapter 3 we are
continuing in our series on the gospel of your salvation and
we are dealing with a very important doctrine of which we have stated
is ground zero in the experience of the Christian ground zero
in the experience of the Christian there is that aspect of salvation
that which obviously precedes the Christian's experience and
unfortunately often that's not explained or emphasized in religion
today. Generally, we are told that salvation
starts with your experience. It starts with your action, your
pursuit, your choice, or what have you. But those of us who
have studied our Bibles at length realizes that salvation is something
that God purposed in eternity. He works out in time. And by
the time you discover God's salvation, He's already accomplished it
for you. That's what we understand the
Word of God to teach, that when you and I come to recognize our
need of a Savior and find ourselves bowing our knees to Him, the
work of redemption was already done. The gospel we preach is
a done gospel. So we are dealing with basic
Bible doctrine in our church because we have lots of new people
who have not, as it were, been catechized in biblical truth
in the area of salvation. And so these things have to be
taught over and over and over again. And if you want some nice
little terse phrases to help you, here is one. The salvation
of the Lord is not like your Aunt Jemima pancake mix, just
add water. That's what we call salvation
by works. Even if the 10% is your work
and 90% is God's work, it's your work and God's work. And we learned
long ago that your works plus God's work, what? Won't work. Lock it down. For we are explaining
the difference between the salvation that God accomplishes and the
salvation that is often purported today by men, which starts with
you. The salvation of God does not
start with you, but it certainly has everything to do with you.
And the doctrine of regeneration, the doctrine of being born again,
is that area where in the grace of God comes to you and I experientially
impacting our life on a personal level, permeating our being and
bringing us into the realities of the grace of God in Jesus
Christ. We call it being born again. Now, Nicodemus is our
case study in John chapter 3. And we learned last week that
Nicodemus came to Jesus by night and he engaged with Jesus in
terms of the issues of the kingdom of God. And our Lord Jesus Christ
caused Nicodemus to struggle with the proposition that the
kingdom of God cannot be perceived, comprehended, or experienced
apart from the new birth. Nicodemus found himself struggling
with the proposition that you must be born again. And thus
as I said last week in point number one of your outline today,
he was compelled to maintain that entrance into the kingdom
of God is based upon man's works. He was driven by an anxiety that
his soul was gripped with that said, if what the master is saying
is true, And I don't believe that it's true. And I'm not really
willing to let go of what I have been taught long ago is the basis
of salvation. But if what the master is saying
is true, then my salvation has nothing to do with me. And it
caused this man to struggle. And as we learned last week,
what he did with the proposition, you must be born again, which
is what Jesus said, he conflated, categories, he confounded categories,
he denied the distinction of very specific and important categories,
and then he sought to reverse nature in order to rationalize
what he thought was the qualifying grounds of entering into the
kingdom. Remember what he says? Shall
a man that is old be born a second time? What was he doing? He was
conflating categories. He was failing to recognize that
our master was not speaking to him of a physical birth. And he wasn't willing to recognize
that Christ was speaking to him of another category of birth
of which Jesus said over in verse 7, Nicodemus, do not marvel that
I am saying to you that you must be born again, He tells him in
verse six that which is born of the flesh is what and that
which is born of the spirit is what? See christ kept the categories
clear, didn't he? He maintained a distinction between
born physically and being born spiritually And nicodemus couldn't
rationalize the distinction between the two and so his response Was
unreasonable his his response was irrational, but you know
when you and I are caught believing something that we did not know
was wrong. And we are under the assumption
that we have a right idea about doctrine or teaching. When someone
comes alone and exposes you in the flaw of your assumptions,
it rattles you, doesn't it? It causes you to be disturbed.
Now, when that takes place, child of God, you have one of three
things to do. You can do what Nicodemus did,
start fighting with your rationale and your reasoning to sustain
your presuppositions, your assumptions. You can fight, but, but, but,
but, but. But when God has brought truth
to your conscience, your fighting will be to no avail. Have you
ever heard a person try to argue for a position that was irrational
and illogical, inconsistent and not sound? And they sounded fundamentally
like a buffoon? Well, the theologians used the
term concerning Nicodemus' response as being stupid. And really,
that's what it was. Here, this man who is up the
upper echelon of the theological scale, he should have known better
than to respond by saying, can an old man be born a second time? That's conceding rationale. That's basically saying, you
know what? What you're saying doesn't make
sense to me. He's just not being plain about
it. Have you ever been there? where somebody has shown you
that you were flawed in your understanding of yourself. But
out of your pride, you just tried to argue it through. That's called
fighting. That goes on in relationships all the time. You're wrong, but
you won't admit it. And then as you go to defend
yourself, you're sounding more irrational every time you open
your mouth. This is what's happening with Nicodemus. Are you guys
following me? And then our master says to him,
Nicodemus, do not marvel, do not be astonished, don't be petrified,
don't lose your senses. That's what verse 7 is saying.
Marvel not. Because he's stuck in a wonder
now. He doesn't know what to do. He's fighting to save himself. His logic is not working. He
thought he was dealing with a peer, and he was dealing with the superior. He thought he was dealing with
a fellow colleague in the ministry, and he was dealing with the God-man
Jesus Christ, the epitome of wisdom, the fount of wisdom,
and he finds himself now shamefully discombobulated. You know what
that means? He has no reference points to save himself. Nicodemus
is falling fast. Shall a man go back inside his
mama's womb and start all over again? That's called reversing
nature. You know, you got to be God to
do that. And yet what our master said is even if you could do
that, the problem is that which is born of the flesh is flesh.
That means fleshly things will only produce fleshly things.
You still haven't solved the problem, Nicodemus, even if you
had the power to go back into your mother's womb and actually
work out a new birth. It would still be your works
and your works would still be carnal and you would still be
lost because that which is of the flesh is fleshly. That which
is of the spirit is spiritual. That means only the spirit can
bring about a birth that the soul needs of which the flesh
or the man or the woman or the child or the people have no contributing
part in it. Are you guys following me? The
Nicodemus is struggling. He's fighting. And you know,
when you lose the fight at the end of the argument, rather than
capitulate and say, hey, you're right, we often run. Have you
ever saw people who getting into debates find themselves losing
the debate now? They're starting to run you we
call it avoidance deterring detracting creating distractions changing
the subject and I'm working with y'all who are learning how to
be witnesses. We're getting ready to start our witnessing program
at Grace and I'm trying to help brothers know how to trap people
by reason and rationale so that they won't be getting you into
all kind of rabbit trails. Now Nicodemus knew better than
starting down a rabbit trail and that was all by the grace
of God. He was struggling with the notion that salvation is
the sovereign work of God and he stopped fighting and by the
grace of God he started Resting. You will notice that what he
says in verse nine is, how can these things be? You got it? He's capitulating now. He's recognizing
he needs to be taught. So he's asking the question,
how can these things be? See, that's better than running.
That's better than being proud in your position, even though
your position is wrong. It's better than you continually
hiding behind your false notions and being an error It's better
to simply say as this theologian is saying master teach me and
in the master's goodness That's exactly what he did, but he had
to admonish him one more time. You know what he said Are you
a master in Israel and do not know these things? He had to
discipline him because he was occupying a position for which
he should have understood the doctrine of regeneration, of
which many people who occupy the position still don't know.
Our Lord admonishes him, but he doesn't let him go. Let me
give you a secret in terms of what's taking place. Nicodemus
is coming to the master. Is that right? He's coming to
the master by night. And you and I might readily say
that the only reason that Nicodemus is coming to the Master, chancing
being exposed by his colleagues, chancing being identified with
this rogue maverick teacher, is because God is drawing Nicodemus
to Christ. Do you believe the Bible's doctrine
in John chapter 6, verse 37? All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. Nicodemus is coming to Jesus,
even with the possibility of being rebuked, with the possibility
of being identified with the very man his own colleagues are
hating and despising because God is drawing him. We believe
that a person cannot come to Christ, not authentically and
not genuinely, unless he is drawn of God's Spirit. Do you believe
that? No man can come unto me. Jesus said John 6 verse 44 except
my father which sent me draw him and This by the way is the
reason why Nicodemus didn't run away God kept him God kept him,
but you know what God has to do when he brings us to himself.
He has to humble us and He has to expose us for our flawed reasoning,
our flawed assumptions, then he has to divest us of all error
in order to begin to teach us the truth all over. God resists
the proud, gives grace to the what? Now listen to me, child
of God, if any man lack wisdom, let him what? Ask of God. Isn't
God good? But see, he has to break your
pride before you are willing to tell the truth that you don't
know what you've been telling everybody you knew. He has to
break your pride. And that's what our Lord is doing
in this case study here. I love our master because our
master knows that Nicodemus is not going anywhere. After this
engagement tonight, Nicodemus will follow the master all the
way to Calvary. He will bury our master in a
borrowed tomb where his friend has purchased it. And he will
watch our master rise from the dead and spread his glory throughout
all Jerusalem, Judea, and the uttermost parts of the world,
and Nicodemus will be a part of it. You know what that means?
When God draws you to himself, one of these days, you're going
to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you're going to love
him for who he is, and you're going to follow him all the way
to glory. Now, we'll get to that doctrine. We call it the irresistible
grace of God. God put the handcuffs of grace
on you and told you from a mighty long ways. You look bad in yourself,
but you're coming to God. You're coming to God. You're
arguing. You're trying to cover it up, but you're still coming.
It doesn't matter how you get there. Come. But when you get
there, you're going to say God did it. Am I telling the truth?
God did it all. God did it all. And so we are
dealing with the doctrine of regeneration. I want to make
sure that you guys have a clear understanding of the doctrine
and the teaching. Our Lord Jesus Christ said to
Nicodemus in verse 10, Are you a master in Israel and do not
know these things? Because the doctrine was explicitly
taught in the Old Testament by way of analogy over and over
and over again and then by way of grand covenantal promise in
Ezekiel chapter 36 verse 25. Listen to what Ezekiel says in
Ezekiel chapter 36 25 This is God talking to Israel in the
days of their apostasy about things that would be coming in
the future Ezekiel chapter 36 25 those of us who have been
taught the gospel are right know this to be true Listen to what
God says. Are you guys there in your word?
I Verse 25. Here's what he says. Then I will
sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean. From
all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse
you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I
put within you. I will take away the stony heart
out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. Watch
verse 27. And I will put my spirit within
you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep
my judgments and do them." I want you to mark the intentionality
on God's part in these statements. All of them say, I will do this. God says, I will bring you back
from the far country. I will place you in the land.
I will take out the stony heart. I will put in a heart of flesh.
I will write my laws on your heart and mind. I will put my
spirit in you and I will cause you to love me. You know what
we call that? Sovereign grace. Sovereign grace. See this is not Old Testament
theology with reference to the nation of Israel you read this
in 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 verse 3 turning your Bibles to 2nd
Corinthians 3 verse 3 for the Apostle Paul taught this glorious
doctrine as well in the book of 2nd Corinthians chapter 3
here's what he says concerning all believers concerning all
believers here's what he says for as much as As you and I are
manifestly declared to be the epistles of Christ, ministered
by us, written not with ink, but with what? The spirit of
the living God. Now watch this, not in tables
of stone. This is the old covenant paradigm
where God wrote his law on two sets of tables of stones. They
were on the outside of us. They were an external set of
commandments by which we could observe them, but they had no
internal impact in our life. They were like the creeds and
confessions in our church. They may be right, but they mean
nothing until they penetrate our soul. And so in the Old Testament,
Israel had an external code that pointed to an internal reality.
In the New Testament, God makes you and I his living epistles
by writing his law in our hearts by the Spirit of God through
the preaching of the word. Do you see the big difference?
You see the big difference? And so what our Lord Jesus Christ
was doing with Nicodemus in John chapter 3, was helping Nicodemus
understand that he must relinquish himself of any notion of being
able to reason through salvation or the new birth as being a consequence
of his own works. Go back to John 3 before we move
to our next point. I want you to see this. as our
teacher, as our master, masterfully explains to Nicodemus the sovereign
act of God in our salvation as being like unto the wind. Verse
8, the wind blows where it wills. Do you see that? You know what
that means? You don't control the wind. You
don't manipulate the wind. You don't coerce the wind. You
can't pay the wind to go here or there. You can't negotiate
the winds, as it were, mysterious choice to blow and to turn hither
and thither. Even though I know in our day
we've got technology now that's running around. And you know
what we're doing with our technology? It's creating mayhem and chaos
by, as it were, manipulating the wind currents. But where
we understand that God is sovereign and the control or the mystery
of using the wind ecologically to govern his world, even so,
Jesus says, the spirit of God, he blows where he wants to and
when he wants to. You know what that means? He
saves who he wills, when he wills. All you and I can do is be subject
to that proposition and ask God for mercy. Am I telling the truth? Ask God for mercy. Nicodemus
should have known that. Nicodemus was reaffirmed in that.
And then our Lord, after having, as it were, demolished Nicodemus'
false assumptions about salvation, holds on to him. He tells Nicodemus,
Nicodemus, let me help you understand the grounds upon which the Spirit
of God is given. And he begins to teach him the
crosswork of Jesus Christ. The latter portion of john chapter
3 is about the cross work of jesus christ Which is the basis
of the giving of the spirit of god you and I know that right?
The spirit of god does not come in the salvation of sinners Except
christ accomplish an eternal redemption for us. And so nicodemus
is being taught all over again How salvation really works our
lord used the phrase? over in the fifth verse. Here's what he says. I'm sorry,
over in the eighth verse. Our Lord says, the wind blows
where it wills. No, that's not the eighth verse.
We are back at verse number five. Jesus said, verily, verily, I
say unto you, except a man be born of water and of the spirit,
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Now for a long time people
have struggled with what that means to be born of the water
and to be born of the spirit. What our Lord is teaching is
what we just read in Ezekiel chapter 36 by way of covenant
promise. I will sprinkle you with clean
water and cleanse you from all your uncleanliness. I will take
out your stony heart and put in a heart of flesh. Notice the
one doing the work is God, right? Now if God is doing the work
of sprinkling our hearts, is God who is spirit going to use
water to sprinkle our hearts? Can the heart be sprinkled with
water? And the answer is no. The heart
cannot be sprinkled with water because the heart is in a sphere
and a rim beyond that which material things can reach. So obviously
he's speaking in analogies again. What is he teaching? That the
work of regeneration produces a washing by which a man enters
into a new status of life and is viewed by God as clean. Do you remember 2nd Kings chapter
5 where Naaman the leper was a leprous all the way through. And that little slave girl told
Nehemen, I know a man in Israel, a prophet in Israel who can heal
you. And he went and toiled with Elijah and Elijah stayed in his
house, didn't even come out. He sent his servant and he told
him to go tell that man to dip in the river Jordan seven times. and he will be healed of his
leprosy. Do you remember what that text said in 2nd Kings chapter
5? It says in 2nd Kings chapter
5 that Naaman dipped seven times and the text says he came up
clean. He came up clean. He was as clean and as fresh
as a newborn baby. 2nd Kings chapter 5 verse 14.
Dip seven times and you will be clean. He dipped in his flesh. Well, look at what it says. It
was as fresh as a little child. And the way the spirit of God
closes that text is, and he was what? It speaks symbolically
of what it means to be born again. When you and I are born again,
we are just like brand new babies. Y'all got that? And one of the
things I loved about having kids is, when they come out, some
of y'all can testify to this, that flesh is so perfect, like
silk, isn't it? It's a wonderful experience,
isn't it? Then we get old. Hard like alligator skin, right? And the point of regeneration
that I want you to grasp here as we get ready to go to the
other aspect is, What Nicodemus was trying to state as he was
conflating spiritual things with physical and seeking to simply
reduplicate the physical is to be born when you are old is to
fail to see that you need to be made new. When you are born again, you
need to be made new. And when you are made new, that
means you are starting all over again comprehensively. That means you are a brand new
babe in Christ. Let me help you with this. I
think this point needs to be pressed. You don't get saved,
as folks do, and retain all your old ways, old thinking. old habits, old methods, old
techniques, old agenda, old plans. A man or woman when they get
born again is not simply getting God to sign on to their agenda. And I've said it more than once,
when you are truly born again, God basically demolishes all
your carnal gifting. You know how the secular church
likes to bring Hollywood stars and actors and entertainers in
the church saying God can use you. God won't use you and your
old man at all until you are born again. until you are renewed,
until you begin all over again to have your mind transformed
and your heart informed so that you are thinking God's thoughts
after Him. And you will discover in the
rebirth that a lot of times God will throw away not only your
old gifts but your desires for those old gifts. Because those
old gifts glorified you, exalted you, puffed you up, made everybody
look to you, talked about how talented you are, how gifted
you are, how wise you are. And the gospel demolishes that. And in fact, let me just say
this as a caveat before I go to the next point. In the kingdom
of God, God's not looking for gifts. He's giving gifts. Did you get that? So I need to
find some folks with some gifts. No, he doesn't. He's saving folks
who don't have any gifts and giving them gifts so that the
gifts he gives them give him glory authentically. Now I'm
making some sense. Am I making some sense? This
is where people struggle at in our carnal churches because in
our carnal churches we are still upholding a lot of carnal principles. And our master plainly said,
that which is of the flesh is fleshly. You know what that means?
It can only glorify the flesh. So now go with me in your Bible
to Titus chapter 3 and let's understand that principle again
of the analogy of the water and the spirit because Titus speaks
to that himself. And I want you to grasp this
as we were reading it. Titus chapter 3. Titus chapter
3. Here's what our master said through
Paul to the church. I mean to Titus, one of the preachers
that Paul had mentored right along with Timothy. In this matter
of regeneration or salvation, in verse 4 of Titus chapter 3,
he first of all says, it was the kindness of God in the person
of Christ to make himself manifest to us. Verse 4. After the kindness
and love of God our Savior toward man appeared. How did he appear?
In the person of Christ. Now watch this Saints get this
into your system when it comes to salvation not by words Not
by words of Righteousness, which we have done Do you see it? But according to his mercy he
saved us Park it It was mercy saved you. Mercy. It wasn't merit that saved
you. It wasn't performance that saved
you. It wasn't righteousness that
saved you. You were not saved because you
were better than somebody else. You were not saved because you
had an edge on somebody else. You weren't saved because you
were a Jew. You weren't saved because you were a Gentile. You
weren't saved because you were a man or a female. You weren't
saved because you were bright. You weren't even saved because
you were dumb, even though that's what we are. You were saved according
to the mercy of God. Now stay with me. That means
his salvation was not something for which you can demand that
he do. If you are an object of salvation,
you are therefore a vessel of mercy and God chose to save you
out of a free prerogative in his own soul when there was nothing
about you that was worthy of saving. So we render all glory
to God because in his saving us, he simply had mercy on us. He had mercy on us. I can't boast
about how I got saved. I can't boast about the method
by which I got saved. All I can say with Paul is this,
he saved me. And then he explains how it was
done. Listen to the text. He saved
me. He saved me. He saved me by the
washing of regeneration. Got it? by the washing of regeneration. This is the same phraseology
that Jesus introduces to Nicodemus when he says you must be born
of the water and of the spirit. Paul says he saved us by the
washing of regeneration. Now the washing here is a phrase
or a term that identifies with the process of being born as
a brand new baby as you and I were when we were physically born.
You know how when we came out of the womb and we were all bloody?
We were all bloody because the blood pointed to the death of
Jesus Christ, the cross work of Christ, the atonement of Christ.
His death was our death and his life was our life and we lived
by him. When we came out through the
cross work of Christ, bloody, God had to wash us, wash us into
newness of life, just like you washed that little baby. Introduce
him into the world. So God washes us by the washing
of regeneration That's the work of the Spirit of God Taking the
Word of God the Word of God as Jesus said in John 15 verse 5
Now are you clean through the words which I have spoken unto
you? Ephesians chapter 5 verse 26 by the washing of the word
The Spirit of God takes the Word of God and washes you Isn't that
true? Stay there for a moment. Stay
there for a moment. This is why folks who are not
clean don't like to hear clean preaching. Because clean preaching
designates a washing of the soul. When you are not used to being
clean, you don't want to hear clean preaching That's why people
do not like the preaching of the gospel because it produces
the purification Of the soul the cleansing of the soul the
cleansing of the spirit the cleansing of the mind You can't walk with
god Who is holy without him washing you up? I'm talking about sound
comprehensive, Bible-based, God-glorifying, Christ-exalting teaching. It
gets a hold to the soul and it tells you when you're wrong.
It tells you what you're doing. It tells you you're thinking
it's all jacked up. And it washes you. It washes
you. And when you're used to being
clean, it feels good. It feels good when you used to
being clean. If you used to being nasty, you
don't like this kind of preaching because this preaching cleanses
the soul. Your law is perfect. Converting the soul, cleansing
the soul. We're talking about that in our
men's meeting last night. How good God is to bring us into
a state of worship or assembly where he can speak to us. And
when he's done speaking to us, we are the better for it. And
all we did was sit and listen. Isn't that good? All we did is
sit and listen. And this is what Paul is talking
about. The Greek word there is lutron, and it's a word that
refers to a font or a baptismal. And of course, that's where the
ceremony we engage in after people are actually converted. We bring
them to the waters of baptism because the waters of baptism
is an outward symbol of an inward reality of grace that ostensibly
takes place in the soul where men and women are washed by the
washing of the water of the word by the work of the Spirit of
God and the preaching of the gospel and they say yes to Jesus
and they are ready to remember the Ethiopian eunuch what death
hindered me to be baptized my heart has been cleansed Philip
as you have explained Isaiah 53 pointing me to Christ I'm
ready to get in the water I'm ready to come out in what is
called now in our text newness of life listen to what he says
in Titus chapter 3 verse 5 Again, not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us by
the washing of regeneration. Saint, this is the efficacious
work of the Spirit of God. the proclamation of the word
and then he goes on to say and renewing see that we're renewing
and Renewing that's our root word kind off and it means a
newness of a different kind There's some stems and some suffixes
on there, which basically says the work of the Holy Ghost is
to renew your mind he takes out the old data and puts in new
data and That's a work of renewal as Romans 12 one says I beseech
you by the mercies of God I beseech you by the mercies of God to
present yourselves a living sacrifice unto God and be not Transformed
by this world, but be renewed in your mind renewal Be renewed. And this is what Colossians teaches
and this is what Ephesians teaches. Ephesians 4 says you and I are
renewed in the spirit of our mind. Renewal. Renewal. Which states this. When we're
talking about the rebirth, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking
about a process that begins with God and a radical change of the
soul that constitutes a new life. And from that new life, there's
growth. Y'all got that? Growth. That's
the whole point of renewal. I just want you to get this. This is the danger of a man-centered
system of telling you that you are saved by a mere act that
you perform, like coming to an altar or making a decision for
Jesus and getting your little card with the date that you did
it and put it in your back pocket and go on to perish under the
wrath of God anyway because you were neither born again nor experienced
the necessary and subsequent consequence of a renewal of the
mind. You did not grow in grace and
in the knowledge of the Lord. You did not come to love God's
word. You did not come to grow in your
relationship with Christ and thus abandon carnal things. That old lifestyle that Paul
was talking about in verse one, two, and three, put them in mind
to be subject to principalities and powers. Some of us, when
we were unsaved, the last thing we wanted to do was be subject
to anything. One of my pastor friends says,
you know, one of the evidences that you're born again, now you're
ready to be subject. I agree with that. There's a
natural autonomy of self-dependence and self-sufficiency in all of
us that opposes authority. We fight against it. I'm talking
about the whole chain of commands that God sets up. This present
world system has developed an ideology where it is saying abandon
every structure of authority and order that God has set up.
Am I telling the truth? Because it knows that the world
operates by the spirit of error according to the course of this
world and it naturally opposes structure, order, authority. When you and I were unsaved,
we rejected authority. When we were unsaved, we opposed
everybody. One of the things that we were
addressing in our youth and parents symposium last Saturday was a
basic presupposition that goes on in college. When you leave
high school and go to college, one of the things they tell you
to do is to question everything you learned when you were back
at home. That's what colleges teach you
to do. Question authority. Remember that little slogan that
used to be around back in the 60s by our smoke-doping, long-haired,
hippie brethren? Question authority. Well, do
you know who was the first one that established that proposition? The devil. The devil. God hath not said,
hath he? See, so questioning authority
is endemic to our nature because we don't like to be under the
control of anyone else. When you are born again, however,
as Paul is teaching, being subject to authority is an evidence that
you trust God. That you have come to recognize
that God is the sovereign monarch and he rules all authority and
I don't have to be fighting against everything that everyone says
that's for my good. We ruin our lives as we fight
against authority, fight against structure, fight against those
good things that God sets us up to keep us out of trouble.
That was one of the first things I learned when God saved me.
I was in trouble with the law, just like a lot of my brothers
were in trouble with the law, because I foolishly bought into
the notion that I was smarter than this world system. You too. And in God's mercy, He brought
me low while I was under the subjugation of the legal system,
getting ready to suffer the consequences of being a transgressor. For
the ways of a transgressor are hard. And God showed me that
if you're going to prosper, Jesse, you're going to have to learn
how to submit to government, submit to structure, submit to
order. And that way he would mature
me in order for me to be one who is an authority as well.
I'm telling you this ideology is prevalent everywhere. Once
you become born again, God renews your thinking, doesn't he? He
renews your mind. He helps you to understand that
he is sovereign Lord over the authorities and the authorities
can't do anything to you that God doesn't want them to do.
Y'all believe that? Listen, this is why we don't wring our hands
over the foolishness that's going on in Washington. This is why
I teach you the problems that are going on in Washington will
never be solved by Washington. And for us to try to vote it
in and vote it out, vote it in and vote it out, I think is a
distraction. Pray it in and pray it out. Preach
it in and preach it out. Am I making some sense? Preach
it in and preach it out. Stand up and tell them, thus
said the Lord, the God who runs the universe, He is your sovereign,
Mr. President. He is your sovereign,
Senate. He is your sovereign, Congress,
and you will obey God. Yeah, well, see, we don't talk
like that because we don't believe it. I'm just telling you. So
then to be born again is a work of God in regeneration, profound
work of grace by which he washes us into the kingdom, as our Lord
is saying, and then he renews us in the kingdom, which he shed
upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And thus point
number three is there is the fruit and evidence of true conversion. I'm going to run through these
quickly because I want to get to our last two points that are
germane for us today. What is the fruit and evidence
of true conversion? I want you to mark these four
points we dealt with last week briefly, but I want you to take
them and consider them significantly. The fruit and evidence of true
conversion is a life of faith. A life of faith. First John chapter
5 verse 1 says, Whosoever is presently believing, That's an
ongoing tense. It's not a one-time act. It's
an ongoing tense. Whosoever is presently believing
that Jesus is the Christ. Watch this. Is. You see that little word is?
Should be translated already is. It's in what we call a perfect
verb form which means You only believe because you were already
born again. Got that? Whosoever believe it
that Jesus is the Christ has already been born again. That
makes faith an evidence of salvation, not a cause. Are you with me? Faith becomes an evidence that
I'm born again, not a basis of it. Faith is not the grounds
upon which I'm saved or the means upon which I'm saved. You don't
affect being saved by faith. Faith becomes the evidence that
you're saved. Like when the baby comes out of the womb and cries,
it's not him causing life, it's him affirming life already there.
Am I making some sense? That's why when the scripture
says, we who are born of the spirit cry, Abba Father, It's
an evidence that we're already born again. Getting ready to
go into that work right now. So here's what I'm trying to
do. I'm trying to snatch out of the hands of men and women
who are in error right now to assume that your action of so-called
believing on Jesus was the basis for which God saved you. nothing
could be further from the truth. Are y'all hearing what I'm saying?
Your act of believing is merely a testimony that God has already
worked a work of grace in your soul and brought you to the place
of saying, I believe that. Am I making some sense, my brother?
I believe that. Like the Ethiopian said last
week, I believe with all my heart that Jesus is the Son of God. The Spirit of God had already
been working with Him. Y'all believe that? I sought
the Lord, but afterwards I knew He moved my soul to seek Him
seeking me. It was not I that sought, O Savior,
true? No, I was found, was found of
Thee. It was not I who sought, O Savior,
true. No, I was found. I was found
of You. See, you give Him the glory when
you do that. You wake up to realize that God
was never lost. I found the Lord. The Lord was
never lost. No, no, you didn't find the Lord.
Hold on sinner, you're getting the same backwards. You were
the one that was lost. Christ is the shepherd that came
and hunted you down, picked you up, put you on his shoulders,
and brought you back to the kingdom. And if God wasn't good enough
to pick you up and put you on his shoulders, if he'd have let
you down, you'd have ran off again. In his mercy, he held
on to you. Held on to you. kept you, brought
you into the kingdom. Don't tell lies on God. Don't
say I helped God to get saved. Are you kidding? All you did
in order for God to save you was sin. He came to seek and
save sinners, not righteous people. Am I making some sense? That's
what I see. For some of us that are actually
saved, we would be embarrassed to tell you where God caught
up with us at. Because you religious folk can't handle that. If I
tell you where God caught me, you say God can't do that. But
as soon as you say God can't, you're talking about a different
God than I am. You're talking about a different
God than I'm talking about. I can tell you some stories about
where the Spirit of God caught up with me in the darkness of
my sin. in the blackness of my rebellion
and cut the lights on. Start talking to a brother. You
know what he was saying? You can run but you can't hide.
I'm gonna get you. That's called sovereign grace,
sovereign mercy, sovereign salvation. He will hunt you all the way
down to hell. That's how God saved. Don't you frame your lips to
say you saved yourself. He's good, isn't he? And here's
what I'm marking about this doctrine. The fruit and evidence of a true
conversion is not a confession of faith. It's a life of faith. Got that? Well, I know I'm saved
because I made a confession. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's
a life of faith. The fruit of a true conversion
is a life of love. That's 1st John chapter 5 verse
2. The one who is born of God loves him that begot him. Don't
you love the Father? I love him. I love God. And I love the one that the Father
used to save me. I love Jesus. Don't you love
him? And then I'm trying to love everybody else that's saved just
like me. See, I'm being a little honest. We're trying. I'm trying
to love the folks that's saved right along with me. This is
how you know you're born again, because you're trying to love
them. Ain't you trying to love them? Because they're not easy
to love. But since they're born again,
just like I am, we got to work on loving one another, because
we love the begotter, we love the begotten one, and we love
those that are begotten by the begotten one, don't we? This
is how you know. And it's an ongoing, continuous
love. If you are a hater, you're not
born again. Am I making some sense, brother?
The other one is, and it's very important for you to know, a
life of obedience. A life of obedience. Why do we
stress that? We stress it because a life of
faith is a life of obedience. We call it the obedience of faith. What do we mean? We mean that
according to Philippians 2.12, that when God saves you, He works
in you the will. The doing of his good pleasure
Did y'all get that verse stay with me now? God actually enters
into you and your mind by his word and by his spirit renewing
you giving you the inclination to do what God wants you to do
and Then when you actually do what God calls you to do is God
working in you to do it Did y'all get that? So now follow this,
if the proposition is true that the omnipotent God by His Son
and through His Spirit is operating in my life, why is it that I
would even contemplate the possibility of not being able to do whatever
God has called me to do? The logic is flawed, isn't it?
This is why I've said to many of us many times, the moment
you tell people that God is in you, you better be careful to
know what you're saying. Because either you're going to
represent God accurately, or you're going to lie on God. With
God, all things are possible. God can move mountains. God can
do whatever He wants to, except lie, fail, and change. God is
able to make all grace abound. God is able to cause you and
I to do what He wants us to do. Is that true? We just got to
negotiate that proposition. But what we can't say is, we
can't. Unless, of course, we are operating
in the flesh apart from Christ. And John chapter 15 verse 5 makes
it very clear. Without me, you can do nothing.
Am I telling the truth? Now go with me in your Bible
as we deal with the last two points. Genesis chapter 5 and
as you go there, I want to quote a verse to affirm what I just
stated concerning the nature of the Confident believer in
the context of being born again Galatians chapter 2 verse 20
says I have been crucified with Christ That's the premise and
grounds of our union with God. I have been crucified with Christ.
In other words. I died when he died nevertheless,
I what live and Was dead now. I'm alive. That's what it means
to be born again, right? This is what Jesus meant in John
chapter 5 verse 25 when he says the hour is coming and now is
when the dead Shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they
that hear shall what live? The hour is coming and now is
When the dead, you and I were dead, weren't we? We were as
dead as a doorknob. We were dead as a dumb nickel.
We were dead, dead, dead, no life at all. And God spoke, didn't
He? The Son of God spoke, didn't
He? And in our deadness, we heard
the voice of the Son of God. And you know what He commanded
us to do? Are you ready? Live! And guess what we did? We lived! We were born again. Isn't that amazing? And this
is where we are right now. We are under the powerful influence
of the word of God in the person of Christ through the gospel
by his spirit having raised us from the dead. And we are hearers
of God. Faith comes by hearing. Continually hearing, faith continues
to come. Continually hearing, faith continues
to come. Continually hearing, faith continues
to come. This is why we walk by faith.
This is why we work by faith. This is why we toil by faith.
Because faith is a consequence of hearing. This is why, listen,
one of the evidences that you are healthy is that you love
to hear God's word. One of the evidences that you're
not healthy is that you don't want to hear God's word. Am I
making some sense? And when you want to do what's
right, you know that it's critical that you and I be under the hearing
of God's Word. Speak, Lord, your servant is listening. When I
see people that are not serious about God's Word, you are in
trouble. Because the only way that you
and I are going to live happy in Jesus is to trust and obey. Trust and obey. There is no other
way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. and trust
our faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God and
that on a continuous basis. Am I boring you? Give me a few
more minutes of your time then. I'm gonna deal with you now with
an area of regeneration that takes place in our life that
often we don't carefully comprehend. In Genesis chapter 25, we have
a model for us, an analogy for us of the life of the believer upon
God being so gracious as to make them alive. This has to do with
our beloved sister, Rebecca. In Genesis chapter 25, beginning
at verse 21, I will expound this portion of scripture and help
us understand the nature of what it means to be born of God and
thus the struggle of faith. I'm calling your attention now
to the struggle of faith. Does anybody know what I mean
by the struggle of faith? Does anybody know what I mean
by the struggle of faith? So I'm getting ready to talk
about the struggle of faith as a sure sign of life in the soul
because of a process that God is working out in us that won't
come to full fruition until God purposes. Our beloved sister
Rebecca was very much like her mother-in-law Sarah and very
much like Rachel. These are what we call allegories
in the scripture in the Old Testament those matriarchal women Often
were in predicaments where they weren't able to bear children
and to be barren in the Old Testament Was to be as it were cursed Because
every Jewish woman understood that God was seeking a seed That
seed is home And so for them to bring forth children was for
them to be in the line of promise by which Messiah would come.
See, and for them to even want to do that means that they had
the hope of the gospel in them. Because you know today, not only
are we killing the seed all over the place, we are neglecting
the seed that's here, and we don't even care about the proliferation
of the seed anymore. This is how backwards our culture
is, how twisted our culture is. But that's not true of God's
informed people. For us, every child is precious. You got that? Because every child
that's born in this world is potentially one of God's elect. Did you get that? Potentially
one of God's elect, which means Christ died for them, which gives
them all the merit in the world to live so that we would do everything
we possibly can to give them an opportunity at life for them
to reach their full potential. After all, some of the greatest
people in the world are people for whom the enemy has sought
to destroy them, either in the womb or at birth, where providence
protected them and guided them and brought them to a place of
prominence, where you and I have experienced the blessings of
the gospel. See, what the world rejects, God himself often embraces. We know this by how many times
the seed, as it were in the scriptures, were sought after by the enemy
to be killed. Rebekah is in a peculiar state
here. We are told in Genesis 25 verse
21. Listen to it. Let me start at
verse 20. And Isaac was 40 years old when he took Rebekah to his
wife, the daughter of Bethuel, the Syrian, of Pandaram. And she was the sister of Laban.
And Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife because she was
barren. And the Lord was entreated of
him. And Rebekah, his wife, what? Now you need to understand what's
taking place here. When God intervened in the barren
situation by which the man and the woman, by the natural means
of copulation, could not produce a child. When God intervened,
we are observing a miracle. Y'all believe that? When the
natural process by which children are born does not occur, it means
that the work of the man, the work of the woman, is futile
in the producing of the child. The context of those kinds of
situations opens the door for God to teach us once again that
the salvation of the Lord is a work of sovereign grace by
which he brings life out of that which is barren and unable to
bring life by itself. And so a barren woman was a type
of every believer. Before you and I were born again,
we were barren. Before you and I were born again,
we bore no fruit unto God. Before you and I were born again,
we were completely in an isolated state, had no fruit, had nothing
by which we can contribute to the kingdom of God. We didn't
have the ability to bear fruit. God had to work in us the way
he's working in Rebecca. Y'all got that? So Rebecca represents
a true believer who is now with seed. This is what the new birth
is all about. Christ You the hope of glory
y'all got that The incorruptible seed planted in your heart. That's
the Word of God by the Spirit of God That's the third person
according to the will of the Father. That's the first person
didn't we learn that last week? We are begotten of the Father's
will we are begotten by the incorruptible seed. We are begotten of the
Spirit They all three work to make us born again and the state
of a born-again believer is to be impregnated with Christ. That's the seed. It's called
the new nature. You believe that? Give me a few
more minutes of your time. So when you're born again, it's
not that you start a new lease in life. It's something added
to you. It's God who enters in. This
is why Paul said, the life that I now live in the flesh, I live
by the faithfulness of the son of God who loved me and gave
himself for me, Christ in you. Well, once you and I are born
again, we enter into an experience that sometimes we don't fully
understand. And these points are going to
be vividly clear that I lay out to you. In verse 22, Verse 21,
Rebecca conceived. And verse 22 says, and the children
struggled together within her womb. Do you see that? She said,
if I be so, why am I thus? What do you mean? If I be pregnant
with child, why am I having this struggle on the inside? She had
never been pregnant before. Like when you and I have never
been born again, we don't know what the new birth experience
is all about. But I told you several weeks ago, don't let
somebody tell you being saved is dragging the tiger by the
tail, getting the tiger by the tail on a downhill slide that
somehow you got the world in control. Don't let anybody tell
you that the life of faith is easy. As soon as you are born
again, you are entering into a struggle, a conflict, Because
on the inside of you are two natures. The old nature and the
new nature. Now this is interesting. You
know what this is? Prior to Christ entering into
you, you were so at one and union with your old nature, you didn't
even know He was there. You walked in harmony with the
old man. You walked in unison with the
old man. You did what he wanted to do
all the time, everywhere. There was such a harmony with
you and your fallen nature that there was no sense of conflict.
In your unsafe state, if you are unregenerate, you actually
love your old man. In fact, you actually identify
yourself as him. Now when God makes you born again,
The new man in you immediately exposes the old man in you. So you might go a week or two
singing hallelujah, praising the Lord after you've been born
again, reading your Bible, enjoying life until that first temptation
comes. Then you go, man, what was that
about? What in the world is going on?
Watch this, I thought I was saved. and you were under the false
notion that you thought that salvation was a complete riddance
of all conflict, internally and externally. But nothing was further
from the truth. So let me underscore some ethical
principles about being born again. When you and I are born again,
it is a work of grace, as it was in making Rebecca conceive
with child. But in our born-again state,
We are living in a coexistence of both our old nature and our
new nature Galatians chapter 5 says the flesh Wars against
the spirit and the spirit against the flesh so that you can't easily
do What you and I know we are supposed to do Well, how come
I don't easily obey God because you've got an enemy Inside you
that keeps you from doing what you're supposed to do. Now. I
know I'm telling the truth right here And if you need further
explication of that, read Romans 7. The good that I would, I don't
do. The evil that I would not do,
I find myself being tempted to do it. This is a conflict. Because I don't like what I like. You didn't get that. And I've told us before that
the word is ego in the Greek. It's ego. This is the problem.
See, I'm teaching today. There are two egos in you. The
one ego is carnal, the other ego is spiritual. And they are
at odds with one another. And they produce a conflict in
you by design. Are you hearing me? What is that
design, pastor? It's designed to humble you. The new birth is designed to
humble you. See, nobody needs to tell you
you are all that. We've been born with that intrinsically
in our being. The world is better because we
are here. But once you are born again,
God begins a process of humbling you. Are you hearing me? I'm talking about the true God.
I'm not talking about false religion that loves to lift you up and
exalt you and make you the best thing since sliced bread. No,
what God does when he saves you is enters you into a process
of humility. Not humiliation, humility. You know what that means? When
God says, child, son, my daughter, I need you to do this. I need
you to get up in the morning and pray to me for five minutes
before you go about your day. Now you're a brand new born again
believer with all kind of zeal, all kind of passion. You just
loving life. You living life. I'm saved, saved. Hallelujah. Week goes by, that
first morning you're headed to work, you come to realize you
didn't pray. Remember that? He goes, oh Lord,
I didn't pray. What's going on? And then you
tell him you're sorry. But the next day, you do it again. You get on up and go to work
because you are operating out of your natural perfunctory.
And you come to discover that in order for you to do what God
wants you to do, you need help. And that's humbling. That's humbling. Because you thought when God
saved you, he made you superman and superwoman. You can outrun
locomotives, jump over tall buildings in a single bound, only to come to find out that
by nature you're just as weak as any other man, as any other
woman. And Lord, once the thoughts started
rushing back in, you was really jacked up. You were like, I thought
I stopped thinking like that. You know those thoughts I'm talking
about. They really shook you up. Because remember, you were
going for about a good two, three weeks thinking good thoughts.
And then all of a sudden, that jacked up stuff started coming
again. Stay with me for a minute. And
you know, you try to shake it off by playing your Christian
music. And if you actually been born
again under my ministry, you played like 50, you know, Pastor
Jesse CDs, try to shake it off. Yeah, I know how you do. But
the problem is when you went to bed that night and went to
sleep, your thoughts started emerging in your dream. and you
really got shook up because it started haunting you in your
dreams and now you're doing stuff in your dreams that's causing
you to say, watch this, why am I thus? Why am I thus? If it be that
I'm born again, why am I thus? God is humbling you because no
flesh will glory in his sight. That's the law of the kingdom
of grace. When God called you, he called
you by his sovereign grace. When God quickens you, he quickens
you by his sovereign grace. And as God is conforming you
to the image of Christ, you must do what Christ did, condescend. He made him of no reputation.
Why is he going to make you a reputation? He humbled his son. Why is he
going to exalt you? He rendered his son into a world
of trouble and conflict. Why is he going to take you and
make you large, blow you up, call you to shine? Like religion
says, it's your turn to shine. No, it's not. I speak to my elect
brothers and sisters who love Christ. Are you hearing me? It
is not your time to shine. It's not your time. For your life is hid with Christ. So that Christ, who is your life,
when he appears, you will also appear with him in glory and
only shine then. All other shining is fool's gold,
a glitter made up by human effort to be destroyed in the conflagration
of all things. Are you with me so far? He has
called you and I to the humility to which he had called his son
Jesus Christ. And that humility is good, child of God, because
you know what humility does in the context of the struggle?
It helps us understand that we are saved by hope. You know what hope is? Hope is an expectation of something
that's so far out in the future that there is no visible empirical
evidence of it right now. That's first Peter chapter 1
around verse 4 blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus
Christ who have begotten us again Quickened us again unto a living
hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from there You know what?
That means I can't show nobody what God has done for me Because
what God really has done for me is way out in front of me
in the future. Stay with me now Are you with me? Stay with me
now and so my struggles are designed to humble me, and watch this
now, drive me to God. Go back to the text. Show you
what happens. Isn't this beautiful? And the
child struggled, the children struggled together in her, and
she said, now if I be pregnant, why am I thus? And she went to
inquire of the Lord. You see the providence of God?
When he makes you born again, his primary objective is to establish
a relationship between you and him. You notice that she didn't
go to the voodoo doctor. She didn't go to the witch doctor.
She didn't go to the psychiatrist. She didn't go to the psychologist.
She didn't go to the teacher. She didn't even go to the preacher.
She went to God. And what grace will do when it
makes you born again is drive you to God. Ananias, go down to that house
on the street called Strait. You'll find my servant Paul. He learned his lesson. You'll
know who he is because he's the only one in the house on his
knees praying. See, when you get it, you'll
understand what grace is calling you to do. It's calling you to
hymn. It's calling you to prayer. It's
calling you to serious Bible study. It's calling you to diligent
listening to the sermon. It's calling you to longing for
God, longing to be transformed into His image, longing to walk
with God, longing to serve God, since I am thus. longing for
the power of God to do in me what I can't do in myself since
I am thus. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
It's a powerful, powerful truth here rendered. Now let's see
the reward of her labors. Look at verse 23. And the Lord
said unto her, she went to God and God talked back to her. Do you see it? Huge! She went to God, and God
talked back. Why did He talk back? Because
He drew her to Himself. He knew that her pregnancy was
going to result in her calamity of conscience, which was going
to drive her to Him, because the purpose for which God saves
us is to drive us to God. Now why would God drive you to
Himself and not talk to you? Are you hearing me? When you
are thus born again, You need to know God and you need to know
what God is thinking. You need to know his will. You
need to know his purposes. You need to know his plans. You
need to know if you're right with God. Am I telling the truth?
Now watch this. All who are born of God will
come to God and God will teach them. God will teach all that
are born of God. You will learn. Listen, there
will be no true child. Listen, no true child of God
who's serious about God that won't know God. When you meet
people who are playing church, they don't know God because they
aren't seeking God. And thus they don't know His
Word, and His Word is not in them. And so long as the Word
of God is not in you, Christ is not abiding in you. But if
Christ is abiding in you because His Word is in you, you will
bear much fruit. Now let me close with this one
because I'm way overdue. The beauty of this text is that
it teaches us that we are in between a process of which process
ultimately will manifest itself in the culmination of everything
that God had purposed for us. What do you mean? I am not what
I used to be. I used to be barren. I used to
be unfruitful. I was by myself. I was under
the wrath of God. But God saved me and placed the
incorruptible seed in me. You got that? Now I am operating
out of a living hope. A living hope that is internal
of which no one can see. I'm pregnant. Got that? I'm pregnant with hope. I'm pregnant
with a relationship with God that's based upon his son Jesus
Christ who lives on the inside of me. And it's driving me towards
God every day. I tell people I'm saved. if I
feel the insecurity and need to do so. I told you about that.
You ain't gotta tell nobody you're saved. If you're saved, you're
saved. Who cares if the world knows
or not? It only matters that you know you're saved. I'm saved,
so what? But watch this now. Between the
moment of my salvation and the time when Jesus Christ comes,
if I am thus, and I am struggling, and I am calling on God, and
I am seeking his faith. Over time, I'm gonna show. Oh yeah, she is pregnant. You gonna start showing. Am I
making some sense? There gonna be evidence. You
know how when our sisters get pregnancy, when you get old like
me, you don't ask them if they pregnant. Don't do it. Just wait. Then we go, yep, she's pregnant. That's if you're smart, young
brothers, don't ask them. Oh, you're pregnant? No, I'm
not pregnant. Now you've got to back up and cover that thing. Every believer is in between
having been born again delivered every believer it is a struggle
of faith based on hope looking for a future deliverance for
which deliverance will let the universe know that God was telling
the truth when he saved me and the only people that can understand
the evidence of pregnancy are you ready is other pregnant people
so if you've never been born again you don't know why my stomach
is sticking out You can call me fat or you won't. But God
knows that I'm pregnant with the hope of glory. Are you hearing
what I'm saying? And I have to deal with the struggle
of the old man and the new man. But you know what God promises?
Because he answered it in the text, didn't he? Rebecca went
to him. He inquired of the Lord and the
Lord responded. Isn't that what the text says?
The Lord said, two nations are in your womb, old man, new man,
and two manner of people shall be separated from your bowels.
You know what that means? There will be an ushering forth
of them. And listen, the one people shall be stronger than
the other people. And the elder shall serve the
younger. You know what God was saying?
Here's what he's saying. God is saying to you and I that
the struggle is normal. The struggle will produce a transformation
rooted in humility, but your old man will be subdued by your
new man. Do you understand that? Your
old man will be subdued by your new man. This is what he tells
Rebecca. Don't worry about it, sister.
The elder shall serve the younger. Are you hearing me? Why? Because
greater is He that is in you than he that's of the world.
When you come to God, He lets you know that Christ in you,
the hope of glory, shall have the victory at last. Our old
man will be subdued. Sin will be subdued. Our carnal
ways will be subdued. But it will be in the process
of humbly seeking God, asking Him for strength to do for us
what we can't do for ourselves. Hence, is what it means to be
born again. Amen.