Josh Benner

Tag: regeneration

  • Water and Spirit. Studying John 3:1-8

    Water and Spirit. Studying John 3:1-8

    In John 3, Jesus is approached by a leading religious teacher named Nicodemus. Nicodemus had heard of Jesus and his teaching and wanted to learn more. Jesus would tell him that he had to be born again. 

    In John 3:4, Nicodemus says: 

    Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

    Water and Spirit

    In John 3:5, Jesus will elaborate further and say to Nicodemus: 

    Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

    Water and Spirit. 

    Jesus has said unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3).

    And Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 

    They’re both obviously important in what Jesus is saying about how one can enter the Kingdom of God. 

    But what do they have to do with each other? Because they’re both connected to seeing and entering the kingdom of God. 

    The key to answering that question is found in Ezekiel 36. In that passage, water and Spirit are both present, and it says that the Lord will give the believer a new heart. 

     25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

    God giving his Spirit and a new heart. 

    “I will sprinkle clean water on you” 

    “I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you.” 

    “I will put my Spirit within you”  

    Where Jesus says we must be born again, it is by the Holy Spirit that we are born again. Jesus justifies by his perfect life and by his blood and it is the Holy Spirit who indwells the believer. It’s not up to us to save ourselves.

    The rebirth is through the Holy Spirit. 

    New theological term. This is referred to as baptism of the Holy Spirit. 

    Baptism of the Holy Spirit is different from water baptism. 

    That idea is first mentioned in John’s Gospel in John 1:33 when John the Baptist is speaking of Jesus and says: 

    He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

    All four gospels make this same point. That Jesus brings a filling of the Holy Spirit to such an abundant degree that it is a baptism. 

    It is a privilege which all Christians share, as we see in 1 Corinthians 12:13: For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body

    This indwelling of the Holy Spirit is foretold in the Ezekiel passage. 

    And Ezekiel isn’t the only passage. Joel 2:28: 

    it shall come to pass afterward,  that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh

    This initial pouring out of the Spirit happens in Acts 2 at Pentecost. 

    All Christians have the Holy Spirit because all Christians are born again, which is of the Spirit. And all Chrisitans are baptized in the Holy Spirit at the moment they come to faith. 

    There is no way to be a Christian without these events happening in your life.

    Romans 8:9-10 is a great passage which communicates this idea. 

    9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

    The Spirit sanctifies us, he sets us apart.

    Romans 8:11: If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. 

    The Spirit works to transform a believer: 

    2 Corinthians 3:18: we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. 

    Spiritual life can only come through the Spirit. That’s what Jesus means in our passage when he says in John 3:6: That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

    The flesh begets worldly sinful life. The Spirit begets Spiritual life, the new life that God promises his people. 

    There are many other things which the Spirit does in the life of a believer. All three persons of the Trinity are active in the gospel. We can’t just look at the love of God without the work of the Christ who died for a sinful world. 

    And we can’t discount the work of the Holy Spirit because without the Holy Spirit, a person does not have faith in the gospel because true faith in the gospel means a person has the Holy Spirit. 

    We must be born again. 

    Titus 3:4-6: 4 But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior

    Salvation and the Spirit go together. 

    Jesus is the one who died for sins. But we are given new life through the Spirit. A person who truly has faith has the Spirit. 

    And once you have the Spirit, you cannot lose it. In fact, it’s because we need a work of the Holy Spirit that we can have assurance of salvation. Because it is God who works in us through the Spirit. 

    Jesus has said that we must be born of water and Spirit. Returning to our passage in John 3. 

    Is John 3 talking about water baptism? 

    Some take that to refer to water baptism. It seems logical. But there are a few things to keep in mind: Water baptism is not mentioned anywhere else in this passage. The Great Commission and the command to baptize have not yet been given. 

    Just because water is mentioned does not mean that baptism must be in mind. In our next chapter, John 4, Jesus talks of the water he provides and how the one who drinks of it will never thurst. In John 7, Jesus talks of the living water which he supplies and in that Jesus is using water to refer to the Holy Spirit. 

    Jesus criticizes Nicodmeus for not understanding what he’s saying. If he’s referring to water baptism, that rebuke makes little sense. How would Nicodemus be expected to understand the ordinance of water baptism before it had been given to Chrsitians? 

    But it would make sense to expect Nicodemus to understand Ezekiel 36. 

    Baptism IS important, but baptism is an action that is symbolic of your inward faith, a faith where God has poured his Spirit upon his people. Baptism does nothing if you are not ultimately born again. And that’s true regardless of if someone believes in believer’s baptism or infant baptism. The baptism must ultimately be accompanied by faith. 

    Given his study of the Bible, given the promises of God giving his spirit, given the Ezekiel 36 promise of a new heart, for all of these reasons, for Nicodemus, it should not be a logical leap that a new birth, a new life would be necessary in truly coming to faith in God.

    We often miss this point too.

    The Bible constantly talks of the necessity of faith, the Bible constantly talks of our sin. Throughout the gospels, we see constant references to Jesus’ death for our sin.

    And yet we so often face the temptation to think our standing before God is based on ourselves.

    Verses 7 and 8, Jesus says: 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’  8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 

    Jesus gives an illustration based on the weather. 

    Jesus was telling this to people before modern meteorology. 

    But even still, to the average person, we don’t really know how the wind works, or what causes its changes. Yet we feel it, we see the impact it has, we hear it. 

    Jesus says “so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  

    The point is that there is evidence of the work of the Spirit in the life of a believer. We don’t always understand how the spirit works but his work in the life of a believer is evident. 

    And I again refer us back to Ezekiel 36:27:

    I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

    Israel was given the law and continued to sin. In the new covenant, God gives his Holy Spirit and it is by his Spirit that we are enabled to follow his laws.

    God works within his own people enabling us to do the will of God. That is a tremendous grace which God gives to the world. 

    That’s not to say that you will never sin again. That’s not to say you will never struggle again. At the moment you come to faith, you are justified before God by the justifying work of Christ. You’re forgiven in an instant, indwelled with the Holy Spirit. But the rest of life is meant to be a journey of growing in faith and holiness. 

    You must be born again

    Have you been born again? Has your life been changed by the gospel? 

    God does a heart transplant whenever someone comes to faith. He gives a new heart. Do you have joy in the Lord? Love for God? Are there areas where you’ve seen fruit in your life?

    Do you have confidence in God’s goodness and his promises? Do you have a greater appreciation for the weight of your own sin? Do you feel like your life has been oriented around God?

    Being born again results a life that is transformed because it is not about our strength to live in a Godly manner but God works in us.

    So that is the command which Jesus has given. That for a person to enter the kingdom of heaven, being born again is necessary. Again, it’s not just my opinion on the subject. 

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  • New life in Jesus – Studying John 3:4-6

    New life in Jesus – Studying John 3:4-6

    In John 3, Jesus is approached under the cover of night by a leader among the Jews, a Pharisee named Nicodemus. Just as a reminder, the Pharisees were people who were highly respected within the Jewish community.  Nicodemus would have been a man of stature in his community.

    The Pharisees were devout in their lifestyle, their love for the word of God, their study of God’s word. For a man like Nicodemus, he would have had the first five books of the Bible memorized. He was an expert in the law of God.

    He would have always been at church, always at Sunday school, always at the Sunday night study, always at the potluck. A stand up guy. 

    And he comes to Jesus and says to him “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God” (John 3:1) and as Nicodemus talks to Jesus, he talks about the signs Jesus has done. Nicodemus says in verse 2: “no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” 

    With a guy like Nicodemus, it would be easy to never question his salvation. Clearly he was walking with God. 

    Nicodemus receives Jesus command to be born again with confusion. Again, Nicodemus is a teacher. He knows God’s word. He’s very moral. And Jesus stops him dead in his tracks: Unless one is born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

    John 3:4:

    Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

    Nicodemus is either totally dumbfounded by what Jesus says or he’s giving a bit of a sarcastic response, but he responds to Jesus referring only to the physical process of birth. 

    Verse 5-6:

    5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 

    Again, we’ll talk about this more next week, but regeneration, being born again is a work of the Holy Spirit and Jesus touches upon that in these verses. 

    It is a Spiritual rebirth. And it’s because regeneration is spiritual that it necessitates a life that is changed and transformed by the gospel. Because it’s not us who change ourselves. It’s the Spirit in us. 

    The gospel is meant to change your life. 

    We just assume that a person who goes to church is a Chrisitan. You’re not if you haven’t been born again. Not if you haven’t truly turned from sin and turned to Jesus. 

    So I ask again: what do you actually believe? Have you trusted in Jesus as your Lord and savior? Have you confessed him to be the Lord? Have you turned away from sin? He didn’t die to keep us the same. Not when we’re given the Holy Spirit. We’re born again. We are a new creation. And that means a changed life. Has your life changed because of Jesus? 

    Be honest. 

    Has it really? 

    Or are you going through the motions? Saying the right things because you need to toe the company line but without really believing what you’re saying? 

    He makes us new. 

    The Bible says that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17). 

    It’s not just about saying “well I don’t want to go to hell. Sure I’m a Christian.” It’s having an actual faith that Jesus is the way. That Jesus is your savior. It’s not about believing that you’re basically the key to your own salvation but Jesus is some formality. 

    It’s that there is no other way apart from Christ and falling at his feet in thankfulness for his mercy. 

    Have you surrendered your life to Christ? If he’s not your Lord is he really your savior? Is Jesus the Lord of your life? 

    Philippians 2:12 says to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. And that puts our focus on the cross, and what Jesus has done for us. Do you believe that you’re a sinner? It’s hard to accept Christ as your savior if you don’t believe you’re a sinner. It’s hard to trust in Jesus as your savior if you don’t believe you have anything to be saved from. 

    Too often in our culture, we like to emphasize the love of God without wanting to ever even talk about the justice of God. God is love. But he is also just. And there is a price to be paid for our sins. Do you believe that? Or do you find yourself thinking that you’re actually not that bad, that your sins really aren’t such a big deal, but you believe that there is a God and say you’re a Christian but you don’t belong to Christ? 

    Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 

    For a person who is walking in faith, let us thank God for the work of regeneration that he has done in your life. But for the person who knows in your heart of hearts that you don’t really believe. Stop trusting yourself and your own goodness for your salvation. 

    Have you been born again? 

    You don’t have to be a master of theology. You don’t have to figure it all out. You don’t have to have all of the answers before coming to Jesus. It’s about trusting in him. You can come to Jesus this moment. And trust in him. To say, “Lord, not my will but your will be done.”  

    The Bible says salvation is in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). 

    And it also says all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved (Romans 10:13). Coming to Jesus in faith. And when we do that, the grace and forgiveness that Jesus extends is sufficient. 

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  • You must be born again. Studying John 3:1-3

    You must be born again. Studying John 3:1-3

    Look at the picture at the top of the post. What do you see? Look at the design of this lobby. Just think to yourself for a moment if it reminds you of anything? 

    This picture is of the Liberty Hotel, a luxury hotel in the heart of Boston. 

    The cheapest rooms at this hotel can go for several hundred dollars a night. It features amenities such as concierge services, overnight shoe shines, in room safes, and free valet parking. 

    What do you see? Is there anything this reminds you of? 

    Before becoming a luxury hotel, once upon a time, the Liberty Hotel was a prison. Boston’s Charles Street Jail was built in 1851 and was an operational jail until 1990. It served as the county jail for Boston’s Suffolk County. In the nearly 140 years of operation, the jail housed civil rights leader Malcolm X, the notorious 1920s anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti as well as Frank Abagnale, whose life inspired the movie Catch Me If You Can.

    The place that once housed criminals is now a place of luxury. It’s the same structure, but internally a totally new creation. Jail cells became bedrooms. Guards replaced with bellhops. Cots replaced with comfortable beds. Prison food has been replaced with gourmet cuisine. 

    In the Gospel of John, one of the themes that we see is new creation. 

    We see creation themes in the opening prologue. I’ve written before about Jesus’ first miracle in John 2 when he turns water into wine. Also in chapter 2, we see Jesus compare himself to a temple who would be torn and raised up in three days. Jesus is the new temple.

    In John 3, Jesus talks of the new life and new birth that he offers and how a person must be born again.

    Regeneration = born again

    Good theological term to know for today’s message. Regeneration. 

    It’s the theological term used to refer to being born again. In other words: born again and regeneration are synonymous. 

    Being born again is new Spiritual life which causes a person who is dead in sin to be alive to the gospel of Jesus Christ through faith. 

    It’s a supernatural work of God. All Christians are born again because all Christians have experienced regeneration. There’s no such thing as an unregenerate Christian. That’s not a Christian! 

    An unregenerate Christian is a vegan who eats meat. In other words, it doesn’t exist. 

    John 3, verse 1 into 2:

    Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night

    So at the beginning of our passage, Jesus is approached under the cover of night by a leader among the Jews, a Pharisee named Nicodemus. Just as a reminder, the Pharisees were people who were highly respected within the Jewish community.  Nicodemus would have been a man of stature in his community.

    The Pharisees were devout in their lifestyle, their love for the word of God, their study of God’s word. For a man like Nicodemus, he would have had the first five books of the Bible memorized. He was an expert in the law of God.

    He would have always been at church, always at Sunday school, always at the Sunday night study, always at the potluck. A stand up guy. 

    And he comes to Jesus and says to him “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God” and as Nicodemus talks to Jesus, he talks about the signs Jesus has done. Nicodemus says in verse 2: “no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” 

    With a guy like Nicodemus, it would be easy to never question his salvation. Clearly he was walking with God. 

    Unless one is born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God. 

    What is Christianity to you? What is the gospel to you?

    Is it that you believe in God? That isn’t being born again. Nicodemus believed in God. Is found in liking Jesus? That doesn’t make you born again either. Nicodemus saw the signs Jesus was doing. Is it in being a good person? Nicodeus was a very moral person. That isn’t being born again. 

    Jesus says: “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). 

    It’s not up for debate. Jesus said you must be born again. He doesn’t say “it’s good to be born again,” or “I really think you should be born again,” or “the best way to live life is to be born again.” 

    You must be born again. 

    And Jesus is the one who died so you could have a hope of redemption so his words on the subject are authoritative. 

    To not be born again is to be dead in sin and not raised to life in Christ. 

    In the process of being born again, you trust in Jesus as your Lord and savior and you turn from sin to Jesus. When we come to him, there is grace. There is forgiveness for our sins. 

    But here’s a point that people too often miss. It needs to be a genuine faith in what Jesus has done. And the validation of that sincerity will manifest itself in a life that is transformed by the gospel. And if there is no change in your life, if there is no fruit, if there is no greater love for God, if there’s no appreciation for the work of Christ, if there’s no recognition of the cost of sins for which Jesus went to the cross, then for the sake of your own soul, you need to question if you really believe in Jesus and if you’ve really been born again. 

    There are so many things that we like to tie to regeneration. For some, they want to look at baptism. Baptism doesn’t confer regeneration to you. Baptism doesn’t make you born again if you don’t have faith. Baptism doesn’t mean anything if you don’t ultimately believe in the triune God in whose name you were baptized. 

    Some people like to tie faith to their family. Mom and dad are Christians, or were Christians. Grandpa was a Christian. That’s how you were raised. That’s a wonderful blessing. But that doesn’t mean you’ve been born again. The faith has to be your own. 

    For others, it might be the Sinner’s Prayer. “I asked Jesus into my heart.”

    But did you believe it? Did you place your trust in him? If there’s never been any evidence in your life that Jesus is in your heart, is he really? Don’t go through life thinking “I said this prayer one time,” or “I got baptized one time,” and that that’s all that matters if you’re living a faithless life. 

    A person who’s never had faith still isn’t saved. And empty words don’t change that. And water doesn’t change that. The only thing that can change that is recognizing your inability to live up to a God who is absolutely perfect and holy. And that while you could not live up to it, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for you (Romans 5:8). 

    It’s not some inconsequential change. It is a monumental miraculous work of almighty God. 

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  • Theology 101: Understanding Regeneration

    Theology 101: Understanding Regeneration

    Regeneration (also referred to as being “born again”) refers to new spiritual life which God gives a person. The new regenerative life is what brings a person from spiritual death to spiritual life. 

    The Holy Spirit is immensely important in the work of the salvation of souls and in the work of God’s church. In Ezekiel 36, the prophet points to a future time of washing and renewal. In that passage, we see three stages of regeneration which the Lord brings through the Spirit. 

    First, the Spirit brings renewal 

    Ezekiel 36:25: I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.

    Ezekiel is in the Old Testament and he’s looking forward to a future time of cleansing that God would bring by means of the Holy Spirit. We live in that time now. When we are regenerated, it is a Spiritual cleansing which the Lord brings. 

    With the water, it’s easy to draw parallels to baptism. And in fact, the filling of the Holy Spirit is referred to as a baptism. 

    John 1:33. John the Baptist is speaking about Jesus and says: He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

    It is a privilege which all Christians share, as we see in 1 Corinthians 12:13: For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body

    All believers in the gospel of Christ are filled with the Spirit. There’s no such thing as a Christian who does not have the Spirit. 

    Romans 8:9-10 is a great passage which communicates this idea: 9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

    So we are baptized into the Holy Spirit. Water baptism then is a symbol of the regeneration and cleansing which comes through the Holy Spirit. Baptism does not bring salvation in itself. It’s an important and powerful outward symbol of an inward work which the Lord has done. 

    I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.

    What a powerful picture of God’s grace and renewal. 

    In Shakespear’s great play, MacBeth, there’s a scene where Lady MacBeth is overcome with grief and guilt for her murderous greed and ambition and she desperately tries to wash a blood stain off of her hands. 

    There’s no actual blood stain. It’s in her mind. But that’s the brilliance of the scene. Because we all have a stain of sin upon our hearts and lives that we cannot wash away on our own. It is God who brings the cleansing and renewal. 

    In Psalm 51, David too is ravaged by guilt and grief over a terrible sin he’s committed. His affair with Bathsheeba and him sending her husband Uriah to the frontlines in battle where he was killed. 

    David pleads with God: Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! 

    And in John 3:3, Jesus says: Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God

    He will then talk of the cleansing which accompanies regeneration. John 3:5-6: 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

    Water and Spirit. 

    To have faith is to have the Spirit and to have the Spirit is to be cleansed. 

    You have all sorts of rituals in the Old Testament. Washing is a powerful symbol of purity throughout various cultures and religions. 

    The washing that God gives through the Spirit is a cleansing of the human soul. 

    We see the language of this renewal again in Titus 3:4-5: when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit

    It is because of the mercy of God that we are made morally clean through the work of the Holy Spirit. 

    So through regeneration, God cleanses us. Through being born again, God cleanses us. 

    When Jesus says, “you must be born again,” that’s another fantastic metaphor for regeneration. 

    Because it is a new birth. You’re a new person in Christ. Also, the metaphors matters because we are regenerated as a one time event. 

    Jesus said that we must be born again. He did not say that we must be born again…and again and again. 

    It’s not that we are saved today, then we lose that, then we do better and we’re saved tomorrow. Many Christians believe that. It’s not a Biblical idea. 

    We’re sealed with the Holy Spirit as a guarantor of our salvation. 

    Ephesians 1:13-14: In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. 

    Second, the Spirit gives us a new heart 

    Returning to our passage in Ezekiel: I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

    Once again, what an incredible metaphor that the Bible uses. I assume it’s because of the Bible that the heart has become such a powerful symbol in our culture. Think about it for just a moment. 

    Someone who’s very kind if referred to as tender-hearted. Someone who’s unkind and unfeeling is called cold-hearted. When we’re really sincere, we say something is from the bottom of our heart. When we see an impressive athletic display, we say they played their heart out. Really difficult situations are seen as heartbreaking. 

    And there are lots more little phrases like that. It’s a powerful symbol in our culture that we see as being the seat of our emotions. 

    Because of regeneration, God gives us a new heart. Thousands of Americans wait on donor lists in need of heart transplants. Heart disease is annually the leading cause of death in America with more than 1 in 5 deaths coming from heart disease. 

    Our hearts don’t last forever. And certainly, the heart is important in the Bible. Love the Lord your God with all your…What comes first? Heart. 

    Quoting again from David in Psalm 51:10, he asks God: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me

    We cannot make our hearts pure. But the good news is that through regeneration, God does a heart transplant in us. He gives us a new heart and a new Spirit. So the Spirit brings renewal through cleansing, it is through the Spirit that we are given a new heart. 

    Third, the Spirit enables us to follow God’s law 

    The gospel changes lives. When we’re born again, that doesn’t mean that we never struggle, it doesn’t mean we’ll never sin. But we are forgiven. 

    We aren’t perfect but we’re declared righteous because of the righteousness of Christ. But true recognition of sin, true faith in Christ, that changes a person. And it’s often especially noticed when an adult comes to faith. 

    If you have a child who’s grown up in the church and always had faith as part of their life, that’s an incredible blessing. And there certainly is a moment when faith becomes more real to a person, where their trust truly is in the gospel. 

    But when you have someone who’s an adult and gone years of living their own way, pursuing their own interests and desires, and Jesus comes into their life, there should be fruit of that. Not all at once. It’s not saying a person suddenly never has any areas where they struggle. It’s a process. We’ll talk more about that next week. But when the light of the gospel truly takes root in a person’s heart, it causes a change.

    It’s like you suddenly see the world through a different set of eyes. It’s like in the Wizard of Oz where the story goes from sepia to color. And the reason why there are changes and sudden changes is again due to the Holy Spirit and the process of conversion. 

    The Spirit enables us to follow God. 

    We certainly see that idea in Ezekiel 36:27: And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules

    It is the Spirit of God working in us which enables us to follow the will of God. When God works in a person’s life, and transforms a person to love him and love him and enables a person to follow his commands, that is miraculous. 

    In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2)

    That same Spirit who was in the beginning, part of creation, and who hovered over the waters dwells every single person who is a Christian and who believes in the Good News of Jesus Christ. 

    How amazing is that! 

    And it’s not because of us. It’s because our God is a good God. 

    Consider Ezekiel 36:22: Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 

    God’s works of grace are not because we were deserving. God ultimately makes grace available because of his character, because of his goodness, because of his faithfulness to the promises he had made, and for the sake of displaying his own divine glory and greatness. 

    Yes, God loves us. But it’s not because we’re lovable but because God is loving. And so through the gospel, through the work of Christ on the cross, we are forgiven and justified. But what separates real faith, what separates the believers from the pretenders is regeneration. 

    In his systematic theology, Louis Berkhoff says: 

    “Regeneration consists in the implanting of the principle of the new spiritual life in man, in a radical change of the governing disposition of the soul, which, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, gives birth to a life that moves in a Godward direction.”

    Numerous passages in the New Testament talk about the work that God does in the life of a believer. 

    1 Corinthians 2:14-16: The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. 

    God works through us. We don’t regenerate ourselves. We don’t cause our own Spiritual growth. We participate in the work which God is doing in us but we don’t cause it. I hope that makes sense. 

    In Philippians 2:13, Paul puts says: it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. 

    God works in us. New birth, being born again changes a person. 

    While it is through Christ that we are forgiven, justified, and given eternal life; we see that the Spirit is involved in bringing new life – specifically through cleansing us, through indwelling us, through causing a change in our heart, and by enabling us to live for God. 

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  • Sermon: Heart Transplant – Ezekiel 36:25-27

    22 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 23 And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. 24 I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. 

    Prayer 

    Almighty and eternal God, 

    You are the beginning and the end. You take our sins away as far as the east is from the west. A thousand years to you is like a day. 

    We once again come to you in a time of worship. And may we rejoice in the freedom that we have to praise you and to celebrate the good news of the gospel is that though we were dead in sin, you show your love in the gift of everlasting life through your Son who has taken on the weight of our sin. 

    Lord, it’s grieving this week to learn of the suffering and persecution which people are facing in many parts of the world: Christians suffering in Nigeria. Churches being cracked down on in China. 

    Lord, may we remember those people in our prayers. May they be light in spite of the terrible darkness which surrounds them. May your gospel go forward and overcome the best efforts of men to quell your truth. 

    Lord, we pray for our community and nation as well. There is one hope and that is the gospel. It’s not economics, or politics, or laws, or courts, where our ultimate hope lies but in Christ crucified. The Son of God, the Word made flesh, the firstborn of all creation who came into our world. 

    Lord, we pray for our virtual Vacation Bible School this week. We pray both for kids who do the activities and watch the videos, but we also pray for parents or babysitters or grandparents who might watch along and we pray that gospel and Biblical truths can impact them as well. Lord, we pray that you would use this. 

    Lord, we continue to pray for this church. We thank you for the people that we have. We thank you that in spite of this virus, you have preserved us. And we continue to ask for your protection. We also pray for your wisdom and guidance – not just with this situation – but with everything that we do as a church, O Lord. 

    We pray for our time in your world. May we be enlightened, encouraged, and edified. To the glory of God. In Jesus’ name, amen. 

    We’re continuing this morning in our summer series The Forensics of Faith.

    Last week, we talked about justification. And just as a reminder, justification is right legal standing before God. 

    Today, we talk about the Doctrine of Regeneration. Regeneration refers to new spiritual life which God gives a person. The new regenerative life is what brings a person from spiritual death to spiritual life. 

    While justification is a matter of faith in what Christ has done. 

    Regeneration is a work of the Spirit. 

    And if you recall from earlier in our time in John’s Gospel, another term for regeneration is found in John 3. Born again. 

    In much of Christendom, it’s easy to overlook the Holy Spirit. 

    J.I. Packer, who was one of the great theologians of the last 50 years. Packer passed into glory at the age of 93 last week and so I’ve been going through his classic book Knowing God. One of the things that he says in that book that’s sadly all too true in much of modern Christianity is that we overlook the Holy Spirit. 

    We consider God and we focus on the relationship with Jesus. But as Packer says, the Holy Spirit is the Cinderella of Christian doctrines. Just off in the corner, forgotten about. 

    But the Holy Spirit is immensely important in the work of the salvation of souls and in the work of God’s church. In Ezekiel 36, the prophet points to a future time of washing and renewal. 

    So in our passage from Ezekiel, we’re going to look at three stages of Spiritual regeneration which the Lord brings.

    First, the Spirit brings renewal 

    Ezekiel 36:25: I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.

    Ezekiel is in the Old Testament and he’s looking forward to a future time of cleansing that God would bring by means of the Holy Spirit. 

    We live in that time now. When we are regenerated, it is a Spiritual cleansing which the Lord brings. 

    With the water, it’s easy to draw parallels to baptism. And in fact, the filling of the Holy Spirit is referred to as a baptism. 

    John 1:33. John the Baptist is speaking about Jesus and says: He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

    It is a privilege which all Christians share, as we see in 1 Corinthians 12:13: For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body

    All believers in the gospel of Christ are filled with the Spirit. There’s no such thing as a Christian who does not have the Spirit. 

    Romans 8:9-10 is a great passage which communicates this idea: 9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

    So we are baptized into the Holy Spirit. 

    Water baptism then is a symbol of the regeneration and cleansing which comes through the Holy Spirit. 

    Baptism does not bring salvation in itself. It’s an important and powerful outward symbol of an inward work which the Lord has done. 

    I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.

    What a powerful picture of God’s grace and renewal. 

    In Shakespear’s great play, MacBeth, there’s a scene where Lady MacBeth is overcome with grief and guilt for her murderous greed and ambition and she desperately tries to wash a blood stain off of her hands. 

    There’s no actual blood stain. It’s in her mind. 

    But that’s the brilliance of the scene. 

    Because we all have a stain of sin upon our hearts and lives that we cannot wash away on our own. It is God who brings the cleansing and renewal. 

    In Psalm 51, David too is ravaged by guilt and grief over a terrible sin he’s committed. His affair with Bathsheeba and him sending her husband Uriah to the frontlines in battle where he was killed. 

    David pleads with God: Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! 

    And I return to John 3. A passage we preached from last fall. 

    After Jesus has said in John 3:3: Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God

    He will then talk of the cleansing which accompanies regeneration. 

    John 3:5-6: 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

    Water and Spirit. 

    To have faith is to have the Spirit and to have the Spirit is to be cleansed. 

    You have all sorts of rituals in the Old Testament. Washing is a powerful symbol of purity throughout various cultures and religions. 

    The washing that God gives through the Spirit is a cleansing of the human soul. 

    We see the language of this renewal again in Titus 3: 

    Titus 3:4-5: when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit

    It is because of the mercy of God that we are made morally clean through the work of the Holy Spirit. 

    So through regeneration, God cleanses us. 

    Through being born again, God cleanses us. 

    When Jesus says, “you must be born again,” that’s another fantastic metaphor for regeneration. 

    Because it is a new birth. You’re a new person in Christ. 

    Also, the metaphors matters because we are regenerated as a one time event. 

    Jesus said that we must be born again. He did not say that we must be born again…and again and again. 

    It’s not that we are saved today, then we lose that, then we do better and we’re saved tomorrow. Many Christians believe that. It’s not a Biblical idea. 

    And this is why systematic theology is important in considering the connection between various Bible teachings and how they work together. 

    I’ll again call to mind justification which was our topic last week. Justification, simply put, is right legal standing before God. You cannot be justified without being regenerated. And to be regenerated is to be justified. 

    So when we’re regenerated and given the Holy Spirit, and we’re justified in Christ and forgiven our sins, it’s something that only needs to happen once. You can only be born again once and the good news is that true salvation cannot be lost. 

    We’re sealed with the Holy Spirit as a guarantor of our salvation. 

    Ephesians 1:13-14: In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. 

    Second, the Spirit gives us a new heart 

    Returning to our passage in Ezekiel:  I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

    Once again, what an incredible metaphor that the Bible uses. I assume it’s because of the Bible that the heart has become such a powerful symbol in our culture. Think about it for just a moment. 

    Someone who’s very kind if referred to as tender-hearted. 

    Someone who’s unkind and unfeeling is called cold-hearted. When we’re really sincere, we say something is from the bottom of our heart. When we see an impressive athletic display, we say they played their heart out. Really difficult situations are seen as heartbreaking. 

    And there are lots more little phrases like that. It’s a powerful symbol in our culture that we see as being the seat of our emotions. Because of regeneration, God gives us a new heart. Thousands of Americans wait on donor lists in need of heart transplants. 

    Heart disease is annually the leading cause of death in America with more than 1 in 5 deaths coming from heart disease. 

    Our hearts don’t last forever. And certainly, the heart is important in the Bible. Love the Lord your God with all your…What comes first? Heart. 

    Quoting again from David in Psalm 51:10, he asks God: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me

    Jeremiah 17:9-10 says: 9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? 10 “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, 

    We cannot make our hearts pure. But the good news is that through regeneration, God does a heart transplant in us. 

    He gives us a new heart and a new Spirit. So the Spirit brings renewal through cleansing, it is through the Spirit that we are given a new heart. 

    Third, the Spirit enables us to follow God’s law 

    The gospel changes lives. 

    When we’re born again, that doesn’t mean that we never struggle, it doesn’t mean we’ll never sin. But we are forgiven. 

    We aren’t perfect but we’re declared righteous because of the righteousness of Christ. But true recognition of sin, true faith in Christ, that changes a person. And it’s often especially noticed when an adult comes to faith. 

    If you have a child who’s grown up in the church and always had faith as part of their life, that’s an incredible blessing. And there certainly is a moment when faith becomes more real to a person, where their trust truly is in the gospel. 

    But when you have someone who’s an adult and gone years of living their own way, pursuing their own interests and desires, and Jesus comes into their life, there should be fruit of that. 

    Not all at once. It’s not saying a person suddenly never has any areas where they struggle. It’s a process. We’ll talk more about that next week. But when the light of the gospel truly takes root in a person’s heart, it causes a change.

    It’s like you suddenly see the world through a different set of eyes. It’s like in the Wizard of Oz where the story goes from sepia to color. And the reason why there are changes and sudden changes is again due to the Holy Spirit and the process of conversion. 

    The Spirit enables us to follow God. 

    We certainly see that idea in our primary passage today. Consider Ezekiel 36:27: And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules

    It is theSpirit of God working in us which enables us to follow the will of God. 

    When God works in a person’s life, and transforms a person to love him and love him and enables a person to follow his commands, that is miraculous. 

    In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2)

    That same Spirit who was in the beginning, part of creation, and who hovered over the waters dwells every single person who is a Christian and who believes in the Good News of Jesus Christ. 

    How amazing is that! 

    And it’s not because of us. It’s because our God is a good God. 

    Consider Ezekiel 36:22: Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. 

    God’s works of grace are not because we were deserving. God ultimately makes grace available because of his character, because of his goodness, because of his faithfulness to the promises he had made, and for the sake of displaying his own divine glory and greatness. 

    Yes, God loves us. 

    But it’s not because we’re lovable but because God is loving. 

    And so through the gospel, through the work of Christ on the cross, we are forgiven and justified. 

    But what separates real faith, what separates the believers from the pretenders is regeneration. 

    In his systematic theology, Louis Berkhoff says: 

    Regeneration consists in the implanting of the principle of the new spiritual life in man, in a radical change of the governing disposition of the soul, which, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, gives birth to a life that moves in a Godward direction.

    Numerous passages in the New Testament talk about the work that God does in the life of a believer. 

    1 Corinthians 2:14-16: The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. 

    Consider Ezekiel again: I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules

    God works through us. We don’t regenerate ourselves. We don’t cause our own Spiritual growth. We participate in the work which God is doing in us but we don’t cause it. I hope that makes sense. 

    I realize that’s a somewhat complicated idea. 

    Think of the metaphor of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. I know some of us are farmers, some of us garden. 

    You’re working to help provide the conditions for the crops or for the fruit to grow. You have a role in that. But you’re not the one who’s actually causing the growth. 

    Yes, it’s important to walk with God, to pursue God, to pray to God, to spend time in his word, to serve his people, to serve his church. 

    And God can and does use that for our Spiritual growth and enrichment and sanctification. But it is God who produces the fruit through the mediation of the Holy Spirit. 

    We don’t produce our own fruit. 

    We don’t make ourselves joyful. God does through the Spirit. We don’t make ourselves peaceful and at peace, we can’t just will that in our own lives. God does that through the Spirit. 

    But the Spirit transforms. 

    The Spirit causes Spiritual growth and because of that true faith results in a life that is changed by the gospel. 

    In Philippians 2:13, Paul puts says: it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. 

    God works in us. New birth, being born again changes a person. 

    While it is through Christ that we are forgiven, justified, and given eternal life; we see that the Spirit is involved in bringing new life – specifically through cleansing us, through indwelling us, through causing a change in our heart, and by enabling us to live for God. 

    We have a good God who has made a way for sinful people to be forgiven. We must believe in his Son, Jesus Christ as Lord and savior.