Regeneration with John Piper, “Faith: Unique and Fruitful Effect of the New Birth,” Part 2, 14

New Birth Through the Living and Abiding Word

When first Peter 123 says we are born again By the living and abiding word that word is the gospel which we preach and that gospel is defined on he died For our sins according to scripture. He was buried.

He was raised according to scriptures. Those are Historical events. This is a story about a person and about an event that you could see with your eyes. Touch with your hands here with your ears. That must be known.

Believed embraced as a historical reality. Through that we are born again. Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. We are saved by believing it. Standing in it embracing it. Faith comes by hearing and Hearing by the Word of God.

Romans 10 17. Listen to Galatians 3 2 5. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law? Pause. Insert. Mantra. I Will do this thing. I will do this thing. I will do this thing. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith hearing what the gospel the story.

Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Answer hearing with faith in other words. Hearing with faith is what happens when you're born again Through the living and abiding Word of God because the Word of God is the gospel and the gospel awakens faith.

It's news about Jesus Christ. It's news you never can emphasize enough that the heart of Christianity is news. Did you hear did you hear? Son of God has come. Son of God lived. Son of God died for you son of God rose again.

Death is defeated. Hell is closed. Victory over death is achieved. It's for you. Will you have it? It's news. We turn it into so many other things besides news. It's just stunning news. Really good news.

And you gotta understand it hear it like a story. Gotta know who is this Jesus? And what do you mean by cross? And what's a resurrection? You gotta understand a few things and then you gotta embrace it.

Did your hope of life. Living in abiding Word the gospel is not a mantra. It doesn't work like that. It doesn't work through the repetition of sacred sound. It works because it is an intelligible truth about what really happened in history about Jesus Christ and how as a perfect God man, he was put to death by the Father's will bearing the wrath of God so that we Might go free from our sins and then he rises to vindicate his work and he reigns at the Father's right hand.

There's the story. You got to know that believe that. Not work yourself into an empty-headed free immediate communer with some abstract divine Reality, please Bethlehem. Don't go there. Don't add that on and thus undermine the gospel.

So what we learn from first Peter 123. Born again through the living and abiding Word of God. Is that the whole worldview? Supporting the mantra is wrong. It isn't rooted in history. It isn't rooted in Jesus Christ.

It isn't rooted in Intelligibility of historical reality and narrative. It isn't rooted in Responsibility of human mind to construe meaning from the preaching of Christ. It isn't rooted in the duty of the soul to see and believe the gospel.

Christ crucified. I'm jealous for you. I am jealous for Bethlehem to have discernment when you go to the Y YWCA. And not be foolish signing up for your yoga classes. Not knowing what you're doing maybe even leading them and Not knowing what you're doing.

Yoga is to the body what a mantra is to the mouth. They're both rooted in the same worldview. You go to the Minneapolis YWCA website. Go to fitness classes try this tonight go to fitness classes and then do a little search yoga ping 22 entries beginning yoga MS yoga youngster yoga youth dancing yoga.

Yoga for everybody. Here's one definition of mantra yoga quote. One has to chant a word or phrase until he or she transcends mind and emotions in. The process the superconscious is discovered and achieved or here's the definition of yoga at one website.

It's not a Christian website, that's just these are just yoga websites. Yoga focuses on harmony between mind and body. Yoga derives its philosophy from Indian metaphysical beliefs. The word yoga comes from Sanskrit language and means union or merger.

The ultimate aim of this philosophy is to strike a balance between mind and body and attain self-enlightenment. To achieve this yoga uses movement breath posture relaxation Meditation in order to establish a healthy lively balanced approach to life.

You were born again by the living and abiding Word of God. This word is the gospel of Jesus Christ crucified and risen and reigning on your behalf. Don't fall prey to another gospel don't Undermine the true gospel by attaching another Gospel to it.

There is no other gospel and there is no other path to God or To ultimate well-being then hearing understanding and believing the scandalous news of Jesus Christ. So When we come to John 1 1 so here we come get into the text.

When we come to John 1 1 in the beginning was the word and The word was with God and the word was God. We don't stop there and rip it out of context and make it serve mantra. We don't do that. We keep reading.

To find out what do you mean? Who are you word? And we come to verse 14, which is why I ended the text there and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. We have seen his glory. Glory as the only Son from the Father full of grace and truth.

That's why the word can't be a mantra. Became a man. The gospel became a man. And the man became the gospel. Dwelt among us. Lived a perfect life. Died in our place. Bore the wrath of God. Rose physically from the dead.

Comes to us in a historical narrative. Christ comes to you in the gospel. The gospel is the power of God and to salvation. Christ comes to you in the gospel the story of his saving work. That he died for you that he rose for you our job.

Hear it by grace. Understand it. Receive it be born again in it and never never never never. Never by mantras or any other means. Try to empty your brain of it ever empty brains are. A big welcome sign for the devil.

Jesus said. Sweep the room clean. Put nothing in it. Seven demons come back. Not one. You think this is small stuff at the YWCA? Let's focus on verses 11 to 13. He came to his own this Touchable seeable flesh.

Jesus he came to his own and his own people did not receive him. Don't be among that number in this service. Downtown South don't be among that number. Don't you be among that number? Came to his own.

Some people did not receive him but be among this number to all who did receive him. Who believed in his name? He gave them the right to become children of God. Who were born. Not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God.

The structure of those two verses 12 and 13 is very similar to first Peter 122 and 123 in verse 12. The right to become a child of God is connected with what? Receiving him that is believing on him said in two ways use either one.

Receive him or believe on his name. Same thing just repetition. So in doing that You receive the right to become a child of God. You become a child of God. That's very much like verse 22. Where we were purified by obedience to the truth.

And the purification representing what happens in the new birth in obedience to the truth was obedience to the gospel, which is faith. So faith and new birth. Being in child of God are connected in verse 12 here like they were in verse 22 in first Peter 1.

Then in verse 13 Being born again is not connected with the act of believing but with God's act of begetting. He's mentioned faith and child of God in verse 12 now is mentioning Born again by God born again by God.

Who were born again verse 13? Not a blood nor the will of the flesh nor the will of man but of God. So the emphasis in verse 13 is God did this and the emphasis of verse 12 is You believe and you receive and in that you become a child of God.

Okay, so same thing we saw last week. There are three negations in verse 13, right? Not of blood. Not of the will of the flesh. Not of the will of man. Literally not of will of a male. The word there's not generic man.

It's male like a husband. But the emphasis falls on but of God. Not those three ways. Are you born again? But this way God did this. Will of flesh didn't will of man didn't blood didn't God did but the emphasis God does this.

But what are those three negations? Why are they there? Why didn't he just be positive and not negate three things? Why don't you just affirm? Divine agency in the new birth instead of negating three agencies.

What do they mean. What is blood. It's plural literally because that would sound weird in English so they didn't do it not of bloods. But it helps you understand what it means because it means two bloodlines.

Hers and his Mingle in procreation and you got now this person. That's how you make people to bloodlines and he's saying that's not the way you make a child of God. You make babies that way but you don't make baby Christians that way.

That's what he's saying. And then the next one is will of flesh flesh. Remember chapter 3 that which is born of the flesh is flesh. Flesh symptom is human fallen humanity without the Holy Spirit what I can do on my own.

I Can make babies. But I can't make children of God. And then the third one specifying one particular example of a will of the flesh and that is a husband's will. A Husband can have sex with his wife or a male can rape a woman and he can make a baby.

But he can't make a child of God. Now what's the point of all that the point is. Especially for the Jewish people of that time and maybe for your religious tradition today. I don't know where you're coming from who Was involved in your being born.

The first time is totally irrelevant To your being born the second time. Okay, I don't care if they're Jewish Catholic Lutheran Baptist American Russian irrelevant. It isn't happening that way. So he's trying to just help free all of us from any notion.

That you're born into this thing like your ethnicity has something to do with it or your socioeconomic standing has something to do with it or the faith of your parents has something to do with it or the fact that you got Baptized because you were born into that kind of family has something to do with it.

And he's contrasting with all of that human agency not another better kind of human agency like not of blood nor the will of flesh nor the will of man, but Something else you do. No, that's not the contrast.

The contrast is no human agency none God. But of God you're born of God. God brings you in to be if you exist as a child of God. It's because God brought you into being as a child of God the new creation in in Christ.

The new birth is God's decisive work now I'm ready to admit that if we just had verses 12 and 13 you might Make a case that there's nothing Absolutely certain about the flow of those verses or what he says there that Demands that God's begetting be the cause of my believing first 12 is all about my believing and In that I become a child of God, but it didn't say which comes first or which causes the other.

Does my being a child of God enable me to believe or does my believing Make me a child of God. And then comes verse 13. And it's not connected in a clear way that makes that obvious the emphasis just falls on God's doing it.

But we're not left With just these two verses to understand John's understanding of this. So I invite you to go with me as we close To 1st John chapter 5 so John wrote the gospel and John wrote for second third John.

So if you want to know what John means here in terms of which causes the other. Does faith cause the new birth or does the new birth cause faith? John is going to tell us very clearly his answer to that.

Even if verses 12 and 13 might not be as crystal clear as you'd like. So we're at chapter 5 of 1st John Verse 1. This just settled it for me years ago as I was wrestling with these things. Everyone who believes 1st John 5 1.

Everyone who believes present tense ongoing action. Everyone who believes That Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Perfect tense. The tenses there are all important for understanding how this works.

John is saying that if you are a believer, you are a believer because you have been Born of God. Let me read you John Stott. John Stott is a Level-headed Expositor you want to see just Level-headed no-nonsense say it like it is don't get caught up in any big theological system.

He never was known as as a system tizer. He just did faithful exposition year after year after year in London and now he's an old man in the nursing home down in Bristol and may God bless the socks off of him and Keep him faithful to the end as his mind is enabled to be faith.

So I'll read you John Stott from his little first John commentary. Here's what he said the combination of present tense believes and Perfect tense has been born is important it shows clearly That believing is the consequence Not the cause of the new birth.

Our present continuing activity of believing he says is the result and therefore the evidence of our past experience of the new birth by which We became and remain God's Children in quote. I think that's exactly right.

And you can call yourself Whatever you want. You don't have to put a name on that theologically. You can just say I believe First John 5 1 that's what you can say. I'm a I'm a John guy this John not this John.

I Want to be a John guy like this John. So what's the upshot of all this? The upshot of last week and this week is that God's action act In bringing about the new birth is the creation of a believer. So when God I've been I've been explaining this to a lot of people who've been asking me questions I'm gonna use my little hand actions here again.

So here's a dead heart. All right, the dead Unbelieving rebellious heart with no spiritual interest at all anytime something spiritually Significant comes it just bounces off because it's hard as rock and there's no life within it by which there can be any Attachment and here comes the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus in The channel or the arrow of the gospel being spoken across your kitchen table perhaps or This pulpit or the radio or however God wants to do it it's arriving toward this dead heart with a mega freight of divine power and the instant that this massive power of God in and through the gospel Connects this dead heart with this living spirit Christ.

Life happens. There's no time-lapse and what what this life is is believer. A believer comes into being. So there's no year between new birth and faith. No, there's no zero warrant For calling anybody born again, who's not a manifest believer.

You can speculate about that if you want. I'm not going there because it says we are born again through the living and abiding Word of God this word Empowered by the Spirit uniting this dead heart to Jesus comes and it touches it and just like when you put your hand in a socket.

There is no time-lapse between being shocked and going pew right it is instantaneous you touch electricity. You go like this when God touches this dead heart. It goes like this and this is faith born again through the living and abiding Word of God therefore.

The new birth does not come about through a mantra. It's not sustained by a mantra. It's not increased or improved by a mantra or anything like it. It comes as a God-given Clear-headed Conscious embrace of historical person historical events and The historical meaning of those events as delivered in the story of the gospel.

That's the way God saves sinners. That's the way God creates the miracle of the new birth. It's most remarkable that something as concrete and tangible as News about Events and a person could make a miracle happen and my dead heart lives that's most amazing.

And Because of that I can and I do Appeal to you. Look at him. Let me Look at him in the gospel. I've repeated the gospel probably eight times in this message. Look at him in the gospel. Set your gaze on this person Jesus Christ.

The word became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth. We beheld his Glory. Fix your gaze on him. Watch him go into Gethsemane. Watch him go into Good Friday. Watch his silence. Instead of calling down twelve legions of angels upon his enemies watch him pray father forgive them.

They don't know what they do. Watch him say to a thief who should go straight to hell for a life of total thievery. Today You will be with me in paradise. Watch him. Watch him. Watch him. And oh may God grant your eyes To see and to embrace this Christ and in that embrace.

You become a child of God.