Preached in Markham Baptist Church, January 16, 2005

GREAT WORDS OF THE FAITH - PART 3: "REGENERATION"

If you’ve driven up or down 16^th Avenue at all, you know how your eye instinctively turns to the large sign east of McCowan Road outside the Pentecostal church called The Bridge. They always have a helpful idea or phrase there. There are all sorts of stories about the funny things that are unintentionally written on these sign boards. On one side of the board it stated the pastors sermon title “What is Hell like?” And the other side of the sign said, “Come hear our choir.”

Another sign read, “Jumble sale next Saturday 3pm.” Then in small letters, “This a good chance to get rid of anything that is not worth keeping", and then in bold letters, “Don’t forget to bring your husbands along.”

The story is told of one pastor who had written on his notice board in great big bold letters, “If you are tired of sin, come in”. But then someone had written underneath it, “If not, call 555-5733.”

Well during these past two weeks we have discovered how God has dealt with our sins. We have discovered that because of God’s hatred of sin we are subject to God’s wrath, but the good news is that while He is the lawmaker, He is also the lawkeeper. And through the sacrifice of Christ, the wrath of God is satisfied and we are justified. It is now just as if I had never sinned, through faith in Christ.

But this only solves half our problem. We praise God for the forgiveness of sins, I am so thankful that now there is, as we read in Romans 5:1 - “Therefore, since we have been justified we have peace with God.” Wonderful! What I was powerless to do, God has done for me in Christ!

But as we travel along life’s road we discover that we do not go very far before we drawn into those old sins again. And while I have peace with God and am joyful of the fact, I begin to realize that there is something wrong within me. There is something about my nature that needs changing and transforming. While forgiveness is good, what I really need is deliverance from who I am. Not only have I done wrong, I am wrong.

And so with us all. Because of the fact that you are a human, you are a sinner. There are those who believe that they are sinners because they commit sins. The truth of the matter is, though, that we commit sins because we are sinners. Its in our nature - we can do no other.

And you say, "How did I become a sinner?" And Scripture answers – you inherited it through one man, Adam. We read in Romans 5 that we are part of Adam’s race; we are human and as a result, we inherited his sin nature.

Romans 5:12: "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.”

And again in verse 19: “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners.”

We are all sinners. And we say, “How can this be? It’s not fair! I didn’t consent to this.” True, but it remains a fact. “How did this happen?” Scripture says through the disobedience of the one. Because Adam sinned, we are all now sinners - we inherited his nature.

Let me explain it this way. My name is Cullen. How did I get that name? Did I choose it? Did I go through the list of all the possible Scottish names and select this one? Of course not. The fact that my name is Cullen had nothing to do with me. And more than this, there is nothing I can do to change it. I am a Cullen because my father is a Cullen and he is a Cullen because his father was a Cullen. If I act like a Cullen I am a Cullen, and if I don’t act like a Cullen I am still a Cullen. If I create the most gorgeous garden on my street I am a Cullen, or if I my lawn dies and goes an ugly brown and every thing I plant wilts and shrivels up to nothing I am still Cullen. (not a very good Cullen, but I’m still a Cullen). Nothing I can do or not do will make me any other than a Cullen.¹

And so you understand – you can rant and rave and scream, “It’s not fair!” all you like but you will never change the fact that you and I are sinners. We inherited it. It’s our nature. You cannot, by improving your behaviour, make yourself other than you are – you will always be part of Adam, so you are a sinner.

So we have to face the fact that I cannot by myself ever be what God requires me to be. “There is no one who is righteous.” (Romans 3:10) That means there is no one who displays the moral character of God as we were intended to do. We’ve got to face that.

But some ask, “Why? Why are you Christians always talking about people as sinners? Why does God expose our failure?” Listen very carefully - it’s never to condemn us, it’s never to make us feel badly about ourselves and be mean-spirited and rub our nose in the dirt. It’s always that He might transform us, once we acknowledge it. That’s why before we ever experience the joy of the good news of the gospel, we have to face the bad news of our own condition - the diagnosis of our own condition.

The diagnosis is this – no man, no woman, no girl, no boy can be what God created us to be by ourselves. It’s impossible. We have discovered that God is interested in our sins and He’s provided forgiveness for it, but the truth of the matter is that he is more interested my SIN the cause of my sins.

And this brings us to the good news of our passage today in Romans 6. The good news is that God not only deals with our sins but He also delivers us from our sin nature.

And the question is, “How?” And someone puts up their hand and says, “I know how God is going to deliver us. He will deliver us through legalism. If we just all do the right things, dress the right way, say the right things, stay away from all the “isms”. Materialism, liberalism, Buddhism. Don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t date girls who do. That’s how we will overcome. If we just keep these laws we will be perfect."

And while there are attitudes and activities that we must beware of Paul says in verse 14, “… sin shall not be your master because you are not under law, but under grace.”

Well, another person puts up their hand up and says, “I know how God will deal with the sin nature. Through licence. If we sin we can go to God and ask forgiveness and then we can sin again, and again with no worries.” And while it is true God is gracious and we never come to the end of His mercy, that attitude smacks of taking God for granted. To be sure, Paul says in Romans 5:20 “Where sin increased grace increased all the more.” But he goes on in verse one of chapter 6: “Does that mean we shall go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means!”

So Scripture will go on to say in chapter 6 that it is not by legalism, it is not by licence that God will change your sin nature, but through death and rebirth. The theological word is regeneration. We need to be reborn. We need a new heart. God promises us this new heart in Ezekiel 11:17-18: "God promises that if his people return to him and turn away from their idols and false gods he will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; “I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.”

Jesus makes it clear in John 3:3 that we need this rebirth if we are going to be a part of God’s work.

And Scripture tells us that the source of this new birth is Jesus Christ. "To all who received Him, to all who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, born not of natural descent nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” (John 1:12,13)

'Wait a minute - I don’t get it. You are telling me that in order for me to be free of this sin nature there needs to be death and rebirth?"

Yup. And it is quite logical, if you think of it. If I have this sin nature within me and there is nothing I can do to get rid of it, when will I be free of it? And the answer is, When I die. And if I want a new nature, I need to be reborn. So there needs to be death and rebirth.

And we say, We can’t die and be reborn. And God says, Right. So God in the person of Jesus Christ dies for us and rises again to new birth.

"O," we may object, "but that’s Jesus Christ. What about me?"

Are you a believer in Jesus Christ? Yes. Have you been justified through faith in Christ? Yes. Then don’t you know that when you believed in Jesus Christ, God placed you in Him and whatever is true of Christ now is true of you?

Did Christ die? Yes. Well you too have died. Did Christ rise again? Yes. Well you too have risen again to new life. This is what Paul says in verse 3, “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?”

That word baptized does not refer to the act of baptism. The act of baptism is a picture of what has happened, it means very simply that we have been placed into. So verse 3 reads: “don’t you know that all of us who were placed into Christ Jesus were placed into his death.” What ever is true of Christ is true of you. You don’t have to die, you have died.

This is what verse 6 and 7 says: "For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.”

My friends, the good news is that God not only has dealt with our sins, our actions, forgiving us and justifying us, but He has dealt with our sin nature - He has crucified it along with Christ.

You know if the government of Canada decided that we would be an alcohol-free country they could carry out this law by going to each restaurant and bar and house and confiscating each bottle of liquor. But behind those bottles of beer and wine are the breweries, and drink-producing factories. If they don’t do something about those there would be no permanent solution to the problem.

We are the factory, our actions are the products. Jesus by His death has dealt with the product, namely our sins. So that question is settled. But do you think that God would have stopped there? What about the question of what we are? Do you think that God would deal with our sins but not the sin-producing factory? NO! The good news is that He has done away with the goods and also made a clean sweep of the factory that produces the goods.²

Now I don’t want to move too fast - you still may not get the idea of being in Christ. It is important to understand, so let me illustrate it.

A number of you fly frequently fly to Montreal on business. Victoria has had to do this a number of times in the past. So for the sake of this illustration lets pretend that Victoria goes to the airport ticket counter and says, “Would you please give me the ability to fly to Montreal.” And the person there would look at her strangely and say, “We’re sorry we cannot give you the ability to fly to Montreal or anywhere else for that matter. But what we can do is fly you to Montreal. But we cannot give you the ability to fly.”

So Victoria buys a ticket, and there she sits at 30,000 feet in the air flying over Pickering, Oshawa, Bellville and when she gets to Kingston she hits some really turbulent air. And down goes the airplane and up goes the airplane.

Now the question is, "Is Victoria flying or is she being flown?" She is being flown. Whatever is true of the airplane is true of Victoria. Down goes the airplane, down goes Victoria. Up goes the airplane up goes Victoria. Why? Because Victoria is in the airplane.

My friends, the principle is the same. You are in Christ and whatever is true of Christ is now true of you. He was crucified so you were crucified, your natural sinful self was crucified, verse 6 says your old self was crucified with Him and the sin nature that you used to have to obey has lost its control of you. You are no longer in sin, but in Christ.

But that is just part of it. He was also raised to life, so you were raised to new life.

We read in verse 8-11: “But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

Do you see that God deals with our sinful nature not by legalism, not by licence, but by putting us in Christ so that we have died to sin’s power and has placed the new life of Christ.

So what difference does this truth make?

It is important for you to know that God has done this for you – He placed you in Christ through faith and has crucified your old self and placed in you His life, new life. He has regenerated you. If you don’t understand this, if you don’t understand that God has done this by His grace and His love for you, you will get to thinking that if only you can suppress your sinful urges, if only you were a little stronger then you could control your sinful desires or your anger. If only you were a little stronger then you could lead a holy life. But this is false thinking. This is self-improvement thinking. And it’s not true - it is not God’s way, it is not Christianity. God seeks to deliver us from our sinful nature not by making us stronger, but by making us weaker and weaker. God sets us free from the dominion of sin not strengthening us but by crucifying our old self. Not by helping our sinful nature become better but by putting it to death.

So, isn’t there something for us to do? Yes and I’ll cover it fully next week. But first there is something for you to realize. You are in Christ, and you have been set free from the power of sin.

Will you still be tempted? Yes. But now, now you can say when tempted, “I don’t have to give into that sin. For I have died to sin."

You see that’s what verse 11 tells us - we need to consider ourselves dead to sin. The NIV has it better it says, “Count” yourselves dead to sin. It is an accounting term.

If a businessman were to say to his accountant, “What is the total amount needed to meet this month’s payroll?”

The accountant punches in some numbers and says, “20,000 dollars. But we have a problem, we only have 5,000 dollars in the account right now.”

The business man says, “Go ahead and make out the cheques but don’t give them out until you get word from me.” With that the business man goes to his bank manager and arranges for a loan of 30,000 dollars, and calls his accountant and says, “Give out the cheques - the bank has covered our payroll.”

So the first employee comes for her pay cheque. But the accountant says to her, “I’m sorry I can’t give you this cheque - the total pay roll is 20,000 dollars and we only have 5,000 dollars in the account.”

What would that accountant be failing to do? He would be failing to count, failing to take into account the fact that adequate provision had been made for far more than the needs of the payroll. And of course by failing to count he would be dishonouring his employer and would be putting himself in a false position.³

Listen, at the cross of Christ, God made provision for you and for me. He dealt fully with the question of sin. We have to count this to be so. We have to take this into account in the moment of temptation. God says that the believer has died to sin, and has been raised to newness of life.

Does that mean we will be sinless? No, but sin has lost its power and we can live a holy life not by disciplining our old nature, not by giving in to our old nature, but by recognizing that sin no longer has power over me. I have the new life of Christ in me and I will give myself to God.

ENDNOTES:

1. Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life, (Wheaton Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 1957) page 38

2. Ibid., page 60.

3. John Phillips, Exploring Romans (Neptune, New Jersey: Loizeaux Brothers, 1969) page 106.