Regeneration with John Piper, “Through the Washing of Regeneration,” Part 1, 11

The scripture text for this evening's message is found in the book of Titus, chapter 3.

Titus chapter 3, verses 1 to 8. Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people.

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.

But when the goodness and lovingkindness of God our Savior appeared, 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, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, being justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works.

These things are excellent and profitable for people. Before I pray, let me remind you that on all three campuses, as always on Communion Sunday, we take a helping hand offering at the end, which is dedicated this time to the

Minnesota Baptist Conference Benevolence Fund for needy retired pastors.

So let's be generous at the end. Father, now I stand in need, not of any money, but of your

Holy Spirit. Money would be of no use to me right now at all to accomplish what

I want to accomplish. In the salvation of the lost and the strengthening of your people, the reconciling of the alienated, the teaching of the ignorant, the guidance for the confused, refreshment for the downcast,

I pray for the pastors who are here for the conference, that they would take heart from this service and this message, and that you would begin to do a deep and profound work all the way through Wednesday that would set them to put their hands to the plow afresh and not look back.

So wherever we are on the spiritual spectrum, from unbelief to radical belief, I pray that you would do a saving, strengthening, healing, reconciling, empowering, guiding, encouraging work.

In Jesus' name I ask it, amen. Notice in verse 5, the word regeneration.

This is the ninth in the series on regeneration, and the first one I told all the children to remember to teach their parents that another name for the new birth was regeneration.

I hope all the children have taught their parents well so that when I get to this word they'll know what it means.

Verse 5 goes, He, that is God, saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy by the washing of regeneration.

So there's our key word, which is why I have chosen this text in this next message in the series.

The washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit. We've posed the question, what is it?

What is the new birth? We've posed the question, why is it needed? And we've posed the question, how does it happen?

Dividing the how question into two parts, namely, how does God do it and how do we take part in it?

We haven't gotten here yet. We're still here. And that's what

I'm doing in this text, posing the question again, how does it happen? What is involved from God's side in this reality called the new birth or being born again or regeneration?

Now before we go directly to that question, I cannot pass over quickly the answer given to the what question and the why question in this text.

So just by way of a little expansion and review, let's take a what and a why before we get to the how.

There are some signals here that are extraordinary about what it is.

Let's take one of them. This word, regeneration here, the word behind it in the

Greek, only occurs one other time in the Bible, and it's very significant.

So I'll read it to you. It's Matthew 19, it's in the mouth of Jesus, verse 28, talking to the 12 apostles after the event of saying that the rich man will have a hard time getting into the kingdom of heaven, and Peter having said, we've left everything and followed you, what about us?

Jesus says this, Matthew 19, 28, truly, truly,

I say to you, in the new world, that's the word, it should be translated very literally, in the regeneration.

It's exactly what it means. The new birth, in the second birth, in the new birth, when the son of man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.

So the regeneration in Matthew 19, 28 is a reference to the regeneration of the universe.

In the regeneration, translated here, new world, that's okay, just can't do the parallel with Titus 3, 5 when you see that.

In the regeneration, the son of man will sit on a glorious throne, and the 12 apostles on thrones judging

Israel. This is the new heavens and the new earth, described in Isaiah 65 and 66.

So Jesus conceives of the new birth as not simply a spiritual thing going on in here, but a global, universal thing going on out there.

And this thing going on in here is to get me ready for that. To make me suitable for that, to make me an inhabitant of that, because not everybody will be there.

There will be an outer darkness, outside the universe. The most important text in the

Bible, I think, about the new birth of the universe is

Romans 8, 20 -23. You can go there with me if you want. To me, this is an absolutely fundamental, foundational, pervasively influential text in the way

I do my ministry, because it affects how I visit you in the hospital and think about your sickness. And a host of other things.

I cannot overemphasize the importance of Romans 8, 20 -23. So let me read it for you.

And I'll point it out when we get to the place, you'll see it, but I'll point it out when we get there, where the regeneration of the universe happens.

For the creation, not all of it, not just you and your little soul. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly.

Nobody among us wanted this. Subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope.

And there's only one person who can subject the universe in hope, and the devil doesn't do that, God does that.

In hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

You get it first, and then he says, I'm going to have a universe for these new people. Just as I'm making them new,

I'm going to make the universe new. They will have a new heavens and a new earth in which to dwell.

They have spiritual bodies, and I'll have a spiritual universe where they eat fish and pass through doors.

Verse 22, for we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth.

There it is. There's going to be a new birth. Cancer is labor pains.

Tsunami, labor pains. That's the meaning of that verse.

Everywhere you look inside your body and outside in this world, Kenya, Chad, labor pains, groaning.

Horrible groanings. I saw some horrible pictures on the internet of burn victims and tumors this week.

I cried, I cried. We have to keep them hidden.

We can't take it. Paul looked it right in the face, and he named it.

This is the fall. This is futility. This is corruption. This is subjection.

Start over in verse 22, for we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth, yours might say, and travail.

That's the implication. Verse 23, and not only the creation, and this is how

I feel about your hospital stay, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the

Holy Spirit. This is spirit, empowered, indwelt, saints and children of God dying in agony in hospitals and with machete swipes right down their face like this.

Not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Holy Spirit groan as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

In other words, when our adoption is complete, it's going to include our bodies and it doesn't yet.

That's important for a pastor to get his arms around when he has a suffering people. Otherwise, he's going to say stupid things about their lack of faith.

So, when you put all that together, here's the picture. God's purpose for this universe that he made is that the entire creation be born again.

That the whole universe replace futility, replace corruption, replace disease, degradation, degeneration, disasters, a whole new order, new heavens, new earth.

He calls it when the Son of Man sits in the regeneration, he'll be on a throne.

So when Paul uses this word, only other place in the

Bible, in Titus 3, 5, hear it big. Hear it small, but hear it big.

Not just our spirits, not just our bodies, not just our bodies, but also our spirits.

We who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan inwardly as we wait for our adoption as sons.

Why did God subject the world? I can't go on without just addressing this to futility like this.

What you see in the world in terms of horror is owing to God's subjecting the world to futility when

Adam and Eve sinned. It's called the fall. They fell, but the question is, why did the universe fall?

Why do hurricanes go together with disobedience? And I'll tell you the only answer

I know. God regarded the moral outrage of sin, moral evil, as so horrendous,

He gave us touchable, visible evidences of the outrage in our own sicknesses, our own tsunamis, our own wars, our own divorces.

He unleashed on the world so much pain that we would have to say, either this is massively wrong and unjust, or sin is more horrible than I thought it was.

I hope you give the second answer. It's a parable.

It's a physical imaging of a moral outrage.

You come to Titus 3 .5 now, and the beginning of the healing, the beginning of the regeneration.

God saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the

Holy Spirit. So when he gets to verse 7, and he says that the aim of that regeneration and that salvation is that being justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

Now I hope you fill up the term eternal life as big as it really is. Heirs in hope of a life that is not just this awful life extended, and if it's not awful for you, you're in a bubble.

You're just not sharing in the problems. Not the extension of this awful life, but a totally new life in a totally new universe.

That's what eternal life will be. New bodies, new heavens, new earth, new perfected relationships, new sinless sight of all that is good and glorious, beautiful, new capacities for a kind of pleasure in God that now you never dreamed of.

It will be so new and so glorious. So I couldn't pass by the what of regeneration in this text.

The why of regeneration here is not new, it's just so clear I think

I should say it, namely verse 3. We ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others, hating one another.

That's not the material creation under the curse. That's our sin, which brings the material creation under the curse.

Foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to pleasures that are sinful, malice, envy, hated, and hating.

You're there somewhere, and so am

I. The reason we need regeneration is because that's us.

That's the way we were, and because remnants remain, it's sometimes the way we still are.

Jesus said unless you're born again, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, and the reason is because hearts like verse 3 don't go to heaven.

God won't let that kind of heart in his heaven. That kind of heart will not be in heaven, which means you must be born again.

And then comes in verse 4, like so many times in the Bible, that glorious and most precious of all phrases perhaps, but God.

But when the goodness and lovingkindness of God, but when the goodness and lovingkindness of God appeared,

God saved us. It's exactly like the logic of Ephesians 2, 3 to 5, isn't it?

Listen to those great words. We were carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind, 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. We were dead, but God made us alive. By grace, you've been saved.

Exactly the same logic as we have here in Titus 3, 3 and 4. So there's the what of regeneration, this first installment of this universal renewal is happening right here when

God does it in us, and it's because we were so foolish and so hated and so hating and so wicked, so selfish, and we knew that our hearts as they are could never be in heaven.

There has to be a renewal called the new birth. Now we turn to the question, how?

How does it happen? How did God do it, this regeneration? It's amazing to me that Paul here speaks in the same pattern as Jesus did in John 3.

You remember in John 3, he said, unless you're born of water and the Spirit, you cannot see the kingdom of God.

Water, Spirit, water, Spirit. And here we have in verse 5,

God saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the

Holy Spirit, washing water, renewal by the

Spirit, Spirit. That's really important, I think, to see what

Paul is doing here. Jesus said, verse 5 of John 3, unless you, and the easy way to remember it is 3 .5

and 3 .5. John 3 .5, Titus 3 .5. Unless one is born of water and the

Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Now, I argued nine sessions ago that Jesus was getting those categories of water and Spirit from Ezekiel chapter 36, which goes like this.

This is the new covenant promise, which Jesus says is now here, it's happening. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness and all your idols.

I will cleanse you, and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes.

So Ezekiel is saying that when the new covenant is fulfilled in and through the

Messiah, the blood of the new covenant, as Jesus called it when he held up that cup, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

When that new covenant is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the newness that we're going to experience will be experienced in terms of cleansing and in terms of renewal by the

Spirit. And we argued both of these are absolutely crucial. If you only spoke in terms of renewal, you'd think, oh, am

I the same person I was before I was born again? Or am I not John Piper then?

And this one says, no, no, no. You are the same because I cleaned you. I cleaned you.

It's the same you who was pre -born again and the same you after, only clean.

And then this one says, and a new nature. Because as you move into the future, you're not just moving with the same resources you had, only clean.

You now got new resources. Your nature is new. You have the Holy Spirit empowering you, renewing you.

And so that's the same thing we have here, I think, namely a washing of regeneration and renewal in the

Holy Spirit. Now the question is, how does that happen?