God’s mercy and our new birth
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2010 · 10 January 2010
“3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.”
The goal of this sermon is set for me and for you in the first phrase of verse 3: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Peter is worshipping God. Peter's response to God's causing his people to be born again, and raising his Son Jesus from the dead, and giving us a living hope, and providing us an imperishable inheritance in heaven is to bless God.
And if that is his response, it should be our response. What he is going to talk about makes him exult and bless God. But he did not have to begin by letting his admiration and love for God show. He could have said: "My lecture topic today is regeneration. I have several related doctrines upon which I wish to talk about.”
“Let me list them: 1) God; 2) regeneration; 3) hope; 4) the resurrection of Jesus; 5) inheritance; 6) heaven. Let us give close attention to these things." He could have begun that way. But that was not the way Peter started his letter.”
Peter begins with exultation and blessing and wonder because that's what these realities have produced in his heart. He says, "Blessed be God!" He does it here. He does it in 4:11, "To him belong glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." He does it again in 5:11, "To him be the dominion for ever and ever. Amen."
Peter breaks out again and again in praise and blessing. He writes about the greatest realities in the universe with a worshipful spirit. He writes with exultation and wonder and awe and marvel and heartfelt gratitude.
Preaching is worshipful exposition of glorious biblical reality. If you have the notion that what we do in this Sunday evening service is half worship and half preaching, you're wrong. We can sing without worshiping. And I can preach without worshiping. That's professionalism and formalism. Our goal is to worship God with everything we have from beginning to end.
Worship is when the mind apprehends the truth about God, and the heart kicks in with feelings of brokenness and gladness and admiration and gratitude, and the mouth says something like, "O blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Let us look at each of these five realities that should lead us to worship.
1. God's Great Mercy. There is great mercy with God; otherwise we would not exist as children of God. Peter is moved by that truth and we should be too. He says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy . . .”
2. God's Work of New Birth. This is the second reality about God that moves Peter to worship: God is the one who caused us to be born again. New birth is God's work, “. . . who according to his great mercy, has caused us to be born again to a living hope . . .” His mercy produces a new being called a child of God and an alien in the world.
3. God's Work of Raising Jesus from the Dead. This is the third reality about God that gripped Peter: God raised Jesus from the dead. “ . . . He caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead . . .” The resurrection is about God. God did it so we can trust God. And this makes Peter start worshipping.
4. God's Promise of an Inheritance. There's the fourth reality about God that gripped Peter: God promises an inheritance to his newborns. Verse 4: . . . to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away.” God is the source of the inheritance. God is the one overflowing. We are receivers at every point: mercy, new birth, resurrection, inheritance.
5. God's Work of Keeping Our Inheritance [The inheritance] is reserved [literally: "kept"] in heaven for you. Who is keeping it? Answer: God is. God is keeping that inheritance so that it will never, ever perish or soil or fade.
Now out of these five truths, what is the main thing that God is doing here for us? The main thing is that God is doing for mankind is causing new birth. His raising Jesus from the dead is the historical triumph over death that makes this possible. Our living hope in a great inheritance flows from it. But the main work of God focused on here is the new birth of sinful man.
One of the reasons we don't get as excited about this like Peter is that we either don't understand it, or we don't believe it. "God caused us to be born again." God fathered us into second beings as children of God. We did not exist as his children before.
"That which is born of the flesh is [just] flesh," Jesus said in John 3:6. But "that which is born [again] of the Spirit is spirit." We had no living spiritual existence. We were what a human father and mother and common grace could make of us. But then God came on us and caused us to be born again. He awakened a new life of faith and hope in God. That is the life of the Spirit in us.
But there are many believers who have been taught that God did not do the decisive work here, we did. And it is no wonder, then, that we do not respond like Peter: "Blessed be God, O blessed be God who by his great mercy did it!"
Let me get at this with a provocative question: If I asked you, "How do you know that you were born from your mother's womb?" What would you answer? You would answer, "I'm alive! I exist outside my mother's womb. I'm here." And that's right. And that is all the answer needed.
You would not say, "I know I was born because I've got a birth certificate at home." Or, "I know I was born because I did some historical research in Indonesia and found a document with my name." You would say, "I know I was born because I am alive."
Now suppose I asked a faithful churchgoer today, "How do you know you were born again?" I would expect a similar answer. But instead I would often hear, "I know I was born again because I did what you must do to be born again: I asked Jesus into my heart; I prayed to receive Christ; I walked down an aisle and accepted Jesus; I have a card here in my wallet that I signed on June 6, 1998, where I pledged that Jesus is my Lord."
How many would answer correctly by saying, "I’m born again because now I am alive to God. I have a living hope. I have a living faith. I once had no spiritual life but now I am alive with spiritual appetites and spiritual enjoyments. I know him, I love him, I trust him, I hope in him and I follow him. The proof that I was born again is my life today!"
There should be no difference in answering how we know if we were physically born and how we know if we are spiritually born. One reason is that we know that we had nothing to do with our physical birth and the same is true regarding our spiritual birth. It was done to us.
However when it comes to our spiritual birth, or second birth, millions of Christians are not sure. They don't believe that our second birth was done to us and that we did not choose it or cause it. They were taught in many different ways that we ourselves choose and cause our new birth.
It is not surprising, then, that some Christians grow up around that self-understanding, that self-made Christian existence, which does not explode with praise over our new birth. And they do not understand the awe that Peter has and the things that he says to worship God.
Let me give you again the New Testament picture of our new birth. God did it. And God will get the glory for it. Ephesians 2:5 says, “I was dead in trespasses and sins and God, in the great love with which he loved me, made me alive together with Christ.”
I did not raise myself from the dead. God raised me. I was spiritually non-existent. Not even created. But then God created a new person, and I became a new creation in Christ (Ephesians 4:24; Galatians 6:15; 2 Corinthians 5:17). I did not create myself, God created me.
I was blind to spiritual things. Flesh and blood could not help me. But the Father in heaven mercifully and sovereignly opened my eyes to see that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:17; cf. 11:27; Acts 16:14). God caused me to see and acknowledge his truth.
My mother and my father planted the Word of God in me and pastor Rick Ferguson watered it, but it was God and God alone who did the miracle of giving me life and making it grow (1 Corinthians 3:6).
I was self-willed, rebellious, proud, going my own way and would never have come to Jesus on my own, but God drew me: "No one can come to me [Jesus said] unless the Father who sent me draws him" (John 6:44).
I had no repentance in my heart, no sorrow for my sin or passion to change, but God lead me to a knowledge of the truth through specific trials and graciously granted me repentance. (2 Timothy 2:25).
I had no faith, no desire to look like a weakling that depends on another. But God, in his great mercy, granted me to believe (Philippians 1:29) and saved me by faith. But this was not my own doing it was the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8f.). I believed.
It was my choice to believe. But my choice was the gift of God; the effect and not the cause of new birth. I was born, as John 1:13 says, "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."
A couple of years ago I heard a story of a boy named Jeremy. He was born with a twisted body, a slow mind and a chronic, terminal illness that had been slowly killing him all his young life. One Sunday morning in early spring Jeremy’s Sunday school teacher told the children the story of Jesus, and then to emphasize the idea of new life springing forth, she gave each of the children a large plastic egg.
"Now," she said to them "I want you to take this home and bring it back next Sunday with something inside that shows new life. Do you understand?" The next Sunday morning, 19 children came to Sunday school, laughing and talking and gathered around Ms. Miller as she opened each one to see what was inside.
In the first egg, there was a flower. "Oh yes, a flower is certainly a sign of new life. When plants peek through the ground we know that spring is here. A small girl in the first row waved her arms.. “That’s my egg, Miss Miller," she called out.
The next egg contained a plastic butterfly, which looked very real. Ms. Miller held it up. "We all know that a caterpillar changes and turns into a beautiful butterfly. Yes, that is new life too." Little Judy smiled proudly and said, "Miss Miller, that one is mine."
Another egg had a rock with moss on it.; the moss, too, showed life. Billy spoke up from the back of the classroom. "My daddy helped me" He beamed. Then Ms. Miller opened the fourth egg. She gasped. The egg was empty. Surely it must be Jeremy’s, she thought, and, of course, he did not understand her instructions. She thought to herself, “Perhaps I should’ve phoned his parents.”
Because she did not want to embarrass him, she quietly set the egg aside and reached for another. Suddenly Jeremy spoke up. "Miss Miller, aren’t you going to talk about my egg?" Flustered, she replied, "but Jeremy – your egg is empty"
He looked into her eyes and said softly, "yes, but Jesus’ tomb was also empty and I have new life because of it." Three months later Jeremy died. Those who paid their respects at the mortuary were surprised to see that 19 children had placed plastic eggs on top of his casket, all of them empty.
Because Jesus lives after having paid the price for our sins on the cross for those who believe and because Jeremy accepted the gift from God of the new birth, he believed and now is in heaven with his Father forever.
It does not matter in what condition we start this life, whether we are rich or poor, healthy or handicapped, physically or mentally, or whether we led a life of crime and have to pay the consequences for all that we committed, what is important is how we end our life. After all that we have experienced do we repent and believe and accept Jesus into our hearts? That decision is more important than anything else.
Peter says, "God, in his great mercy, caused us to be born again." God did it, lest we should ever boast and fail to bless the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and proclaim the superiority of the One who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9; 1 Corinthians 1:24; 2 Timothy 1:9).
So let us bless God this evening with all our hearts because he has caused us to be born into his family and given us living hope. Some of you are being drawn and wakened by the Spirit of God this evening. Do not resist.
Verse 23 says that we are "born again through the living and abiding word of God." May God make my words live with life-awakening power in your lives. Come, believe, and bless the Lord with us for this great saving work of new birth. Amen?