![]() So let’s turn now to the question: What happens in the new birth? I will try to put the answer in three statements. That is my hope: that this series will not just unsettle but stabilize and save. But God does.Īnd I am very hopeful that he will do what he says in Ephesians 2:4–5, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved.” God loves to magnify the riches of his life-giving grace where Christ is lifted up in truth. And yet I know that I have no power in myself to give them life. I feel like I am taking eternal souls in my hands in these days. And I do not want to give false hope to those who have confused morality or religion for spiritual life. I do not want to cause tender souls any unnecessary distress. So, as I begin this series, I am aware of how unsettling this teaching on the new birth can be. My Hope: Stabilize and Save, Not Just Unsettle For most people, at least at first, this is unsettling. His decision to make us alive will not be a response to what we as spiritual corpses do, but what we do will be a response to his making us alive. Therefore, if we are going to be born again, it will rely decisively and ultimately on God. Our rebellion is so deep that we cannot detect or desire the glory of Christ in the gospel (2 Corinthians 4:4). We are by nature children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3). Apart from God, we are spiritually dead in our selfishness and rebellion. The Absolute Freedom of God Confronts UsĪnd the third reason Jesus’s teaching about the new birth is unsettling, therefore, is that it confronts us with the absolute freedom of God. And we’re told that we can’t make ourselves to be born again. We are told that we won’t see the kingdom of God if we’re not born again. And so it confronts us with our helplessness and our absolute dependence on someone (namely, God) outside ourselves. ![]() This means that the new birth is taken out of our hands. Any good thing that we do is a result of the new birth, not a cause of the new birth. It refers to the children of God as those who “who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” Peter stresses the same thing: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again” (1 Peter 1:3). Teaching about the new birth is unsettling because it refers to something that is done to us, not something we do. So it is unsettling when Jesus tells us that we must be born again. Apart from amazing grace in our lives, we don’t like to hear that about ourselves. When Jesus tells us that we must be born again he is telling us that our present condition is hopelessly unresponsive, corrupt, and guilty. And we are legally guilty before God’s law and under his wrath. Before the new birth happens to us, we are spiritually dead. Jesus’s teaching about the new birth confronts us with our hopeless spiritual and moral and legal condition apart from God’s regenerating grace. There are at least three reasons for this. I am aware that this series of messages will be unsettling to many of you - just like the words of Jesus are unsettling to us again and again if we take them seriously. Today’s question is: What happens in the new birth? Before I try to answer that question, let me mention a very earnest concern that I have about the way these messages will be heard. ![]() In the first message last time we focused on the reasons for this series and the kinds of questions we would be asking. “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” The New Birth Is Unsettling Eternity hangs in the balance when we are talking about the new birth. So the series we have begun is not marginal. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?” Jesus said to them in Matthew 23:15, 33: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. Nicodemus was one of the Pharisees, the most religious Jewish leaders. That means we will not be saved we will not be part of God’s family, and not go to heaven, but instead will go to hell. You and I must be born again, or we will not see the kingdom of God. Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:3, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” He was speaking to all of us when he said that. We have begun a series of messages on the new birth.
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