What is Man - Man's Fallen Nature

Welcome to The Roots, where it's all about Jesus. We

love God, we love people. We reach the lost and

we make disciples. Today, on my way down to the office, before,

or where I could go over my notes and stuff,

I saw a sign on a dentist's office that said,

I followed my heart and it led me straight to

the fridge. Which is like such a sign that you

drive by type of sign, right? I did actually think

it was funny though, because reading that sign, I was like, hey,

that's like actually what we're talking about today. That our

heart does in fact lead us somewhere. The question is,

where does it lead? What does the Bible have to

say about that? I'm so glad that you asked me

that question. We've been in a series of for those

who are maybe joining us for the first time, we

have been in a series called What is Man?

God's Design for Mankind.

The reason we've been in this series is we live

in a very interesting time, a day and age where

people don't want to be told who they are or

what they are, but instead we want to be able

to define for ourselves who and what we are. And unfortunately,

we've seen the damage that this has caused wholesale to

our society, the destruction of the household, marriage, the destruction

of the unborn, the destruction of gender and sexuality, the

destruction of our identity as humans and what that even means.

So our hope is in this series is.

To no longer have to search, to no longer have

to make it up with our own ideas, but instead

that we can look to the one who created it all,

the one who has spoken to us from his word

to tell us who we are, why we're here, what

we're for. And we've seen lots of these beautiful truths

over the last several weeks. We've seen that we're made

in God's image. We've looked at what that means. That

we're made to reflect his presence and glory and rule

over all creation. That we were made in specific ways,

specifically in marriage, to be a picture that points to

Christ and his people. And child rearing, that we're spreading

God's image across the earth. That we're made to have

this amazing gift of getting to know and be known

by our maker. But also as we've gone through these things,

every single week we're like, it was really cool. Things

were really good. Wasn't this really awesome in its original design?

But week after week, we've also had to point out

that something has gone terribly wrong in the world. The

reason we have to in the first place even point

out what the original design is and or was is

is because things have gotten so off track. Things are

not how they ought to be. And as we saw

last week, unfortunately, because of us, that the world has

gone so wrong. We looked at last week that our

first parents, Adam and Eve, rebelled against God in the garden,

bringing curses, death, and judgment upon the whole human race.

If you missed last week, it was awesome. It was

a very lively time. But the writer G.K. Chesterton is

said to have once seen a newspaper with a headline

that read, What's wrong with the world? To which Chesterton

sent a little letter back to the editor saying, Dear.

Sir, I am.

So as we looked at last week, it's not that

mankind isn't as good as we think they are. It's

in fact that mankind is much worse than we tend

to think, which I know is just so cheery. We

looked at that when we sing Amazing Grace, how sweet

the sound that saved a wretch like me. We looked

at that that is not us just being dramatic, but

it's someone writing a song about who has truly come

to see the depths, the offensiveness, the fallenness of their nature.

So we looked at why sin is such a serious

problem because of the wrath and judgment that it brings

upon us. And today, we're looking at exactly the depths

to which the Bible speaks about how damaging sin is

has been to our human nature. So we've looked at

all these great ways of like, this is how they're

supposed to be. This is how God initially made mankind

to be. And this was the initial intent. And now

here we are. I'm sure you've met another person before.

Like they're not all that. And so now the problem is,

is that we can still have a cheery nature.

Outlook or view.

And we want to really examine just what does the

Bible have to say.

About how we are now.

That as much as we needed God to tell us

how we were supposed to be and what he initially

made us for, we also need God to give us

the diagnosis for just what is going on. Just how

bad are things for us. Just how off the mark

Are we? All of us, whether it's optimism or maybe

we're just a little naive, generally like to think and

or hope that all of us are basically good.

If you have kids.

Or maybe you work with kids, one of the most

brutal realities is the fact that your infant or toddler

can be such a little sinner from such a young age.

And then you turn around and you're a sinner because

they're sinning and it's just all kinds of a mess.

And honestly, this can come as a shock to us

if we believe that mankind is born basically good. But

we live in a society currently that does everything it

can to punt the blame for our own sin like

we talked about last week. But here's the thing, God

doesn't let us do that. Which is good. It's kind

of like me and my wife like to talk about

all the time. No one likes to be told they're wrong.

That's just a true thing. No one likes to be

told they're wrong. But it is at times a very

necessary thing. And God doesn't let us do that. He

holds up the mirror of his word. He brings in

the standard we're measured by. He gives us the bad

news of our natural state. My prayer is that as

much as we're aiming to let God speak and dictate

how we are to understand who we're meant to be,

that today we would be humbled by God's word, that

we would understand the depths of the verdict that God

has given our natural state.

So here's the deal. It's going to be a lot

of Bible, which all of us should have just cheered for.

We're going to be going through a lot of Bible

because I want to make sure That we are not

accused in any way of finding a verse in the

back corner, on the folded page, and making stuff up.

But what I'm hoping to show.

Today is that as we go through lots and lots

of Bible, that we're just saying, this is just what

the Bible has to say. And I can just kind

of be on the fly on the wall with you,

going like, yeah, let's... That's what it says. So here's

the deal. If you don't have a Bible, you're going

to need one. So raise your hand if you do

not have a Bible. Gabe would love to bring you one.

Because not only are there going to be a lot

of Bible verses on the screen, but I added more

Bible verses to my notes after the slides had already

been made.

So praise God. Buckle up.

We're going to get into it. But for starters, kind

of our starting place. We're going to be hanging out

in Ephesians chapter 2. So if you would turn there

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

with me, Ephesians chapter 2. We're going to read this, pray,

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

and get into all this goodness. I'll give you guys

a second. I need to turn there myself. Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

We're going to look at verses 1 through 10. It says,

and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in

which you once walked, following the course of this world,

following the prince of the power of the air, the

spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience,

among whom we all once lived in the passions of

our flesh, 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.

And raised us up with him and seated us with

him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that

in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches

of his grace and kindness to us. toward us in

Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith,

and this is not your own doing. It is the

gift of God, not a result of works, so that

no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created

in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand

that we should walk in them.

This is God's word. Let us pray.

Father, You are over everything. You get the final word

and the final authority on all things. And so, Lord God,

I just ask that you would do what only you

can do, and that is a miracle. You give us

eyes to see, ears to hear. You give us the humility, Lord,

to submit ourselves to your word. Even for myself, Lord God,

that you would give me the humility to humbly speak

and speak accurately in accordance with your truth and your words,

Lord Jesus.

We're grateful for.

What you do, and we thank you that you tell

us the truth, and I just ask that you would

fill us with wonder, awe, worship, and gratefulness as we

go through this word together. We give you this time.

We ask that you would do what only you can do.

In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Walter White.

It's a fictional character. From a hit series, Breaking Bad.

If you're unfamiliar, or if you are familiar, a little

catch you up. Chemistry teacher gets diagnosed with cancer. So

he gets himself into creating and selling drugs. The entire

series is watching him descend from bad to worse. And

the entire show, you watch him as he has this

descent You watch him try and justify his actions by

telling his family that he's done everything for them. But

after he loses everything, and he's committed countless horrific, terrible acts,

he finally comes clean. The real reason he did it

And he tells his wife that he did it because

he liked it. Made him feel powerful, important, in control.

He justified his actions, or he tried to, but at

the end of the day, it was the evil desires

of his heart that drove him on.

Now this series, while.

Being completely a worldly production, does in fact capture a

fundamental biblical truth about human nature. One that every single

one of us, generally speaking, would prefer not to admit.

We are not good people.

All of us in our own way, it's not a

one for one, but all of us in our own

way are a Walter White. Seeking our own ends, our

own glory, our own desires, all while trying to justify

the way we are or trying to find excuses for it.

But as we saw last week, all mankind is without

an excuse. The judgment and the verdict is in. God

has made it clear that we are all sinners and

And we're all ready to admit that nobody is perfect.

But when the Bible says that nobody's perfect, it's not

saying that we score an eight out of a 10.

Look at this, Romans 3.23. For all have sinned and

fall short of the glory of God. Which is more

like saying we score an eight out of infinity, right?

And honestly, the eight is probably still very generous on

our part to ourselves. That as we looked at last week, Adam,

mankind's first representative, sinned and rebelled by breaking God's command.

And since Adam, from whom we all come, we.

Have inherited his fallen nature.

That as God has promised that Adam would die if

he disobeyed, That Adam not only brought judgment of death

upon us in a physical sense, but that it also

brought us death in a spiritual sense. If we look

down in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 1, it says, Paul

Ephesians 2:1

here is not being cute or extra in the language

that he's using. That every believer before Christ and every

unbeliever is born spiritually dead in their trespasses and sins.

Which is, we're going to get to exactly what all

that entails in just a couple minutes. But first, look

at what Paul says in Romans about the effect that

Adam's sin had on all of us. Romans 5.12 says,

Just as sin came into the world through one man

and death through sin, and so death spread to all

men because all sinned. For sin indeed was in the

world before the law was given, but sin is not

counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from

Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not

like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of

the one who was to come. So this is saying

that we are guilty of that as Adam was our representative,

the head of mankind, that Adam sinned and brought judgment, condemnation, curses, alienation, hostility,

all of these things from where he was. He was

initially good with God. Now he was not good with God.

And everyone after him inherited this problem. And we might

think that maybe it's a little unfair that we're guilty

because of Adam's sin. But there's, I think, a couple

things to consider here. First is, if you want to

know how sinful you are, this is a really good place.

Because it's possible that we can feel angry that we're

guilty because of Adam's sin. But there's also a potential

that what we're saying, and we don't even realize it,

is that we think we could have done better if

we were in his position. And the Bible has a

word for that. It's called pride. Most of us struggle

day to day now with, honestly, kind of probably more

simple sins. Adam sinned and so brought down all of

mankind who would come from him. And even if you

didn't buy this, just to be clear, there's no refuting

the fact that you've already failed to live as you ought.

You are just as much a sinner through your own choices.

But second, if you are upset and or want to

reject being guilty by being an Adam, then you would

also have to reject the fact that you could be

righteous by being found in Christ. That's the argument that

Paul is making here. He's saying it's because all of

those are in Adam, they die. But all those in

Christ will live.

We're going to get there.

God's word tells us that death, this fallen nature, is

a problem for all mankind. And scripture has no shortage

of words on how it describes us before we are

in Christ, which is mainly what we're going to be

looking at. So again, this is super important because scripture

here isn't just, scripture isn't here just to make us

feel good.

Honestly, it's scary when people misuse scripture.

I've literally seen like little placards and things like that,

that would say like, ask of me, or if you'd

like but worship me, I'd give you all these things.

And I'm like, that was quoting Satan. And people didn't

realize what was happening in that moment. Scripture is here

to tell us the truth. We need to not just

choose the verses that make us feel happy and warm,

but we need God to tell us exactly what our

problem is. Why that's important is because you know how

many times I've had problems in my marriage, problems in

my relationships, problems in my life. There's problems with the

people who are sitting around me. And I just thought

it was because of all the other people. Maybe I

thought it was my upbringing. Maybe I thought it was

the circumstances, the cards I've been dealt. Just for me

to read God's word and have it correct me and

show me that it's actually a deeper sin issue than

I had yet to realize about myself.

My selfishness.

My desire to be a God. My desire for pleasure

or comfort more than than giving God glory. The amount

of times that I've gone to Scripture just to find

out that no one is good, not even me. Scripture

is a good mirror, especially when you just read it

straight through rather.

Than picking the nice ones. Look what Paul says in

Romans 3. Romans 3.

It says, what then? Are we Jews any better off?

No, not at all.

For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks,

that's just everyone, are under sin. And you can say, well,

what does that mean? Well, Paul is literally about to

quote scripture to us to tell us what that means.

And it's kind of brutal. It says, as it is written,

so he's quoting authoritative scripture. It says, no one is righteous, no,

not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God.

All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No

one does good, not even one. Their throat is an

open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom

of asps is.

Under their lips.

Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet

are swift to shed blood. In their paths are ruin

and misery. In the way of peace they have not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes. Paul

is doing something incredible here. Paul is showing both how

Jew and Gentile, which is everyone, are not good. That

all of us are under sin. And Paul then is

here quoting Psalms and some pieces of Isaiah saying, To

then define what he means by we're all under sin.

And I actually want us to turn there. This is

one of those places we get to be hands-on with

our Bibles. We're going to turn to Psalm 14. Psalm 14.

It's basically kind of close to the middle of your Bible.

Psalm 14.

He's quoting the first couple of verses.

Let's look at this together. Put your eyes on it.

Psalm 14. He says, the fool says in his heart,

there is no God.

They are corrupt.

They do abominable deeds. There is none who does good.

Listen to this.

The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of

man to see if there are any who understand, who

seek after God. They all have turned aside. Together they

have become corrupt. There is none who does good.

Not even one. This is where Paul is pulling from.

What's hard is many of us are still too prideful

and we can even still, after Paul just clearly quotes

scripture here, want to write Paul off. Start to justify

ourselves or you want to use our experience to say

that Paul isn't saying what he just is clearly saying here.

My family and I, we like to use these verses

from Romans 3 to remind each other.

Of the truth.

So if you ask us how we're doing and we

say good, there's a good chance you'll hear one of

us say no. No one is good. Not one.

No one is good. No one seeks for God.

Let's go back to this Ephesians text. And Paul says

that in our sinful nature we are dead. He then

goes on to paint a pretty horrifying picture of mankind

in a sin. It's not a hopeful thing. These verses

are not meant to give us butterflies, but they're verses

that are meant for the sobering reality of where we

came from or where we still are if we have

yet to come to Christ.

Let's look at these, the first three verses.

It says, and you were dead in the trespasses and

sins in which you once walked, following the course of

this world, following the prince of the power of the air,

the spirit that is now at work in the sons

of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the

passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the

flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of

wrath like the rest of mankind. So before one is

in Christ, Paul says that this is every single one

of us. Dead in sin, following this world, following and

literally having Satan at work in us.

Like this is not a good picture.

To the end that we're living in the flesh, carrying

out the desires of both the flesh and the mind.

And not for good purposes. That we're by nature children

of wrath. It's not a good look. But the pervasiveness

of this problem is worse than you think. It goes

much deeper than just the wrong things we do. It's

that it's a problem with what our hearts want. It's

a problem with the status of our hearts, of our minds,

which is a big problem when the world, the world

has a motto, and even some Christians, of follow your heart.

The dentist sign. Today. He goes, I followed where my

heart wanted me to go. And that's where I ended up.

It's a biblical principle.

The Bible, in fact, though, tells us to do the opposite.

Not to follow your heart.

Because when it diagnoses your heart, it is not giving

you like flying colors.

It is red flags all over the place.

The Bible actually tells us that our sinful actions are

just showing the true state of our heart. Look what

Jeremiah has to say about mankind's heart. Jeremiah 17, 9.

The heart is deceitful above all things. That's a crazy verse.

Deceitful above all things and desperately sick. Who can understand it?

So this is in the time of Jeremiah.

We know Adam. Sin fell. Sin came into the world.

The next generation started murdering each other. A couple generations

down from there, people started taking extra wives. Things just

kind of started getting like this downhill ball rolling and

getting faster and uglier. To the point where God looks

down on mankind and Genesis chapter six, let's actually turn there.

Genesis chapter six, God looks down on mankind and sees

a pretty horrifying sight. Genesis chapter six, verse five says,

the Lord saw the wickedness of man was great in

the earth.

Listen to this. And that every intention of the thoughts

of his heart was.

Only evil continually. Really? It's pretty bad.

So God decides he's going to deal with it.

Sends a flood. Saves a family to repopulate the world.

And after that, that family, Noah, offers sacrifice to God.

And let's move over to verse 8. Verse 21, it says,

The Lord said in his heart, I will never again

curse the ground because of man. For the intention of

man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I

ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.

So here's the deal.

Man's heart is still bad. But God is making a

promise to say, I'm never going to destroy the world

in this same way. But the problem of the heart

in its condition, he says, from his youth, at a

young age, man has already gone astray in his heart.

We're like, well, that was just Noah's day and Jeremiah's day.

Let's look over to Matthew 15.

Jesus wants to tell us something about what's in our heart.

This is fun. I like this. We're like doing Bible

study together, flipping around.

Jesus is teaching about what actually defiles a person.

Matthew 15, starting.

In verse 18, he says, but what comes out of

the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.

For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, and adultery,

sexual immorality, theft, false witness, and slander. So even Jesus

in his day can recognize that the problem has to

do with what's in our heart and what's coming out.

Mankind has always had a heart problem. Before Christ, we

were ruled in mind, heart, and deed by our fallen nature.

And it's not that we were just indifferent to God.

That's not what the Bible tells us. It's that we

were hostile to God, whether we realize it or not.

Like, look at this.

So here we go. We're going to speed run some verses,

but hopefully they're clear in just what they say. Colossians

121 says, Romans 8, 7, 8. It says, For the

mind that is set on the flesh is what?

Hostile. To who?

God. For it does not do what? Submit to God's law. Indeed,

it can, it what?

It cannot.

And it says, Those who are in the flesh cannot

please God. Titus 3, 3. 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. Jesus himself, 834 of John's gospel. He says,

Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone

who practices sin is a slave to sin. The picture

that scripture paints of our sinful selves, our sinful nature,

is not a hopeful one for mankind. We're dead in sin.

Slaves to sin. Hostile to God and his law. Sons

of disobedience. So here's a question. If those are true,

which I believe they are, it's what God's word says.

If those are true, how did we ever come to

be saved by God? How did we come to a

God we hated? How did we come to a God

we were hostile against? How did we stop being ruled

by the spirit of disobedience that's at work in the

sons of disobedience? Where did this change of heart come from?

You see, here's the deal. The Bible is full of

pleas for mankind to change their heart. In Ezekiel 18,

at the end of it, he tells the people of Israel,

make for yourself a new heart.

Which is interesting.

Because it only takes a handful of chapters later where

God says, I'm going to make a promise that one

day I'm going to do it. Let's turn there right now.

Ezekiel chapter 34.

Ezekiel 34 · chapter mention

And I love the reason. It's kind of funny.

It's not funny to our pride, but it is funny.

Ezekiel 34 says, No, just kidding, 36.

Sorry.

Ezekiel chapter 36. We're going.

Ezekiel 36 · chapter mention

To start in verse 16. The word of the Lord

came to me, Son of man, when the house of

Israel lived in their own land, they defiled it by

their ways and their deeds. Their ways before me were

like the uncleanness of a woman in her menstrual impurity.

So I poured out my wrath upon them for the

blood that they had shed in the land, for the

idols with which they had defiled it. I scattered them

among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries.

In accordance with their ways and their deeds, I judged them.

But when they came to the nations, wherever they came,

they profaned my holy name. And that people said of them,

these are the people of the Lord, and yet they

had to go out of his land? But I had

concern for my holy name, which the house of Israel

had profaned among the nations to which they came. Therefore,

say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God,

it is not for your sake, O house of Israel,

that I'm about to act, but for the sake of

my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations

to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness

of my great name, which has been profaned among the

nations and which you have profaned among them. And the

nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the

Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before

their eyes. I will take you from the nations and

gather you from all the countries and bring you into

your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you

and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness and

from all your idols I will cleanse you. And here

it is.

And I will give you a new heart.

And a new spirit I will put within you. And

I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh

and give you a heart of flesh. And I will

put my spirit within you and cause you to walk

in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

So God shows up.

Chapters later after telling them, if you just would repent,

if you just would repent, And eventually God makes a promise.

He said, they're causing problems. They're profaning my name everywhere

they go. But for the sake of my own name,

I'm going to act. There's going to come a day

when I will gather my people and I will give

them a new heart. I will give them a new

spirit to cause them to walk in my own way.

So how do we come to be saved by God

It leads me to my main takeaway for today, which

is your salvation is the greatest miracle. Our salvation is

the greatest miracle. Think about the hymn Amazing Grace. Amazing Grace,

how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind,

but now I see. Lost people don't find themselves. Blind

people do not make themselves see. Deaf people don't cause

themselves to hear. Slaves don't set themselves free. And dead

people do not make themselves come alive. Some verses we're

going to go through. The Son of Man came to

seek and save the lost. 2 Corinthians 2. And even

if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those

who are perishing. In their case, the God of this

world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep

them from seeing the light of the gospel of the

glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For

what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord,

with ourselves as your servants, for Jesus' sake. For God,

who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown

in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge

of of the glory of God in the face of

Jesus Christ.

John 8. Why do you not understand what I say?

This is Jesus speaking. It is because you cannot bear

to hear my word.

You are of your father, the devil, and your will

is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer

from the beginning and does not stand in the truth

because there is no truth in him. When he lies,

he speaks out of his own character, for he is

a liar and the father of lies. But because I

tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one

of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth,

why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God

hears the words of God. The reason why you do

not hear them is that you are not of God.

John 8, a couple verses actually backwards, Jesus answered them, Truly, truly,

I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a

slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the

house forever. The son remains forever. So if the son

sets you free, you will be free indeed. Ephesians 2.

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.

And raised us up with him and seated us with

him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. so that

in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches

of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you've been saved through faith, and this

is not your own doing. It is the gift of God,

not a result of works, so that no one may boast,

for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for

good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk

in them. God is the only one who can save

us from our sinful selves. Our problem is so pervasive

that it is not something we can change ourself, but

it's something that requires God to move first, to give

us a new heart, to be born again spiritually, to

be spiritually risen from the dead. And there's a word

for this in the Bible. It's called regeneration. It's what

the Holy Spirit does to our hearts that enables us

to have faith, turn to Christ, and obey God. Look

at this, Titus 3, 3 through 7. 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

of God, or the goodness and loving kindness 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.

Just as we were born in sin, we need to

be born again. And I'm not making this up, because

Jesus had a very fun nighttime conversation with a man

named Nicodemus. In John 3, let's look at it. Jesus

answered him, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one

is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born

when he is old? Can he enter a second time

into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, truly, truly,

I say to you, unless one is born of water

in the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

That which is born of the flesh is is flesh.

And that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

Do not marvel that I say to you, you must

be born again. And then he gives.

Kind of an explanation. It's kind of funny. He says,

the wind blows.

Where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you

do not know where it comes from or where it goes.

So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

Which is kind of, I think, Jesus' way of saying,

you know it when you see it. You want to

know who's been born again? You know it when you

see it. You don't know where the wind's coming from,

but you see it when.

It moves something. That we who were born in Adam

need to be found in Christ.

We need God's spirit poured out on our hearts to

give us new hearts, new sight, new life. And I

believe this is the last little bit of homework for us.

Let's move over to 1 Corinthians.

We need God's spirit poured out on our hearts to

give us new hearts, new sight, new life. The beginning

of 1 Corinthians. Let's start in verse 18. It says,

For the word of the cross is folly to those

who are perishing. But to us who are being saved,

it is the power of God. I'm jumping down a

little bit. Verse 22 says, For Jews demand signs and

Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling

block to Jews and folly to Gentiles. But to those

who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power

of God and the wisdom of God, For the foolishness

of God is wiser than men and the weakness of

God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brothers.

Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards.

Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth.

But God chose what is foolish in the world to

shame the wise. God chose the weak in the world.

to shame the strong. God chose what is low and

despised in the world, even things that are not, to

bring to nothing the things that are, so that no

human might do what? Boast in the presence of God.

And then what does he say next? And because of him,

you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom

from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Amen. so that

as it is written, let no one who boasts, or

let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. So

God has done something here. But once again, like we said,

we need God's spirit poured out in our hearts to

give us new hearts, new sight, and new life. Because

look at this, chapter two, verse 12. It says, now

we have received not the spirit of the world, but

the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand

the things freely given us by God. And we impart

this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught

by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

Look at verse 14. The natural person does not accept

the things of the Spirit of God, for they are

folly to him and he is not able to understand

them because they are spiritually discerned we need to be

born again we need to be born again from above

and birth I think here is a perfect example there's

a reason Jesus is giving the example of birth but

I think birth is a good example because we're all

here It happened to us. But there's those who were

born in Adam. They need to be born again. But

for all those in Adam, there is condemnation and death.

But for all those in Christ, there is forgiveness and life. Now,

next week, we're going to look at what it means

to be in Christ. But as we've seen today, what

it means to be an Adam, our death, hostility, blindness

to God and his gospel, as we looked at the

fact that God can overcome our rebellion, and that if

it wasn't for him, if he let us continue in

our own way, continuing with our old heart of stone,

that we would never look to him. But this isn't, again,

a time to beat ourselves up or beat anything up.

It's actually a reason to rejoice. Because deep down, I mean,

we know that it's only because of God's intervention that

we are in Christ. It's the reason we pray to

God for our kids to be saved. It's the reason

we pray for our family, our spouses, our co-workers, our

friends and enemies to be saved. Because you've met them.

You know it's going to take an act of God

to do something in their life. But we also know

this because we didn't come to God because we were

any more smart, any more wise, or any better than

any other person. And in fact, the first Corinthians seems

to suggest the other, otherwise. We came to God by

his grace and the truth of his gospel, the gospel

that goes forth as his means of drawing his people

to himself. The word that brings faith in the hearts

of God's sheep, that the sheep hear his voice and listen.

I like how a child on a playground full of

noise and people can pick out their parents' voice in

the midst of the chaos. That we, as God's people,

chosen by his good plan and purpose, have heard our

Savior's voice, calling us to come out of the grave

and live. As children of wrath, dead in sin, only

Christ's call of salvation can make us live again. Our

salvation is a miracle and we have no room for boasting.

Because left to ourselves, we would have just been lost.

But as much as we've fallen, we see that God's

grace through the work of Christ is the only hope

for fallen humanity.

And this should cause us and.

Empower us to continue to pray to God for the

lost around us. That you can't save anyone. They can't

save themselves. We cry out to the Lord that he

would do what only he can do. That we wouldn't

take for granted this grace that he has shown us,

that he has given us. That we would share the

good news with big faith, trusting that God is using

that moment to bring about faith and new life in

those who hear his gospel. It's for every sinner who

looks to Christ and believes.

They will be saved.

That's really good news, because Christ, the perfect one, our

second perfect Adam, came and lived a sinless life, and

yet died in the place for all those who would

look to him. And on the third day, he rose

from the dead, showing that not only had he conquered death,

but that for all those who look at him, all

those who look to him, they too will be raised

to eternal life, both spiritually and physically, At the last day.

For every one of you who has been born again

by the Spirit of God, my plea to you today

would be just the same as Paul's.

Just a couple chapters later in Ephesians. Ephesians 4, 17.

It says, Now I say this and testify in the

Lord that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles

do in the futility of their minds. They are darkened

in their understanding alienated from the life of God because

of the ignorance that is in them due to their

hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given

themselves up to sensuality, greedy, greedy to practice every kind

of impurity.

But that is not the way you learned Christ.

Assuming that you've heard about him and were taught in

him as the truth is in Christ to put off

your old self, which belongs to your former manner of

life and is corrupt and through deceitful desires, and to

be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to

put on the new self created after the likeness of

God in true righteousness and holiness. Your salvation is the

greatest miracle. Our salvation is the greatest miracle. And now

as God's people bought by his blood and brought to

new life, let us live like it. Let us be humble.

Let us be grateful that we get to love the

God who loved us before we ever loved him.

And all God's people said, amen. Would you please stand

to your feet?