“Yahweh is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?Yahweh is the strong defense of my life; whom shall I dread?When evildoers came upon me to devour my flesh, my adversaries and my enemies, they stumbled and fell. Though a host encamp against me, my heart will not fear; though war arise against me, in this I trust. One thing I have asked from Yahweh, that I shall seek: that I may dwell in the house of Yahweh all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of Yahwehand to inquire in His temple. For in the day of calamity He will conceal me in His shelter; in the secret place of His tent He will hide me; He will lift me up on a rock. And now my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me, and I will offer in His tent sacrifices with loud shouts of joy; I will sing, and I will sing praises to Yahweh. Hear, O Yahweh, when I call with my voice, and be gracious to me and answer me. On Your behalf my heart says, ‘Seek My face,’ ‘Your face, O Yahweh, I shall seek.’ Do not hide Your face from me, do not turn Your slave away in anger; You have been my help; do not abandon me and do not forsake me, O God of my salvation! For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but Yahweh will take me up. Instruct me in Your way, O Yahweh, and lead me in a level path because of my foes. Do not give me over to thedesire of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me, and such as breathe out violence. I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of Yahweh in the land of the living. Hope in Yahweh; be strong and let your heart take courage; hope in Yahweh.” (Psalm 27) So,we’ve now walked through “The Holiness of God”, “God’s Moral Law”, “Man’s Depravity”, “Hope”, “Faith”, and “Faith Exercised”. Today, I want to take us into “Regeneration”. As you just read Psalm 27, I welcome all of you to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord as we go through this; fix your hearts and eyes on the beauty of your Redeemer.
“Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews; this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, ‘Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ 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?’ Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which has been born of the flesh is flesh, and that which has been born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who has been born of the Spirit.’ Nicodemus answered and said to Him, ‘How can these things be?’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness of what we have seen, and you do not accept our witness. If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? And no one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.’” (John 3:1-15) This is a passage that if we’re being honest, has become an all too familiar passage. When God’s word, any of it, becomes “familiar” to us, there is a potential problem, as we end up not paying special attention to those passages. Let us, however, focus on two words our Lord said, “born again”. Do you know what it means to be born again? It is essential we do not misunderstand the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ, for we cannot understand the work of His grace without those two words. As He used those words, He is talking about the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit.
Like we’ve talked about many times before, because we are dead in trespasses and sins, we cannot move toward God until He first moves toward us. I mean let’s take this in an obviousmanner; think of it, during a funeral, the last person you would ever expect to react to anything is the corpse. Obviously, the reason is that the corpse is dead, it cannot respond, react, or do anything. “even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved –” (Ephesians 2:5) So, as we see it, God must first breathe life into us before we can exercise anything, especially belief. Without God’s regenerating mercy of the Holy Spirit, we will never comprehend the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; we will never see with any accuracy the state of our hearts; we will not grieve over our sin; we will be left ignorant of the fact that Jesus is our only hope; we will therefore never seek His forgiveness; never entrust ourselves to Him; never commit to living according to His will; we will never rest in Him and His grace. Why is that? Well, truth be told, and to be frank, you can’t grieve what you are unable to see, you cannot confess what you haven’t grieved, you cannot repent of that which you haven’t confessed. And so, we see Christ essentially saying, “Your only hope is that God would breathe life into you by His grace.” Once that life is breathed within, we can then see ourselves with accuracy; we can then understand the gospel of grace; we can then begin to experience conviction; we can then begin to confess sin and turn to Christ our Savior, our only hope in life and death.
Let us take heart, there is hope for fallen sinners. Even though we are naturally born spiritually dead, God has the power and the willingness to breathe new life into our dead hearts. That is the greatest news there is. We can rejoice in the doctrine and news of regeneration. Regeneration is the first step in the totality of redemption that God takes us through. People often are confused saying they’re born again, thinking that regeneration is the same thing as the new life in Christ. “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17) The fact that someone is a new person, or a new creation, means that he has a new life, but that new life is not the same thing as regeneration. Rather, it is the result of regeneration. Think of it this way, the days we live out now are a result of our physical birth. We wouldn’t say I’ve been born to describe our life, but rather the fact that we were born is the reason we are able to live the life we now live (granted that apart from Christ, that is not much of a life, as we are still technically dead in our trespasses and sins apart from Him). Let us take it a step further, everyone has a birthday each year, but we are not born each year. Birth only happens once, and it indicates the beginning of one’s existence as a person in this world. So, by necessity we must make a distinction between the beginning (or birth), and the life that flows out of the beginning (or birth). Not only shall we do this with the physical birth that we all experience, but with the supernatural birth as well, what we call regeneration.
When one is regenerated, there will be a new life because of that birth, and we seen that in the verse I just quoted above. See, there are some who upon the new birth or regeneration, their life is drastically changed almost immediately. Think of Paul’s “Road to Damascus” experience. There are also those who have a much more subtle experience that is hard to notice like an overnight change but will be noticed nevertheless when looking back over their lives, witnessing the changing/transforming work of God in them. I know for me personally; you could almost liken my spiritual life after regeneration to that of a roller-coaster ride. I would go from spiritual bliss to an anxious, almost spiritual depression. Going from highs to lows, from such highs to a profound sense of the absence of God, then to fall back into old sin patterns. However, it doesn’t matter how old or wise you are when God breathes new life into you, from that very moment God works regeneration in you, you are in your infancy of spiritual life. When thinking of babies, we know they go from one extreme to the next, crying profusely over wanting something, only for you to steal their attention and get them to laugh, and within secondslater the baby will be back to crying uncontrollably. Our spiritual lives in those first years tends to replicate such a pattern. Our highs are extreme highs, with our lows being some of the lowest of lows, until we finally settle into a more consistent pattern of spiritual behavior by God’s grace. The regeneration or new birth, it is merely the beginning of the process that goes on until we’re glorified with the Lord in His kingdom. Until then, the struggle continues from the day we are born again until that day in His kingdom where we reach the fullness of maturity in Christ.
Many seem to think the life of a born-again believer is only going to get easier, but that isn’t true at all. It isn’t until you’re born again that you start to really struggle, going to war every day with that which is of the flesh, the world, and the devil. See the life of an unbeliever never really struggles, at least not in things that pertain to eternity and godliness, they simply continue to do that which they’ve always done, carrying on in sin with not a care in the world for God or the things of God, nor with any care toward their own spiritual standing and eternity. The conflict within the born-again believer is ever persistent. Why? Because the capacity for the evil that resides within the heart of a regenerate person is almost without limit. We should not be overly shocked when we see Christian leaders falling into sin, even serious sin. We do have the power of a new life, but that doesn’t erase our pre-conversion tendencies. “But I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you do not do the things that you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition,dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.Now those who belong to Christ Jesus crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk in step with the Spirit. Let us not become those with vain glory, challenging one another, envying one another.” (Galatians 5:16-26)
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died has been justified from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all, but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! Do you not know that when you go on presenting yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were given over, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves torighteousness, leading to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. Therefore what benefit were you then having from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit, leading to sanctification, and the end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6)
“Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is master over a person as long as he lives? For the married woman has been bound by law to her husband while he is living, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband. So then, if while her husband is living she is joined to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is not an adulteress though she is joined to another man. So, my brothers, you also were made to die to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you might be joined to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were constrained, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter. What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! Rather, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law. For I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, worked out in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the Law sin is dead. Now I was once alive apart from the Law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died; and this commandment, which was to lead to life, was found to lead to death for me. For sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. Therefore did that which is good become a cause of death for me? May it never be! Rather it was sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin by working out my death through that which is good, so that through the commandment sin would become utterly sinful. For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, having been sold into bondage under sin. For what I am working out, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want, I agree with the Law, that it is good. So now, no longer am I the one working it out, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the working out of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one working it out, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that in me evil is present—in me who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in my members, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a captive to the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.” (Romans 7)
So, as mentioned, regeneration is merely the beginning. However, with that being said, it is the most beneficial and significant beginning one can ever have. All praise be to God for His grace in choosing to breathe new life into that which was dead, rebellious, enemies of His.