#8: The Holy Spirit in Conversion

I. Introduction
A. Today we begin talking about the work of the Holy Spirit (HS) in our lives.
B. God the Father sent His Son Jesus into the world. He lived a perfect life, He performed many wonders and spoke many wonderful words. He died on a cross and was raised from the dead, he ascended into heaven. He poured out His Spirit upon His people. He did these things to accomplish our redemption.
C. But all of this would have been in vain if we had been left in our sin, if we had been allowed to continue in defiance of and rebellion against Him.
D. Even after redemption was accomplished, redemption had to be applied to us. And the way this began was through something called...
II. Regeneration
A. Inability
1. Until we are regenerated by God, we are totally incapable of grasping and receiving the good news of Christ: “Though seeing [physically], they do not see [spiritually]; Though hearing [physically], they do not hear or understand [spiritually]” (Matt. 13:13)
2. Rom. 8:7 “The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.”
3. 1Cor. 2:14 says that “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.”
4. So, without divine intervention, people are unable to love and obey God.
B. But what is impossible with man is possible with God.
1. Jer.24:7 “I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.”
2. Ezek. 36:26-27: “I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” (Cf. Ezekiel 11:19)
3. The reason there are believers among fallen mankind is that God broke into our lives and opened our blind eyes to His beautiful love. And we call this work regeneration: “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 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.” – Titus 3:3–5
C. We see here that it is the HS who does this work in the human heart, who changes a person’s heart from hating God to loving God.
1. “The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (Romans 5:5)
D. In some ways, the HS is the inconspicuous member of the Trinity — moving in dark, secret places.
1. He hovered over the surface of the waters, and created light in the darkness!
2. Then He worked in the womb of Mary to incarnate Jesus.
3. Then He worked in the tomb of Jesus and brought Him to life.
4. And now we see that He works in the dark heart of human beings to change hearts, to bring new life.
III. The Bible uses other language for this same activity by the Holy Spirit. For instance:
A. Re-creation or new creation
1. 2Cor.4:6 “For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
2. 2Cor.5:17-18 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God...”
3. Gal.6:15 “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation.”
B. Resurrection: Death to life
1. Col.2:13 “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins...”
2. Eph.2:4-6 “God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved) and raised us up with Him...”
IV. John 3:1–10 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 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?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 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.” 9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?”
A. Several things we need to know to understand this.
1. Born again = regeneration. Being born again is equivalent to being regenerated, for "being born" is the same thing as "being generated" and the prefix "re-" means the same thing as the word "again".
2. Born again = born from above. The Greek is purposely ambiguous. In v.4 Nicodemus obviously took it as born again.
3. Breath = wind = spirit. One Greek word (PNEUMA) is behind all three English words. This is important to remember when we read this passage. The wind of v.8 is the same as the Spirit of v.5, 6 & 8.
B. There are two births repeatedly referred to in this passage: physical birth and spiritual birth.
1. Jesus brought up the subject of spiritual birth in His statement: “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom.” (v.3)
2. Nicodemus brought up the subject of physical birth in his questions: “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” (v.4)
3. Then in His response in v.5-6, Jesus brings the two births together: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” (Water birth here seems to refer to fleshly birth, water = amniotic fluid.)
C. We saw earlier that regeneration is a work of the HS. That fact is made clear again in verse 8 “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.”
1. Regeneration is something only God can do.
2. Just as He is the only One who can bring a dead man back to life, so He is the only One who can breath spiritual life into a man dead in sin.
3. Just as He is the only One who can create in a physical sense, so He is the only One who can create a person anew in a spiritual sense.
4. Man cannot bring about regeneration, it is solely the work of the Spirit:
a. "Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit" (John 3:6)
b. "The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing." (John 6:63)
D. Regeneration is unconscious in the mind of the person.
1. John 3:8 “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.”
2. “You hear its sound” – you see its effects, you feel its results, you perceive its signs, but you can’t see it.
3. It is an unconscious work that the Spirit does. You maybe can tell that something has happened but you aren’t conscious of its occurrence.
4. The change that regeneration brings about can be observed, but not the regeneration itself.
5. What is the effect of regeneration? Faith. Faith is the conscious result of an unconscious change.
6. In the Bible, saving faith is when a person believes the gospel and comes to Christ in love and repentance. But this cannot truly take place until God regenerates a person's heart, enabling him to come: "No one can come to Me unless the Father draws him. No one can come to Me unless the Father has enabled him." (Jn. 6:44, 65)
7. Regeneration is the act of the Spirit upon the human heart. Faith is the act of man which comes as the inevitable result of regeneration.
8. When I became a Christian, when I was converted from a person whose prayer life consisted of “If You exist, strike me dead! See, You’re not there!” to a person who was melted with love before the holy God, I didn’t feel invaded. It was not that I suddenly felt God changing my heart. It’s just that suddenly I loved Him when before I had hated Him. In fact, I couldn’t believe everyone didn’t love Him, even though just before that I had despised Him.
E. Regeneration was taught in the Old Testament (OT).
1. In v.9-10 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?”
2. How was Nicodemus supposed to know about this? Well, we’ve already read a number of OT promises that God would do this: Jer.24:7; Ezk.36:25-27.
3. But let’s look at one more.
a. Moses knew that the Israelites would continue to rebel because he knew that God had not regenerated them. He says in Deut. 29:3-4: "To this day the Lord has not given you a mind that understands or eyes that see or ears that hear."
b. But although the Israelites rebelled against God because of their unregenerate hearts, God promised some day in the future to regenerate the hearts of His people, causing them to turn to God in love and obedience. “The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts so that you may love Him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.” (Deut. 30:6)
4. Nicodemus was a teacher of the OT. Jesus was chiding Him for not knowing about regeneration.
V. Application
A. The first miracle in the life of each believer is regeneration.
1. We did nothing to deserve it or earn it or work for it, it is a free gift.
B. This demands our gratitude. Jesus Himself makes this clear to His disciples in Matthew 13:11, 16 “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given...16 Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.”
C. What are we going to do with this gift? Jesus frequently says, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” (Matt.11:15; Mark 4:9; Luke 8:8)
1. This most precious gift must not be taken lightly.
2. If you’ve been given ears to hear, then listen to Him!
3. If you’ve been given a heart to love Him, then love Him with all your heart!
D. This also affects the way we think about evangelism.
1. We can be bold, because we know that it’s not a matter of our persuasiveness or ability to explain, it is a matter of the HS moving.
2. We can pray knowing that the power of God to change the human heart is greater than the power of human rebellion.
3. And it warns us against the evil temptation to evaluate whether a person is likely to be responsive to the gospel. After reading the story of Christ breaking into the life of Saul of Tarsus, how we assume that a certain person is too opposed to God to ever be converted?