Let's briefly ask the Lord to bless our time. Lord, we do thank you for the time you've given us together. We know that we're just scratching the surface of these deep and important matters, but we pray that in the midst of our attention to your word and discussion, that you would be pleased to glorify yourself by changing us, conforming our minds to the mind of Christ, making us think more biblically, and we pray that in so doing, our lives would reflect something of your word and something of the glory of your son, and we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. If we were going to summarize the main teaching of the last session, it would perhaps be best summarized by these two realities. In Psalm 24, you remember, the psalmist asks the question, who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And the answer the psalmist gives is, he who has clean hands and a pure heart. But then, if you were to pull that thread into the New Testament, or even into the Old Testament, into the prophet Jeremiah, he says, the heart is deceitful and desperately sick, who can know it? And Paul says to Titus, to the unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience has been defiled. And so the reality of the new birth is set against the backdrop of the reality of the sinfulness of man's heart and the fact that sin comes from within. And so this is the great need that we have. Now, I want to look in this session a little bit more into the whole Bible's teaching on this reality. So we've gotten a sense of the need for it, but the whole Bible's teaching on this reality. You remember Jesus has this perhaps peculiar rhetorical question in John 3.10 where he looks at Nicodemus after declaring the need for the new birth and he says to Nicodemus, are you the teacher of Israel and you do not know these things? It's as if Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, how is it possible that you could know your Bible teach the Bible and yet be unaware of these basic truths about the Kingdom of God. That's the sort of import of the rhetorical question. And so I want to think through together for just a few moments how it was that Jesus could say that. And to see how embedded this truth of the new birth is with the entire scope of biblical history. So we looked at John 3, that's clear enough. If all we had was John 3, we would have to reckon with it and think about the new birth. But that's not all we have. And in fact, Jesus tells us in John 3 that A teacher of Israel should have been very aware of these things. So, let's look at a few of these passages. I want to begin with two passages and just summarize them. You know them, I think, well. In Genesis chapter 12, the Lord calls Abram And he makes these promises to Abram of a land and of a seed. Through your seed, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. And he makes these great promises to him. And then you remember in Genesis 17, the Lord, as a sign and a seal, Paul calls it in Romans, of those promises, of that covenant promise, he gives him this sign and seal of circumcision. which is applied to him as a male and to his male children. And it's not, apart from the fact that it is a sign and seal, that's made clear in Genesis. And again, Paul. emphasizes that, but apart from that reality, and we know what the promise was, there's not a lot of explanation in Genesis 17 about why this sign, how does it serve as a good sign of those covenant promises that through your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed. But, if you would, turn to Deuteronomy chapter 10, because in Deuteronomy chapter 10, We learn more about this and what we learn is, I think, quite significant. So I'll start in verse 10 and go all the way through verse 16. This is Moses and he says, I myself stayed on the mountain as at the first time, 40 days and 40 nights. And the Lord listened to me at that time also. The Lord was unwilling to destroy you. So this is a response to Israel's sin, gross sin of worshiping the golden calf. And the Lord said to me, arise, go on your journey at the head of the people so that they may go in and possess the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. And then now we get Moses, he's received this and he's going to apply it to the people and give them the implications. And now Israel. What does the Lord your God require of you? But to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you today for your good. Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it. Yet the Lord set his heart in love on your fathers and chose their offspring after them, you above all peoples, as you are this day. Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart and no longer be stubborn And I'll go on to verse 17, for the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords. He is the great and mighty and the awesome God who is not partial and takes no bribe. So what? Moses says to the people when he's applying the lessons of their sin and the lessons that they need to keep in the forefront of their thinking, the way Moses explains it here in Deuteronomy 10, if you could think back in Deuteronomy 6, he says, love the Lord your God with all your heart. And here he uses that same language, but he He gives a new image to that, a new explanation of what that means. He comes at it from another angle and he says, what I'm trying to say here is you need to circumcise the foreskin of your heart. And now what's striking about that is that for Moses, that is a kind of synonymous phrase with loving God with your heart. Love God with your heart, he says, and circumcise your heart so that you might fear him and love him and walk after him. But what's even more remarkable about it is here it is given as a command, not different, not too different from the Lord's command in John chapter three, you must be born again. But what Moses says later in Deuteronomy, I want you to turn over now to Deuteronomy chapter 30, is in Deuteronomy chapter 30, the Lord talks about the fact that they are disobedient, and they will continue to be disobedient, and in fact, they will be taken into exile. It's really remarkable. You can chart the history of the decline of Israel just from Moses' own description of the blessings and cursings, and he's very clear about what's gonna happen. He knows and he prophesies. But in the midst of that disobedience, in the midst of that wickedness, in the midst of that exile, He returns to this notion of the circumcision of the heart, and here's what he says in Deuteronomy 30, verse 6. In verse 5, he talks about the Lord bringing them back into the land that your fathers possessed, make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. Verse 6, and the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring. so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live. So there's two ways in which the circumcision of the heart is used in Deuteronomy. It's used as a command to the people, as a kind of stand-in for love the Lord your God with all your heart, circumcise your heart. It's a call to repentance, a call to change, a call to newness of the heart. And then in Deuteronomy 30, he talks about the Lord himself doing it one day for them. Now, those two things, those two aspects of it as a call to repentance and also something that only the Lord can do. Those two realities are the two realities that we see kept in mind later on in the prophets. So, for instance, turn to Jeremiah chapter four. Jeremiah, he says to the people, again, this is very reminiscent of Moses. He says to the people, Jeremiah four, verse four. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord. Remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my wrath go forth like fire and burn with none to quench it." But then, what Jeremiah does, very similar kind of ministry to Moses. Jeremiah says, here's what the Lord's saying to you right now. You want to know what the Lord would have you to do? You want to listen to the application of my sermon? The application of my sermon is you need circumcised hearts. But then Jeremiah, just like Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 30, later on. It says, actually, what I'm going to do in these new covenant promises in Jeremiah 31, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days declares the Lord. I will put my law within them. I will write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people. Jeremiah 32, verses 39 and 40, I will give them one heart and one way that they will fear me forever. I will put the fear of me in their hearts that they may not turn from me. We'll get to Ezekiel in a minute, but I want you to just see the same dynamic. Jeremiah says to the people, circumcise your hearts. And then he says later on, the Lord will circumcise your hearts. And the implication, just as in Deuteronomy, is the Lord is the one who must circumcise your hearts. So it's a command, a call to action, a call to repentance, and also a reality, which is that this is something that God does. Think about that in terms of even John chapter three. Because in John chapter three, Jesus says, you must be born again. You want to know what the application is? You must be born again. Then what does he say just after that? This is a work of the spirit. The wind blows where it wills. And so it is with all those born of the spirit. And the son of man must be lifted up. We see the same thing in Ezekiel. In Ezekiel chapter 11, The Lord says, I will give them one heart. This is Jeremiah's imagery from Jeremiah 32. It's essentially the same. And a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh. And then in Jeremiah 36, There's something that I think is particularly significant when we see what Jesus said. Remember, the question we're trying to ask is, why would Jesus say to Nicodemus, are you a teacher of Israel and you don't know these things? When he says you must be born again. In Ezekiel 36, we see the imagery that Jesus uses when he talks about being born again by water and the spirit. Because Ezekiel I think addresses that precise thing and says this. This is the Lord speaking through Ezekiel. Ezekiel 36, 25-27. I will sprinkle clean water on you. And you shall be clean from all your uncleanness. And from all your idols, I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. And you remember again in John chapter three, when Jesus is addressing this whole issue of the new birth, One of the images he uses is you need to be born again by water and the spirit. And in my judgment, Ezekiel 36 should come right to the front of our minds because that's exactly what Ezekiel says. New heart, sprinkled with water, my spirit within you. which is what Jesus is describing. Now, we can just from this begin to understand why Jesus would have been somewhat incredulous over Nicodemus' lack of understanding about this topic. Because at all the key turning points that we see where the people of Israel were addressed by prophets and they were told what their problem is, They were told, the problem is that your hearts have strayed from the Lord, and the solution to that problem is circumcision of the heart, or a new heart, a heart of flesh, not a heart of stone. And yet, just as the prophets say that, they also say, but this is a work of God. You're not pulling out your heart of flesh, or your heart of stone and replacing it with a heart of flesh, God is. And you're not circumcising the foreskin of your heart, although you must circumcise the foreskin of your heart. That's a work that God the Spirit, the Holy Spirit according to Ezekiel, is doing. And we could go through a number of Old Testament passages. In fact, a great example of this would be if you were to read through the books of 1st and 2nd Kings, because what you would see in the books of 1st and 2nd Kings is that the author is careful to show how each of the kings fell short. And the way that he describes this, the way that he talks about their falling short is consistent, and it's Deuteronomic language. He will say, Their heart was not fully devoted to the Lord. Or, he would say, he did serve the Lord with his whole heart, although he's a sinner, and it'll outline the sins of the kings. But the issue is, was their heart turned to the Lord, or wasn't it? And why does the author of Kings do this? Why is this an effective shorthand? Because that's what Moses laid out. Moses said, the issue is this, is your heart circumcised or not? And we could then trace that even back to Genesis 17 and say, ah, I see now what this sign and seal was, one of the things at least, that this sign and seal was pointing to. This sign and seal is pointing to the reality that we need to have heart circumcision. And that heart circumcision, if we listen to Moses, we listen to Jeremiah, we listen to Ezekiel, that heart circumcision is something that God does. So when we see those people whose heart is turned to the Lord, according to the text, we say, well, praise God for that. And we see those people whose heart is not turned to the Lord, we say, see, that's the problem right there. Their heart is hardened. They have a heart of stone, not a heart of flesh. Now, when we get to the New Testament, it is an equally prominent theme. In the New Testament, there are at least eight different Greek terms or phrases that are used to describe the new birth. And they really fall into three categories, so I'll give you the three categories and I won't try to give you all the Greek words. The first category, and this is the most prevalent in the New Testament, and by the way, That should not surprise us because in the Old Testament, there are different images used as well. Heart of stone, heart of flesh, circumcision of the heart, sprinkle clean water, spirit within you. I mean, all those things are pointing to the same reality, but they're describing it in slightly different ways. So in the New Testament, three categories, eight terms. The first one and the most prevalent is the term that I have been using throughout, which is new birth, being born again. And so we see this, again, different Greek terms here, but we see this, for instance, Titus 3, 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. Or 1 Peter 1, different Greek word. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again. And then later on in that same chapter, since you have been born again, Peter says, not from perishable seed, but from imperishable through the living and abiding Word of God. John 3, we saw John 3, you must be born again. Throughout 1 John and John he'll use a similar word or group of phrases. Whoever loves God has been born of God. We might think about 1 John. In this category would be James 1 as well. Of his own will he brought us forth. All these are birth metaphors. New birth. Although they're different Greek terms. The second category where we see this in the New Testament is a slightly different image, and it's the image of spiritual resurrection. The main text, there are two, but they're parallel texts, is Ephesians chapter 2. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we are dead in our trespasses, the ESV says, made us alive together with Christ. Paul says the same thing in Colossians 2. Now what's that describing? It's not quite the image of birth or being brought forth into the world. It's the image of being made alive when dead. Spiritual resurrection. And then the third image that we get, which again, I believe points to the same reality, just like the Old Testament and the New Testament does this, is the image of creation. So Paul says, we were created in Christ Jesus, or he says in a very well-known passage in 2 Timothy 5, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The oldest passed away, behold, the new has come. Or for instance, when he's addressing the circumcision question in Galatians chapter six, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but what matters, Paul says, is new creation. But all of these terms, and even these three images, birth, resurrection, creation, are pointing to the same basic truth. And earlier I had a quote from Archibald Alexander where he said, there can be no more important topic than the topic of salvation. If that's true, then we have to say there is hardly a topic that is more vital for individuals than the topic of regeneration. Because when you come to the Old Testament or the New Testament, you say, what does it mean for someone to be saved? You're pointed to these kinds of images. Life, or death to life. Birth. Resurrection. Heart of flesh. Circumcision of the heart. They all point us to the same place. And this is why I'll use another quote from Archibald Alexander here to say this. Think about how powerful this is. He says, the implantation of spiritual life, which all these images point to, in a soul which is dead in sin is an event the consequences of which will never end. That's profound, isn't it? There are so many things in our lives, probably most things in our lives, that we invest in, that we think about, that consume us, are things the consequences of which will end. Whoever gets elected, consequences may be significant, I don't know. But the consequences will end. But the implantation of spiritual life in a soul which is dead in sin is, in event, the consequences of which will never end. And that's what all of these images in both the Old Testament and the New Testament are reminding us of. This is new life. This is resurrection. This is new creation. And I wonder, to revisit a question that we've looked at before, I wonder if those who meet us, those who worship with us, those who hear our preaching, if we're preaching, teaching, if we're teaching, get the sense of that. that we're talking about new life, the consequences of which will never end. A couple implications. There is a strong implication, and I made this application at the beginning, against giving any quarter to nominal Christianity. And one of the things that struck me most vividly, Peter mentioned that we moved here a little over four years ago. And one of the things that struck us, and it was actually somewhat pleasant, was that everyone was, I mean, I couldn't go to the dentist's office without him asking us which church we went to. And this was just, I mean, my head was spinning. I didn't know I was allowed to talk about this with my doctor. I didn't know that we, I mean, it was just striking, very striking, very different. And there's something about that that's pleasant. But there is such a danger of nominal Christianity. And if you believe that we're talking about new creation, new spiritual life, circumcision of the heart, then we have to be very careful about that. Because if the dominant attack is always on the supernatural, then that will be as true when it comes to the doctrine of conversion as it is with the doctrine of the scriptures or the doctrine of the virgin birth. And you could have a supernatural doctrine of the virgin birth, and maybe even a supernatural doctrine of the Bible, and not have a supernatural doctrine of conversion. And the scriptures will not allow that, and Jesus gives no quarter to that. So any hint of nominalism is something that we need to be extraordinarily careful. I would also say this, I made an application in the last session to preaching. And my application was that preaching that does not talk about the judgment of God and the nature of sin and the pervasiveness of sin and total depravity, preaching that doesn't address that is probably not going to be preaching that addresses the new birth in a biblical way. And to the extent you downplay the nature of sin, you will downplay the nature of the new birth. You might refer to it, but you're thinking about it in just a kind of Barna survey kind of way. Because that's all you need in your mind. But I want to apply it to preaching in a slightly different way here. we have to be also very careful about our tendency to preach the law without the gospel. You know, this, for all the superficial nonjudgmentalism about the broader church and the mainline church, for all the kind of superficial niceness of it, it really is law without gospel. Because most of the time we look at the mainline church and we criticize it because of all the crazy moral teaching that we see. And that's there. But even if that's not there, even if you took all that out, which I think a lot of evangelical churches would take that out. They're gonna take out the crazy teaching about marriage, the crazy teaching about gender, all that kind of stuff. But fundamentally what it is, is it's do this. It's law without gospel. It might be nice sounding law, it might be actually true stuff, but there's no sense of, no, we're talking about a radical change wrought by the Holy Spirit, which is death to life. We're talking about spiritual surgery, circumcision of your heart. And there can be a danger that we can Do the same thing. Keep the biblical teaching about sexuality and marriage and abortion, but fundamentally be teaching law without gospel. And the gospel specifically of the new birth, of God's work in taking dead souls and bringing them to life. The consequences of which will never end. And that's the kind of ministry emphasis and teaching and preaching and evangelism emphasis that we must have. But I think we often settle for something less than that. Well, let's go to Q&A. Questions? What questions? Yes, sir. Yes.