John 3:1-8 THE REQUIREMENT OF A FRESH BEGINNING
Michael is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!" He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Michael was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation. Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Michael and asked him, "I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?" Michael replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or ... you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or.... I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or... I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life. "Yeah, right, it’s not that easy," I protested.
"Yes, it is," Michael said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It’s your choice how you live your life." I reflected on what Michael said. Soon hereafter, I left the Tower Industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it. Several years later, I heard that Michael was involved in a serious accident, falling some 60 feet from a communications tower. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Michael was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back. I saw Michael about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I’d be twins. Wanna see my scars?" I declined to see his wounds, but I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place. "The first thing that went through my mind was the well-being of my soon to be born daughter, "Michael replied.”Then, as I lay on the ground, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or I could choose to die. I chose to live." "Weren’t you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked. Michael continued, "...the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read "he’s a dead man. I knew I needed to take action." "What did you do?" I asked. "Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me. Said Michael. "She asked if I was allergic to anything.”Yes, I replied." The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, "Gravity." Over their laughter, I told them, "I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead." Michael lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that everyday we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything. "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." - Matthew 6:34 After all today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday. Are you like Michael?
There are three things that as person must do:
1. He must die. 2 Sam. 14:14, “We must needs die” “It is appointed unto men once to die.”
2. He must meet God. RM 14:12, “Every one of us shall give an account of himself to God.”
3. He must be born again. Without a new birth there is no hope at all for eternal blessedness.
Yet today there are many in the church not alone outside the church that are religious but unregenerated. They find this message about the new birth beyond their thinking or considering. So let us take time to look at the terms used. Regeneration occurs only two times in the Bible. In each case it has to do with the act of a new birth. Titus 3:5 “he saved us, but not because of anything we had done to gain his approval. Instead, because of his mercy he saved us through the washing in which the Holy Spirit gives us new birth and renewal.” Besides a natural birth the believer has a spiritual birthday in life. 1 Peter 1:3 “Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! God has given us a new birth because of his great mercy. We have been born into a new life that has a confidence which is alive because Jesus Christ has come back to life. 23 You have been born again, not from a seed that can be destroyed, but through God’s everlasting word that can’t be destroyed.” 1 John 2:29 “If you know that Christ has God’s approval, you also know that everyone who does what God approves of has been born from God. 3:9 those who have been born from God don’t live sinful lives. What God has said lives in them, and they can’t live sinful lives. They have been born from God. 4:7, Dear friends, we must love each other because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born from God and knows God. 5:1, everyone who believes that Jesus is the Messiah has been born from God. Everyone who loves the Father also loves his children. 5:18, we know that those who have been born from God don’t go on sinning. Rather, the Son of God protects them, and the evil one can’t harm them.”
I. THE REQUIREMENT OF REGENERATION. A. THE NATURE OF THE HUMAN HEART. The human heart is very corrupt. Jer. 17:9 says: "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?" The Word of God is very truthful to us. It doesn’t say that the human heart is basically good as many people would like to believe. The Word of God compares the sin of man to a sickness that cannot be cured. We know that there are many serious diseases in the body that are beyond human ability to cure. These are AIDS, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, etc. Likewise, sin is a disease in the soul that is beyond human ability to cure. In China we have sages like Confucius and Moncius who taught the people to cleanse their hearts, to correct their wrong behavior and to follow certain moral precepts. The Chinese people respect them as great teachers. Their ethical system is taught in the schools. But all these teaching have little effect in changing the hearts of the Chinese people. Most people are still selfish, prideful, covetous, deceitful and lustful inside. In western countries like America, we have adopted a constitution and many laws to govern our society. Relatively speaking America is a good country to live in. But we still have much corruption in our society. There is much darkness in the hearts of many American people. We have advanced in science and technology, but we can do very little to purify the heart. We have an incurable disease in the heart. We are all born in sin. Ps 51:5 “Indeed, I was born guilty. I was a sinner when my mother conceived me.” By reason of being born in sin a sinner is spiritually dead. After Adam sinned, His nature changed. Adam passed on his sin nature to every one of his descendants. As a result every one is born with a corrupt nature inside. They are apart from God and cannot identify or comprehend anything of God. Being spiritually dead one cannot see the kingdom of God and have no power to enter into it. There is not feeling for the Spirit of God and so no ability for spiritual activity. Jesus said that plainly when He said a sinner is a child of the devil. 1 John 3:10 “This is the way God’s children are distinguished from the devil’s children. Everyone who doesn’t do what is right or love other believers isn’t God’s child.” A sinner has no choice but to sin because he is following in his father’s footsteps. At birth a person receives physical life, a human nature and a will against God. When one is born again he receives a spiritual life and partakes of a divine nature from. B. THE NATURE OF HEAVEN. All who do not have the Spirit of God are in the flesh the Bible says and in the flesh one cannot please God not see Him. It is only in regeneration that one is endued with the Holy Spirit and given a heavenly nature that fits them to go to heaven. C. WHAT THE NEW BIRTH IS NOT. It is not an improvement of the old nature. It is an impartation of a new nature. God will have nothing in trying to fix the old Adamic nature of which we are born with. All of us are born in the wrong family. We stand condemned. God does not do a whitewash on a dirty pump that is giving out unclean water. Regeneration is not reformation, a turning over of a new leaf, it does not come by development nor can we earn it by what we do. A person who is dead spiritually will not evolve to become spiritually alive. One has said reformation is like putting a new suit on the same body, but regeneration is putting a new man in the body. Reformation deals with the external while regeneration has to do with the internal. Reformation alters a person’s manners while regeneration alters the whole person. Many will believe because they were born into with Christian parents they are Christians but regeneration is a personal reality between a person and God. Regeneration does not come by our personal self effort or determination; it is only by God’s Spirit working in our heart that we can be born again. There have been some who believe or teach regeneration comes by keeping the law, doing good works, being involved in charitable activities, joining a church, being baptized, having the right education. It is only by God’s working on the soul that on can receive spiritual life that is pleasing to God. D. WHAT THE NEW BIRTH IS. It is being born from above. It is being a new creation. It is a spiritual resurrection. It is a change of heart. It is being cleansed of past sin. It is a radical change in one’s life. It is a new disposition and new outlook on life. It is turning from the power of Satan to the power of God in life.
II. WHO AND WHAT IS INCLUDED IN REGENERATION? A. The Divine side or what God does. He draws us to himself. The Holy Spirit convicts of our sin and then is able to offer forgiveness by the blood of Jesus Christ. God cleanses, quickens and renews life that once was dead in sin. B. The human side. Regeneration means that one repents of his sin. That one confesses his wrong before God. That one has faith to believe that God forgives and make him His child. A good illustration given in the book of John is about Moses when the children of Israel were smitten for their sin. Moses build a pole and put on it a brazen snake. All who were sick just had to look up to that snake and be healed. Now we need to look up to the cross to be forgiven and healed of sin. We all have will to choose of refuse what God wants for us.
III. THE RESULTS OF REGENERATION are the following A new Heart- Ezek. 36:26 says: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." The human spirit refers to the innermost part of our being. When a person believes in Jesus Christ as His personal Savior, God’s Spirit comes inside of him to cleanse his spirit of all impurity and renew it. The believer’s spirit becomes connected to God’s Spirit. This connection causes the believer’s spirit to come alive. From this point on it becomes united with God’s Spirit. This is like electricity flowing through the light bulb; the light bulb begins to shine. There is a glow inside the believer. Regeneration not only affects the spirit, it also affect the heart. The heart refers to the inward part of ourselves. It includes our emotion, thought, attitude and desire. As a result of regeneration, the believer’s emotion, thought, attitude and desire also undergo a change. The heart becomes softened and receptive toward the things of God. It responds to God’s love and begins to love God and others. God changes the stony heart into a heart of flesh. The Holy Spirit will lives in the believer’s spirit forever. The believer possesses God’s eternal life. This is a great mystery. The great God of the universe comes to dwell in the spirit of the believer. This is like a great king coming to live in the humble house of the believer. His coming suddenly makes the believer to become very noble and rich. The believer can worship and have fellowship with God in every hour of the day. As a result of having God’s Spirit indwelling in us, the Holy Spirit impart to us a new nature. We begin to have a new desire and a new inclination to do things that are holy. The Holy Spirit moves us to follow God’s decrees. He empowers us to keep His law. What we could not do before, we are able to do now. A new name, A new life, A new relationship, A new creation, a New nature, a New Victory, A new Mind, a New Standing, and a New destiny.
I John 3:14, “We know that we have passed from death to life.”
