You're listening to the teaching ministry of Harvest Fellowship Church in Boyertown, Pennsylvania. You can find out more about us on the web at www.harvestfellowshipchurch.org. We pray that through our teaching, we may present everyone mature in Christ. Please stand if you are able for the privilege of hearing from our Lord. We're going to be in the gospel of John this morning, starting at the end of chapter two, starting in verse 23. Now, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus, on his part, did not entrust himself to them because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God. For no one can do these things that you do unless God is with him." Jesus answered him, "'Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'" Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit. Let him who have ears, let him hear and believe. Last Sunday we began a short new sermon series on all things that are new in Christ and we looked at the new covenant last week and today we're going to continue on with the new birth. But as we approach such an amazing transformative work of God that he has done in the heart of every one of his believers, let's ask the Lord to illumine and to shine the revelation of his truth onto our hearts this morning. Father in heaven, blessed be your name. How great you are. How feeble are we. How unable are we. But you are the God of power, you are the God of strength, you are the God of all wisdom. and we give all glory to you. And as we seek to study and to learn from your word, the everlasting words of life, we pray, oh Lord, that by your spirit, that we might understand, that we might comprehend, that we might receive your word, that we might believe it and rejoice in it this morning. Help us in these ways, we pray, almighty God, in the name of Jesus, amen. Where will I go when I die? Where will I go when I die? Have you ever asked that question? Have you ever thought that question? Maybe you didn't want to ask it out loud and so you thought it in your mind, you thought it in your heart. Maybe you had somebody ask it to you. Where do I go when I die? What's going to happen to me? And it's not an unusual question. It's not an uncommon question. It's a question that has resounded, we could say, throughout the ages. Now you might think of those who are in extreme circumstances. Maybe it's a soldier who's just been mortally wounded in battle asking that question. Maybe it's people have just been in a really bad car accident. They don't know if they're going to make it. Maybe it's a prisoner who's facing execution. Many, of course, on their deathbeds have asked that question as well. Where will I go when I die? Because the afterlife, the destiny of our souls, it's a universal concern. It's not something that just a few people think about. Everyone thinks about this. But I would like for you to consider this this morning, is that the person asking this question, who's so focused on the prospect of death, and so focused on the prospect of the possibility of life after death, that that person isn't truly alive. That person asking that question, of course I'm not talking about a literal sense, I'm not giving you a weird sci-fi analogy here, but we're talking about spiritually, the person asking that question is not alive. Scripture makes it clear that every single human, without exception, who enters into this world is spiritually dead. Spiritually dead. And the person who is spiritually dead does not recognize a foundational truth of Scripture that to enter heaven, to enter into the life after death of which they desire in their hearts, is that they must first be made alive spiritually. But we could ask, how could somebody who is spiritually dead ever meet that prerequisite? How is it possible? How can a dead person come to life before they die? If that's not confusing, how can a dead person come to life before they die? How do they realize, recognize that they're spiritually dead? Now when we read the creation account, which of course is in Genesis 1 and 2, and we read through that, I don't know about you, but to me, I marvel at it. I marvel at the description of God's power. God's power who brings all things into existence. We can't even comprehend in our minds that level of wisdom, that strength of might, But it's that same God, the same God who breathes life into creation. He breathes life into Adam. He also breathes spiritual life into his people as well when they are dead in their sins. And so it's the rebellious creatures, the rebellious creatures who corrupted, they're the ones, we're the ones who did it, we corrupted God's perfect creation. Those who brought upon themselves not only physical death, but they brought upon themselves physical ruin. And since we're in such a state of that, we need re-creation. We've brought de-creation, we could say, upon ourselves in the destruction of God's creation, but we need re-creation. As spiritually dead creatures, we must experience something internally, an internal transformation that we're not able to do ourselves. And so from the perspective of God creating in Genesis, we need, spiritually, we need Genesis again. We need Genesis again. And as we see in the New Testament passage this morning, Jesus proclaiming, we must be born again. And so the overarching thought that I would like to present to you this morning is this, is that every New Covenant member, we talked about the New Covenant last week, every New Covenant member receives spiritual transformation and it's brought about by God and those people enter into his kingdom through faith because they have been a heart transplant recipient, they have experienced the new birth. And so as we look at this idea of Genesis again, I want to look at it from three perspectives. And first, it's that we have a problem. We have a problem. God is the solution, and God alone makes new. So we're going to look at the problem that we have, how God himself is the solution, and then how he alone makes new. And so we have a problem. I've kind of outlined it already, but I want to get into it a little bit more from the Word of God to describe the problem that affects every single one of us, every single one of you and me. And so we ask the question, what problem is it? What problem do we have? The problem that we have that faces mankind is that we have had a catastrophic fall. We talk of what Adam and Eve did and we call it the fall because they had a catastrophic fall, a catastrophic fall from intimate fellowship and direct communion with God. And how did this come about? It came about through mankind essentially spitting in the face of God, rebelling against him and against, as we saw last week, against his covenant. In Genesis 3, 6, we see those fateful Words when the woman saw that the tree was good for food. Essentially when she sees in her heart that she doesn't believe that God is perfectly good. When she sees the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise. She took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. We see in the New Testament that the woman was deceived, but the man, Adam, the head of his people, acts in complete willful disobedience and rebellion. And what's the result? Romans 5, 12, Paul tells us that sin came into the world through one man, through that man, Adam, and death through sin. And so death spread to all men, all of his descendants, all of his progeny, because all sinned. You can take any kind of great plague that has afflicted this world, even going back to the Black Death, which I think they record may have been as high of a 50% mortality rate. Nothing compared to this. This is a 100% mortality rate affecting every single one of us. And so that's the problem that we have, is we broke the covenant. And the result of that is now our sin makes us spiritually destitute. We're no longer holy people, but we're unholy people. And we, by virtue of our unholiness, we're estranged, we're separated from holy God. In Psalm 14, we see a description of this spiritual destitution that now engulfs our hearts. The fool says in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt. They do abominable deeds. There is none who does good. The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside. Together they have become corrupt. There is none who does good, not even one." You know, it's a hard truth for this world to deal with. It's a hard truth that perhaps you've had to confront in your own mind. And sometimes we see one of the questions that's asked when people go out in evangelism, they ask the question, are you a good person? Do you consider yourself to be a good person? And a very high percentage of people say, yes, I believe that I am a good person. I think I'm a good person. Scripture says there's none who are good. None in their natural state of which they enter the world are good. And we see in Genesis 6 how quickly This evil that Adam and Eve brought upon mankind how quickly did that spread into the inner being of man. It says the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. So man goes from a perfect creation perfect communion with God And now his ways and deeds are defiled before God. And if you look in the earlier part of Ezekiel 36, which is a chapter before what we read this morning in Ezekiel 37. It says that our ways in our state of sin, God sees them, the words used there as womanly uncleanness in her menstrual impurity, that's how our actions are in the eyes of God. And we might recoil at that description, but what we should recoil at is the realization of how bad our sin is before God. It's that bad, it's that grievous because God is so holy and we've destroyed that. And his law that he's given to us, it's his law that reveals that to our hearts. Paul said, I would not really have known and been convicted by my sin except the law telling me don't covet Paul. And now all I want to do is covet. That's all I want to do. So the result of this catastrophic fall, it leaves us spiritually destitute but it also has left us spiritually dead. Spiritual death, we're helpless, we are unable to see, much less enter into God's kingdom. Now I wasn't alive when this happened. And some of you, I think if you're in your late 50s or early 60s, may remember this. But Apollo 13 was the third planned moon mission by NASA, going back to 1970. And of course, there was a big problem. The words, which were changed by Hollywood, but the actual phrase that was radioed back was, Houston, we've had a problem. Houston, we've had a problem. Not exactly the message that the person delivering it wants to give when they're 200,000 miles away from Earth. Houston, we've had a problem. And the problem is that they're facing imminent death. These astronauts on Apollo 13, they're facing imminent death and from a whole variety of different ways. They have a catastrophic loss. Mankind had a catastrophic fall. These men had a catastrophic loss of oxygen, of electrical power in their command module. And so they come up with this improvised solution They used the lunar module as we could call it a lifeboat for their life support and their power and miraculously they successfully returned to Earth on April 17, 1970. We could attribute it to resilience, ingenuity, innovation and even human willpower and they make it back alive from this catastrophic problem. But the problem that we face is much, much graver because it doesn't matter how much human ingenuity we can pour into it. It doesn't matter how much willpower that we can try to summon up within ourselves. We cannot change our spiritual condition on our own. Ephesians chapter 2, Paul speaking to people who have been converted, who have been changed, but he says, you were dead. in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world. You followed the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the soul and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind." We had a different nature. All sinners before God have a broken, dead spiritually nature. In Job 14.4 we see, who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Out of an unclean there is not one. So because we are As Scripture tells us, spiritually dead, because we are unable to give ourselves spiritual life. What do we need? We need a rebirth. We need the new birth. We need the solution to our problem, but the solution to our problem, it does not come from within. Instead, God is the solution. But all that bad news that I just gave you leads to a very important question. Man brought this upon himself. We brought estrangement from God upon ourselves. We know that we have no ability to change our broken, God-hating hearts. And we're on the pathway to spiritual death, eternal death. Are we then without hope? That's the question. Are we doomed? And from one side of the coin, we could say, yes. If we're going to try to solve this problem in our own human abilities, the answer is yes. But through the power of God, praise God, the answer is no. Praise God. We have a problem that is going to require supernatural correction. God is the solution. How is God the solution? Well, we saw that a little bit today in our scripture readings, but I want to just focus a couple minutes on the New Testament reading where we saw the end of John 2 going into this great confrontation between Jesus and Nicodemus. At the end of John 2, we see something. We see people who seem to believe on Jesus, but why are they believing on Jesus? It's just simply because of what they see him doing. They see the works that he's done. They see the signs, the miracles. And they say, yeah, that's great. I like this guy. I'll follow this guy. He gives us food. He heals sick people. And they didn't understand who he was. And so they didn't really believe. And then you get to chapter 3, and you see a manifestation of such people. They're not throwing stones at Jesus. They're not trying to kill him. but they don't understand who he is. And so we see this man come along and his name is Nicodemus, a man that Jesus calls, aren't you the teacher in all of Judah? He has such theological knowledge. but he's a great personification of someone who is spiritually dead. And I think even the fact that he comes at night is a picture that's used by John to show that to us, is that here comes Nicodemus and in his questioning, as we can see, is that he's spiritually dead. He does not understand. And he asks the question to Jesus and how does Jesus respond to him? He responds to him telling Nicodemus that man's problems need the correction of God and they need God to be the solution. And so we see in verse three, Jesus answered him, truly, truly I say to you, Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now there's some pretty interesting things to consider in that verse. You see it's an emphatic statement. It's an emphatic statement made by the Son of God. When Jesus is saying you, he's not just speaking to Nicodemus, it's a plural you. He's speaking to a much larger audience that would include you and me. But that phrase, unless one is born again. You notice that the one there isn't doing anything. They're not taking an action. They're having an action performed upon them. We call that a passive recipient. They're receiving something to be born again. And Jesus says, unless that happens to somebody, they cannot, no ability within, they can't even see the kingdom of God. And the kingdom of God, we could even say, is synonymous just with the concept of eternal life. And so there's this revelation from Jesus that man needs a new birth. He needs to be born again. Or we could even translate that to be born from above. And when we translate it that way, we really see the thrust of it has to be a divine action. Man is not above. God's above. And of course we see how Nicodemus responded and whether it's just a willfully obtuse response or if it's just a I don't understand response, Nicodemus is focused on physical birth. He's blind. He's spiritually blind. In the next two verses, or in verses five and six, we see Jesus responding again, truly, truly, I say to you, and really he's just, he's reemphasizing, he's reclarifying, he's giving more detail to Nicodemus than he just did. He says, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. So he goes on to further clarify that this being born again, it comes of water and the Spirit, the water being the spiritual cleansing that the Spirit of God brings. But you see again there's a passive recipient in there. We see that there is again no ability, cannot, And we have to consider that in our own lives, that in our own cannot condition, in our own condition of no ability within, we need something and we need the Holy Spirit to breathe spiritual life into our dead souls and to cleanse us. Remember, we're separated by our sin from God. We need to be cleansed and we need to be cleansed through what we call the work of regeneration. Regeneration, another word for the new birth, it's a word that explains this transformation within. What is regeneration? Regeneration, this is a little bit of a longer definition that I'm going to give to you, but it's the supernatural, and any time we think of supernatural we think God, not me, the supernatural rebirth or recreation of a sinner by God in which he applies the life Remember, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. So he applies the life of the risen Christ. He's risen from the dead, proving that he has eternal life. And so he applies the life of the risen Christ to produce conversion in the inner person for the renewal of God's image and to be definitively cleansed from our sin. That's what regeneration is and that's the work of the Holy Spirit. But I want to ask the question here is, how does that fit into God's sequential order of salvation? We call that the ordo salutis. Or perhaps we can ask the question, how exactly does God save his people? And I'm not trying to be overly technical here, but I want us to think about the cumulative, the holistic way that God has purpose to and how he does save people. Now, when we talk about a sequence, we're not talking about things that are happening in definitive time chunks. Well, the first few are eternal, but as we think about the conversion of a person, we're not trying to break these apart so that we can think about them happening individually. A lot of them are converging at the same time, but I just want to present a sequence to you so that we can kind of understand that. The first part of that sequence is the eternal aspect, and that is God's election. Is that from eternity past, that God has had a people, his new covenant members, that he has purposed to save. And so he's elected them from eternity past. There's never been a time where people have not been elected who would experience this rebirth and be joined into Christ's kingdom. And as part of that electing love, that's a love that God has within the Trinity. So there's a perfect love between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But there's also a love for the people who are going to be saved that he then predestines those people, as we see in Romans 8, that there is a predestination, meaning that their destination of eternal life. Remember that question, where am I going to go when I die? For the people of God that he's purposed to save, their destination has been set. Eternal life with Christ. Well, then we get into the temporal, which means the time-based understanding that we live in. We operate off of time. We got up at a certain time this morning. We started our service an hour ago. But in time, we find that there is the call of the gospel that goes out, but we focus on what's called the effectual call. The effectual call. And some of you may have heard the gospel scores of times before you believed it. You may have heard the gospel and said, that's not for me. I don't care. I don't understand. I don't want to be a Christian. And then suddenly you believed. And we call that the effectual call because it's the work of the Holy Spirit in the inner part of somebody who is spiritually dead and suddenly giving them understanding. It's Nicodemus, and as you see the progression of Nicodemus and John, what happens later in chapter 7, suddenly he's starting to ask more questions and you get to the death of Jesus and now he's helping bury Jesus and so his mind was starting to be shifted and changed over time but effectually at some point he's called definitively into the kingdom by Christ and of course that happens through the gospel. So people respond effectually to the gospel not just to a dream or some sort of other thing but it's the gospel by how people are saved and right along with that effectual call that we could say coincides this regeneration, this transformation within. That as you're hearing the gospel, as you're responding, you're responding because your heart has been regenerated, it's been changed, it's been given life. And what's the response? It's a response of faith. repentance. That's the command that Jesus gave as he went out in Matthew 4 and he says, he began to preach, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And so as the person, as you perhaps as you think back to when you believed, you believed because your heart had just been regenerated, changed, transformed. And as you believe, as you put your faith in Christ, as you repent of your sins, and you say, I have no hope except in Christ alone, he gives you things, wonderful things. You receive the righteousness of Christ. You are justified, seen right in the eyes of God with your sin removed forever, and you are definitively sanctified. You're set apart as part of God's holy people. Because you have the indwelling Holy Spirit, then you go on to be sanctified by the Spirit. We call that progressive sanctification, as he changes your life. And he gives you this inner power that you didn't have before to persevere in the faith. And he preserves you to the end. And you can go to your final breath with the perfect hope that one day I will be raised and glorified because Christ has been raised and glorified. It's kind of the full orb sequence there, but it goes from eternity to eternity because those who are raised and glorified, they will live forever with Christ. But at the middle of all of this, is this work of regeneration, the new birth by the Holy Spirit of God. And as Jesus went on to say in John chapter 3, he said, it's not something you can see, Nicodemus. And he compares it to the wind. We've had a lot of wind this week. Maybe you've had stuff blowing all over your yards. Maybe you've had trees fall. But you can't see the wind. You can see the result of the wind, but you can't see the wind. And we can't see the work of the Holy Spirit, but we can see the results. We can see how God changes the dead and makes them alive. And suddenly that person, now they possess a new ability. I can turn to God in faith. I can know him. I can believe in him and I can love him and I can obey him. All things I didn't want to do before, because of that inner transformation. And so it's the God who spoke all of creation into existence by the voice of his power. He's the same one who breathes life into dead souls. And he does that incredible work of regeneration. And we could say this is Genesis again. This is life again. Because God is the solution. God's the solution to anyone seeing and entering the kingdom. God is the solution to anyone responding to the gospel call in faith. God is the solution to breaking free from the shackles of sin. God's the solution to becoming a new creature in Christ. God's the solution to restored, renewed fellowship, communion with God. God is the solution. to the internal initial transformation, but also the continued sanctification. And so such recipients of this new birth, John 1 tells us that they're born again as children of God. And in John 1, we see three phrases where John says how they're not born again. He says, not of blood. And when he's talking about blood, he's talking about genealogical descent or family connections. And I just want to say a word to you young people. We have many young people among us this morning. It's very easy at times to say, I have a good family. My father believes in the Lord, or my mother believes in the Lord, or my grandfather or grandmother, they believe in the Lord. Therefore, I'm good. But John 1 says, not of blood. That's not how you're saved. You're not saved by living in a Christian house. You have to have your own faith. But he says, nor of the will of the flesh. Getting at that inability. You don't have any ability to change your heart. Nor of the will of man. You cannot, through your own determination, whether it's for yourself or even for somebody else, You cannot make yourself saved. You can't make someone else saved. It's impossible, he says, but of God. How have they become the children of God? By God, by God's will. And so God alone is the solution and God alone takes those rebels and makes them into new creatures. And so think about mankind in his unconverted state. The unregenerated, the unalive person, they possess no faith. They're not in fellowship and communion with God. They have no Savior, no salvation. They're not a new creation. They live in the realm of the cursed, we could say, and left alone, they will die and receive eternal damnation. That's what makes God's promises So amazing. That's what makes them so amazing. And we could have read this passage today, Ezekiel 36, but we talked about these last week, all the I wills of God, which is great news for people who are dead in their sins. I will act. I will vindicate the holiness of my great name. I will gather my people. I will sprinkle clean water on you. There's that purification. I will remove the heart of stone. I will give you a new heart and a new spirit. That's the total inner transformation. I will put my Holy Spirit within you. I will cause you to walk in my statutes and you will dwell in safety as my people. As we professed this morning, we said, this is our God. He said, I will be your God. I will be your God. I will make the fruit of my kingdom prosperous and I will increase my people as a great flock of sheep. And that leads into the following chapter, Ezekiel 37, where we see this radical recreation, a radical recreation. It's an amazing passage, I think. That passage where there's this picture, the portrayal of death, a valley of death, dry, aged bones. Now, if you came across, and this would be a very unfortunate circumstance, but if you came across a body of whether a human or an animal, What are you going to do? You're going to kind of check, like, does it have any color? Is there any life? Can I see a pulse? I don't know. Hopefully we can help this person if they're still alive. If you came across some bones in the forest, are you checking bones for a pulse? No, the bones are a great indication that there is just an impossibility of any life within. And these are dry bones, which means they've been there for a long time. Death bones. There's no possibility of life. And God asks this amazing question to Ezekiel, can these bones, Ezekiel, live? And Ezekiel gives a very prudent answer. I don't know. I know it can't happen by human ability, but you're a pretty powerful God, so you know. You know! If you act in power, who knows? And that's the reality of what happens here in Ezekiel 37, 5, where it's that these bones, which have been chosen for life, they will live. And God says, I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live. And so those bones that are dramatically, they come to life. An army of living people that before were detached, dry bones, a great picture of our spiritual condition. Initially, we see that as the people come back to the land and under Haggai, they have spiritual life breathed into them as they rebuild the temple. But ultimately, this promise here, this picture, it's pointing to Christ, the fulfillment, the great fulfillment of this promise that as death came through Adam, so life comes through Christ. In Ephesians 2, we see that it's God makes us alive through the Spirit's regeneration. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace. You have been saved. He's made us alive together with Christ. I was going to ask the question, think back to when you were born, but that would kind of be an in-cheek type of question because nobody remembers the moment of their birth. And that's a great thing because it helps us to understand this, that just as we had nothing to do, nothing to do with our physical birth of how we entered this world, so too we have nothing to do with our spiritual birth. And everything then that we experience in our new spiritual birth, it doesn't come from us, it comes from God alone. So God gives us a new heart of joy, Ezekiel 36. God places us into the new covenant, Hebrews 9. God makes us a new creation with a new identity in Christ. God leads us to walk in newness of life through the work of the Holy Spirit. Romans 7, we see that God causes us to appreciate his law in a new way. Ephesians 2, God places us into a new unified family. Colossians 3, God transforms our hearts to desire new works of righteousness. 1 John 2, I'm sorry, that was the new works of righteousness. Colossians 3, God gives us a new self. And it says that the image of God, which was tarnished, destroyed, is renewed. 2 Peter 3, and we'll talk about this in two weeks, God implants in us the sure hope of the new heavens and the new earth. In Revelation 21, God gives us a new fitness, a new cleanness to enter into the realm of life, the heavenly abode of life. Now you may think of your own conversion or perhaps the conversion that you've seen of others, but God often uses preparatory steps or events in our lives that lead us to that moment of regeneration. And sometimes it becomes a little bit less supernatural because your mind starts to become more inquisitive And so there's people who have what they see in their lives as a very definitive, defining moment in their lives, and there's other people who just started to grasp and understand. But whether it seemed to be a gradual process or a very striking process, every single one of those people have still had a punctiliar moment in time where God has suddenly changed their heart, suddenly given them the faith to believe. And perhaps even in this moment, perhaps all the things that you've experienced in life have led you to this very moment on this second Sunday in January to hear the gospel and suddenly believe. And we should be very careful to say that as we talk about regeneration, as we talk about new birth, that that isn't the gospel message that explains how the gospel changes people. But the gospel message is that Jesus died for sinners. Jesus was raised for sinners and Jesus gives new life to sinners. And so if you will repent and believe in Jesus, then you are responding to the gospel message. And if he's regenerated, if he's bringing life into your heart this morning, that is the response. Repent and believe the gospel. Believe on Jesus. That's what I would ask you this morning, because the gospel demands a response. Have you done that? Have you responded to the gospel? Have you believed on Jesus? Now if you have believed on Jesus, I just want to ask this question as we are just about done here. What does regeneration mean for God's transformed people? So if you have experienced that transformation, what does that mean for you? And what I mean is, how should that make us think? And here's several things. One, it should overthrow any sense of self-righteousness. I'm nobody. The only reason I'm in the kingdom is because of God alone. I have no righteousness of my own. It refutes intellectual pride. You did not believe in the gospel because you're smarter than the person sitting next to you. You didn't believe in the gospel because you heard the most convincing persuasion by a human person. You believe because of God alone. And that reveals the infinite power of God, that the God who creates is the God who spiritually creates. It should produce worship then. You know, as we sing, as we worship, as we read scripture, as we devote our lives to God, what kind of response do we have when we realize what God has done? It increases dependence upon the Holy Spirit. I can do nothing except through his power. It informs our prayers as we think about the lost. I can give them the gospel, but I'm praying, God, change their heart, change their minds, breathe life into them. And it can energize us with holy desires for good works. I want to do good works because my heart has been changed. I'll ask you, when was the last time that you pondered or marveled or worshiped God simply because of the work of regeneration that he's done in your heart? What was the response of Peter? Peter says in 1 Peter chapter 1 verses 3 through 5, he says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to his great mercy, It's an act of mercy. We didn't deserve this. He has caused us to be born again. Born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. That is the great work of God in regeneration, in the new birth, as he has brought Genesis again to our hearts. And to that we say, thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord, is the response of a person who's gotten something they didn't deserve. And we surely did not deserve spiritual life, but we can certainly thank God for it. So let's do that right now. Father in heaven, we thank you And it is impossible to say that we could thank you enough. A million lives lived with every second devoted to you and your kingdom would not even begin to scratch the surface of the thankfulness that we ought to have. The infinite sin debt that you paid And we were just bones, bones laying dead. And you reconstituted us. You brought life. You breathed it into us. You made us alive in Jesus Christ. Praise be to God. Hallelujah. You have done it. We acknowledge it. We believe it this morning. And we worship you, O Lord. Seal this truth in our hearts. And may we carry your gospel, believing and praying that you will regenerate many more hearts as you assemble your heavenly host. We pray these things in your holy name. Amen.