The Regenerate Heart  

(To listen to the audio of this sermon follow this link:
http://hopechristianchurch.com.au/online-sermons/singlesermon/10020)

Rom 8:16 - "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God."

At Hope Christian Church we regularly encounter talk about the evidences of being born again; the nature of this talk can often leave people discouraged and despondent. But it's so very necessary. I have personally spoken much on this subject and often to the frustration of some and untold benefit of others.

...and I'm at it again.

I have felt a real stirring to labour upon this subject another time. The reason is that among us there are always going to be people, frighteningly alike you and I, who are convinced they’re saved and they are just plainly not. They’re terribly lost and in a dreadful danger of being damned forever.

The good news is that, for those who are not truly saved, they’re evidently not so. Yes that’s right, there’s no guess work when it comes to one's salvation, there’s always clear EVIDENCE.

The truth is that if the average Christian was asked to name three restaurants they like to eat at, they wouldn’t have the slightest hesitation in answering. But if you ask them to name three evidences of saving faith then they’d stutter and stammer in confusion.

So please allow me another opportunity to give you truth that would make you wise unto salvation.

So what’s the best evidence of being born again? Well the easiest and best answer is: You yourself are.

The best evidence of your first and original birth, is you! So it's the same with your second birth, you are the best evidence there is. Are you a new creation? Are you wholly changed? Does ‘who you are’ testify to what you claim to be?

It’s plain in scripture and life that the regenerate man's heart has been stolen from him and where there once sat cold and hard stone, God has put flesh.

This (regenerate) heart is distinguishable from a normal heart because it now loves Christ. It doesn't just believe in Him, though it certainly does that, it actually loves Him.

Someone might protest and suggest that the human heart can be taught to love something, but I object. It’s extremely rare that we get to dictate who or what our Heart chooses to love; these powerful emotions are most often beyond the mind and will. One can be taught to trust in something and that's certain. So this is why I stipulate that  the regenerate heart loves; saving faith is not simply trust, but it is desire also. It is a trusting, yearning for Holiness and a trusting and yearning for Him.

One can jump from an aeroplane and trust in a parachute to save them, but they’ll find it utterly impossible to look at their parachute and grow to love it; even if their parachute saves them.

The unregenerate heart has never performed a deed that was without self glory; regardless of how noble it seemed. The carnal man is driven by motives that are entirely self seeking, and he can not change that anymore than a leopard can change his spots.

And principally speaking he doesn’t have any desire to change it. I mean why would he? After all, self fulfilment is all he seeks: it’s his highest good and his highest gain.

Romans 3:10-18 give us a very clear description of the unregenerate heart.
“As it is written: ‘None 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, and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.’”

And in many ways, many churches today have run down that path, looking like the younger brother who’s left behind the group, still hollering after the world, “wait for me, wait for me!”

I am quite dumbfounded by a certain local church service I was present in recently, where the preacher repeatedly called for selflessness, to which I agreed, but he then began to suggest that this was the only real way we’re ever going to feel good about ourselves. How self-defeating is this premise! To be selfless, in order to feel good about one self. This kind of thinking is plaguing many churches today, and its all in an attempt to impress and lure unregenerate hearts.

Can you imagine how repugnant this seems to the carnal heart to suggest he has to trust Christ and love Him more than self?

One cannot love Christ while not trusting Him implicitly, and one cannot trust Him savingly without loving Him sincerely.

Beware to notice that this kind of love is not stable or stagnant, nor does it begin fully grown. But It grows and blossoms and blooms, always into greater surrender, sacrifice and selflessness.

Ask yourself this eternally important question, whether your love for Christ has grown at all in these three distinct areas. And if it hasn't, then it's very possible your heart is not regenerated and your love for Christ is as superficial as one's love for a favourite food.

The regenerate heart sees Christ as precious and believes Him to be so and doesn't need to be convinced thereof. Do you love Christ? Has your heart run from your possession to His?

A poignant example to illustrate this point is the story of Charles Templeton (modified from Wayne Jackson's A Skeptic Reflects upon Jesus Christ).

Charles Templeton was a very sick man in his 80s, and afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease. It was clear to all, and most clear to himself, that Templeton didn't have long to live. And he was dying with a sharply afflicted soul that could only be described as truly pathetic. But let’s backtrack a little first and give the facts.

There was a time when Charles Templeton was one of the most popular evangelists in the nation. He was a preaching buddy with Billy Graham — and, at times, they were preaching team-mates. During the 1950s and ’60s, Templeton preached to crowds of 10,000 to 30,000 nightly. He packed stadiums and thrilled audiences with his proclamation of “the gospel of Christ,” as he believed it to be.

Along the way, however, gnawing doubts began to work on his mind. He started questioning the reliability of the Bible. It wasn’t long before he whole-heartedly swallowed the Darwinian lie of origins. He publically confessed that he “always doubted the Genesis account of creation,” and he secretly rejected the biblical teaching of final punishment for the disobedient. Unquestionably, then, he laboured for years under the burden of a progressively hardening heart. He was hypocrisy personified. Finally, he could bear it no longer. He cut loose from it all. To use his own words, he bade “farewell to God.”

"In 1996, Charles Templeton published his book, the title of which expresses the sentiment just stated. Farewell to God – My reasons for rejecting the Christian faith. In it he set forth the rationale he believed invalidated the credibility of the Bible in general and Christianity in particular.

Lee Strobel is an author who studied law at Yale and was the former legal editor for the Chicago Tribune. Having been an atheist at one time, Strobel has combined his legal and investigative skills in producing a couple of valuable books which argue for the divine origin of the Christian movement.

In doing research for his book, The Case For Faith Strobel sought out and was granted an interview with Templeton in his penthouse apartment on the 25th floor of a high rise building in Toronto, Canada.

During the course of their conversation, Charles Templeton had again vigorously defended his rejection of God and his rejection of the Bible. There was no apparent chink in the armour of his stone hard soul.

Then, Strobel directed the old gentleman’s attention to Christ.

Strobel says that, strangely, Templeton’s “body language softened.” His voice took on a “melancholy and reflective tone.” And then, incredibly, he said:

“He was the greatest human being who has ever lived. He was a moral genius. His ethical sense was unique. He was the intrinsically wisest person that I’ve ever encountered in my life or in my reading. His commitment was total and led to his own death, much to the detriment of the world.”

Mind you, he’s talking about the same Teacher who claimed to have existed eternally before Abraham was born (Jn. 8:58), who asserted His oneness of nature with God, the Father (Jn. 10:30), and who allowed men to honour him as “Lord and God” (Jn. 20:28). Which — if these things were not true — makes Jesus of Nazareth the most preposterous and outrageous “con-man” who ever walked the earth. Thousands happily went to their deaths, in the most horrible ways imaginable, confessing His deity.

HOWEVER...the interview continued.

Strobel quietly commented: “You sound like you really care about Him.”

“Well, yes,” Templeton acknowledged,

“He’s the most important thing in my life.” He stammered: “I . . . I . . . I adore Him . . . Everything good I know, everything decent I know, everything pure I know, I learned from Jesus.”

Strobel was stunned. He listened in shock. He says that Templeton’s voice began to crack. He then said,

“I . . . miss . . . him!”

With that the old man burst into tears; with shaking frame, he wept bitterly for some time.

Finally, Templeton gained control of his emotions and wiped away the tears.

“Enough of that,” he said, as he waved his hand, as if to suggest that there would be no more questions along that line.

Sad, sad indeed!

The precious Lord Jesus cannot be so easily dismissed from the human conscience.

This story shakes me each time I revisit it. Last night when I went over my notes for this morning’s sermon and this story shook me again as I sat at my keyboard just weeping, asking under my breath, "why will they not see Him and take Him and trust Him and love Him?"

~  ~  ~

The unregenerate heart has no idea it's wet.   

“It is hard for a fish to know that it is wet. Wet is all there is for a fish. A fish doesn't even think of it.” - John Piper

Romans 8:7 - “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.”

“One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego. The self is more distant than any star.” - G. K. Chesterton

The undisputable evidence of the changed heart is the changed life.

And you of all people will be acutely aware of this. How can one not? Leonard Ravenhill used to say it like this:

Do you think if you had lived out your entire life in a dark room then somebody suddenly turned a light on, you would notice? Or if you carried around on you back pounds and pounds of weight and someone suddenly lifted it off, would you be aware?

The obvious answer is yes; of course you’d be aware. How can one not be aware?

So the dichotomy stands as obvious and apparent as day and night, the unregenerate man has little idea he’s wet. And the regenerate man knows nothing else as vivid and real as his wetness.

This is to say that the unregenerate person knows not that he is riddled inside and out with sin. Sin fills the very air he breathes and every thought, word and action is polluted by sin. He is wet with sin like a fish is wet with water. The fish swims in it, consumes it unwittingly every moment, and is utterly lifeless without it.

And so it is with the unregenerate heart. The unregenerate heart is consumed with sin and it indeed consumes sin, every passing moment is spent swimming in SIN. Countless thoughts, words and deeds that take no consideration for God and His laws are the nature of the unregenerate heart. This heart has no desire to amend his sinful ways, and if it shows a genuine desire to be more godly or more selfless, or more moral, its most obviously out of selfish desire to become a better person, and this is STILL sin.

Romans 14:23 - “For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.”

And so you must have Saving Faith in order to be saved. All of our actions must proceed from this saving faith, this miracle of regeneration done in our hearts, for them to be considered fruits of repentance.

What is faith???

“Faith is not something dreamed, a human illusion although this is what many people understand by the term. Whenever they see that it is not followed either by an improvement in morals or by good works, while much is still being said about faith, they fall into the error of declaring that faith is not enough, that we must do works if we are to become upright and attain salvation. The reason is that when they hear the gospel they miss the point. In their hearts and out of their own resources they conjure up an idea which they call belief which they treat as genuine faith. All the same, it is but a human fabrication, an idea without a corresponding experience in the depths of the heart. It is therefore ineffective and not followed by a better kind of life.” – Martin Luther in the introduction to his commentary on Romans.

Luther goes on to suggest what exactly Faith is...

“Faith, however, is something that God effects in us. It changes us and we are reborn from God. Faith puts the old Adam to death and makes us quite different men in heart, in mind and in all our powers. And it is accompanied by the Holy Spirit. Oh, when it comes to faith, what a living creative active powerful thing it is. It cannot do other than good at all times. It never waits to ask whether there is some good work to do, rather before the question is raised, it has done the deed and keeps on doing it. A man not active in this way is a man without faith. He is groping about for faith and searching for good works but knows neither what faith is nor what good works are. Nevertheless he keeps on talking nonsense about faith and good works. It is impossible indeed to separate works from faith just as it is impossible to separate heat and light from fire.”

All need to know if they are going to have it and the only way to be born again is to savingly believe, or to have Saving Faith.

The question remains to be asked,

Are you Born Again? Do you have saving Faith?

2 Corinthians 13:5 - “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test”

You can know for certain whether you are truly saved or not, there is an assurance that comes when the heart is truly saved.

Rom 8:16 - "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God."

I plead with you to examine your heart and test yourself, see whether Christ the Lord truly abides in you.  If not then you are lost, and eternally damned, you abide under the wrath of God and will never have hope, until you are Regenerated by the Grace of God.

.....................................................................................................................................................
Please take a moment to contact us and let us know if you need prayer for anything or would like more information about this sermon.

To listen to the audio of this sermon follow this link:http://hopechristianchurch.com.au/online-sermons/singlesermon/10020

God Bless you
Craig Ireland