The Marks of False and True Belief: Part 2

Thank you for your singing. I'd ask you to open up your Bibles to John chapter 3, please. To the Gospel of John, chapter 3. Pastor Tim is visiting New City Fellowship today. So if you're wondering where he was at, that is where he's at. He's worshiping with those saints in Marion today.

We will read, actually, chapter 2, verse 23, and we'll read to John chapter 3, verse 21. So, again, the Gospel of John, chapter 2, verse 23. now when Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing but Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them because he knew all people and he needed no one to bear witness about man for he himself knew what was in man so there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus he's a ruler of the Jews this man came to Jesus by night and he said to him, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one could do these signs that you do unless God is with him. Jesus answered him, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he is old? How can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? Jesus answered, 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. So do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.

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. Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be? And Jesus answered him, are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.

If I told you of earthly things and you do not believe them, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the servant in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only son of God. And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true, he comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God. Let us pray to our God. Oh Father, we are so grateful for you and we're grateful for your work of salvation that carries on, that does not stop, that even the gates of hell cannot stop.

We're thankful, Lord, that even our own sin couldn't stop your love for being displayed to us in Jesus Christ the Lord in forgiveness of sins and unity with you by the great and powerful work of the Spirit. This is a great work of salvation that the triune God has accomplished, Lord, and we can behold it in ourselves and in each other, marvel and worship and praise you, Lord. And so help us to be a needy and humble people as we acknowledge that our sin sets us apart from you, but your great mercies and grace overcome our sin and it brings us near to you.

So let us look to you now. Let us rely upon you and let us rejoice in you. For you have truly and completely accomplished the work of salvation for our miserable souls to exalt us up into the heavenlies where Jesus Christ is seated and to serve him all our days. Oh, what a glorious salvation this is. So help our hearts and minds be open to the word now and let us respond in faith to Jesus, expecting him to do great things for his people, for he has promised it and he is powerful to complete it.

So we thank you and praise you. In Jesus' name, our risen Lord. Amen. So I've had the pleasure now of watching eight babies be born. I've watched eight babies be born from my wife. And what's interesting is in each and every time that I've been able to witness this, the baby has never exerted any effort in the ordeal.

They don't come out with a how-to book, how to be born, right? They don't come out with a plan, pen and paper with a list of what they must do in order to successfully come out of the womb. instead every single time without fail they come out and you can see on their face they're thinking what in the world just happened to me and they are in a daze and confused in fact many times they sleep very well that day and you think wow my baby's it my baby's going to sleep well then 24 hours later they wake up from their confusion and they stay up from their confusion but it's a very fascinating thing to watch right All the effort all the glory goes to my wife who personally is the GOAT when it comes to producing babies And for those of you who are too young to have ever used the acronym, and for those of you who are too old to have ever used the acronym, GOAT is the greatest of all time, and my wife is when it comes to delivering babies. It is astonishing.

But the babies never do any work. It's the wife who does the work. The glory goes to her. And this truth, this illustration is very helpful. which is why Jesus uses it where we're at now in the Gospel of John. This truth about birth, what it means, the picture of it, it makes sense with where Jesus is at as he's talking to Nicodemus. If you remember, at this section of Scripture, the backdrop of it with Nicodemus is false belief versus true belief.

That's the backdrop in this conversation with Nicodemus. It's false belief versus true belief. True belief, if you remember, is motivated by the things of God, and it leads to fellowship with God. Whereas false belief is motivated by the things of man, self, and it doesn't lead to fellowship with God in Christ at all. Nicodemus, if you remember, serves as a perfect example, in particular, of false belief.

He had a belief in Christ because of his signs, but it was motivated by man himself as revealed in the fact that he came to Jesus at night. And so therefore, it did not result in fellowship and union or it didn't result in life with God. And Jesus here cuts to the chase and provides the perfect illustration to show the false believer, Nicodemus, and even us, how he needs to go from a man-centered salvation to a God-centered salvation. and that is complete and total transformation.

And we see this in chapter 3, this is where we left off, verse 3, when he says to Nicodemus, truly, truly, I say to you, O false believer, that unless one is born again, born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God. You see, that kingdom of God, if you like to write in your scriptures and do notes, I don't, but if you do, that's fine. Circle kingdom of God and put an equal to it and put life.

Because you remember the whole point of this gospel is that you believe and have life. Kingdom of God equals life. Kingdom of God is the dominion of the grace and the mercies of God on earth that gives humanity life rather than death and sin. And so what Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, this false believer who has come to him at night, He says that if you want true life, instead of the false thing that you're having now, which causes you to see me at night, if you want true life, you must be born again.

That illustration, rebirth. The man-centered belief needs to be destroyed completely for the new existence of a God-centered belief to flourish. in other words there is no salvaging the old thing it needs to be completely and utterly destroyed it's like my garden right now you know my garden always starts off so good and then by the middle of summer it is it's terrible weeds everywhere I mean those weeds are thick it looks like trunks of trees it's insanity my garden in order for it to look anything like a garden I can't go out there and say I'm going to do a little bit of weeding to make this look better. No, it needs to be mowed and tilled up for it to even look like a garden again.

It needs to be destroyed. Or how about a man convicted of first degree murder? A little bit of community service isn't going to get him out of that one. His whole identity needs to be shifted in order to get out of the prison sentence. And here Nicodemus is being told that in order to go from false belief to true belief, from man-centered belief to God-centered belief, your whole being, essence, needs to be changed.

You need to be born again from above. And now, as we get in the text where we're at now, Nicodemus' response to what Jesus tells him reveals another major mark of false belief, which makes the new birth illustration so spot on. So remember, last week, the marks of false belief were it does not lead to life, and it is motivated by man. Today, with Nicodemus' response to what Jesus prescribes to him in verse 3, we get another mark of false belief, and that is it relies on the power of man.

It is motivated by man, centered in man, and it relies on the power of man. Look at verse 4 with this response to Nicodemus, which really reveals that. In verse 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? Now, you've got to understand, you know, on just a cursory look, if you just look at this and just quickly read through it, you might think that Nicodemus is completely oblivious to the fact that Jesus is illustrating the need for him to rely upon God alone and not his own strength for salvation.

You might think that Nicodemus has no idea that Jesus is using an illustration. He's not literally saying that a man, in order to go from false belief to true belief, needs to enter again into his mother's womb and be born again. That is ludicrous. And Nicodemus isn't an idiot. He's a Pharisee. And beyond that, Pharisees very often use illustrations in their teaching.

So Nicodemus wasn't, like, surprised by the fact that Jesus, in describing what true belief is, what it means to truly see God, he uses an illustration. Nicodemus would have used illustrations all the time. So Nicodemus isn't sitting there like wait. What are you talking about here? I gotta go back to my mother's room What are you what are you nuts That not what Nicodemus is saying here What Nicodemus is doing is he saying okay I see your illustration and I have a problem with your illustration And what he does is he jumps into that illustration and he says, how can man do this?

Nicodemus is concerned because he figures that man can merit and do salvation. True belief. It's man's power. So if one must be born again, I don't understand, Jesus, how man can do that of their own power. Man can't go into his mother's womb and be born again. He has no ability to do that.

And so this response from Nicodemus is highlighting the fact that he's saying, man cannot do that, Jesus. There's a major problem here. Because his presupposition is, man must be able to do this work. So Nicodemus had an assumption here, doesn't he? He has an assumption about being right or near or having fellowship with God means it must be in the work of man's power.

That's his assumption. That's what he's assuming to be true. That in order to be in the kingdom of God, to have life with God, to be right with God, he's assuming that it has to be a work that man can do. So when Jesus, knowing that faulty understanding, gives them an illustration to show that you cannot do the work, Nicodemus says, how can that happen?

And we must be sure not to scoff too loud at Nicodemus here. I know it can be easy for us, right? We can scoff at him and say, how can he be so confused and think that it's by man's power to be saved? And remember what we talked about last week. Adam and Eve were given a command to perform, to enjoy life in the garden. They were given a command.

If you are to enjoy life, you are to do this. If you are to enjoy death or be miserable in death, do this. They were given a command to do. Israel, right? Israel was given a book of commands to obey, to enjoy life in the promised land. Nicodemus is a reader of the Old Testament.

He knows it very well. He is used to this concept that if man is to enjoy life, he must do. And so here Jesus is changing the whole paradigm and he's he's saying how can man do that and and again it's very interesting to see that when you talk to people who are false believers or who are just straight up unbelievers oftentimes their hang-up is is they think for sure there has to be something that i must do in order to merit salvation this is a common human false way of thinking and doing that goes all the way back to their first parents, Adam and Eve, who were told, you must do to live.

But the problem is, Adam and Eve failed, and now there's only curses. But yet man still has this kind of natural thing in them that there must be something I have to do in order to be right with God. And so this false belief here, this false notion that it's a power of mind that I must exert, is very common to humanity. this is what makes the new birth illustration so helpful for him.

Jesus, being the master teacher, knew what his problem was. And the new birth illustration is extremely helpful. And now to answer his objection of how can man do this, right? How can man be reborn? How is that possible? Jesus repeats the same illustration, but with more information to answer his objection.

And notice what he says in verse 5. Jesus, again, he says, truly, truly, he repeats himself with more information to provide the answer to how can man do this. I say to you, in verse 5, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. You notice it's the same sentence, only instead of saying being born again, he says being born of water and spirit.

And so what Jesus, he's answering his objection, wait a minute, how can man do this? And Jesus says, that's the point. man cannot do this only spirit can do this you must be born of water and spirit now water is the thing that needs to be done to be born of the water is the thing that needs to be done you your problem our problem is the reason why we are powerless and we have no power to do any good before god and be right before god is because we are sinners defiled corrupted we are broken No matter what the world tells you that you're not that bad, you are that bad and more. Do not believe the lie of Satan in the world that says that you're okay.

You're not. You're a sinner. You're defiled. You're dirty. None of your good works can make up for that. And so Jesus is acknowledging in order for that to be made right, you need to be washed.

You need the water to be no longer defiled with corruption. You need to be washed. But the power of it is found in being born in the Spirit. It is the Spirit that gives you the powerful work needed to be cleansed. Not your own self, not your own works, not your own power, but it is the true God, Spirit, that does the work. God the Father sent God the Son to die and raise again to forgive sinners, to cleanse them. and God the spirit is sent by both the father and the son to activate the work in the sinner and so Jesus acknowledging his heartburn with this and he says you're right man cannot do it but spirit can you need to be cleansed and you cannot do that but spirit is powerful enough to apply the work.

Ezekiel 36, go there. Of course, he's alluding to the great promise to Israel. 36.22, Ezekiel 36.22, I'll wait for you to go there. I think it's important for you to see it with your own eyes if you like to if you have the Bible open Ezekiel 36 Again I think it important for us to understand Nicodemus again he has that mindset that well it a man something a man must be able to do And the whole point of scripture certainly is to lay up, yes, you must be perfect and righteous in order to have relationship with God.

But the whole point of scripture isn't saying you can do it if you just work hard enough. It's to say you fail, you fail, you fail. So Nicodemus can acknowledge that yes, there is a conditional element to be righteous, to be right with God. I need to be perfect. But he should have saw that. And if there's one thing that's certain in the Old Testament, as no one can do it, that we need help that's beyond ourselves.

And this is the great promise to Israel. There is help coming that's beyond you to fix the brokenness that is so prevalent around you. And we see this great promise here, and it's used in the same language that Jesus uses, because he came to fulfill this promise. In Ezekiel 36, verse 22, the prophet says, Therefore say to the house of Israel, You've done such a good job.

No. Thus says the Lord God, it is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned, made dirty among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am Yahweh, declares the Lord God, even through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.

Okay, what is he going to do? Well, I will take you from the nations and gather you from the countries and bring you into your own land. And I will sprinkle clean water on you. And you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses. And from all your idols, I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit.

And I'll put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You see, the person who acknowledged their utter corruption, their utter sin, their inability, which the Old Testament points to over and over again, your own life, beloved, points to the fact that you were unable over and over and over again.

That's why you are so miserable. And it's meant to say there must be a power without that will help me, that will cleanse me. And here is Eccles saying he is coming. The Spirit is coming to do the cleansing work. And that cleansing work comes from the work that Jesus Christ has done on the cross to die and raise again for sinners. And this is going back to John chapter 3.

This is what Jesus, and again, given further flesh and information to this born-again illustration, he says, unless you're born of water and spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. Unless you're truly cleansed from the inside out, forgiveness of sins, forgiveness of your defilement, and it's done by the work of the spirit, you will never see and experience the kingdom of God. You'll never experience life. so Nicodemus was right in seeing the problem of the needed work being impossible for man he was spot on he was right to be like wait a minute I can't do this and God has ordained that the work of true belief would be a work he would do for us not something that we can do for him.

Since our God has ordained it this way, that this salvific salvation, this work that we need would be done by his power and his power alone done for us, the major lie Satan feeds his children is to become a child of God depends on the work of the sinner. That's something that you must do to crawl your way to him. It's common for the human race to fall into this wicked trap, this lie.

Nicodemus was in this trap. The Jews as a whole in this trap. Every false religion is in this trap. You want to know the hallmark of false religion is that you must do in order to merit favor with God. Every false religion will teach this. And even a Christian religion that falls into paganism like Catholicism falls into that falsehood.

And beloved, even you, don't you? You feel that, don't you? Even you can fall into that false belief sometimes. You ever notice that sometimes working for the Lord is filled with life and joy and happiness and worship? Other times it just feels like labor because you're falling into this idea that, well, I need to do this in order to be right. It's by my own power of doing this in order to be right.

And the truth is, is that you must be born again. You must live within the new birth, the power that works within you that creates so much joy and thanksgiving that you say it is my pleasure by the strength you provide to serve you, O God. Instead of this lie from Satan that you can work your way into a right standing or into life with God. And so Jesus then highlights the power of God, this is what he's doing here, even further in salvation and true belief when he says the following verse in verse 6.

He says, again, verse 5, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. It's God's power. And then he goes on to exalt the power of God even more in salvation when he says, That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. How can you even think for a moment that you and your flesh can produce something that only the Spirit can produce in you?

You know, it's very fascinating. God made it a rule of creation that creatures create society. and reproduce after its own kind. We see that in Genesis 1. We see that when he created all things, things made, they procreated after its own kind. So Adam in the flesh fell into false belief in sin, and he has reproduced in like kind to this day. So in other words, flesh begets flesh.

Flesh creates more flesh. Adam, in his sin, fell into the flesh system, fell into disfavor, corruption, and so that's why he produces like kind. So the idea for someone to think that they can produce true belief and be right in life with God on their own power is just like thinking they were born with the ability to fly. You cannot do it because you are after Adam, your father.

I am after Adam, my father. And true belief, true righteousness on our own is so outside of our nature now because of sin, it's as if thinking that you were born with the ability to fly. And people think this. And they jump off buildings spiritually, in a spiritual way, get the picture here, and they go to their death of hell because they think, I can do this of my own nature.

And what Jesus is saying is that flesh produces flesh. and to think that you can do anything other than that is to go against your very nature being a son of Adam. Yet the power of God is displayed here, isn't it? When he says that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. The Spirit and the Spirit alone can break your spirit of false belief and sinfulness inherited from your parents and give you true belief and true righteousness.

That is the power of the Spirit to say that you are born after Adam, yet the Spirit can break through that curse and renew you, cleanse you completely. This is Jesus highlighting the fact that, yes, with man it is impossible, but with God, nothing is impossible. To go from motivated by man and reliance on man's power to motivated for the things of God and rely upon his power, to go from death to life in Christ is a work of the mighty God above, and he will not share his glory with any man.

Now, anytime a major presupposition is shaken, it can cause a great confusion and fear. Have you ever experienced that? That something that you just took for granted to be true, all of a sudden is shaken. It can really rattle you deep within your bones. I remember first telling Sarah about Calvinism and it freaked her out. Anytime we have just these preconceived notions that we were just born with, more or less, when it just gets shaken, it can really terrify us.

Nicodemus had already asked before in verse four, how can this be? You're telling me that salvation is a work of God completely and not a man? He's already asked before, how can this be? He's about to ask it again in verse nine. And right now I'm sure it's not only all over his heart, but it's painted on his face What are you talking about So Jesus creates another illustration to try to soften the blow for the poor creature And that what he does in verses 7 and 8 Look what he says.

He says, do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. Don't be shocked over this. Again, he's seeing it out of his face. He says, calm down, relax. Don't marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. And then he gives an illustration to try to soften the blow when he says, the wind blows where it wishes and you hear it sound but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes so it's the same with everyone who's born of the spirit you see that word wind there he uses an illustration with wind and that's and it's it's helpful because wind and spirit is the same greek word um is the same word in the greek venuma it's the same word spirit and wind and so the wind he uses an illustration to kind of explain how this can be the case.

The wind is not at the disposal of any man's power. We see and hear its effects, but we don't know where it came from or its final destination. We have no control over the wind. It works as it pleases, and we as man have no say. So it is with everyone born in the Spirit, Jesus is saying. The Spirit does the will of the Father and the Son, not man's will.

It's not at the beck and call of man. It's at the beck and call, so to speak, of the Father and the Son. Man is totally passive in all this. All we can do is behold the effects of the Spirit working in the center and marvel. So when you see a beach ball going down, a windstorm, right? Wind's howling at 20 miles per hour.

You see the beach ball going. You don't say, wow, look at that beach ball. It just animated itself, and it's going on its own power. You say, no, the wind is carrying it. The power of the wind is being displayed in that beach ball. Look at it go.

You can't control the wind. The beach ball doesn't control the wind. No one's controlling the wind. The wind controls itself, and you behold its effects in the fact that the beach ball is flying in the air. And so it is with someone who is being changed from being dead in sin to alive in Christ. When you see someone turn away from sin and live joyfully for the Lord, you don't sit there and think, wow, that guy is really strong.

Look how great he is. I can't believe he has that much moral fortitude to do the good things that he's doing. No, what you need to say is look at the Spirit's powerful work in that broken center to go from that original birth in Adam to a rebirth in righteousness. He's saying it's the same thing. The wind blows, you know, you can't control it. Man can't control it, yet it has its effects and you see it.

Same thing with the Spirit. The Spirit works according to what the Father and the Son has for him. You can't control it. Man can't control it. And yet you see its effects in a changed sinner's life. In other words, he's creating an illustration to reveal the fact that man has no control over the Spirit just like the wind.

And yet the wind reveals, the Spirit reveals his effects and what he does. Nicodemus, still overcome by this change of everything he knows about what it means to be right before God about how to read the scriptures about the culmination of the scriptures He overwhelmed by this truth that salvation is of God and God alone and not of man that he responds in verse 9, how can these things be? So the mark of true belief is to go from man-centered to God-centeredness. motivated by man's desires to motivated for God and reliance upon his power alone.

Do you believe this? Is this what you understand to be true about salvation? You know, it's interesting. A baby cries a lot as a newborn. And it's always connected with the fact that he or she cannot get what he or she wants, and it freaks out. But an interesting happens.

Now, at first, you might not believe that one day the baby will stop crying. But the baby will stop crying one day. And it's typically because the baby can get along on its own. It can reach and grab water on its own. He can eat on his own. And so he doesn't need to cry anymore.

He doesn't need the help of his parents anymore. He's not confused anymore. He can actually grab and do it himself. He's self-reliant. He can do on his own. and if you believe this truth that you cannot do salvation work salvation on your own you will be a newborn baby who cries out i have no hope at all i can only rely upon god and his power but the person who dares to think that i can do this on my own ability doesn't need to cry out to god i got a handle and nicodemus was like a lot of the pharisees in which i don't need complete work of God.

I do the law pretty good. And here Jesus is saying, you need God and God alone. And so he's calling on Nicodemus to cry out. I cannot do this. And he's calling on us to cry out. I cannot do this.

As a newborn cries out because it has no hope beside an outside influence helping him or her. So we are to understand that we have no hope outside of God and his work of salvation. This is why the preaching and understanding of sin is so important. I know we live in an age in which talking about sin is controversial and pastors are considering whether or not it's helpful to talk about sin behind the pulpit, whether or not it's helpful to talk to an unbeliever about their sin.

It is vital for us to understand our sin. It's because our sin is what informs us that you have no power of yourself and you can only rely upon God. If you don't think that your sin is just bad enough, or if you don't think your sin is as bad as it is, then hey, I'm all right enough. I don't need to cry out that much to God. That's a little embarrassing.

But when you understand that you are wretched, that you are defiled, that to do any kind of good work thinking that I'll clean myself up is using a dirty rag to clean up a dirty mirror, you'll realize you'll drop the rag. You'll drop your works and say, God, I need you. I'm done. I'm broken. And you'll cry out like a newborn baby for his mother Is this you Is this a salvation that you have walked into Or have you walked into some kind of false belief thinking that well I just need a little bit of Jesus And a little bit of Jesus means living a little bit for Jesus.

And Jesus will say to you, I do not know you, depart from me, you wicked servant. Or are you a believer who has come to truly believe, understand their wretchedness, understand their brokenness, and have cried out in desperation, my only hope is found in what the triune God has done for wicked sinners like me. And beloved, are you the person who is walking in this true belief every day of your life?

Are the works that you are performing today as a true believer, are they driven by a powerless creature indebted to a powerful God that just wants to please him for all the work that he's done for you? Or have you fallen back into this idea that, well, I go to church because if I don't, God will get angry and I might not be right before him. Or I probably should do that church event because if I don't do that, then, well, God might be angry and I won't be right before him.

Or everything you do is to the glory and honor of the great name of Jesus because he has done everything for you already in his death and burial and sending you the spirit to completely wash you clean. May we be a people in which we acknowledge our weakness each day of our lives and it is our joy and worship to say, oh God, you've done all things well and I will rely upon you today in living and loving and trusting you. Let us pray.

Oh, Father in heaven, it is so easy for us to fall, to fall prey to the schemes of Satan. It's so easy, Lord. He has his children bound up with false belief, false understanding in which they think they can do of their own power something that only you can do. So God, may you, for those who are before me who have this false belief, could you even open up their hearts now to reveal to them that their sin is worse than they had thought.

May they cry copious tears over these sins. And may those sins cause them to cry out, Oh God, my hope is found not in myself, but in you. And could you help those who have true belief, but yet so easy, it's easy for us to fall into false belief, that rely upon our own power as we serve Christ. may you Lord remind them that their ability to serve and have faith and trust and live a pure life is found only by the work of the Spirit that only causes us to be born again but stays with us and he helps us to walk in righteousness as we'll read going further with this conversation with Nicodemus so we thank you for this great work of this triune God who has done all things well who has enabled salvation by the death and resurrection of Jesus and he kindly has sent his spirit to cause us to be born again.

Oh, praise God. We praise you for this work of salvation. May we be a people that understand our brokenness and weakness and our need to rely solely on the power of God and to come to you for you, relying upon this power each day of our life. Thank you for this gospel. Thank you for this grace. Thank you for Jesus Christ, our Lord.

And it's his name we pray. Amen.