You Must be Born Again

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Will you please turn over in your Bibles with me, not to Romans Chapter 12, but to Ephesians Chapter 2. Ephesians chapter 2. We're going to be looking at verses 1 through 10. We'll read verses 1 through 10 this morning.

We continue on in this series of who are we? A biblical exploration of who people are. Body, soul, what's happened to our souls since the fall. And as we keep moving, we'll talk about our souls in the Christian life, and eventually, heaven, and the judgment, and hell, and such like that. But this morning, we're going to look at Ephesians chapter two to start with on regeneration, our soul, and being reborn. Ephesians chapter two.

And you have, and you, he made alive. who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh. fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

But God who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved and raised us up together. and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. But we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Prayer for Illumination

That ends this portion of the reading of God's word. Let's pray. Father, we come to you this morning confessing that we need your spirit to be with us as we go through your word. Our minds are often weak. Our attention spans, including mine, Lord, are so short. But Father, we know that your word is powerful. You use it sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing soul and spirit, joint and marrow, discerning the thoughts and intents of our hearts. And so, Father, we pray that you would please do a heart work this morning. Father, we pray that you would enlighten our eyes, open our ears, be with us in our weaknesses.

Sermon

We pray in Jesus's name, amen. We have been going through this whole idea of who are we, and we started off with who are we? We are a body and a soul, made in the image of God. Dignity, because God made you in his image. And then we talked about the need to recognize that our bodies are important to God. He knit us together in our mother's womb. We're fearfully and wonderfully made. Our bodies matter.

He redeemed you in your body. But you're also a soul. And your soul is that inner being, that spiritual substance part of yourself. And scriptures use different words for your soul, different parts of your soul, you might say. We often think of the soul with its different faculties, our soul thinks, our soul has affections, our soul chooses things, it's our inner person. Last week we had the hard message of what happened to our souls.

They were corrupted. Our first parents, Adam and Eve, were made in a state of innocence. They did not know sin. And as a shorter catechism says, they were left to the freedom of their own will, and they transgressed God's law. They broke the covenant, and with it entered into the world death.

But thanks be to God, that's not the end of the story. And so this morning we get to see this work of regeneration, God making us alive, making us reborn. And so what did God do to us? What did God do? I've used this word a few times, regeneration. Re means again.

Generation comes from the Greek word geneo, which is to be born, right? Jesus told Nicodemus when he had come to him at night, unless a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. But here's the thing, you can't birth yourself. You cannot enter into your mother's womb a second time. But the Spirit makes you born again. The Spirit makes you alive.

So it's not what did we do, but what did God do? He made us alive again. He implanted new life in us. He made us born again. That's what he said in Ephesians chapter two, verse five. Even when we were dead in trespasses, He made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. We were the walking dead. We were spiritual zombies, and yet God made us alive together with Christ. He breathed new life into your spiritual soul. It is God who has given you a new principle, a new life, a whole new being. He didn't just refurbish you. You weren't just a broken down house. The scriptures are very clear here. We were dead.

If God had not intervened, every single one of us would continue on in our living deadness until we were dead dead, and after we were dead dead, we would continue in our path of loving death, even in judgment. But God, because of his great mercy, changes that path. God intervenes in our souls and renews us from the root up. So what does this mean to be made alive together with Christ?

In Ephesians 2.5 when it said that, it said you were, he made us alive together with Christ.

Notice the passiveness of that. This is, by the way, that whole phrase, made us alive together, that's with, made us alive together with, that's all one word in Greek. It's a triple compound word. And notice it's passive. made us. God is the one who's the principal actor here. God is the one who's doing this work. He made us alive together with Christ. What does that mean, to be made alive together with?

Sin so opieto is the Greek word, and it's this idea of seen as with, life made. You are You're given a new life, but that life isn't held together because of you. Your life spiritually in your soul is joined together, flows out of your union with Jesus. You don't sustain your own life, but your life is hidden in Christ.

We have a spiritual resurrection. when we are united to Christ. God applies the resurrection life of Jesus to your soul when you're reborn. In Revelation 20, verse six, it says, blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years. This first resurrection is speaking of the resurrection of Christ applied to you who are alive, who were once dead. Every single one of you who have believed in Jesus Christ has in a sense already tasted part of the resurrection, because that's part of your regeneration. You being born again is not something separate from Christ, but it's Christ's life applied to your soul now.

You have been made alive together with Christ. This is the union of Christ in power. Just as Christ's physical body was raised, the soul is spiritually raised because it's united to Christ. Do you see it? This is what Ephesians chapter two was talking about. You were dead in your trespasses and sins. There was no life of God in you. You were made in the image of God, but you were dead. Putrid, rotting in your sin. made you alive together with Christ. When Christ rose from the dead, he became the first fruits of the resurrection, and your being reborn is because you are united to him.

This union is not just metaphorical. It's real, though it is mysterious. It's mystical, but it's effective. This is what Romans chapter six is getting at. Romans chapter six, verses four and five. Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life. For we, if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection. God has made you alive together with Christ. That is where you find your new life. That is where we find rebirth, because the Spirit makes you alive by applying Christ to you and joining you with your Redeemer. We have life in His life.

This is why, see, the resurrection isn't an optional belief. We don't think that, well, the resurrection is just like attack on. What we're really worried about is the cross. No, if Jesus Christ died and if his body rotted in a grave somewhere in the Middle East, then you're still dead in your trespasses and sins. But because our Lord and Savior rose up from the dead and ascended up into heaven, has earned his crown of righteousness, so now you being joined to him have hope and life in you. We have the implantation of new life in our hearts.

This isn't a new soul. It's not like your soul is swapped out. It's not that you had a rotten board in your heart and somebody came in and they knocked down the wall, did some demo work, tore out the rotten board and put in a new board. Not in that sense. It's not that you got a new soul. but that he's utterly changed you.

Jeremiah 31, 33, but this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. God, changes us from the inside out, remaking us. This is what Ezekiel was getting at in Ezekiel 36, 26.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. It's not that he's taking out your soul and he's transplanting a new soul, it's that your soul, with all of its death and all of its hardness, its hatred against God and his ways being at enmity with him, So I'm gonna take out all that old affection and love for the world and for death, and I'm gonna put in you all the love for me and for my law. I'm gonna change you from the inside out. You will be as if you are a new person.

The regenerated soul has capacities, and now has capacities it did not possess before. Your soul now is able to believe Your soul, after being reborn, is able to believe. Your soul, after being reborn, is able to actually love God. Your soul, being reborn, is now, out of a love for God, able to obey Him from love. Your soul, being reborn, changes all the faculties. Your intellect is enlightened, your will is freed, and your affections are directed towards God now.

There are some of you who may say, you know, I know that I'm saved, I know that I love God, but I didn't have a dramatic conversion experience. I didn't have this emotional come to Jesus moment in my life. Being reborn, being regenerated is subconscious and secret. We know we are reborn only by its fruits in our lives, what it does as our souls change. In John chapter three, verse eight, the wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the spirit.

We don't know who God is saving. This is one of the really difficult things as even the elders do interviews for membership and for people coming to the Lord's table. We don't have regeneration goggles. We can't see into your soul to see, do you have this new life? Do you have this hope for Jesus Christ? We could just ask some discerning questions and look for fruit in your life and trust what comes off your lips. Being reborn. changes your affections, it changes the way you love, it changes the things you see, and how you see them, it changes how you choose.

But sadly, in our culture that loves movies, and I'm just gonna say it, I hate Christian movies. They're often corny and they give really bad theology often. And one of the things that we see in movies time and time again that get pumped out of Christian studios is this idea that there's always this dramatic conversion in somebody's life. Not always. Not always.

I remember being really confused in my own heart about this. See, I was evangelized by a good Presbyterian PCA deacon. And he didn't have me say the sinner's prayer or anything. He just prayed with me and walked out of the room. And I remember really wrestling with, I don't know what that was. That was really weird.

OK. All I knew is I needed to shape up, right? But zoom forward, we're on deployment. And as I was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and we were onboarding all these bombs and missiles, we had to sit in this essentially firehouse in our firefighters ensemble just in case anything blew up. And this is like cake work job, right? You're literally just sitting around waiting for something to happen, hoping nothing actually happens. And everybody else is sitting there listening to music, playing video games. And I had this moment of, you know like when you come to a realization of how weird you are? You didn't realize how weird you are until you look around the room and you realize how weird you are?

I had my Bible in my hands and I was just reading my Bible. And I wasn't doing it because I wanted to do it in front of people, I wasn't doing it because I wanted to somehow make other people, I just wanted to read the Bible. I was just there, I had time on my hands and I thought, sweet, I'm gonna bring my Bible up, I'm gonna read my Bible.

And I realized, these guys must think I'm nuts. And then later on, realized I wasn't hanging out with the same people I was hanging out with. And I wasn't wanting to do the same things that they were doing. And something was happening in me that I couldn't quite perceive. But when I came home from deployment, my family said, something has changed, Brian. And we thank God for it. But I thought, that's so weird, right? Hold on. I thought regeneration was supposed to be like, I fell down on my knees and I said, God, God, I give everything to you from this moment on. No, see, that was me thinking I had to produce some type of emotional high, some type of commitment to God, and if I just finally committed enough, then God, I would really be reborn. But when the spirit decided to blow, it wasn't my work.

And one of the blessings I get is getting to hear from covenant children who have come to the session and make professions of faith. And sometimes there are moments that I've heard from some of you where you did have those moments where you realized, I can't play games with this. This is either my faith or somebody else's.

And yet other children, it's such a blessing to hear from them, or adults to hear from them, that they've always loved Jesus. And they couldn't imagine anything else other than loving Jesus, because early on in their lives, God had taken hold of their hearts and had made them reborn. Thank God. The spirit blows where he wills. We ought not to, wherever the Holy Spirit is blowing, to say, oh, no, no, no, you must operate in this type of box.

Some people will say, but how can I be passive in something so life-changing, right? If regeneration is me being reborn, how can something so big in my life just be something that I'm passive in? Well, I would just ask, were you active or passive in your natural birth?

I didn't choose my birthday. Somebody else chose my birthday. It was a guy who cut open my mama's womb and did a C-section. That was my birthday. I didn't have a choice to be born. I was seven days late. I would have loved to have stayed in there. We don't choose our birthday, and neither do we choose our spiritual birthday. And so faith is the first act of a new life, but it's not the cause for the new life. Faith is the first act of regeneration or being reborn. But it's not the cause of it.

So when, when were we reborn? And how did it happen? When did God do this? Well, first, we get this really weird thing that happens in Ephesians and 2 Timothy. It happened in eternity past. Right before time, God chose to give life to his elect. Look with me at 2 Timothy chapter one. If you've got your Bible, you can open there. Keep your finger in Ephesians as well, because we're gonna come back. 2 Timothy chapter one, verse nine.

Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. You being reborn was not a cosmic accident, but God knew from all eternity past and set his love upon you who would call upon Jesus Christ. knowing that when the time came, he would give you life. Essentially what Ephesians chapter one, verses four through five says, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Christ Jesus to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.

Regeneration flows from God's purposes. It is not a reaction to something we do. God doesn't make us reborn because of something we do, but makes us reborn because of something he chose to do. It is a sovereign act of mercy planned from the beginning.

I was a member of an Orthodox Presbyterian church out in California. It had a really long name, Sovereign Grace Reform, Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And I thought, wow, that's a mouthful. But especially the sovereign grace part, what does that even mean?

It means that God's in charge of the grace that he decides to give to his people. Because he's king, he has the royal prerogative to love whom he chooses to love, to give life to whom he chooses to breathe it into. Actually, yes, he chose it in the past, in eternity past. It was his will, but it was affected in time. When did it happen? Well, it happened in time, at the moment of our effectual calling.

Being reborn happens in an instant. At the very moment, the spirit applies Christ's resurrection to the soul. It's not progressive. When I was going through all those things in my life when I was first a Christian, it's not like I was being reborn during that whole time. No, I had been reborn, even though I didn't know it.

It happened at a moment. The moment I believed. The moment his spirit was working in my heart, the moment he declared that I was his son. That's true of your life, too. I don't know the moment in your life. Some of you can nail down that moment. Some of you can't. But it's not progressive. There is no warm-up leading up to your regeneration.

It's not like he was working in his spirit, and then you would believe, and then because you believed, you would be saved, no. Even when we were dead in our trespasses, God made us alive, Ephesians 2.5.

And this being born again happened before you believed. Being born again happened before you believed. I just have a question for you. Can dead people believe? No. No, dead people cannot breathe, dead people cannot believe, dead people cannot see. Faith is the first fruit of regeneration. It's not the cause of it.

1 John chapter 5 verse 1, whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God and everyone who loves him or loves him who begot, also loves him who is begotten of him. You cannot love God unless you've been born of God. And then John chapter 1 verses 12 through 13, but as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born of Not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. You see, because you have been born by God's choosing, not your will, you believe out of that new heart, out of that new being.

I gotta tell you, this is really, really helpful to me and I hope to you as well. Because that means you believing isn't based on you doing, but on God's choosing. God made you alive, God gave you your new heart, and if God did that, you're not gonna mess it up. God's the one who decided to give you new life. My issue is, is if I am the one who decided to believe, then every time there was an altar call, every time there was a revival, every time there was an emotional experience, I would think in my heart, Maybe I didn't choose true enough or hard enough. Maybe I constantly would wrestle in my heart that maybe last time I confessed faith it wasn't good enough and I really need to confess faith more and then I'll truly be a Christian. It was never based on you, but on what God did in you and for you. You believed when you were born again. You did not believe so you could be born again.

Now from our perspective, sometimes these seem like they happen at the exact same time. Especially for those of you who have had what seems like an instantaneous working of the Holy Spirit in your heart, and that's really perceptive to you, and you know, this was the day I was saved, this, I was like Saul on the road to Damascus, this is the point that I believed. Sometimes it's hard for you to distinguish between the two. between that first act of faith and that first point in which God showed his grace manifestly in your life. But if you get them backwards, it'll lead to pride in your heart. This is why the Apostle Paul, through the Spirit in Ephesians 2, was very clear to say, that for by grace you have been saved through faith and not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Because if our faith produces our being born again, then guess who gets the credit for being born again? The person who made the profession of faith. There's no glory of God there. It leads to pride. It leads in this weird direction. I'm just gonna speak pastorally here. I've seen it go two different directions.

One, and I think they're tied together, one direction, is the people who will have no assurance of salvation because they're never sure whether their faith was ever pronounced firmly enough. But the other is the, say the sinner's prayer, I made that choice, I made that act of faith, I did that at that one time, so I'm good to go. And I've met people on their deathbeds who are, well, I said the sinner's prayer when I was 14, and then there's no signs of the fruit of regeneration in their lives, in their entire lives, but because they said something, they're so filled with pride that even on their deathbeds, no, I know I'm good. And I wonder, are they really resting in the work of God in them? Or when they get before the throne of God, is he going to say, depart from me, I've never known you? There's some clarifications just because I love you as a pastor here to talk to you.

Beware of emotionalism. Beware of emotionalism. I can't weave. especially coming out of a revivalistic culture, there are ways in which there's preaching and there's singing and there's events and all sorts of things that are meant to just stir up your heart, stir up your heart, stir up your heart, stir up your heart, stir up your heart, get you into an emotional frenzy, so then you'll make some type of leap of faith. I don't want to say that the Holy Spirit can't work in those types of situations, but I want to warn you that those situations often lead you to trust in the high of the emotional experience. Mean not on your own understanding, brothers and sisters. Trust not your heart. Cling to the work of God. This ties into my next pastoral clarification or concern for you. Your assurance must not come only from emotion. As you are reborn, assurance is tied into this question. What is assurance?

How do I know that I'm actually saved? There are many, many people who struggle with that question. Am I actually saved? I remember thinking that was like a forbidding question, right? To even question, how do I know that I actually believe this? Until Olivia and I, we were reading Charles Spurgeon's Morning and Evening one time together when we were engaged, and Spurgeon actually talked about his own struggle for assurance of salvation at times. I thought, oh good, if Spurgeon struggles for assurance at times, then I'm okay. At times in your life, you may struggle to know, am I really saved?

I beg you. I beg you to not rely on your emotions in that moment, but go back to the promises of God. Go back to who He says He is and what He says He has done for you. And if that's your hope, then cling to those promises. That is the beauty of the objective Christian assurance, that we can know that if those promises are true for us, if we are hoping in them, then we can have rest for our souls, because we're resting in something God has done and promised, not in my fickle emotions.

How did God do this? How did God make you reborn? Oh, this is the Holy Spirit's immediate work in you. God made you regenerate by the Spirit's immediate work in you. The Spirit himself worked directly upon your heart, not through persuasion, not just through some type of liturgy, but by his divine power. The Holy Spirit himself makes each individual alive. No ritual can do that. No words from a stupid pastor's mouth can do that. No, you are made alive by the Spirit's work.

Titus 3, 5, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit himself washed you. The Holy Spirit himself regenerated you. And he did this by uniting you with Christ in his resurrection. The Holy Spirit united you with Christ. 1 Peter chapter one, verse three.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again. Made us alive again, or made us born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. God himself has made you alive by uniting you to his Son. A hope that we have through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Regeneration is your personal Easter.

First Point

The day that he made you born again was the day he rose you from the dead. But the primary means by which he normally does this as an instrument is by his word. As an instrument, this is really important. In point one, I told you he did it immediately by his work. This is the Holy Spirit immediately doing it. But what's his primary tool? What is the Holy Spirit's primary tool? The word of God. that God uses, the Holy Spirit chooses to use His Word as an instrument to change you.

1 Peter 1.23, having been born again not of corruptible seed but incorruptible through the word of God, which lives and abides forever. Some people may wonder, why do we spend so much time reading scripture? Why do we spend so much time encouraging you to be in God's word? Why do we spend so much time preaching expository sermons? Why do we spend so much time referencing the scripture and memorizing the scripture and singing the Psalms? Because the spirit works primarily through the word. The spirit works through the word.

And so we don't have a light show up here. We don't have the big band with all the trappings. But we think if the spirit is going to work, then he's going to primarily do it through his word. And so the world may call that boring, irrelevant, antiquated, they can go chew rocks because this is how God chooses to work. How will they believe unless someone preaches to them?

Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. That's why we are so centered upon God's word. That's why for centuries Christians have been called people of the book. Because the spirit works using the word as an instrument in his people's lives. The word itself does not actually impart life, but it's the spirit using the word that brings life.

So who are we now? If we're reborn, if we're regenerated, who are we? What are we? We're a soul renewed. A soul with new life. We're a new creation. Renewed in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. This is what 2 Corinthians 5, 17 is getting at. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new. You have been reborn by the Spirit and are a new creation, created in the likeness and image of Christ. That comes with the adoption, that comes with faith, that comes with belief, and that, as we're going to talk about next week, comes with becoming like Jesus. because our souls are changed to want to be like Jesus.

We're restored to Eden. Who are we now? We're restored back to the, like our first parents, Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were able to sin. They were able to. Left to the freedom of their own will, they were able to sin, but they were also able to not sin. They had a choice.

But when they fell, we entered into an era where sin reigned, death and sin, corruption and futility. And our hearts were darkened. And each and every one of us, before we were reborn, we were brought into this life not able not to sin. Everything we choose, everything we chose was tainted by the putridness of death and sin after the fall. Even when we would try to do good things, our good things were still like filthy rags. But when the Spirit makes you reborn, The creation is new in you, and you are brought back to that same place as Adam and Eve.

You are no longer a slave to sin, but you are able to choose not to sin. Christian, God has renewed your will. God has renewed your mind. God has renewed your affections. And what we're going to spend all next week, Lord willing, talking about is your freedom in Christ to live your life to God's glory because he has made you a new creation in Christ Jesus.

And someday, and I can't wait for that last day, when the good work that he has begun in you will be brought unto the day of completion. Because a day is coming, brothers and sisters, when we will be made perfect like Christ, and we will no longer be able to sin, but we will be like Him in practiced righteousness, and our whole heart and our full soul before Him forever. We long for that day in our souls. because he's given us new hearts by the new birth. And so Christian, cling to his promises. Trust in the finished work he has done in giving you life in Christ Jesus.

It's God who's made you born again for his glory. I hope this morning you're able to just bask, just sit back in the radiance of his glory. and soak it up, for His mercies are good to you. His lovingkindness is better than life. Your God is good, and He's loved you.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. God, You have given us life that we don't deserve. You have poured out Your Spirit in our hearts Cry out, Abba, Father. Lord, you have given us a new hope, a new life, a new life. Thank you. God, we pray that we would walk in that newness of life. You have redeemed us to this joy. God, we pray that we would taste and see that you are good. For you have made us alive to enjoy you forever. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.