The Wind That Gives Life

Verse three, truly truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. So this is not an optional religious experience. Like, well, that's nice for some people, but um I I approach God other ways. I experience other things than the new birth. If you don't experience the new birth, you will perish. You will remain under the wrath of God talked about in verse 36 of this chapter. [00:03:01]

The spirit doesn't do this apart from Jesus. The spirit moves us into union with Christ. And in union with Christ, we have his life, eternal life. Now, here's verse one of chapter 5 of First John. Everyone who believes has been born of God. Everyone who believes has been born of God. So, the second thing to say about how this happens from 1 John 5 is that not only does the spirit move us into union with Christ, he does it through faith. If you are believing, you have been born of God. [00:06:25]

In verses 1 to3, Nicodemus was a religious man but not born again. implication, you can be a religious person and not be born again. In verse two, Nicodemus says, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God." So, he's recognizing that God is at work in Jesus. And then verse seven, Jesus says to Nicodemus, you must be born again. So, it's possible to see God working in Jesus and not have God working in you. [00:01:52]

The Holy Spirit moved upon you. He brought you through the awakening of faith into union with the son so that life was yours. And all that happens just like that. You can't take it apart. You can't you can't say, "Well, there's a piece and there's a piece and there's a piece." Like there's a there's a Holy Spirit piece, there's a Jesus piece, there's a faith piece. It's all one. So if you're born again, you are believing today. And if you're believing today, you were born again. [00:07:17]

There are things about the new birth you won't know. you won't be able to figure out. It's God's work. And when God does a miracle like Lazarus rising from the dead, then we don't know how he did that. He just did it. We saw that Lazarus walked out. And once I was dead and wasn't believing and didn't enjoy Jesus and found no pleasure in reading scriptures and didn't want to go to church, now I see and I'm alive and it's my highest joy and he's my chief treasure. That's a mystery. [00:16:33]

So what he means there is that when we're born the first time, merely human nature begets merely human nature. It doesn't have spiritual life. All human beings are sinful. All human beings are fallen. All of us are dead in trespasses and sins. And when we have babies, we have dead babies. They are spiritually not living. Flesh begets flesh. Spirit begets spirit. Your spirit comes alive when a second birth happens through the Holy Spirit. And that's necessary for everybody. [00:04:21]

To be sure, get this right. To be sure, at the moment of new birth, our will moves. [snorts] At the moment of new birth, in that instant, instant, that mystery instant, our will moves. It moves toward the Christ that we see as compelling. It moves to receive him. It moves to love him. It moves to trust him. Because in that instant we were given eyes to see and a life to long and and in that moment without any separation in time our wheel is moving but the decisive mover is the spirit. He gets the ultimate credit for our moving. Changes happen in us. There are perceptible effects. You hear the wind. You hear it. [00:22:06]

Unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. The reference to water there is not a reference to baptism. And I argued for that in great detail in one of those messages. It's an illusion to Ezekiel 36:24. And the point is that just like the spirit gives life in this process, there is also a washing or a cleansing of heart and sin that has to happen as well. We need new life and we need cleansing. And those are both signified in that verse. [00:03:34]

Now what does verse eight teach us about how that happens? That's what I'm after. I believe that I am born again. So what have I to learn here? massive amounts to learn because I I I many people are born again who've never even heard of the phrase born again. Do you know that it is possible to be born again and have heard it all from and be saved through Romans 5. Romans 5 doesn't talk about new birth. You may learn five years later that you were born again when you believed in Jesus. Well, that's a good thing to learn to know what happened to you because praises will rise and you'll understand better who you are. [00:11:04]

But interestingly, in at least three verses in the Gospel of John, a masculine pronoun is used to refer to the neuter spirit, which is grammatically wrong and theologically right. So, those would be 1426, 1521, and 1613 at least. So, if you hear me talking about it, the wind, and he, the spirit, it's because I'm I'm thinking you you are a person. I can quench you. I can grieve you. I can delight in you. I can relate to you. The Holy Spirit is a person of the Godhead and there is one God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all persons. [00:14:24]

John 1:12 and 13. But to all who did receive him, so this is those who now receive Christ for who he really is, receive him. those who did receive him comma explanatory phrase following that is who believed in his name that's what it means to receive him so receiving and believing mutually explain each other to receive is to believe to believe is to receive who believed in his name he gave the right to become children of God and then he goes back and explains how that came about who were born this is the new birth now who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. [00:08:17]

And drew in some very important supplementary material. And I want to give you two of those verses from 1 John. 1 John 5:11 and 1 John 5:1 to draw in two things about where this new life that the spirit gives comes from and how you get it. What's the channel through which the spirit brings it to you? Here's verse 11 of 1 John 5. God gave us eternal life. That that happens in the new birth. God gave us new eternal life. And this life is in his son. [00:05:28]

There's a little play on words here, by the way. In Greek, the word for wind and spirit are the same word. And so, when he says the wind blows where he wills, uh, it's the same word as spirit. But he's still making the connection because he uses the word blow. So he's thinking wind like spirit is blowing. Look, let me just bring in a verse from chapter 6 here. In chapter 6, it says in verse 63, it is the spirit who gives life. The flesh is of no help at all. So I'm just bringing that in to underline what we see there in verse six of chapter 3. [00:10:01]

That means that it does have some effects that impinge upon our senses. In this case, the ear. You can't see the wind. How do you know there is such a thing as wind? Sound. Uh leaves stirring in the grass, branches flopping in the dust getting stirred up, pressure on your face, very cold in Minnesota, called wind chill. So we know the wind exists not because we see it but because it has these effects on the world and that's he's going to draw the the analogy out to the Holy Spirit. You can't see the Holy Spirit but you can see his effects especially in the new birth. So that's the second observation. [00:15:21]

The wind moves in mysterious ways. It has a will of its own, so to speak. It comes and it goes by its own laws, not by our laws. We do not determine the laws of the wind. It just has its own. And so does the Holy Spirit. The wind is free. The Holy Spirit is free. That's the analogy. So now, now comes the comparison. [00:19:24]

It means that it's got a mind of its own. You don't make the wind go anywhere. I don't think till the 21st century we've been able to do that. You know, we may seed a cloud here and there or try to control the weather a little bit, but they certainly couldn't in that day. And I don't think we're very good at it today. Otherwise, we'd stop Katrinas and we'd stop tornadoes and we'd stop river through melting that come with the wrong kind of wind and we can't do any of that. We're just helpless before the wind. It has a mind of its own. It goes where it it will. [00:13:06]