God's Role in Evangelism

, there's probably, we'll be talking about a lot of different Ways and means of evangelism, but there's probably no more important. Means of evangelism than what you do with your own children in your home. ministering to those little guys over the course of 18+ years. And so we want to remind you about a book real quick that's in the, hopefully in the information booth.

Last week we pumped this book and they all sold out for service. And so to the 10 or 15 that were waiting for this book, Saul says, yes, they're over there. $10 but if you bring your little coupon thing that's in your bulletin, it's $8. What's the difference manhood and womanhood defined according to the Bible.

This is, the great commission in Matthew 28 is go out in all the world, make disciples, teaching them all the things that I commanded you to do. This is evangelism. Raising your children in your home is evangelism. And we just want to commend and thank our moms and dads that evangelize their children who are faithful to share the gospel.

We want to put this in your hands. for anyone who is bold enough to walk up and say this, I will read this book, you can have this one for free. Who's the first one that's born? There we go, Cheryl, got Cheryl?

ladies first. Yeah, you can fight it. We could have a big wrestling match here. I'd love to see Cheryl take on Seaburn.

Actually, Sein and Chris versus Cheryl would be awesome. Tag team, what's that? Yes, exactly, whipped cream. Yeah, probably.

Cheryl's a Well, let's just say that she can talk her way out of just about anything, I think. No, we love Cheryl's awesome. She is an incredible evangelist. You guys should spend some time with Cheryl if you want to learn how to evangelize.

again, the, the topic over the next three weeks is evangelism. We want to take some time to try to encourage our folks with evangelism and we've been I had a number of folks that have helped us here the past year or two with Jeff and Joe and guys like Aurelio that are really trying to pump up our congregation to share their faith. We really appreciate those guys and over the next couple of weeks, we want to try to remind ourselves of some of the basis of evangelism, the Theological foundation and then some of the methods and means and the message.

Milt will be talking about that.

We're also gonna have Jay Wetker come in a couple of weeks and speak to us again on the topic of evangelism. my topic is God's role in evangelism. We start to begin or we begin to talk about the topic, you have to start every topic with God, right? This is God's idea, and we're going to talk about God's role in evangelism.

And even as we talk about God's role in evangelism, there's a number of things that we could talk about this morning. We could talk about predestination. We could talk about election. We could talk about the effectual call.

We could talk about justification, but we're going to focus on just one side of this beautiful diamond we call salvation. We're going to focus on regeneration or the new birth. God's role in the new birth. And as soon as we talk about the new birth or being born again, or regeneration, there is some assumed ideas behind that doctrine.

Underneath the doctrine of regeneration, it's assumed that people must need to be born again. Why do people need to be born again? People need to be born again, because when we are born physically, we are born spiritually, stillbirth. We are not alive when we come out of the womb spiritually.

We are dead. We still need to be born even after our physical birth. Something needs to happen to any particular man or woman or child. In order for true change to occur in the life of a person.

And for true change to occur in families, there must be change in moms and dads. And for change to happen in churches, there must be changes in families. For change to occur in our culture, there must be change in the church. Everything in the world depends upon the regeneration of men, women, boys and girls within the context of their home.

And this is where we begin our topic. Everybody, everybody these days is talking about the need for change. And everybody's got an idea of what we need to do to change. And Those that come from a non-Christian worldview have plenty of ideas on how we need to change.

In fact, they've been implementing those ideas for a long time right here in the United States. you just look at some of the founders of our education system, for instance, just to pick one example, and you'll see that people have been working very hard for a long time to change the culture. Back in 1930, Charles Potter. In an article, Humanism and New Religion said education is thus the most powerful ally of humanism.

And every American school is a school of humanism. What can a theistic Sunday school's meeting for an hour once a week and teaching only a fraction of the children do to stem the tide of the 5 day program of humanistic teaching? Change It's not just coming, it's happened in our culture, programmatically, aggressively. There are those that believe that that's the change we need is we need humanistic change.

In 1983, John Dunphy in an award winning essay said this The battle for humankind's future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith. A religion of humanity utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to carry humanist values into wherever they teach. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new, the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with its adjacent evils and misery and the new faith of humanism.

This is the battleground for change in our culture today.

And all you have to do is look at what's going on today. There are those when you survey people that are 40 and above, less than 50% of those folks believe that homosexuality is an alternative acceptable lifestyle and homosexual marriage is acceptable, but when you survey those that are 35 and younger, the majority of them say it's acceptable. The majority of the young people who have come up through this change. In our public system Believe that homosexuality is perfectly acceptable.

And those that don't accept it are bigots and closed minded. Change has happened. It's it's upon us. We need change.

We need change in our culture, in our country, in our churches, in our families, in our dads, and our moms, and our kids. Biblically, when we look at the reality, every one of us needs to change desperately because we were born dead in sin. We were foolish without hope. And none of us escapes the stain of sin.

There is none righteous, no, not one. The Bible says, and all of us, according to the Bible, are in need of a changed, brand new heart. We need a new heart. We need a new spirit.

According to the Bible, our condition is we are enslaved, condemned, and dead, and change is desperate. And we cannot accomplish it ourselves. It will not be accomplished through the political structures. It will not be accomplished through the normal means of education.

It must happen from Almighty God, and this has always been the case. It has always been the case that the only way that people change. is by a sovereign act of God. Jesus says in Matthew 3:3 in that famous passage where he's speaking to Nicodemus, you must be born again.

If you want to go to the kingdom of heaven, you must be born again. Anybody that's outside of the kingdom means you're outside of eternity. In order to go to eternity, you must be born again. You must be changed internally.

So as we talk about this doctrine, this is an incredibly important doctrine for evangelism, because if we don't get this doctrine right, we're going to be out trying to change people that can't be changed. Men, women, and children by their very nature, according to the scripture, are running 180 degrees in the other direction, and they're dead in trespasses and sin, and the only one that can wake them up is God Almighty. And if you or I are under any illusion that somehow that we can awaken.

A dead person We will be sorely disappointed.

Not only will we be sorely disappointed, we'll be very tempted to use methods or means in order to awaken dead people that cannot be awakened. If you wave a stake in front of a dead body, a dead body is not going to wake up and say, Let me eat that. We are utterly dependent upon Almighty God to use His message to awaken dead people. And if we don't understand that, then we're going to try to use whatever means, psychological or whatever, in order to get these dead bodies to stand themselves up.

We're going to be doing this tomfoolery of hanging bodies on fences and whatever to dress them up and try to make them look like they're awake when in fact they're still dead. If we're going to see dead people awakened, then God Almighty must show up. In the ways and means that he is determined. To awaken people to salvation, let's define this doctrine of regeneration, and then we're going to look at three facts about regeneration.

And the children can begin to fill in their sheets right here. Definition regeneration. is a secret act of God in which He imparts new spiritual life to us. Regeneration, this born again thing, this new life thing is a secret.

We'll talk about what we mean by that. It's a secret act of God. It's something God does in which He imparts new spiritual life. We were dead until He gave us that life.

He gives it to us. That's regeneration. Now let's flesh that out in 3 points. That we can establish from scripture number one.

Regeneration is a sovereign act of God. Regeneration is a sovereign act of God. Now we're not talking about every aspect of salvation in this one message. We could talk about the role that we play in conversion.

In repentance, we could talk about the role that you and I play in our own sanctification and the role that you and I play in our perseverance. But regeneration on the pages of Scripture is entirely and totally, and ultimately a work of God Almighty. Consider John 1:12. You can turn to John 1:12 in your copy of God's word.

If you don't happen to have a Bible, you're busy with us this morning. There should be a Bible in front of you down near your feet and the chair in front of you. You could look to the second half of your copy of God's word and find the book of John. Somebody I'm sure next to you would be more than glad to help you find it.

John chapter 1 verse 12. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become the children of God to them. He gave the right to become born again into his family, even to those who believe in His name. Who are those who believe in his name, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Nobody is born into the family of God. Without the will of God. God is the one that births people into His family. Titus 3:5, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we've done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration, this new life, this new creation in renewing of the Holy Spirit.

This is something that God does just as we played no active role in our own birth, so we had no active part to play in our spiritual birth. Those of you that are parents here, you probably remember the birth of your children. I'm so glad that I live in the modern age where the dad can go into the room to see his kids born. It used to be that the dads all had to smoke outside and the mom was in there by herself and My wife with Joshua was in labor for over 20 hours and then pushed for about 4 or 5 of those final hours before they said we're going to have to take Joshua by cesarean.

And so we got all ready and they took her in and I was able to come in and stand behind the sheet and you can hear all the cutting and the burning of flesh, and it's just amazing. And And then at an appropriate moment, the doctor says you can stand up and look over and there's my wife just opened up. And All of a sudden, I see these two little hands pop up, grab the outside of Katie's belly and pull himself up. And the doctors pick him up and he started squirming around and running around the table and whatnot.

And he lifts his hands up. One moment he's like, I did it. Yeah. Now if my son Joshua, that's actually, that's plausible, right?

But it didn't happen. He was a totally passive. Participant in this event, you can go up and talk to him. He doesn't remember anything about it.

It just happened to him. And while there were means that God obviously used to birth this little guy, God obviously created parents and He created procreation, and my wife ate all the good foods and took her vitamins and stuff, but nobody would ever mistake the means for the cause. No one would look at Joshua and come up to Katie and I and say, good job. It was God.

It was God that birthed that little boy. And it is God Almighty that gives birth to us spiritually. It is not an accident that God has chosen the picture of birth to talk about the new birth, to remind us that you and I have absolutely nothing to do with it. We're passive participants.

Our passivity is evident. In all the passages that speak of us being born or born again, James 1:18. would be one. In the exercise of His will, He brought us forth.

That's what God did. Now here's the means by the word of truth, so the gospel goes out so that we would be a first fruits. Notice this. God does it by the means of preaching and faith with the result of love.

But it's God who does the birthing. First Peter 1:3, blessed be the Father, God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again, to a living hope. Who caused us to be born again? God caused us to be born again.

We see Jesus sing the same type of language to Nicodemus in John chapter 3, and Nicodemus doesn't understand. In verse 8, Jesus says the wind blows where it wishes, and you, you hear the sound of it, but you don't know where it comes from and where it's going. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. And otherwise this is a mystery.

God does it. We don't always know how it happens, but he does it. We know something about the means of how it happens and who God uses, and he tells them to go out and preach the gospel, but we don't understand it. Ezekiel 36:26 in the Old Testament, we see God's activity of regeneration is the subject of prophecy.

Moreover, God says, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will remove the heart of flesh, and give the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes. God's the one that gives the heart.

And then because it gives you the heart, He's the one that causes you to walk in, in His word, in His law. Ephesians 2:4. When we look at the scriptural evidence, both God the Father and God the Holy Spirit are given credit for bringing about regeneration. In Ephesians 2:4 we see, but God, who's rich in mercy because of His great love, which He loved us, even when we're dead in transgressions.

We were dead. He made us alive. We were dead. God made us alive.

Colossians 2:13. When you were dead in your transgressions and uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive. Together with Him, having forgiven us of all of our transgressions. God is the one that does it.

And brothers and sisters, this is a mystery to us. Just because we say that God is the sovereign one who acts, and he's the one that brings about regeneration doesn't mean we understand it. Regeneration is a sovereign secret to us. It's a mystery, as Jesus said to Nicodemus.

It's like the wind. Nevertheless, there are certain things that God has revealed to us about the doctrine of regeneration we can deduce that. Well, our whole persons are changed. It's not just that we get a spirit, and we've added something to our constitution that wasn't there before.

We're entirely changed. 2 Corinthians 5:17. I'm a new creation. All things have passed away.

All things become new. We've totally changed. And regeneration is an instantaneous event. Regeneration is a work of God in which He imparts us a new life.

It's right to conclude that this imparting of a new life is instantaneous. It's not something that he leaks out to us over time. Or he grants it to us at one point in time. It's something that happens once, not multiple times.

Nevertheless, We don't always know when it happens. We're not always sure when our point of regeneration occurs, and this is especially true with kids who grow up in the church. You don't always know. Both my daughter and my son, they've both professed faith in Christ, but I don't really know when the point of regeneration has occurred or when it will occur.

It's a mystery. All I know is I'm supposed to teach them the gospel, teach them to observe all the things that Christ has commanded them to do, and to keep putting the cross before them, keep compelling them to believe. And when they, as they grow, they're going to come to a point where they're going to recognize that they're born again, and I might ask them, Josh, when you were born again, I don't know. It happens a lot in the church.

We've had kids here recently in this church. They've been baptized up here who professed faith when they were little kids, professed faith, walked off into darkness, into sin, and then God woke them up one day at 1718, 19 years old, and he said, what, I wasn't born again. I prayed, I prayed a prayer when I was a little kid, but I wasn't born again. But now I'm born again.

How did that happen? I don't know. Gospel came in. God woke them up, all these things their parents have been telling them for years and years and years, bouncing off the wall, bouncing off the wall.

One day God opens up their heart and boom, they believe it. And they're born again. It's a mystery to us. We don't always know.

We don't always know when it occurs. That's why sometimes it's difficult for some people to share their testimonies if the expectation is you've got to say the exact day when you were born again. Because frankly, there are some people who just don't know the day they were born again, especially when they grow up in the church. So regeneration is a sovereign act of God, and we've got to get that foundational doctrine down if we're going to understand our evangelism.

We've got to understand God's role and that He is the one that's in the birthing process. We might be part of the means and whatnot. We're there planting the seed and throwing the seed out, but he's the one that's bringing the increase. And if God doesn't show up, Nothing happens.

In fact, sometimes when you look at the pages of scripture, sometimes God promises nothing will happen. Look at Jeremiah. How'd you like to be Jeremiah? But I've thought about this.

What if I was called to Jeremiah's call? Mike, I'm calling you to go to these people and you're going to preach the gospel. You're gonna tear down. You're gonna try to root up, break up the hard ground.

You're going to try to build up and, and rebuild, but what, nobody's going to listen to you. And you're going to preach for years and years and years. They're all going to reject your message, and then I'm going to send Babylon, and they're going to whip up on everybody, kill almost everybody, and take them off into captivity. And by the way, you need to stay with them and go into captivity yourself.

How'd you like that for a gospel preaching ministry? You preach for years and years and years. Nobody gets converted. The whole culture falls, and you're in chains with everybody you've been preaching to.

Now I've got to think that Jeremiah, once he's walking up to Babylon in chains, had to turn to a couple of people and say, I told you so. And then you got Jonah, who didn't give a rip about the Ninevites, hated them. God grabs this guy, throws him up on the beach. He goes out and preaches a substandard message with substandard methods, and God saves the whole culture.

Go figure. Is regeneration about God or is it about us? It's what God is doing through people that are very broken. We're like these little kids with broken toys, mud all over our face.

God, use us. He looks down and he says, I'll do that. I'm going to use you for my glory. Go out and speak the gospel.

I'm going to make sure you remember it ain't nothing you're doing. It's all about what I am doing. Let's look at a second factor here about the doctrine of regeneration, as regeneration is the sovereign cause of faith. Regeneration is A sovereign act of God.

But secondly, regeneration is the sovereign cause of faith. Before regeneration, remember we were natural men who did not accept the things of the Spirit of God, like Paul says in First Timothy. You talk, remember, you ever talk to your friends and family? You're telling them just the best you can, the gospel and all the reasons why they ought to believe, and you're answering all the dinosaur and alien questions and, and the flood and all that, and you're like, Man, it's a great man.

I just, that was the best presentation of the gospel I've ever given in my whole life. And I'm like, I don't believe that it's a bunch of malarkey. What is going on here? The natural man cannot understand, cannot, cannot understand and receive the things of the Spirit of God.

They're dead. Right? We are dead in sin. The Bible says in Ephesians 2:1.

We do not understand. We don't even seek God. Romans 3:11 says no one seeks after God. No one seeks after God.

I can remember putting up a show like I was seeking after God when I was a little kid. I remember. Making it look like I was seeking God when all along in my heart of hearts, I was denying God and really wished he didn't exist, so I could do anything my little 12 year old heart wanted to do. I remember having those conscious thoughts, suppressing the truth and unrighteousness.

We have no ability to ever respond to the gospel call. And the solution to this deadness and inability is the regenerating work of God. Look at John 6:14 or 6:44. I want everybody to turn to these passages that you may have read them many times.

I want you to see them again in your own, Copy of God's word. John chapter 6. In verse 44. Jesus says, Some of you can come to me.

Even if the Father who sent me does not draw Him. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. No one can come to Jesus unless the Father is doing a drawing work. If the Father does not draw, no one comes.

There's some implications in this passage that I think are verified in other parts of Scripture. God doesn't draw everybody. 65. Look at verse 65.

And he said, Therefore I have said to you that no one can come to me unless the Father. No one can come to me unless it has been granted to him by my father. Granted. What does that imply?

God has to grant. That someone comes to Christ before they can come to Christ. Without God's sovereign granting of faith, no one is regenerated. It is, in fact, this work of God that gives us the spiritual ability to respond to God in faith.

Look at First John 5:1. I've got on the screen here, you can turn there. First John 5:1, I want you to notice the grammar here. I like the new Revised Standard Version because it really flushes out the Greek clearly for English readers.

John says, everyone who believes there's faith that Jesus is the Christ, that's faith, has been born of God. That's a perfect tense verb. Now in English you can communicate a perfect tense to is born of God, but it's confusing because you can also communicate the present tense idea with that little is. And so the way the new revised standard translates is to make it very clear that what we have in the Greek is a perfect tense verb.

Everyone who has faith in Jesus Christ has already been born of God. You see the order there? You see the cause? If you believe, God has caused you to be born.

The birth is the cause of the belief. The belief is the result of the birth. You cannot get dead people to believe unless something happens. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has already been born of God.

The idea of a perfect tense is something that has happened in the past with continuing results. Like if I said to you, I ate lunch, That doesn't necessarily say a whole lot. I could have eaten lunch a week ago. It doesn't mean it's with me at this moment, but if I say I have eaten lunch, the idea that I'm communicating is I've eaten recently enough to where the results of it are still with me, and I'm not really that hungry right now.

I've already eaten. Did you eat yet? I've already eaten. That's a perfect tense.

The idea is you have been born again, and that result that has resulted in faith. yesterday I received an email from one of the brothers in the church, Jeff, that was overseeing the car wash. A number of you are out there washing cars and sharing the gospel and Jeff's describing how that, and so much of it he witnesses to people every day, every day, everyday, and just hard, heart after hard, heart after hard, heart, and out here in the parking lot, the Up in parking lot, he's talking to an adult gal who just broke down and started crying in the middle of his gospel presentation.

He's like, man, and, how refreshing that is to see God opening up the heart.

of someone. Was, was Jeff just so persuasive that day? Did he have just the right words? Did his lip quiver in just the right way?

Did he have just enough passion in order to get that lady to respond to the gospel? Brothers and sisters, I want to propose to you that God showed up. And God has to show up. For us to see any regenerating work.

Acts 16:14, Paul saw this in his own ministry. It's described by Luke. Acts 16:14, a certain woman named Lydia from the city of T Treyra, sell her purple fabric, a worshiper of God. So she's a, a gal who had believed in Judaism.

She was following the Jewish faith but hadn't heard the gospel of Jesus Christ yet. But she was listening, and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. She's listening to this message. God opens her heart, and she responds to the things spoken by Paul.

Did Paul birth her? Did Paul, did Paul cause her to be born again? Paul was merely the messenger, sharing the gospel. And God, the Lord God Almighty opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.

I love the way John Piper explains this tension in scripture. Your act of believing in God's act of begetting are simultaneous. You do the one and he does the other at the same instant, and his doing is the decisive cause of your doing. His beginning getting is the decisive cause of your believing.

We look at the salvation event. You're out there preaching the gospel, somebody responds. It looks like it happens. It does in fact happen instantaneously.

But what's going on underneath all of this is God is the cause, the spiritual birth is the cause of the believing. I think a good analogy to help us get our minds around this, from our perspectives, regeneration faith may seem to occur at the same time. We know that it's God that is the cause of regeneration that people believe it's like fire and heat. You go down to the beach, you're cooking your hot dogs, and you're doing your s'mores and all that.

Nobody. would ever look at that fire and say, Man, that is so cool that that, put your hand out. That's so neat that that heat causes that fire, or that's so cool that that light made that fire happen. When you're just looking at a fire, you realize that the fire is the source and the heat and light are results of the source.

When you look at the new birth, when you look at someone believing, you look, and you're like, wow, this person has believed. Praise God that they've been born again. And when we say stuff like that, what we're meaning is God has birthed them, and now they can believe. Some of us, some Christians prefer to think of it as if you believe in Christ as your Savior, then after you believe you'll be born again.

But Scripture doesn't ever use this terminology. The new birth is always viewed in Scripture as something God does in order to enable us dead people to believe. It's very important for us to keep this in mind as we go out to share the gospel. Regeneration is a sovereign act of God.

Regeneration is the sovereign cause of faith. I can browbeat my children from now till kingdom come and they're not going to get born again by my browbeating my children. Josh and Andy, you better believe the gospel. Believe it right now, Josh and Anna, believe it now.

I commit, I am your father. Believe the gospel. Josh, you better get born again. I, there's nothing I can do.

I can preach the gospel to them. I can warn them of the wrath to come. I can tell them of the benefits of Christ. I can talk to them about heaven, but God has to show up and do something in the hearts of my kids.

And I don't know when that's going to happen. I'd love to see it happen as they're kids, but it might not happen until they're 20. It might not happen until they're 30. It might not happen until they're 40.

It might not happen until their death. Right before they die, it might not ever happen. But I'm going to be a sovereign tool in the hand of God to do His sovereign work. Let's look at the 3rd factor here that faith.

Is the sovereign cause of love. Generate regeneration is a sovereign act of God. Regeneration is the sovereign cause of faith. And that faith is the sovereign cause of love.

What do we mean by that? What are the two greatest commandments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul, love your neighbors yourself, right? Everything on the whole law can be summarized underneath love.

When we look at the fruit of the Spirit, it all, it can all be summarized under our love. When we talk about obeying God's commandments of First John, it can all be summarized under love. How do you get dead people who hate God and don't love people, to love God and love people. Love, biblical love does not happen without something over here, right?

I can beat my kids over the head, love one another, love one another, love God. It ain't gonna happen. Unless something happens here in regeneration, and here in faith, faith is the sovereign cause of this, right? Faith is the sovereign cause of love.

First John chapter 5. You can turn to there, you can look on the screen. follow John's reasoning here. First John 5:1.

Whoever believes that's faith, that Jesus is the Christ, I remember this is a perfect tense in the Greek is already born of God, right? If you're born of God, it leads to belief. Whoever believes, that's proof that you're born of God. And whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him.

If you love God, you're going to love also the other children. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and observe His commandments, for this is the love of God. that we keep as commandments and his commandments are not burdensome. Now, notice this verse 4.

For whatever is born of God, that's regeneration, overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Being born of God leads to faith. Faith leads to love.

Love is the demonstration of faith and rebirth. And so when you look out at your children or you look out at your neighbors, you look at people in this very church. That say they love God. They say they're born again, but they don't really, you just look at their life and they have no apparent love for God or for His church.

It's a logical question to ask, are they born again? If you find someone who comes to church but they don't like God, they don't want to pray, they don't like God's word, they don't like God's people, They hate being around the church, but they say I'm a Christian. What do you do? You get a hammer, you hit him in the head, you say you got to love people, love God, and you just hit him on the head until they start loving people and loving their brother, right?

And you bring out all of the different laws in order to convince them that they've got to obey the law. No, you bring out the law to convince them that they can obey the law, that something has to happen in their heart. The reason they're not loving is because they don't have faith. The reason they don't have faith is because they're not born again.

Look at Ezekiel 36:26, or you can listen to this. Moreover, look at what God says about His people. Israel in the Old Testament prophesying of the church and all of his people in the future kingdoms kingdom. Moreover, I will give you, I will give you a new heart.

God says, and put a new spirit within you, and I will remove the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit, and I will cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will be careful to observe our statutes. All of the statutes can be summarized by what? Love for God, love for people.

God is the one that comes and causes us to give. We don't, it's not burdensome. The born again person doesn't wake up in the morning and say, oh, I got to love God today. Oh, I got a lot of people today.

Yes, there's indwelling sin. Yes, there's struggle, but the rebirth creates this conflict within the heart now where even though there's times we're not doing what we want to do, there's a struggle, and we say, I want to do that. I want to love God. I want to obey God.

I want to love God's people. But if you wake up in the morning and you're by yourself outside of a church context or outside of a meal, and you just have no desire for prayer, you have no desire for God's word, It's a bad symptom. If I told you I love my wife, but I could, I, I would never talk to her when I got home. Every time I got home, I would just ignore her 24/7.

But I claimed I love my wife. But when we're not in public, I never talk to her in private. I just totally ignore her. You would have every right to question my love for my wife, wouldn't you?

That guy, that guy really love his wife when he never talks to her? he pretends like he likes her in public, right? Keep on a good face. But every time they get in their home, he just ignores her, or treats her terrible.

You'd have every reason to question my love for my wife. And no matter how much I may look like I love God in public, if I'm in private, I never want to talk to Him. I never want to hear from His word. Is that not a bad symptom of something?

Really gone wrong? You can look at First Timothy chapter 1 verse 22 on your own sometime that talks about the same stuff. First John 4:7, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is. Everyone who loves is born of God.

If you love, if you have this thing, again, from the context of First John, are we talking about sinless perfectionism? The Bible says if he says he's without sin, deceives himself, he's a liar. Look at Paul in his own life. He says in Romans 7, there's times where the things I want to do, I don't do.

The things I don't want to do, I do. There is this struggle, no doubt. But if we don't have a love for God and don't have a love for his people, then it's a symptom of a lack of faith, and a lack of faith is a symptom of a lack of regeneration. That's the unbreakable logic of the apostle John in First John.

Let me just close with some Thoughts as to why all of this is so important. Confusion over the doctrine of regeneration. Hurts the health of the local church. Because members are easily discouraged or even deceived without an accurate view of their own spiritual state.

some in the church think they are not converted, but they really are. This doubt often begins because conversion is wrongly understood as total eradication of indwelling sin. Such confusion breeds discouragement that stunts godly confidence in Christ's finished work. Others in the church I think they are converted, but they really aren't.

This false confidence often begins with poor teaching that encourages assurance of salvation without seeing any spiritual fruit. Reception of poor teaching leads to deception regarding one's conversion. Either way, the corporate health of the church is hurt. Doubting, discouragement, and false confidence simply are not marks.

Of local church health. And both can spread like gangrene. So that's one of the reasons why this doctrine is so important. We need to understand the doctrine of generation lest we fall in on one side to discouragement because Lo and behold, I'm still a sinner.

Or undue confidence on the other side that says, God owes me. God has to forgive me because He's a forgiving God and it really doesn't matter what I do. That's his job. God just forgives people.

Right? Look at the story of Pilgrim's Progress and so oftentimes Pilgrim, as he's going through his travels, on each side of him are cliffs, where he can fall on this side into discouragement on this side into false teaching. And there's always throughout our lives, there's this, this thing of negotiating these cliffs. And praise God that it is God who has begun our salvation.

He will complete it to the day of Christ Jesus. Those that have been born again. Not of corruptible seed but incorruptible. if we don't, we need to understand this doctrine so that we realize that we are totally helpless and needy of our own regeneration.

If we don't understand the doctrine of regeneration properly, it can be very easy to get proud about our own salvation and to say, I've believed. Why aren't they believing? I looked at the data, studied all the world religions. Realize that the Christian worldview is the only worldview that has a Trinitarian system, and that the Trinity and the Trinitarian system is the only thing that describes the one and the many.

And of course without Trinitarianism you have no relationship. You have an interrelational God, a non-relational God. You must have the Trinity to have a relational God. You must have the Trinity in order to have people.

Christianity is the only logical choice. And so I have believed because I exercised my will and I looked and researched and saw that this is the true religion. Glory be to me. If we don't understand the doctrine of regeneration, It's very easy for us as Christians to look out at this pagan dying world and be very uppity.

To look out at the people in our culture that have been taken captive by homosexuality, captive by fornication, captive by feminism, captive by materialism. Captive by postmodernism, and look at them and say they are so stupid. How could they believe that? You and I, but for the grace of God, are in the same desperate situation.

Every one of you in this room can give testimony of dumb things that you believed before you were a Christian. And I think all of us, if we're honest with ourselves, could give testimony of dumb things we believed when we were Christians. And by God's grace He's growing us and helping us grow from faith to faith. And we have every reason when we understand the biblical doctrine of regeneration to look out at the world in humility and to look at our brothers and sisters in humility and say we are on a path and praise God that God has put me on this path.

We are also totally helpless and needy. For God to bless our evangelism and bring about regeneration. As we go out and minister the gospel through whatever means that the Lord gives us and whatever opportunities he puts in our path, we are absolutely and totally dependent upon God to do a work. We go out and we spread the seed wherever we can.

But it is God that must bring the increase. We cannot make one plant. Grow up a single shoot. God must do that.

And so we come dependent upon God and we cry out to God and say, God, by your grace, pour your Spirit out upon the people that we are trying to minister to and we're trying to share the gospel with, and we wait for God to do his work. There's a danger in not waiting for God to do His work. If we try to pull that fruit before it's ripe, And we don't understand the sovereignty of God and regeneration, and we're sharing the gospel, we're sharing the gospel, and that fruit's not dropping.

And we say, well, I better, I better intervene.

I better reach up there and grab it and yank it off. And it happens in modern evangelism. Where we're willing To resolve the psychological methods. Whatever we need to do to get a sale.

Sometimes out of very good motives we look and we're We're looking out, we're preaching the gospel. We don't see people getting saved or converted, and we want to run in there and rush to the rescue, rush, we got to rescue God. We've got to rescue the Holy Spirit. And God tells us to go out and share the gospel, preach the gospel, love people.

Leave the results to him. Milton's going to flush out a little more of those applications next week. If we understand the doctrine of regeneration, it humbles us, it comforts us. I get out and share the gospel and somebody doesn't get saved right away and I walk away and I'm like, man, I can think of people I've shared the gospel with so many times where I blew it royal and And not saying things I should have said and saying other things I didn't say, sometimes letting attitudes, I can, I can remember being in situations where all of a sudden I started to get argumentative with a nonbeliever.

And getting red in the face. I'm going to, boy, I'm going to argue him right into the kingdom with this one. And I walk away and you can feel discouraged if you don't understand God's sovereign work in regeneration. God uses some pretty crummy people doing some pretty crummy things, methodologically like Jonah.

To do some pretty incredible works. The lack of this doctrine in our thinking can lead to pride in our methods, in our charisma, in our arguments. We understand this doctrine. We come humbly as needy proclaimers of the gospel saying, God, you've got to do a work.

There's nothing I can do. I'll be your means. I'll go out, I'll be faithful to open my mouth for the cause of the gospel. I'll invite people into my home like Jesus did to Zacchaeus.

I'll show hospitality to prostitutes and sinners. I'll let them see my life and my family and put the gospel on display, and I'll even let them see my sin and how I deal with sin and repent and confess my sins. But God, you've got to show up and do a work. Sometime you should read Ezekiel 16.

I commend this passage to you this week. Where God pictures His people as a baby that was born, still attached to the umbilical cord just thrown out in the dirt and blood. And there's his people. With no ability in and of themselves to do anything for themselves, just wallowing with the umbilical cord and blood and dirt, and God picks up that child and washes that child and raises that child as his own.

And even when that child comes to full adulthood, as Israel did, they go out and they play the harlot. And they go out and live for themselves and live for idolatry. And they ignore their God. And God comes and he says, verse 60, Nevertheless, I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.

Not because of your covenant, the covenant which you have broke. I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, so that you may remember and be ashamed and never open your mouth anymore because of your humiliation when I have forgiven you for all that you have done. That is an incredible picture of salvation. God picks up this dirty, bloody child and raises him as his own, and then they go out and play the harlot.

And God comes and he regenerates a harlot, and says, I will keep my covenant with you. Even though you have broken your covenant with me, I am gonna put in you a heart that will be humbled, and you will understand that I have forgiven you of all that you have done. That is God from start to finish, brothers and sisters. I wanna take us into a time of meditation here.

If you guys would just bow your heads, close your eyes for a moment. And I want to issue a challenge. To Everyone in this room, I particularly want, I want you to think about this question. Do I love God?

Do I love God? Do I love my Father and His word? Not do I keep his word perfectly, but do I love God. There are some people in this room.

Statistically there has to be someone or many in this room. Who, when you leave church and you get out of the public circle, you could care less about prayer. It never even enters your mind. You don't want to read the Bible.

You don't read the Bible. You have no desire for God's word. And why don't you want to talk to God? Why don't you want to read His word?

We could sit up here and browbeat you till kingdom come to get you to pray and read God's word and it wouldn't do any good. And who you are. You don't love God. And why don't you love God?

It's because you don't really believe. You don't believe in Jesus Christ. And why don't you believe? It's because you haven't been born again yet.

You have not been regenerated yet. There are children in this room. There are people in this room who need to be born again. They need a sovereign act of God to open your eyes to believe the gospel so that you would believe and then God would come and put that love in you.

I believe that God's spirit can work this morning to open up someone's eyes to the gospel if he chooses. Now I want to ask you right now if there's anybody here. Who believes that you have not loved God up to this point. But you think that just now you have come to be born again, that God has regenerated your heart.

And you are now sensing faith in your heart. And there is something welling up inside of you that says, yes, I want to love God now. I want to love His people. I want to ask you right now just to stand up for a moment.

Is there anyone in here? Who believes that they are being regenerated by God Almighty. Praise God. Only God.

Only God can do that. Let's, let's pray. Have everybody stand, please. Lord God, you are a sovereign, awesome God.

And you have called us to go out into all the world and preach the gospel. To every creature under the heaven and on the earth. You've told us to make disciples of all people, teach them to observe all the things you've commanded, and this is a lifelong process. It doesn't happen in a moment.

It happens over a lifetime. We pray, Lord, This young girl who has stood up, we pray God that your spirit would continue to do your work, and Lord, that the body of Christ would come around her and wrap their arms around her. We thank You, Lord, for your spirit. That convicts us of sin, righteousness, and judgment.

We thank you for the cross. We thank you for the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has lived the perfect life. He broke no laws, and yet died in our place, that he could bring us to you.

We thank You, Lord. For this time, we pray as the ushers come forward, receive our offering now, Lord, you have given us everything. You have given us your Son. And Lord, we want to give to you now.

Lord, we pray that we would be a people that would love you in all ways, even in our giving, Lord, we pray that more and more that we would be a people that would give sacrificially. Lord, that many of the people in our congregation are financially struggling right now, and we need to pool our resources to help one another. Lord, we pray, Father, that we would be a people who would be moved by your spirit, not just to give you tips, but to give you, Lord, what you deserve. By your grace, Lord, we pray that you'd move upon us to share our resources with one another as a demonstration of the gospel, as a demonstration of our concern for the kingdom of God and for evangelism, to be a means, Lord, we pray that you would use even this offering to be a means of salvation for many in this church and in this community.

As we pray in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated before we have the closing. So Just would ask any anybody that just feels led to minister to our sister here who has made this bold proclamation and profession of faith to reach out to her after the service.

And