And turn with me to 1 Peter chapter 1, we're looking as we've been going verse by verse through the first epistle, the letter of the Apostle Peter to these scattered believers who are residing in Pontus and Galatia and Cappadocia and Asia and Bithynia. who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God by the sanctifying work of the Spirit to obey, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood. We're gonna continue in this today. I know that last time I was here, I've not lapsed in my memory. I realize that I've already preached through the end of chapter one, but there are these monumental verses that we need to spend more time upon. Verse 23 is one of those verses. I suspect that it's one of the most grandeur verses in the whole first letter. And so we're gonna take a little bit of time this morning and to develop verse 23 a little bit more than we did last time and let the Lord speak to us through his word. Take a look at it with me and we'll read the text and then I'll begin my introduction and we'll work our way through it to the glory of God. It says, for you have been born again. not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is through the living and enduring word of God. Once again, for you have been born again, anageneo, in the original language, begotten, not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is through the living and enduring word of God. This is a text that is so divinely packed with truth, isn't it? In fact, the title of my sermon gives a summation of it. Saved, saved, saved, that's the theme. That we've been born again, that we've been begotten by God, that we've been caused to be born again, verse three, by the gracious, glorious power of God. Listen, Grace Life Church, there is nothing more important than salvation. Your careers are not more important than salvation. Your relationships are not more important than salvation. Your children, your grandchildren, your 501, whatever you call that, 401K. is not more important than your salvation. All of these things fall woefully short of the glory and importance of our salvation. In fact, Jesus said in Mark 8 36, what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but forfeits his own soul? I think one of the greatest evidences of total depravity, the state in which a gracious soul is in, is the emphasis that we place on things that are temporary and the blindness that we have toward things that are everlasting. That we live for the moment, we live for pleasure, we live for comfort and not for the eternal things of God. And it's not only lost people that do that, good Christians battle with that kind of blindness too. We grapple with these things. And because of that, it's absolutely critical that we take verses like 1 Peter 1, verse 23, and open it up and press it upon our own hearts as Christians. The reality of the matter is we do not respond to the eternal gospel with the earnestness that we ought to. Because we're challenged as Christians, even believers, to take the weekly exposition of the Word of God as seriously and as soberly as we ought to. That there's a casual, a complacent mindset that we battle week to week as the Word of God is being preached. That complacency can become put on display by a constant flow of people ending up running around the building while the Word of God's being preached. That complacency is also put on display whenever we miss church without excuse. That complacency can be also put on display by being distracted and disinterested in the living and enduring Word of God. Need we remind you that the judgment seat of Christ is oncoming and irreversible. We shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give an account for the things that we've done while we're in the body. And the only provision that we have that will equip us to stand before God in white garment on that day is the eternal word of God that sanctifies us. Think about that. Also, we are aware that there are probably many unregenerate people that are lost in sin. I know that we have young people in this congregation that are unconverted. And I'd be naive to think that every member that we have in our membership is converted, because it does happen that unconverted people get into the membership, because fallible men can't know infallibly whether someone is saved or not. There are those in the midst of the congregation that there's not even a smidgen, if you can call that a word, of grace in their life that enables them to have a love for Christ and enables them to obey the word of truth. And if you're here today and you're unconverted, you're not saved, you're headed to the judgment seat of Christ unprepared and you will be condemned. The Word of God being preached is the solitary means that's been appointed by God to rescue or to deliver us from our sins. Solitary. There's no other way. Paul says, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation for those who believe. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. And then no man comes to the Father except through me. There's only one way. Wonderfully and most graciously in God's providence, you've been positioned to hear the gospel of grace week in and week out at Grace Life Church. Not only that, but you've been born into a free nation. You've been possibly born into a Christian home. Some of you teenagers have Christian parents and you're still dead in your sins. You've been in grace brought to a gospel church that pours forth the Word of God like a river flowing, swift, powerful preaching of the Word of God, but you've not believed the message of the cross. And that there's a triteness that's on the inside of you whenever the Word of the cross is being proclaimed. You just don't have much interest. It's my prayer this morning that the Spirit of the Lord will open up your eyes, He'll enliven your heart, He'll unplug your ears to take heed of the Word of God today. It's my prayer and has been my prayer that the Holy Spirit will awaken and alert you, bother you, convict you, draw you, and that you will be born again gloriously by the power of the Holy Spirit of God. My aim this morning is to open this text and to press it upon all of us because our text this morning is pregnant with grace to work in us to renew Christians and to regenerate sinners. Lastly, some of you here this morning are backslidden. And some of you that will be listening to this sermon are backslidden in that you've become dangerously comfortable. Sadly, you make Laodicea look fiery hot. And sadly, you make the church of Ephesus look like their love is radiant. And I call your attention to the word of God this morning because the same gospel that saves is the same gospel that renews our love and our commitment to the Lord. It's the same gospel, same message, same power. So my prayer is that the Holy Spirit of God will revive you and reignite those embers that may have grown cold. And just as the Apostle Paul warned the believers of Antioch to heed the gospel that he has been proclaiming to them, I warn you with his warning. He says in Acts 13, 40 and 41, He's repeating Habakkuk 1, 3, where the Chaldeans are soon to come and take them away swiftly into judgment. because they had taken the Word of God tritely and were living loosely and bringing dishonor to the name of the Lord. He goes on to say, behold, you scoffers, and marvel and perish, for I'm accomplishing a work in your day, a work which you will never believe, though some would should describe it to you. So my admonition this morning is the same admonition Paul gave, that we will take heed of the Word of God. It's my prayer that Christ will receive glory from his church, that we would marvel at the great miracle of the new birth, that we might be careful with the gospel, that we might give it our most diligent attentiveness this morning and love. Before I launch into my first point, remember the context that Peter has written to the chosen people of God who have found themselves in crisis. Persecution and peril have become widespread, much like the situation in Europe right now. He's already written to them to challenge them to remember and to rehearse the greatness of the gospel in verse 3, chapter 1. In verse 4, he wants them to keep their future reward in view. Verses 6 and 7, he wants them to know that their trial is not without its purpose. Verses 10 through 13, he reminds them that that purpose is the salvation of their souls. I'm sorry, verse 9. And then in verses 10 to 13, he traces the greatness of the gospel and the newness of salvation to the Old Testament truths, to the prophets. Verses 14 through 16, he calls them to live holy no matter what they're facing. No matter what they're facing, live holy. Verse 19 and 20 calls their attention to the person of their salvation, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the outflow of that salvation is love for other Christians in verse 22. And now we find ourselves in verse 23 when he's driving home the glory of the new birth, this radical work of God in the human heart. He emphasizes the means that God uses, which is the gospel of grace, the word of the living God, to raise up dead sinners to new life by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. But the main point of the text is, is the miraculous nature of the new birth and the glorious root, which is the gospel of God. So let's take note of this glorious root and we're gonna look at the first part of our text in verse 23. Peter has just informed us that obedience to the truth, verse 22, and sincere love for the brethren is the fruit of a regenerated heart. A regenerated or a heart that has been born again. We are to understand by that terminology that we have no power nor do we have desire for these kinds of graces unless God first acts in power to give us his divine nature. 2 Peter 1.4, he's granted us his divine nature. Every believer, he's done that in the new birth. and that the effect of having a new heart is obedience towards God and love for the Lord's people. That's out of a heart that's been made alive, regenerated by the grace of God. This is what regeneration is. It's the power of God taking dead sinners and giving them that new heart, that new principle of life, and giving them what they need to honor God with their life. It really is a... a miraculous thing that someone perverse and wicked and sinful and God-hating now will be loving and honoring God with their life and substance. I don't want you to be confused about the word regeneration. It's simply a synonym for the new birth. When it talks here about being born again, it is a synonym to say regeneration. And Paul now is expressly tying this work of God to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then nobody's saved unless they have the gospel preached to them. When the Word of God here in our text mentions the Word of God, most scholars are in unanimous agreement. It's talking about the gospel. It's talking about the gospel. Jesus Christ is the meaning of the Word of God. Whenever it says Word of God, that is Logos in the original text, it is synonymous with the gospel. But first of all, I want you to note the seed. The salvation is birthed, note what it says, by the seed. Look at it again. I'm going to speak it in the positive, whereas the text gives it to us in the negative. For you have been born again of seed. You see it? Now, it has the word not in there because he wants to give you the idea not of imperishable seed, but imperishable, not perishable, not a seed that dies or passes away, but an eternal seed that does not. But you can literally render it this way, for you have been born again of seed, imperishable seed. That word here, and the Greek literally, it's a plural noun, it should be literally rendered seeds, but it has the idea of seed being sown. We get the idea in the parable of the seed and the sower in Luke 8, 11. Now the parable is this, the seed is the word of God. Also there is in our text the idea of procreation, birth, and seed are interrelated and then also interdependent, aren't they? You can't have a child born if there's not seed. And you can't have the new birth if there's not seed. Childbirth is the result of a seed that's been sown. Let me tell you a funny story. I was teaching a children's class on Saturday night in Muscle Shoals, Alabama to all the little children, the people that were there at the conference, and I mean, they kind of sprung this on me. Originally, I was supposed to just give, tell us what God's doing at Grace Life Church prior, and then I get there, and they say, oh, by the way, you have three classes, 25 minutes apiece, and you're supposed to preach the gospel to them. I think no one told me that. He says, oh, I can do that. So I'm preaching, then I would question the children afterward. I mean, I've got like four-year-olds up through 11, 12-year-olds. A little four-year-old raises a hand. How did that baby get in my mama's tummy? And I'm like, boy, I've got to learn to think quick on my feet now. I said, well, honey, God put that baby in there through mom and daddy. I said, and anything else you want to know, ask mommy. Stacy's over her eyes were that big around, like, what are you going to do with that one, pal? But childbirth is the result of a seed that's been sown. That seed is necessary for childbirth. If you don't have a seed, you can't have a baby. And it's that way in salvation. Salvation simply cannot occur unless there's a seed sown. What is the Great Commission other than a command from the Lord for us to go in to sow seed? That we're to go into all of creation and preach the gospel, Mark 16, 15. So the miracle of the new birth is preceded by the gospel seed being deposited. And Romans 10 14 tells us that it's through the preaching of the gospel. Those declarations of the truth of the gospel of Christ. that the church itself is the pillar and the support of the truth, the lively members in the context of a local church is to go forth from our meeting place and to disseminate the seed of the gospel that God might rise up out of it an army for His glory and praise. That means that you are to take this gospel and to go into the workplace and to go into the corridors of the streets and the highways and the byways and to compel them to come in. to take the living and abiding seed of the Word of God and to broadcast it, and that the Holy Spirit will breathe new life in the dead sinners. I wanna note in our text, the seed is imperishable. Look at that with me in verse 23a. For you have been born again, not of seed which is perishable, or corruptible, but imperishable, or the King James says incorruptible. that the Word of God is pure, the Word of God is the means, the undefiled, perfect and pure nature, the Word of God that's come forth from God to bring forth the miraculous work of the Spirit in the new birth. But what Peter is writing to show us is that although the seed of man is subject to corruption, not the seed of God, There's a great vivid contrast. That the seed of man is corrupted. It is tainted with sin. That there's only a temporal nature to it. But the seed of God is not that way. It's an eternal seed. It's not subject to decay. It's not subject to corruption. It is God's Word. The psalmist wrote in Psalm 19, seven through nine, the law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. I mentioned the contrast here, that human seed is corruptible. God's seed is not. God's seed is eternal. It is unchanging. It cannot perish. It cannot pass away. The seed of man through procreation is subject to decay. It's subject to corruption, but not God's seed. He's not like us. There's a pure enduring character to the Word of God. In fact, Jesus said in Luke 21, 33, that heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words will not pass away. You know, we, in our fallenness, we like to place value upon items with regard to the virtue of how their lifespan is. We, as guys, we like things like watches, and then we look at a real nice expensive watch, and we see the value with that watch based upon its multi-generational longevity. Well, this watch will be given to my grandkids or my great-grandkids. You try to convince your wife that the Rolex is better than the Timex. You know, you women are laughing, say, you knucklehead, the Timex is just fine, but you do the very same thing with your diamond rings. Why can't we just get you a ring made out of glass and put it on your hand? It looks nice. You're like, but it doesn't have any enduring character to it. In about five years, that glass is gonna look terrible, but the diamond is gonna glisten. I want my great, great, great granddaughters to wear my wedding ring. Don't you buy me a cheap one, mister, I'll knock you out. So we see the value with regard to the longevity. Ron, you was talking about the first house you built. You built that house for longevity. It's a 40-year-old house now that looks brand new. We place value upon things on the basis of the long-lasting quality, that the value, therefore, is premised upon how long it lasts. The Word of God lasts forever. The psalmist said in Psalm 119, 127, therefore, I love your commandments above gold. Yes, above fine gold. The value, the word of the Lord is enduring and is everlasting, that there is a value here over the lifespan, that it's not gonna diminish, that the word of the Lord is the same as it has always been, that it does not have an expiration date, it will endure. The gospel is adored for all of eternity. Did you know that in heaven we're gonna sing the gospel? Revelation 5-9 is a portrait of what we will be and do. It says, You have redeemed a people from all nations. You've purchased them with your blood. The church is singing and the angelic choir is singing to the glory of God. And what are we singing? Whenever we are glorified, what will we sing? We will sing the gospel of Jesus Christ forever and ever and ever. It never wears out. Its glory and its wonder will never wax old with us. That's the gospel we have, it's also living. Look at the text. Through the living, so it's imperishable, but it's the living and enduring word of God. It's alive. The term living here, zao in the original language, refers to resurrection life, it refers to divine life. What we have in the word of God is not dead orthodoxy, it is living truth. The Hebrew's writer in Hebrews 4.12 says, for the word of God is living and active and more powerful and sharper and more active than any two-edged sword. The word of the Lord is alive. It has eyes, it sees me. It has feet, it chases after me, Bunyan once said. that every word that we have in the Holy Scripture has been inspired or theonoustos, breathed out by God, has the divine essence about it, properties of the divine life of God. And just as human seed is alive in procreation, divine seed is alive and it brings about regeneration. Did you think about that this morning when you got up and you were getting around for church, that you came into the house of God, to the corporate fellowship, that the word of the living God will be preached in the power of the spirit on this Lord's day, and that the word of the Lord will be alive, but also active. Effective, causing something to happen, is what that word really means. Effective, causing something to happen. I mean, have we fallen to fanciful or worldly ideas about the Bible, unhealthy thoughts that the Bible is a dead book? Have we come into the assembly of Grace Life this morning doubting and having unbelief about the ability of the Word of God, the Gospel of Christ to work in our life? Listen, if you have, cast those vain imaginations down. Repent, because those are blasphemous thoughts. Back to John chapter 11, when Jesus called to Lazarus in the grave, it was an authoritative word that raised him to new life. Lazarus, come forth. And the dead man lived. And whenever the gospel of God is being proclaimed, that the Holy Spirit uses the life-giving power of the gospel of God, the unchangeable Word of God, to give new life to us. Parents, your children that are dead in their sins, their hope is in Christ and the word that he gives. The word of Christ and the exercise of his will, he brought us forth by the word of truth, James 1, 18. John Calvin, the Geneva Reformer says, when the Bible speaks, God speaks. Every Christian at some level has experienced the life-giving power of the gospel of God. that we've been enlivened through the Word of God. We have come face to face with this resurrection power that we know by experience that the Word of the Lord is alive, quickening, and it's powerful, that the ability and the grace and the stamina and the ability of the Word of God has not changed, it's not lost its steam. And it never will. We're such a privileged people, aren't we? I read a book about the Chinese missionaries locked up in jail for the gospel, and they would have just like one little page out of a small New Testament Gideon Bible from the Gospel of John. They cherished it more than they cherished their own lives. They would read it and memorize every word on those pages front and back, and then they would somehow get it to another inmate, and they would read and cherish it and pray over it and memorize it. Then they'd give it to another inmate, and it would make its way through the whole prison with all the believers there. All they had was one page out of the Gospel of John, and they cherished that page more than life itself. May God produce that in us, that kind of a love and commitment to the Word of God. We have the Word of God weekly here. I listen to Pastor Tommy's sermon from Sunday. It's such a, when you guys preach, it's such incredible proclamation, such a diversity of gifts with our elders. I mean, some more didactic teaching gifts, and some more declarative gifts, and the power of the Spirit, both is the Spirit-empowered preaching. But this book is held high, whether it is Jason preaching, whether it is Tommy preaching, or me. The reason that we have unanimity with the elders is because we all have the same view of this book. Sure, there's different backgrounds, there's different scenarios and different upbringings. They're not even remotely the same. But one thing is the same, that we have the same view of this book. And we believe in the power of the gospel being proclaimed. And that we're, listen, not only are we dogmatic about it, we're bulldogmatic about it. The next thing is we see that the Word of God endures. This is another familiar term for those of you that are Greek guys and gals. This word meno, M-E-N-O, or menontos in the original language means to abide. If you abide in me, my words will abide in you, Jesus says. There's an abiding nature to the Word of God, that same term, it just simply means to remain. It has the idea of longevity or continuance. It's a present active participle, for those of you that care, but it indicates the ongoing and the unending nature of the Word of God. That means that there's a work of God in your heart, that the Word of God brings about new life, and it's gonna continue to work in you till the day that you die, that he will conform you to Christ. He'll do it by the sweet, wonderful wooings, or he'll do it by the word of God coming down on you like a power hammer. I was at Billy Helton's one day, forging a big blade for Cody for his birthday. I couldn't do it with the, this is the only power hammer I got in my shop, and it's a bad one. But he's got one of these things, and it comes down with force. You can't imagine the power of this thing. You step your foot on that thing, and that thing comes down with thousands of pounds of power, whoom! I mean, it's like a, it's a mighty force. I mean, you can take a big thick piece of steel and squish it thin in a hurry with that. It would take me a week and I probably still couldn't do that with my hammer. But the Word of God will be a hammer that will crush you. If the wooing of the Spirit will not do it, the crushing bellows of the Lord will. But there is an enduring nature to the Word of God. It does not pass away, as we read Jesus saying in Matthew 24, 35, that there's not a wit of decay or change to the Word of God. In fact, the heavens and the earth will pass away, but not the enduring nature of the Word of God. it's gonna keep on producing, that there's a permanence to the word of God. You and me, we're flesh, we're like the flower of the field, we're here today and gone tomorrow, but the word of God is immutable and unchanging. Second John two, it says, the truth which abides in us and will be with us forever. That word there, aeon, in the Greek means forever, it means unto eternity. They can burn this particular book, but they do no harm to the Word of God. It abides forever. You know, I continue to proclaim from this pulpit the greatest need you have for me is to be in the study that I might preach the gospel to you every week in the power of the Spirit. It's not beneficial to drag me to places with your kids' ball teams. It's not beneficial to make me go to the ice cream social, although I'm not against ice cream. But listen, demand that I be in the study. Demand that I be parsing my Greek participles. Demand that I be in the Word of God to cut it straight, to be a man of prayer, to be a man of the Word, that whenever I come to this pulpit, that I am filled with the Holy Spirit and that there will be as what I heard at the True Church Conference, holy aftermath in your heart. Cut me loose in the pulpit, but don't bind me where I can't study. Demand that your pastor and every pastor that comes after me will be a man of the word of God. I don't need to be the king of the social club, I don't need to go to every church event, but what I do need to do is to be on my face and have my face planted in the holy book of God that I might come and to preach to you the life-giving power that's in the gospel. Demand that from me. And if I don't do that, you fire me and get somebody that will. Who said yes? You know what? Your life's dependent upon it. Your children's salvation is dependent upon the gospel, the truth being preached and the power of the spirit. In fact, your marriage is dependent upon it. The ascribed glory of Christ is dependent upon it, not his native glory, but his ascribed glory, the glory that we give him, is dependent upon the Word being preached, the power of the Spirit. It's that essential. The Holy Spirit of God uses the Word of God to cultivate the likeness of God in us. We need the Word of God. Note the miraculous fruit here in this text. Is everybody okay? We will nourish your body when I get done. The new birth is described as Henry Skoogle wrote in his little book, and I encourage you to get this, The Life of God in the Soul of Man. You have that one, Vern? The Life of God in the Soul of Man. Write that title down if you don't have that little book. The Life of God in the Soul of Man by Henry Skoogle. He's an old man of God, S-C-O-U-G-A-L. But he made a great argument that regeneration is simply the life of God in the soul of man. And that's a great way to put it. That the imperishable and living and powerful seed of God is life-giving to the church. You know, it's amazing to me that the church is what they've given up. They've got everything else going on and they gave up the gospel. They've even physically removed pulpits from the churches, where it's very rare today to find a pulpit in the church. It's very rare to hear expository preaching in the church today, that we've got programs and we've got pageantries and we have all these things, but we have one great lack, and that's preaching. And if you don't have preaching, you don't have a church, no matter what you term it. That God uses the active, living, authoritative Word of God to raise up a church out of the ashes of depravity. the word of God. Peter here is boldly telling us that the seed of God's word is what God uses to enliven us or to birth us into the kingdom of God. He shows us that this is the assertion of divine power through the gospel by which you and I are wrested out of this kingdom of Satan and then transferred into the kingdom of God's dear son, Jesus Christ. Colossians 1.13, for he has rescued us from the domain of darkness and then transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved son. I like that, don't you? It's a divine rescue mission that God uses the gospel to rescue souls that are bound by the chains of darkness, that are slaves of sin. I think one of the greatest confusions of the evangelical church is what constitutes the new birth. And you all that are familiar with some of the battles going on in apologetics today, is what is it that constitutes the new birth or regeneration or salvation? Some would say it this way, that the new birth is to have some level of a mental agreement that Jesus was in fact a true historical figure that claimed to be God, that you just simply nod your head to a couple assertions that Jesus actually came physically. There will be some that think that salvation is simply making a decision for Christ, whatever that means, and just be sincere enough. There are others that think you gotta walk forward and pray a little prayer and invite Jesus into your heart. And that's what constitutes the new birth. And those are just absolutely naive biblically. And inaccurate, by the way. The new birth, beloved, is nothing short of a creative miracle of God by which God changes our nature and imparts his very own nature into ours. It's a radical, life-changing work of God that results in a radical change in us. Jesus rebuked the nation of Israel, and I would say that His rebuke echoes today and rebukes the evangelical church. Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say? And for those of you that are in the evangelical know that the evangelical church, especially in the Western hemisphere, says very little about obedience to the Lord. It's almost like a religious social club of sorts. It's just heartbreaking. But here's what the New Birth does. It turns rebels into worshipers. The new birth turns thieves into givers. The new birth is the divine ousting of the old man, and it's the inauguration of the new man. It's the end of the reign of sin and death, and it's the inauguration of the indwelling and leading of the Holy Ghost of God. Paul penned it this way, I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live. But it is Christ who lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Sounds to me like a new life altogether. He says, I'm crucified with Christ, but nevertheless I live, yet not I, but it's Christ who lives on the inside of me, that I'm living a new life, empowered by the Spirit of Christ. I've got a new aim, I have a new trajectory. Listen to me, and I got a brand new engine. The Holy Spirit who, brooded over the deep, that brought the power of God to bear and created ex nihilo, lives on the inside of every saint of God. He lives in me. The work of the new birth is the miraculous work of God by which dead sinners are breathed upon by God through the gospel of grace and they come forth out of the valley of dry bones as an unstoppable army to the glory of God. I want you to notice implications quickly. It says you have been born again. This is a past tense thing. You have been born again. Born anew. Don't you see there a presupposition? A presupposition which insists that there was a reign of death prior to the reign of Christ? I want you to note quickly that the text implies that we were dead in our sins, weren't we? He didn't find us morally weak. He didn't find us almost making it. He found us like corpses. But ye were dead in transgressions and sins, Paul says to Ephesus. Jesus made this statement to that teacher of Israel, that religious man, Nicodemus, for whatever is born of flesh is flesh, but whatever is born of spirit is spirit. The point that Jesus was making, it was this. Nicodemus, you've been birthed by the flesh, but you've not been birthed by the spirit. He's, I get that you're the teacher of Israel, I get that you're in the sphere of divine things. I get that you have memorized the Bible. I get that you probably know the Pentateuch by memory, every word of it, but you are lost. You've been burned by the flesh, but you've not been burned by the spirit. Nicodemus is like, I'm dead in my transgressions and so much, I don't even understand a word you're saying. Jesus said the wind of God's gonna blow. There's gotta be a miracle. There's gotta be a radical reorienting. There's gotta be a new heart with new desires implanted. There needs to be a divine extricating of the old man and a divine implanting of the new. I've gotta do in you what you can't do in you. I gotta take out that engine. I gotta put a Boss 429 in there for you car people. You know, maybe you have been that way. Raised in church, raised in proximity to the gospel. Listen to me, young people, teenagers, children, little children, listen. You've been maybe raised in Grace Life Church since you've been born, but you are not indwelt with the Spirit. You need the Holy Spirit to work in you. Church, never forget this, that the natural man is not irreligious, but hyper-religious. I was talking with Sonny C. Mack, my missionary, that I pray for in my small group. Not my missionary, he's God's missionary, but we pray for him, so he's like my brother. We were sitting at a table this last week, and he's telling me that where he's at in Southall, England, is surrounded by Hindis, Muslims. I mean, all these different religions. He said, there's not an atheist anywhere in sight where we live, but they're all following pagan gods. And the inroad of the gospel is very slow there. But the thing I want to bring out is that these people are all worshiping something. The natural man is not irreligious. We will worship something. It might be Madonna, but we will worship. The natural man can even amen sermons. The natural man can raise his hands in the song service. You can have all the outward signs of spiritual life and be altogether dead in your sins. And here's how we know that the constancy of sin in the people's life that are religious outwardly and dead inwardly, the constancy of sin cannot be broken. The track record of sin and the dominance of the power of sin is not broken. Listen, every spirit-filled Christian formerly was dead in sins and transgressions. Every Christian was formerly a child of the devil. Every Christian was previously a slave of sin, but God, I'll get to this in a moment. There are things that cannot be mimicked in the Christian life. And one of them is the power of sin cannot be broken without the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit of God. Nor can Christ, the Christ of the Bible that we was talking about, the Christ of the Bible, he cannot be loved or right unless you're regenerated. Because there's a natural enmity. The second thing is, our text implies that we've been acted upon in power in regeneration, for you have been born again. That term there, I've mentioned again and again, anageneto, literally means to become, it means to be begotten. I like what Joseph Thayer, the Greek expert guy, leaned on a lot. He says it means to beget anew, it means to produce again. Listen to this, how he puts it. It means regeneration is a thorough change of the mind of a person so that that person lives a new life that is conformed to the will of God. It's a miraculous divine work. At Grace Life Prior, we believe that regeneration is a miracle. We don't believe in decisional regeneration, that we make an informed decision and then that God acts. No, we believe that God empowers through the gospel acts and gives us new life that we might have faith and then repentance. The reason that we're born of God is not because we're smarter, it's not because we're more informed, it's not because of some geographical position, but that God in grace of the gospel has apprehended us, he's called us like Lazarus out of the tomb, and we could not but come out. Verse three, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again. Sounds to me like God is the one doing the work here. He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. This is nothing more than a seizing or an apprehension of the soul. This is nothing more or less than a divine enlivening, an invasion. He found us in our sins, dead, and he quickened us. He raised us up to the gospel of the power of the Spirit. You turn the page over to chapter two, verse nine, you're a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people that belong to God, that he's called us, called us, that we might proclaim his excellencies. He's called us out of darkness. That word there is an interesting term. It says that we might proclaim the excellencies of him who has called us out of darkness. Kaleo. It means to cause to pass from one state unto another. We're not believers because we contributed something to our salvation. And we're not Christians because we have been saved by our native faith. No, we've not been saved by faith, we've been saved by Christ. And there's a difference. If you want to make the argument that you have been saved by faith, you join up with the Haganites. It's not your faith that has saved you, it is Christ the Savior that has saved you. And he's used the instrument of faith. By the way, he sovereignly gifted you with that instrument of faith because dead men don't believe. I like to use the illustration of Lazarus who had been four days dead underneath that Palestinian sun. His sister, in fact, argued with the Christ when he said, take the stone away. She said in good King James language, but Lord, he stinketh. We're going to be completely appalled when we get to heaven that Mary and Martha didn't speak in Elizabethan English. Jesus commanded the stone to be taken away from that little cave tomb that Lazarus had been placed in, and he called him to come forth. He called him to come forth. Same term. John 11, 44, listen to this. The man who had died came forth. Isn't that what happened to youth at the Gospel Proclamation? Young people, teenagers, that's what you need God to do in you. Little children, Hallie, Katie, Pagie, we need God to call you to new life. You need the quickening power of the Spirit. Cummings boys, you need Christ. We need the power of the Gospel to come to bear Travis and Tyler upon your heart. And the most important thing in your life right now is the Gospel Proclamation because apart from it, there's no salvation. Thank God in his wonderful sweet providence he's brought you to Grace Life Church to hear this over and over and over and over. You'll hear it in your small groups, you'll hear it in your conversations, in fellowship, you'll hear it from the pulpit. And listen, may it please the Lord to save every one of our children in this place, that he might crown them with the gospel of grace and he might bring them to new life, call them into ministry and glorify his renown through our children. I like what Paul Washer always says. He says that it took more divine power to regenerate you than it took to create the whole universe ex nihilo. He says in the new birth, God took something perverse and wicked and made it pure and clean. He took something that was radically wicked and he made it holy. In creation, God just simply made from nothing. And his argument is that God asserted more divine power to regenerate you than it took to create the entirety of the cosmos. Listen to me, no one had to die to create the cosmos. But the second person of the Godhead had to be crushed by God for you and I to be raised to new life. If that doesn't help, fortify the argument. We've been called out of darkness that we might do what? Worship Him, that we might show forth the praises of Him who called us out. If you're wondering why you have been saved, you have been saved to make much of Christ. I want you to note the third thing, that we were radically informed. Our text implies that, doesn't it? Note that underscore, that you have been born again. Paul asked the believers in Rome this pivotal question, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? And he says, God forbid. And I'm sure Paul had that apostolic eye when he said that, God forbid. How can we who have died to sin still live in it? The NAS says, may it never be, Romans 6, one to two. What he's saying here is that in the new birth, there's a principle of divine life that's granted to us, that's given to us in grace that radically, powerfully ousts the power of sin and death. So Paul's response to his own question now, as we see this is such emotionally charged response, he's basically, and scholars were pretty much unanimous in this, in Romans 6, one and two, shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase? And he's saying this, never, never, never. It's not possible to be born again and continue in the same patterns of sin. That the new birth, what does it do? It sets our affections upon Christ. that our trajectory, our aim, our lifestyle is radically changed and differently oriented, that we're not the same as we used to be. Our aim is different. Now listen to me, a Christian can sin, but it's not the same as before. Listen, before God saved me, I would sin, I would let the cup fill up and run over, and not one whit of conviction. After I became a Christian, if the enemy tempted me and I fell on account of weakness, I was absolutely soul-wrecked. I was so bothered, I was so heavy, and I was so burdened that I would fall on my knees before the Lord and confess and forsake my sin. But not before God regenerated me. I mean, I was like a fish in water. I'm just always wet. I was always in sin before the Lord regenerated me. But there's a radical difference in our relationship with sin. We're not sinning the way that we've always sinned before. There's no continuation in sin. Listen, if you've been gotten, if God, you've struggled with the drugs before, you can't continue doing drugs. God won't permit it, your heart won't yearn it. If you've been struggling with sexual illicit sin, listen, you won't be able to continue in it. You won't be able to continue in it. Well, can a person backslide? Yes, but you will not be able to continue in it. By the way, this might make some of you mad, but I'm gonna say it anyway. And you know I love you, and I don't want you mad at me, but I have more reverence for the truth than I care about whether you're mad. We're living in a state that has medical marijuana, and you and I both know it's a big old ruin. People are smoking marijuana not because they need to feel better physically, but because they want to get high. This is not your grandfather's marijuana. This stuff is amped up with such an amount of THC that the first time you draw off of it, you begin to get high. It is sin. Well, it's legal, so is abortion, so is divorce, so is fornication, but God hates it. And if you're dabbling in it, you're in sin. Unless you've got brain cancer and you're throwing your guts up and a doctor prescribes it to you, that's a different story. But if I'm just anxious, I need it to calm me down. Have you ever cried out to the Lord? That's what Christians do. Listen to me, I'm anxious too. When I went through a church split and all my friends abandoned me, it hurt and I cried and my heart was ripped out of my chest. But I didn't go out and buy a doobie and smoked it, I went to the Lord. We're living in such a wicked, perverse time that things that, to our forefathers, would have been an abyss, now have been embraced. And now it's culturally, and even within the realm of the Christian church, palatable. Grace Life Church, hear this man of God, it is sin. And when you get to heaven, the Lord will say amen. The pastor told you, it is sin, it is sin, it is sin. It alters your mind. It creates further dependencies upon other chemicals. And I can get off on my hobby horse and go for a long time, but Grace Life Church, listen to this man of God. You need to get rid of that garbage. You need to repent of your sin and trust the Lord that he will work in your life without smoking weed. Bless the Lord. Listen, the new birth has radically reoriented us to where we have a Christ-ward affection, that our trajectory is set upon Christ. Our aim is different. Our relationship with sin is not the same. We cannot continue in a life that is unsubmissive to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. We cannot continue to treat the word of the Lord as if it is unimportant. Now to be sure, Christians still struggle with sin. I'm not saying that, yes. But we turn to Christ. We turn to Him in repentance and contrition. We turn from our sin. We flee to the arms of Christ. That in regeneration, that our view of sin has been radically altered because we've been born of God. We see the exceeding sinfulness of sin. We understand that sin is treason against a holy God and we flee it. Regeneration is what I'm trying to argue is a life-altering, life-changing, miraculous event that we're new. All is new. Behold, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature. All old things are passed away. Behold, new things have come. With so many people, the only thing that changes is their vocabulary. We learn the Christian jargon. We learn the talk, but our hearts are still dead in sin. We also can learn the habits of Christianity, but then we just keep going back to the swine's husks. The power of sin fuels the pleasure of sin, and when that power is unbroken, it's because there's not been a new heart. So much of the Christian life can be mimicked without any grace at all. It doesn't take any grace to come to church. The devil goes, right? It doesn't take any grace to read your Bible. It doesn't take any grace to even learn doctrine. You can be dead in your sins and be a five-point Calvinist. You can attend small groups without grace. And you can have interests in spiritual things and have no grace. But there are two things that cannot be mimicked without grace. Are you ready? Verse them, you cannot love the Christ of the Bible. Listen, that calls you to die and to bear a cross. He that comes after me must deny himself and take up his cross and follow after me. And by the way, crosses do not pacify, they crucify. They kill people. That's the Christ we're following. He says, your life's done, pal. Lady, your life's over. It's not about you, it's about my glory. Bear the cross, let's go. Listen, if you don't have grace, true grace, you cannot love that Christ. Another thing you cannot do, you cannot cut your ties with your sin. You can put it off for a week or two. You might morally improve for a few months. I'm talking about in the long haul, you're gonna go back to it like a pig goes right back to its wallow and a dog goes back to its vomit. If you don't have divine grace, you're sunk, your sin still owns you. You're still a slave to sin and you need still this miracle of God, listen, which he promises through the gospel to do and to regenerate you and give you a new heart. Well, my time is about gone. Let me give you some admonition. What does your heart bring forth? Jesus said, the good man out of the treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and the evil man from the evil treasure brings forth what is evil, for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart. Little children, let me ask you a question. In our children's church, in the day-in, the day-out, week-in, week-out life, little children, what does your heart bring forth? Do you obey your parents consistently? Teenagers, does your heart bring forth purity? Is there obedience to God or are there hidden images in your heart that God hates? Are you good whenever you come to church but whenever you leave you're so sinfully deviant you're ashamed? Jesus said this to Nicodemus, unless you are born again, you cannot see the kingdom of God. Your greatest need is this work, this miracle of God to bring you into the kingdom of God. You need to repent, turn from your sin, believe the gospel. Listen, you may be seven years old here this morning and you've not put your trust in Christ, but this day is the day of salvation as the apostle Paul said to Corinth. Jesus was rebuking and giving Israel or Jerusalem over for their sins because they rejected him. And he said, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who were sent to her, how often I wanted to gather you as children gathered together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it. Behold, your house is left to you desolate. Those are very hard words. How long will you pretend to be who you're not? How long will you continue to be the play actor on the stage, the Christian stage? Your greatest need is the greatest gift God's given, and that's Jesus Christ and the gospel account of who he is and what he's done. Teenagers, you need to believe. Turn to Christ. Have you been play acting? Your amen is good, but your life outside of here is in shams. Listen, we are approaching the judgment seat of God. I watch the news and see the events of the world. I'm like, Lord, how long? His word says, until these elect are gathered from the four winds. But we don't know when that is, do we? Are you creating friends when to bed one night and woke up in a totally different world? That's going to happen here someday. They're used to going underground. They've done it before. We've not. Your greatest need is regeneration. Your greatest need is to be born again. Teenagers, listen to pastor. Children, listen to pastor. Lost church members, you must be born again. You can't fake it with God. He knows what's in you. Look to Christ and live. I want you to think about those two things that cannot be faked and mimicked without grace. The Lordship of Christ asserted in your life to follow Him, bearing your cross, denying yourself. Is that a joy to you or is that a job? Think about that. And is there sin in a continual pattern in your life that, listen, that you have no power over? It just keeps raining in your life. Listen, you can sing, you can amen, you can shout, you can lift your hands. Listen to me, it's all a farce. Unless Jesus is Lord and he's conquered your heart. For you have been born again, not of seed, corruptible, but incorruptible through the, what? unchanging, enduring word of the Lord, the living word of God. Our greatest need is God's greatest gift, the gospel of God. Let's pray. Lord, I pray that today that this word, Lord, will be heard, not as usual, but Lord, heard with the ears granted by the Holy Spirit of God. And Lord, that we will turn from our sin and believe the message of the gospel, that we will turn away from sin by the power of the Holy Spirit, and that we'll walk in a new and a living way for the glory of the King who has begotten us again through the gospel. Lord, may you draw, may you convict. Lord, may you work your work. Lord, I pray even now that the Holy Spirit of God convict sinners' hearts. that they'll be transparent. Lord, I've been faking it. I'm not a true Christian. Maybe there'll be a young person, Lord, that you're moving upon their heart, that they will come and talk to pastor and say, I need Jesus. Lord, that you'll bring conviction upon their soul, that you will give them a new heart with new desires, that you will work the work in them. Lord, that you will arrest them for your name and your glory and your renown and turn them. Lord, I pray that all of our little children, Lord, will bow their knee to the supremacy of Christ. Lord, I pray for revival in this church. I pray, Lord God, our teenagers will bow their knee to Christ's supremacy, that they will put off the old and put on the new, that they'll repent and believe. Lord, they'll be radically arrested and transformed by the cross and the power. of the gospel. Holy Spirit, quicken them, bring them to saving faith in Christ. Not one of them would perish, Lord, that not one of our children, not one of our teens would perish eternally. Lord, quicken them. Lord, sound the alarm in their heart, oh God. Drive them to despair. Lord, I pray that you bring them under severe conviction and show them, Lord, the transient nature of this world, the eternal duration of your kingdom, and that only the cross and the work of Christ will bring them into your holy habitation. Lord, be glorified in the word of God in this proclamation, but Lord, as my prayer, Lord, please save our kids and grandkids. Lord, please save our teens. Lord, please save lost church members, Lord, that have been living trite and superficial, holding an outward form of religion, but denying the power thereof. Lord, arrest their souls and bring them into your kingdom once and for all for the glory of your great name. We ask it in Christ.