Sermon Tone Analysis

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*1 Peter 1:13-25

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Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; 24 for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass.

The grass withers, and the flower falls, 25 but the word of the Lord remains forever.”

And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

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!!!! Dead, Guilty, and Unable to Control the New Birth

One of the unsettling things about the new birth, which Jesus says we all must experience in order to see the kingdom of God (John 3:3), is that we don’t control it.

We don’t decide to make it happen any more than a baby decides to make his birth happen.

Or more accurately: We don’t decide to make it happen any more than dead men decide to give themselves life.

The reason we need to be born again is that we are dead in our trespasses and sins.

That’s why we need new birth, and that’s why we can’t make it happen.

This is one reason why we speak of the sovereign grace of God.

Or better: This is one reason why we love the sovereign grace of God.

Our condition before the new birth is that we treasure sin and self-exaltation so much that that we cannot treasure Christ supremely.

In other words, we are so rebellious at the root of our fallen human nature that we can’t find it in ourselves to humbly see and savor Jesus Christ above all things.

And we are guilty for this.

This is real evil in us.

We are blameworthy for this spiritual hardness and deadness.

Our consciences do not excuse us that we are so resistant to Christ we can’t see him as supremely attractive.

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When There Is Fire, There Is Heat

Something has to happen to us.

Jesus said we must be born again (John 3:3).

The Holy Spirit has to work a miracle in our hearts and give us new spiritual life.

We were dead and we need to be made alive.

We need ears that can hear truth as supremely desirable, and we need eyes than see Christ and his way of salvation as supremely beautiful.

We need hearts that are soft and receptive to the word of God.

In short, we need new life.

We need to be born again.

The way this happens (as we have seen in the first seven messages in this series) is that the Spirit of God supernaturally gives us new spiritual life by connecting us with Jesus Christ through faith.

The new spiritual life that we receive in the new birth is not separate from union with Jesus, and it is not separate from faith.

When God in the riches of his mercy and the greatness of his love and the sovereignty of his grace chooses to regenerate us, he gives us new life by uniting us to Christ.

“God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son” (1 John 5:11).

Our first experience of this is the faith in Jesus that this life brings.

There is no separation of time here.

When we are born gain, we believe.

And when we believe, we know we have been born again.

When there is fire, there is heat.

When there is new birth, there is faith.

!!!! How Are We Born Again?

So we have spent seven messages on two questions: What is the new birth?

and Why do we need to be born again?

Now we are turning to the third question: How are we born again?

or What is the way we are born again?

Here I am asking the question from God’s side and from our side.

What is the way God does it?

And what is the way we do it?

How does God regenerate us?

How do we take part in it?

!!!! God’s Part in the New Birth—And Ours

You might think I would say that we don’t take part in it, because we are spiritually dead.

But the dead do take part in their resurrection.

Here is an example of what I mean.

When Jesus stood before the grave of Lazarus who had been dead for four days, Lazarus had no part in imparting his new life.

He was dead.

Jesus, not Lazarus, created the new life.

In John 11:43, Jesus says to the dead Lazarus, “Lazarus, come out.”

And the next verse says, “The man who had died came out.”

So Lazarus takes part in this resurrection.

He comes out.

Christ causes it.

Lazarus does it.

Christ brings about the resurrection.

Lazarus acts out the resurrection.

The instant Christ commands Lazarus to rise, Lazarus does the rising.

The instant God gives new life, we do the living.

So that’s why I am asking two questions and not just one question when I ask How are we born again?

Or, What’s the way we are born again?

I mean: What does God do in our new birth?

How are we born again from God’s side?

And I mean: What do we do in our new birth?

How are we born again from our side?

And it’s the first question I am asking today: How are we born again from God’s side?

What is the way God regenerates us?

!!!! How Does God Regenerate Us?

The answer is given in at least three ways in 1 Peter 1:3-25:

* First, verse 3 says that God caused us to be born again “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

* Second, verse 23 says God caused us to be born again “through the living and abiding word of God.” Or, as verse 15 puts it, God called us.

* And third, verse 18 says that God ransomed us from the futile ways inherited from our forefathers.

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!!!! Imperishable Inheritance

Before we look at these in more detail, notice first what makes these three events hang together as God’s way of causing the new birth.

In all three of these works of God, there is a reference to imperishability.

Verses 3-4: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!

According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable.”

So the point is that by the new birth, God means for us to have not just new life but eternal life.

Verse 3: We are “born again to a living hope.”

So the emphasis falls on the hope of our new life.

It lives—and will not die.

It inherits an imperishable inheritance.

That’s the emphasis.

Our new life in the new birth is forever.

We will never die.

!!!! Imperishable Value

Then, notice the same emphasis in verses 18-19: “. . .

knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.”

The blood of Christ (verse 19) is the ransom price paid for our life, and this blood is contrasted with the less valuable silver and gold that might have been paid.

And the reason silver and gold are less valuable is that they are “perishable.”

Verse 18: “not with perishable things such as silver or gold.”

So again the point is that the new life that Jesus ransoms with his blood is not in danger of going back into captivity because the price he pays for our new life (our new birth) is not perishable.