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People Made New

Once again, it is a great privilege for me to be here with you. And just to spend time and fellowship today with so many of you and hearing your stories about how God has saved you and changed you, it is remarkable. What a Savior. What a Savior. We’re going to start in Matthew 7. While you’re turning there, I just want to share with you something that was in my devotional time this morning. Talking about Hagar and Ishmael, “And of the son of the maid,” God says, “I will make a nation also because he is your descendant.” Throughout Scripture, we see this. God delivers lot because of his relationship with Abraham. David, because of him, so many kings were spared and Israel was allowed to go on. But here he says of Ishmael, a nation that would become an enemy nation, He says, “Because he is your descendant, I will make of him a nation.”

What will God make of you? You’re aligned, attached to someone greater than David. Someone greater than Abraham is here. For the sake of Christ, what will God do for you? What will the eschaton, what will eternity look like? Ear has not heard. Eye has not seen. This is the great pain of the prophet and the preacher because he knows that he can’t even comprehend the 10th part or 100th part, or far beyond that, of the glory that awaits God’s people. And he knows that even what he can comprehend, as meager as it is, he can’t communicate to God’s people. If you only knew that the greatness of His salvation, of what it means to be in Christ, oh what a joy unspeakable and full of glory you would possess in ever greater reality. You are dearly loved.

So let’s go to Matthew 7:15, “Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit A good tree cannot produce bad fruit nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then you will know them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'” Let’s go the Lord in prayer.

Father, I pray that you will use this time for the benefit of your people. That you would help me to speak clearly as I ought. Our dependence upon you is great, oh God. Please, for the sake of your Christ and for the sake of your people, help us. In Jesus name. Amen.

Now in verse 15. He says, “Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” Now here He’s dealing, of course, with false prophets, but you need to understand that there’s a wider application. And that wider application is proven if you will just go back through history and see the way that godly men throughout the ages have dealt with this text. What is said about false prophets can be said about all who make some sort of profession of faith. And He says in verse 16, “You will know them by their fruits.” Then He goes on and says, “Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they?” It seems as though the Lord is almost laying a trap. It would be something like this. He would look at them and say, maybe, “Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, are they?” And maybe they would have responded, “Well, of course not. I mean, you’re a carpenter and not involved in agriculture. But of course not. You’re on the right track with what you’re saying, Jesus.” Okay. Well, let’s go on. “Figs aren’t gathered from thistles, are they?” “Well, no, of course not.” And He looks at them and says, “And a profession of faith in Me that bears no fruit is just as ludicrous as saying that a tree could bear fruit that is the opposite of its nature.”

I used to use an illustration, particularly when I would be preaching to young people. And I would say something like this. I would say, so imagine that I was given the opportunity to preach here at 7:00 in the evening, and I didn’t show up until 7:30. And the pastor met me at the door, or the conference leader met me at the door, saying, “What are you doing? Why are you late? What’s wrong with you? Don’t you appreciate the opportunity to speak to all these young people?” And I say, “Sir, please, don’t be hangry. Just hear me out. While I was coming here, I had a flat tire. And as I was changing the tire, it rolled out into the middle of the highway, a four-lane highway. And I wasn’t paying attention. And when I looked up, there was a logging truck that weighed somewhere around 32 tons going about 70 miles an hour, and it ran me over. And that’s why I’m late.” And he would look at me and he would go, “That’s absolutely absurd. I mean, it’s absolutely impossible to be run over by a logging truck weighing 32 tons going 70 miles an hour and not be changed.” Then how is it that so many people can profess faith in Christ and not be changed? What’s greater? The power of God or the philosophy of a logging truck? And this is something that we need to see. And it needs to be preached. Twice here, He will say, “You will know them by their fruits.”

But now there’s a theological problem. And it’s this: You seem to have in evangelicalism these two camps. One is called something like free grace, that you believe in Jesus, and no matter how you live, if you’ve made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ, no matter how you live, you’re saved. I’ve even heard one man say you could come to a point where you actually deny the faith and you’re still going to heaven because there was a point in time in your life when you asked Jesus Christ to come into your heart. So that’s one side. But on the other side, there’s this idea of lordship salvation. That in order to be saved, you must not only receive Jesus as Savior, but you must receive Jesus as Lord, and you must follow Him. Well, I want to be honest with you. I have problems with both sides.

Now, I’ve already said you will know them by their fruits. But here’s what you need to understand. Why is there this confusion? One group saying– and they’re saying it for a good reason. They want to protect salvation by faith, salvation as a work of grace. They want to protect it. So they say no works needed. This other side, it wants to prove a point. That true faith is demonstrated by what we do. But here’s the problem. I think sometimes neither one of them are looking at the real issue. And what is the real issue? The doctrine of regeneration. That’s the issue. You see, it’s not that I hear the gospel, and I go, “I receive Jesus as Savior, and I receive Him as Lord, and I follow Him as Lord. I follow Him as a true disciple. I follow Him, and by my obedience and my faith, I’m saved.” That’s not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches that those who truly repent of their sins and believe in Jesus Christ are regenerated by the Holy Spirit who changes their nature. And having a new nature, they live in a different course or way of life. And that’s what you need to see.

I don’t know if I coined the term, but one day I thought of it. Years and years ago, I started calling it bornagain-ism. Are you born again? Which meant that at some time in your life, you had prayed a prayer and asked Jesus to come into your heart, or you raise your hand at an evangelistic crusade. And I said how could they so misrepresent the beautiful and powerful and glorious doctrine of regeneration? But then I read a tract my grandfather wrote back in the ’50s. It was entitled, well, at least to use the term, bornagain-ism. And then I started reading guys like JC Ryle. He talked about the same thing. And so what I want to talk about today is what it means to be born again and the importance of it. Now, let’s just go on for a moment. Jesus gives us some amazing statements here. Now, never forget. Jesus is the Word. He is wisdom. In some ways, you could say that Jesus, what He teaches, is true philosophy. And if you’re wanting to talk about the doctrine of ontology, the doctrine of being, like what is a man and how does it function? He clears it all up in a matter of a few words. So look what He says here, verse 17, “So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.”

There was a German who wrote a book about this. It’s called the Bondage of the Will. You see, what a thing does, how it acts, how it reacts, is utterly, totally dependent upon its nature. If nature is evil, deeds will be evil. And that’s always going to be the case. Now, evangelicalism gets this half right. So it says here in verse 18, “A bad tree cannot produce good fruit.” I hear it in evangelical preaching all the time. “There’s nothing good you can do until you’ve trusted in Christ. And then when you trust in Christ, you can do good things.” That’s true, but they seem to avoid the other side of this. A bad tree cannot produce good fruit, a lost man cannot please God, cannot obey God. But a good tree cannot produce bad fruit. And what does that mean? In the same way that a bad tree cannot live a life of continually doing good before God, a good tree, a man truly converted, cannot live a life of continual rebellion before God. Why? Because his nature has been changed.

And so when we say, “You will know them by their fruits,” we are not saying that a person must believe in Jesus and then work out his salvation with all kinds of deeds that eventually add up his contribution to salvation. That is not what we’re teaching. What we’re teaching is the person who has believed, who has truly repented and believed unto salvation, has done so because of a previous work, the work of regeneration. And that same glorious miraculous transformation in regeneration that produced repentance and faith will continue working itself out in greater and greater conformity to Christ. But make no mistake about it. The only thing you and I have ever contributed to our salvation is our sin. And if you’re in the ministry, the only thing you’ve ever contributed is your weakness.

Now, having said that, let’s go on. So in verse 16, Jesus says, “You will know them by their fruits.” And in verse 20, He says, “So then, you will know them by their fruits.” Do you think Jesus is seeking to tell us something? Repetition is extraordinarily important, especially in the Hebrew Bible. He said, “You will know them by their fruits.” And then He goes on and He says, “Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven.” Now, again, repetition in the Hebrew language is very, very important. He’s not saying everyone who says to Me, Lord, but every one who emphatically declares me to be Lord, with the most apparent sincerity. Everyone who does that. So not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. Well, who will enter the kingdom of heaven? He who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Now here, we cannot simply say that the will of the Father is to believe, because He goes on and He shows that He’s meaning more than that. He’s also not saying that we are saved by doing the will of the Father. What He is simply teaching goes back to what He’s already said. If you have truly believed unto salvation, you have been regenerated. Your heart of stone that was unresponsive to God has been removed. And in its place is a heart of flesh that responds to Him.

And not only that, but if God has begun a good work in you, He will finish it. Then He goes on to say, “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many miracles?’ And I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.'” Isn’t it amazing that when these persons stand before the Lord and they are told they will not enter, look at their argument. But Lord, “I did this. And Lord, I did that. And Lord, I did it all in your name.”

Now, let me ask you a question. This is hypothetical. It will never happen. But let’s say that a genuine believer were to stand before the Lord. A genuine believer, someone truly regenerate, truly understanding the gospel. If they were to stand before the Lord, and the Lord said – this will never happen – Depart from Me, I never knew you. Would a genuine believer say, “But Lord, I did this. And Lord, I did that.” No, they would say, “But Lord, I saw my sin. And I recognize that I have broken every one of your commands. I put no hope in the flesh. I saw myself condemned. But I looked to you. I believe that your work was complete.” You see how even in their argument they expose themselves. They’ve not been regenerate. They’ve not been recipients of grace. They do not understand. They may be religious. They may even be more devout than some who are truly believers. They do not know Him. And what we’re going to see is He does not know them. He says, “Then I will declare to them, I never knew you.” I hear all over evangelicalism, “I know the Lord. I know the Lord.”

If I were to try to go through the gates of the White House, do you think I would be stopped? I would be stopped. Do you think I would prevail over my captors? If I said, “No, no, no, no, I know the President. I’m okay. I know the President,” do you think they’re going to say, “Oh, our bad. Go right ahead.” But if the President looks out the window and then comes through the door, and says to the guards, “No, no, no. Let him go. I know Paul Washer.” See, everything changes. So the boast should not be, “I know Jesus.” The question is, does Jesus know you? But look what He says here, “I never knew you.” Now, we have to get the Hebrew idea of know here. He knew them. He’s omniscient. He knows everything. What does He mean? Something like this. He would look at them and say, “You and I, we didn’t walk together. We didn’t fellowship. You didn’t seek my counsel. You didn’t call upon My name for strength in the doing of righteousness. I never knew you. We had no relationship.” Oh, my dear friends, He is not a ticket. Many of the older writers, I don’t know who originally said it. But they’re right. The believer would rather be in hell with Jesus than in heaven without Him.

The true believer has a relationship with Christ, walks with Him, talks with Him, is encouraged by Him, is rebuked by Him, is disciplined by Him. Do you have an intimate relationship with Christ? You know Him. Does He know you? Does He know you? But rather He says, “I never knew you. Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness. Depart from Me, those of you who claimed to be my disciples, but you lived as though I never gave you a law or a command to obey. Whether your vice was ignorance or open rebellion, it does not matter. You walked on this earth as though I had never revealed My will to man.” I just wanted to clear that problem up about salvation. It all comes back to an understanding of regeneration. And I’m afraid that in many circles, this is not understood by the preacher, and it is not declared from the pulpit, and therefore many are confused.

Now, I want to go on to our main text. And I want to talk about God’s work of salvation in regeneration. Let’s go to Ezekiel, and this time chapter 36 verse 22, “Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God, it is not for your sake, oh house of Israel, that I’m about to act, but for My Holy Name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went. I will vindicate the holiness of My great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations, this is the key part, the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when I prove Myself holy among you in their sight.” Why does God save people? Before I get into talking about the revelation of His glory, I want to make it very clear because I don’t think this has given enough prominence. He saves a people because He loves them. And all this talk about the glory of God, which is extremely important, I don’t want to be trite in using that phrase. But I want you to understand, if you correctly understand the glory of God, the love of God for His people will not be lost in that. Why did He save you? He set his love upon you.

Now, here’s the problem. God is righteous. God is holy. What would motivate a holy and righteous God to save us? We’ve already been through this all day yesterday about the sinfulness of man. Did God look at man and find a motivation in man to save man? Absolutely not. The only motivation that comes from man is condemnation. It’s what man deserves. So why does God save? Why does God love? For the sake of His own name, to reveal His glory, to demonstrate who He is. To take center stage, not only before men, but before angels and say, “This is what I’m like. This is who I am.”

Now, you can say, “Well, that sounds a little megalomaniac, doesn’t it?” No, actually, it’s the kindest thing God could ever do. There is some ways in which someone’s love can be demonstrated by the size of their gift, by the worth of their gift. What’s the greatest gift that God could give men or angels? A revelation of Himself. I mean, heaven, I suppose, is a spectacular place. But after a while, I mean, swinging on gates of pearl will get old. Walking down streets of gold, well, that was fine for a few days. We’re going to be there for an eternity. What is glorious enough? What is infinite enough to capture our attention and enthrall us throughout all eternity that when we run as far as we think we can run into that kind of beauty, we find that we’re just at the foothills of that Everest? It’s God. The kindest thing that God can do for man and angel is to take center stage and show them who He is. And that’s what He’s doing in salvation. Through Christ, God has given man the greatest revelation possible of Himself, which means it’s the greatest gift He could give, the gift that goes on and on and on and on. So why does God save? Well, let’s just put it this way. Why did God save you? To demonstrate who He is, to demonstrate His love, His kindness, His mercy, His power.

And you want to know what? For the saints, that is an encouraging word. Why? If God has saved me in order to demonstrate all that He is to the universe, then He is not going to fail in my salvation. He is not going to fail. Now go with me for a second, just quickly. Look in Numbers chapter 14. God places Moses in a position to function as an intercessor. Many people say, “Well, I don’t understand this passage because it appears that all of Israel is in the hands of Moses at this moment.” Yes, that’s true. But what you have to understand is Moses is in the hands of God. So everything’s good.

And what happens? The people have rebelled against God, and the Lord test Moses. Verse 11, “The Lord said to Moses, how long will this people spurn Me? And how long will they not believe in Me despite all the signs which I have performed in their midst? I will smite them with pestilence and dispossess them. And I will make you into a nation greater and mightier than they.” Now listen to Moses’ argument. “But Moses said to the Lord, ‘Then the Egyptians will hear of it. For by Your strength, You brought up this people from their midst. And they will tell it to the inhabitants of the land. They have heard that You, O Lord, are in the midst of this people. For You, O Lord, are seen eye to eye while Your cloud stands over them. And You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. Now, if You slay this people as one man, then the nations who have heard of your fame will say, ‘because the Lord could not bring this people into the land which He promised them by oath, therefore He slaughtered them in the wilderness.'” Do you see where this is going? Your salvation will not fail because God’s name, His reputation, is riding upon it. He’s demonstrating something through you. That He has the power to save. That your salvation was His from the beginning. It is His in the middle. And it will be His into the end.

People say, “I praise God for He never gave up on me.” He never gave up on you because He never trusted you in the first place. This has never been about you. Were you there before the foundations of the earth were laid? Were you the one who chose Him? No, He chose you. Before you were born, He worked through generations with your name, knowing when He would bring you here. He let you run as far as He would allow you to run for His own glory so that when He saved you people would speak of Him. And He who began a good work in you will finish it. I have lived 40 years with Him. And though I have failed Him many times, I have done nothing that could weaken His arm. I have done nothing. No sin of mine has been greater than His love for me. What a privilege. We’re that kicking baby lying on the side of the road. And He comes and scopes us up, and says to us, “By My saving of you, I will demonstrate great things about My Name. I will not let you go.” So why does He save us? For His own glory. And if you’ve got a problem with that, there’s no other reason for doing it.

Let’s go on. Now look at His power to save. Look at His power to save. Look particularly at the singular pronoun- I. He says, “For I will take you from the nations. I will gather you from the lands. I will bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness. I will cleanse you from all your idols. I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and I will cause you to walk in my statutes and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.” Do you say this? If he gave point 0.01% responsibility to me, I would have no hope. But He says, “I’m going to do it.” And you’ve read the law. You’ve read the wisdom literature. You’ve read Job. No plan of His fails. If He lifts His hand, no man can force it down. If He holds His hand to the table, no man can pry it up. He does whatever He wants to do in the heavens, the earth, and under the earth. And He has set His love on you. He has set his love on you.

Now, I want you to look at something, verse 24, “For I will take you from the nations. I will gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land.” I, to the anger of my doctor and the concern of my wife, I spend too much time running around with people at conferences. It’s because I’m selfish. I love hearing stories. His story. There’s people here from all sorts of states, all sorts of backgrounds. There are people here from different countries. And look what He did. He gathered you. He found you. I know of one little boy that used to be so afraid that he would hide out with the pigs and cry. God saw him and found him. I know of prostitutes who felt so dirty in some tiny room in a gigantic city, wanting to rip out their own heart, to peel their own flesh from their body and attempt to be somehow clean. He found them Oh, He is God. How many of you could stand up one after another and tell us where he found you in some obscure place where no one could find you? He found you. Oh, praise Him. Praise Him. Praise Him. Praise Him in the morning. Praise Him in the nightwatch. Praise Him in life. Praise Him in death. Praise Him. It is a pitiful thing to preach. It’s painful. He’s so much more than what you can say. Praise Him.

And then He says, “I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean.” Listen to that. You will be clean. We can put into this the doctrine of imputation, but it goes further than that. He’s talking about, “I’m going to work in you,” because He goes on and He says, “I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.” We raised Charlotte cattle and quarter horses, and I spent almost all my life out in the field. And if any of you know about country boys in the field, when they come in at night, there’s not a crevice in their body that you couldn’t grow potatoes in. They are dirty everywhere. And I remember one time, I was about nine years old. Yeah, I was working cattle. I was a man. And I came in. My mom said, “Take a bath.” I go, “I don’t think so. I’m good.” My mom was old school. She could look at you in a way where you knew immediately your party’s over. My mom didn’t have to raise her voice. She goes, “You will take a bath.” “Okay.” So I go in and I do what a lot of boys do. There’s a beautiful white towel. We can swim in swamps and pond water all day long, but there’s something about bathtubs that just scare us to death. So I got in there and I turned the water on. And then I made the terrible mistake of grabbing that beautiful white towel, which turned rather soiled when I finished.

Now everything was going on just wonderfully. I was happy. Then all of a sudden the door open. My mom walked in. My mom could haul hay as well as any man. She could work the field. She could work cattle. She could work courses. My mom’s hand was like a horse rasp. For the millennials, you can just look that up in a dictionary. My mom’s hand was a horse rasp. My mom grabbed me. I don’t know how many layers of skin I lost that day. But I came out of there, boy I was shining. Do you know why? Because my mom said, “You will be clean.” Isn’t it amazing that I had a mother that was much stronger than the God of most evangelicals? Now don’t clap because you know what I do about clapping. Just look at that. You see, He’s doing this work, not just justifying, but sanctifying. He’s cleansing. He’s making a people for Himself. And He’s demonstrating His power, through justification, yes, but also through sanctification. He’s demonstrating His power. Now there’s something about sanctification that I want to say. It’s an aspect of sanctification that hardly anyone talks about. And because of that, believers do not have the joy that they ought to have.

So let’s say that this is a bar graph. When I became a Christian, I thought my sanctification would go something like this [updard only]. But I have found my sanctification to go two steps forward, one step back, up, down. And honestly, I can tell you I have not made the progress that I had hoped. But there is one aspect of my sanctification that has grown through the roof, that has shot up like a rocket. And it gives me great encouragement. And it has shot up like a rocket because I’ve grown so little here. What is it? My recognition of my utter dependence upon the grace of God. And I believe that’s an aspect of sanctification. You see, he is concerned about you becoming more and more like Christ. But I believe he’s more concerned with you seeing the work that He’s done in Christ, and that again, the only thing you’ve contributed to your salvation is your sin. And there’s only one hero in this story: Our elder brother, Jesus Christ, who accomplished absolutely everything. And it is His work on the cross that enables the work of regeneration. Because if He hadn’t dealt with sin, there would be no such working among God’s people. He says, “I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.” Keith Green had a song, and he used to sing it to his son. He said, “Son, I am weak and I’m trembling. For the Lord I am always remembering. Oh, what a strong Shepherd holds you in His arms. He will break you and make you His own.”

He will cleanse you from all your idols. It’s painful. It’s painful. But it’s good. He says, “Moreover, I will put a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.” What does that mean? Imagine that I had a statue here of a man made out of solid stone. I could pinch it, punch it, kick it, slap it, and what’s going to happen? I could speak to it kindly. I could read poetry. And what’s it going to do? Absolutely nothing. It will be totally unresponsive to whatever stimulus I use. Do you see that? Why? Because it’s stone. It’s stone. But if I could snap my fingers and turn that man of stone into a man of flesh, what happens? He can now respond to stimuli. And that’s what God has done to you. Now, let me put it in another illustration. So let’s say that I had two hogs back there in the back door; 400 pounders, big pigs. And I had a plate of the finest food in all of Fort Myers here. And I had a bucket of slop here. And I looked up and I said, “Loose him and let him go.” And one of those pigs ran down the aisle. Where do you think the pigs going to go? It’s going to go to the bucket of slop. Why is he going to go to the bucket of slop? Because he’s a pig. That’s what pigs do. They eat slop. Not only is he going to eat slop, he’s going to delight in the slop. Not only that, he’s not going to be ashamed that any of you are watching him eat slop.

But if I had the power to change the nature of that pig into the nature of a man – because there are some things pigs can eat that men simply can not eat by nature – then what would happen? That man would throw his head out of that bucket and vomit up everything he was eating down with delight. The man would turn around and see you and be ashamed. I just described your conversion. I just described your conversion. Oh, and every once in a while, that man, he can get stupid. He can walk by that slop. And the smell is familiar. But as he’s going to it, he knows he’s wrong. And he sticks his head in it. He knows he’s going to be sick. And in fact, he becomes sick and eventually throws it out again, vomits it up again. And in shame starts all over again in the way of a man.

Let me give you a domestic illustration. So there’s this man. He’s unconverted. He’s late for work. He’s got a big meeting. It’s snowing outside. He runs down the steps. He’s dropping papers out of his attache case. He’s miserable. He’s angry. He’s impatient. He reaches for the door handle and his wife comes down the stairs and screams out in that that voice that they have at that time of the morning. She says, “Take out the trash.” And without thinking, he turns around and he says, “What do you mean take out the trash? You take out the trash. I’ve got work to do. What’s wrong with you? You’re lazy. You never get up out of bed.” He storms out. You know what, he storms out feeling completely justified. Perfectly justified. Gets in the car, turns on the car, gets to the meeting, has the meeting. Perfectly justified. Six months go by and the man is converted. Six more months go by and what happens? He’s late for work. He’s running down the steps. His briefs are coming out of his attache case, all his papers. He reaches for the door handle. He knows he’s going to be late. He knows he’s in trouble. And his wife goes, “Take out the trash.” And he turns around and he goes, “You take out the trash. What’s wrong with you? Can’t you see I’m late? You’re so lazy.” You say what’s the difference? The moment he does it, it’s like a knife goes through his heart. He knows he’s wrong. He knows it.

But let’s say he bucks up, storms out of the house, gets in his car. He knows he’s wrong. He knows it. He forces his way through, he goes into the meeting. He gets 10 minutes into that meeting, and he says, “Man, I need to go out for a moment and make a phone call.” He goes out and he goes, “Honey, I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. I’m wrong. I’m so sorry. I sinned against God, and I sinned against you.” Why does he do that? A new nature. A new nature. And I wish I had time because this opens us up to a marvelous passage. And I just want to read a verse of it. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he’s a new creature. The old things passed away. Behold, new things come.” Now, do you know why this text is so important? Because it talks about what I’ve been talking about, but then goes beyond it exponentially. You see, we read this passage and we take it like it’s individual. It means that, “If anyone is in Christ, they’ve been regenerated. They’re a new creature.” This passage does mean that, but the language indicates that it means far more than that. That it’s saying something like this. Therefore, if anyone in Christ, new creation, it doesn’t just mean that you’ve been regenerated. It doesn’t just mean that you’ve been given a heart of flesh. It means that you have now entered into a whole new realm of existence. The new creation, the new heaven and the earth, it’s begun now in you. You’re no longer in Adam. You’re in Christ. And this thing that God has foreordained, that God has decreed before the foundation of the world, that is moving with the greatest amount of certainty, now you’ve been brought into that.

And although we’re caught between the already and the not-yet, eschatologically, we are new creatures. And little by little, we begin to live like new creatures as we grow in our knowledge of the Scripture, as the Holy Spirit continues to work in us. And as Brother Voddie said last night, every aspect of our life, we begin to tend it like a garden. Our personal life, our marriage, our children, our work, everything, so that we are the light of the world, the salt of the earth, demonstrating. Why do we want to grow in Christ? Why do we want to become more like Him? It’s not to win some merit badge at the end. It’s that His power, His character might be demonstrated through us. And our prayer is, “Oh, Lord, let it never be said of me that your name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of my life. But let it be said that even those who hate You and hate me cannot deny the power You have worked in my life.”

Let’s pray. Father, thank You for Your word. Thank You for who you are. And thank You for what You’ve done for Your people. Oh God, bless them, bless them, bless them. Oh God, if I being evil can bless my children, You infinitely more can bless Yours. In Jesus name. Amen.

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