In Pastor Jerry Zepnick's sermon, 'You Must Be Born Again,' he explores the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus in John 3:1-8. The sermon emphasizes the necessity of spiritual rebirth to enter the Kingdom of God, highlighting that being 'born again' is not an option but a fundamental requirement. Pastor Zepnick explains how Nicodemus, despite his religious stature and knowledge, misunderstood the concept of spiritual rebirth, viewing it literally rather than figuratively. The sermon underscores that spiritual rebirth is a divine act of God, not attainable through personal effort or religious elitism. Pastor Zepnick illustrates this through historical examples, such as the conversion experiences of John and Charles Wesley and Charles Spurgeon, emphasizing that true salvation involves a heart transformed by God's grace. The sermon calls for self-examination of one's faith, urging believers to recognize the evidence of spiritual transformation and the role of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

Thank you. Morning family. We are going to be in the book of John this morning. If you've been with us, you know that. If you haven't, we preach expository.

We walk through different books of the Bible, word by word, verse by verse, chapter by chapter. And this morning we find ourselves in the beginning of chapter 3. John chapter 3, verses 1-8. Some big content here. Some powerful teaching that Jesus lays down.

But I want to back up just a little bit to where he has been, where the ministry has been, where we've been in this book. And in chapter 1, it's talked a lot about the introduction of Jesus. The Apostle John. John's witness to that true light. You recall, behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

And this was that the Word became flesh. This is John's point in the book as well, which we've talked about every week, chapter 20 verse 31. And how John was a voice in the wilderness crying out to that point. And so, Jesus gets the first disciples. And then in chapter 2, He steps into His public ministry.

And the first place he goes, the wedding going on in Cana of Galilee, and he turns water to wine. And then shortly after that, he goes and he cleanses the temple. And this is no small deal. And he cleanses the temple. And then last week, we talked about how He is the discerner of hearts.

How Jesus can see the hearts of man. And He knows all of our secrets. There's nothing that's not laid bare that He does not see. And so, when we finish up last week, we finished up with verses 23-25, but in the end it says in 24-25, it says, but Jesus did not commit Himself to them because He knew all men and had no need. That anyone should testify of man, for he knew what was in man." That's the point.

And as we step into the text today, we've got to realize that The original Bible did not have verses or chapters. And the first thing that he says in here, and I'm gonna read verses one through eight right now, says, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 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. Jesus answered and said to him, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. 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? Jesus answered, most assuredly 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. Do not marvel that I say to you you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes.

So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you. Father God, we thank you for this word from you this morning, Lord. Just pray that the power of your Holy Spirit would pierce our hearts this morning, Lord, and open our eyes to the power of your word and to the challenge that it gives each and every one of us this morning, Lord.

We pray that you would be lifted up and glorified in Jesus' name. Amen. And so, this is a powerful statement, and it's not an option. It's the absolute necessity of the reality that you must be born again. And as you can tell, I'm gonna gravitate to them commands that are twice in this text, verses 1-8.

And there was many things that he had done before this, but the reality last week, He said, he knows what's in the heart of man? No sinner does he say that. Then he says, there was a man. He knows what's in the heart of man? There was a man.

And that man was Nicodemus. And so In verse 1 of chapter 3, there is this guy. And this is not an accident that he mentions this right after. So in the context, truly, truly, It says believe. And in that context, for him to say truly, truly is an emphasis put on that.

Truly, truly. And different versions say different things. I'll get into that. But he's saying believe me. I say a lot of things.

He says a lot of things through Scripture, but you need to focus on this. You need to sit on this, and you need to absorb this. You need to take this in. You can't afford to miss this. There's something here that you have to believe.

You have to see it and meditate on it. In truth, I tell you, He's saying, You cannot miss this. All that he says is very, very large in our lives, but this, it's essential. This new birth, you cannot consider it as optional. And when we look at the context, it's spoken of again in verse five, born of water and the Spirit, and in chapter three, verse 31, born from above, it talks about.

And so verse 1 is called, Nicodemus in verse 1 is called a ruler of the Jews. And in verse 10, he's called a teacher of Israel. And so there's this guy, Nicodemus, and we can't look past his credentials of who he really is and what it took for him to come to Jesus and talk to him. Nicodemus was a big shot. Now there's a couple million people in Israel, and as far as the religious elite, it's said that he was in the top 70 of all of Israel.

And so he's a big shot, And not just that, he's a very wealthy man. And he's one of these men, if you're walking your child down the sidewalk and you see him, you're going to stop and you're going to point. That's Nicodemus. People knew the guy. It was said in one writing that he was one of the three wealthiest people in Israel.

And so this guy had hurdles to come over in order to come and talk to Jesus. It wasn't just that he's just a normal Joe, a carpenter dude that didn't have much and didn't take his his religiosity real seriously. This guy was was a big shot. He had fame, he had power, he had money, He had a lot going for him. And so, he was...

And I want us to understand this going in because all of us have hurdles when it comes to coming to Jesus. There's not one of us that when we came to Jesus, we didn't have a hurdle. And so this man in the text, he's on what would appear to be a covert operation, you know, slipping in the darkness of night. And he's on this operation and he wants to meet Jesus. He wants to meet Jesus.

He's heard Him speak. He's heard of Him. And He knows that he's called the light of the world, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. Now Nicodemus knows what all of this stuff means. And today, we are going to get in on this conversation between Jesus and this wealthy, this high-roling, high-ranking religious man of the century, I'll say.

And so this is the conversation. And the first thing he does is call him rabbi, teacher from God. This is normally maybe not a high compliment, but coming from Nicodemus, This is a high compliment. This is not something that he would just throw around. And so this guy has an amazing education behind him from his childhood on, and he's an older man now.

And he's got a lot of knowledge. And so we see that Jesus really had no formal education. He hadn't been to any formal college of higher learning of the day. And so, when he says this, Jesus responds with a statement. He doesn't tell him, thank you for the compliment, And yes, I have a learning from such and such." And he just responds with a statement, you need to be born again.

He's telling a man that has a world of education in religion of the day, and he just compliments him and he responds with, well, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. That's a kick in the teeth. That's not easy for Nicodemus to swallow. And so, he says, I can tell you're a teacher from God and that God is with you. He complements Jesus.

And this is sincere. He's not just blowing smoke. He's sincere with this. This is coming from an Orthodox Jew who all the while was a very knowledgeable person of the rules and the laws did not please God. Because over this 400 silent years, there was a switching from what God's commands were to what would please would be the rule of the rabbis and the traditions of them that ended up taking over.

And so, he was an orthodox Jew that understood that the Kingdom of God would arrive at the end of history in the age to come. And so this is what Nicodemus knew. And he had a strong view from his credentials that for getting into that kingdom, his chances were pretty good. That's what he felt. That he had an elite background.

He was a leader among his contemporaries. Everyone looked up to him. Everyone would ask him questions. And he just was that guy. He was keeping all the right rules and the traditions.

He was observing the law. And so this was the way to the Kingdom of God to them. This was the entrance into the kingdom. That's how you open the door to get into the kingdom of God. You knew all this stuff and you kept all these rules.

That's what you had to do. You had to be a good person. And so, He felt like his chances were really, really good to get into that Kingdom of God. And we know that Jesus knew Nicodemus from verses 24 and 25, the previous chapter, He knew the hearts of man. And so Jesus saw right through all of this high-ranking religiosity and the robes and the cloaks and the ropes and the bells and the whistles and the smoke and the mirrors and whatnot.

And He saw his heart. He looked at Nicodemus and he saw his heart. And so in one sweeping move, in one phrase, Jesus knocks down everything that Nicodemus stood for. And he's doing it to us this morning. He did it to me as I studied through this this week.

He's taking our works, our religiosity, Our mindset of what it is to get into the Kingdom of God, and He's just throwing it on the ground. He's kicking it down. There's nothing to it. He's throwing it all away. Nicodemus threw away everything that we stand for and what Nicodemus stands for by saying you need to be born again.

And so, Jesus said in verse 3, He answered and said to him, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. Most assuredly. And so, this is an emphasis, because we tend to treat it like it's optional. And this is not optional. In the King James Version, it says, barely, barely.

Don't mess around. This is the truth. NIV says, very truly. The ESV says, truly, truly. And the new King James says, most assuredly, I tell you, this is not optional.

And with all his background, Nicodemus' background in religion, Jesus knocks it to nothing with this statement, that he must be born again. Now, I can remember when I was young, we had neighbors, the Fishers, and they were strong Catholics like us and good people, and all of a sudden they got born again. And I was like, oh boy. Because the stigma then, I was too young to really know the difference, I was maybe eight or 10 years old. They're one of them born again believers.

They're one of those born again kind of people. Now back then, A lot of that was associated with what I'll call extreme Pentecostalism. And so there was a guard put up against it, and a misunderstanding of what was biblical truth, because I never heard this in my youth and in my teaching, that you need to be born again. And so, when I learned it, when I first heard it, it was for me, it was a stigma. It was hard for me to receive because of what it had been associated with in my youth.

And so when it got to the point where I really fully understood what it was, I had no excuse. I had no excuse not to accept this teaching. And so the Bible makes it clear that it's not optional, but it's absolute. There is not an option. And so many people today, and we live in an age where we have televangelists and there's many ministries out there and we've talked about this before, but people will say, I've been born again.

And when I ask them, what do you mean? What does born again mean? Well, you know what? I received Jesus. I made a decision.

I prayed that prayer. I asked Jesus to come into my heart, and I got saved. And I'm not saying that those aren't possibilities or that that's not something that God can work through or in, and I'm not dismissing that altogether. But what I'm saying is, do you have a new heart? Where are your affections?

I prayed that prayer too, but has my heart been changed? Has it been, has my heart been changing? Did your heart change once and you made a decision and then all of a sudden you just kind of go on living with that decision, but you're not really growing. You're not changing. Are you a new creature?

Is the old one dead and is the new one alive? Is there evidence? Is there evidence? And in the end, I'll talk about that later, the wind blows where it wishes. You know, when the Holy Spirit works in a person, that wind's blowing.

And it moves. And it changes. And it moves that person to places that they don't see or understand, but God's moving. And when somebody from the outside looks at that, they see that wind, that Holy Spirit moving that person, and they say, that ain't them. That's God in them.

That's the work of the Holy Spirit in a human being. And so, there's that evidence. But in this case, In Nicodemus' response in chapter 2, Nicodemus' response is skepticism. What? Am I going to go back into my mother's womb?

That's Nicodemus' response. And when you see in chapter 2, he talks about rebuilding the temple. Tear down this temple and in three days, I'll rebuild it. Well, they didn't understand that. They were taking him literally.

Well, literally, he could rebuild the temple in three milliseconds, right? But in three days, I will rebuild this temple. And that was figurative. It wasn't literal. In chapter four, it talks about a woman at the well, and he says, I'll give you these living waters.

And she's like, well give them to me because I don't like coming to the well. I don't want to walk from town out to the well and then back every day, give me this living water. She misunderstood him as well. And so this wasn't literal, but it was figurative as well. And it's the same here.

This is obviously figurative, being born again, as Nicodemus could easily, and a lot of us too, we take a statement or text in the Word of God and we don't understand it, and so we tend to dismiss it. Or I don't like the way that preacher laid it out to me. That was not okay. I'm not going to listen to Him. I don't need to.

And so Nicodemus could have easily dismissed this because he couldn't understand it. But when you look at the Old Testament, The Old Testament gives background for what Jesus says in verse 5. And this was familiar to Nicodemus. This was not something that was unknown to Nicodemus. He knew Old Testament scripture in Ezekiel 36, 25 through 27.

One of my favorite texts is where the prophet Ezekiel, he prophesies the coming of Christ and what will come about with the coming of Christ. And this is amazing. It says, then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.

This is talking about what God will do for His people. Notice the number of eyes in here. I will give you the heart of stone. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes.

And here's your part. Walk. Here's your part right in the end. Listen. And you will keep My judgments and do them.

That's your job. Keep his judgments and do them. This is what he does is wash us. He cleans us. What we do is walk in that.

I can remember having our guys young. We lived in a country and they'd go and they go play outside and and we would promote it it's like great go and have fun and and they would go outside and and sometimes they'd come back and covered in dirt from head to toe. And so what we do, we run a bath of water for them, and we bring them into the house, and we stick them in that tub of water, in soapy water, and you get that long scrub brush with the handle on it, and you scrub them right up clean, right? That's what Jesus does for us. He throws us in a tub, gets the soap out, and scrubs us spotless clean.

And so This is what it is to be born again. In chapter 2, we see in chapter 3, and so the Old Testament gives us this background and shows us what will happen. And so not by baptism, not baptism by water, but a spiritual cleansing. It's a spiritual cleansing. It was prophesied in the Old Testament, a good scrub down.

And in verse 6, it says, it reads that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. This is supernatural. This is a supernatural happening because human birth produces human people that belong to humanity. Earthly family. But spiritual birth, It gives birth to spiritual people.

And in verse 7, he says, do not marvel, Nicodemus. He's saying you should know this, man. You're old, you've studied, you know the Old Testament, you know what's prophesied. You should not marvel at this. You should be familiar with this.

It says, however, in John 1-11, He came to His own and His own did not receive Him. And so, Jesus knew the heart of man and He expected this. But in verse eight, this is a supernatural reality. This is a moving of the wind blows where it wishes. This speaks of the Holy Spirit moving in us.

It's a supernatural reality. The work of Almighty God, bringing about that real change, that severe change in a person that we can't bring about ourselves. We can't do this ourselves. You can't be good enough. You cannot do this.

You cannot bring this about yourself. There's not illumination or baptismal regeneration. This is not our work. This is the work of God. I grew up thinking that it was our work.

And there's a world of people out there yet that think this is their work. They try to be good people. They follow the same stupid rules and regulations the Pharisees had. It was a spillover in the early church to want to create a religion between Rome and the Word of God, and it came out apostate. It came out right from the pit of hell.

And why is it? Because it's you working with God to create your own salvation. That will never work. It never has and it never will. You've got nothing to do with it.

He made you alive in Christ. You walk in that. That is what you do. You walk. And so, we have this idea as if our condition before a holy Almighty God can be made right by some inferior idiotic ritual or inferior tradition or activity by manly, earthly ministry.

How stupid are we? How dense without the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Without the scales falling off of our eyes to see what a work of God is. See, being born again is a miracle. It always has been.

It always will be. And it's from Almighty God who performs this in us through the power of His Holy Spirit. 1 Peter 1.3 reads, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. See, this is telling us according to His abundant mercy. It doesn't say according to His abundant mercy and my good graces and hard work in the soup kitchen and in my good activities has made me alive.

No. No. You've got nothing to do with it. Don't put your ego quite that high. This is abundant mercy.

He has begotten us. He has begotten us. Not we have begotten us. He has begotten us. And in Ephesians 2, 12 and 13, and in Titus 3, 5, it reads that at the time you were without Christ.

Do you remember that time? You were without Christ. Being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. By the blood of Christ.

Not by something that I did, by the blood of Christ. You must be born again. This is not optional. Titus 3.5, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to His mercy, He saved us. Through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit.

See, the same power that created the universe, The same power that raised Lazarus from the dead. The same power that raised Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, from the dead. It's the same power, if you are born again, that has made you born again. It's got nothing to do with anything that we did. And you must be born again.

The wind it speaks of, you can see the effects, you can see the evidence of it. So it is with everyone that's been born again. You know what? I don't see the wind moving in a person. I don't see the spirit moving.

You don't see the produce of that seed planted in you. I don't know. I don't see the Holy Spirit working in a person. I don't think they're born again. God can do anything in anyone.

And I don't like to stand and say, they are, I don't like to assure anyone. Yeah, I know they are, I know they are. Oh, I know they're not. I know I'll be surprised when I get to glory someday. But the wind, the effects.

You know, there was a guy and not a person probably in this room unless you're very young, doesn't recognize the name Billy Graham. Billy Graham was an evangelist. He was very popular in the 70s and 80s, a televangelist. And he had a powerful message. But he wrote a book, and the name of that book was called How to be Born Again.

And I'm not going to tell you that this morning. I can't. It's not in my notes. How to be born again. And the fact is that you can't take salvation and boil it down and funnel it down into a theory and an equation that I can give you a step by step what you need to do.

I can't give you that. I know how it works, I know how it worked with me. I can give you my testimony, but I can't tell you what you need to do to get saved." The rich young ruler asked Jesus, what must I do to gain eternal life? And Jesus said to him, well, I'll tell you what, keep the commandments. From my youth, I have kept the commandments.

I am a holy upright. He didn't understand the reality that He didn't keep those. And so when He said that, Jesus said to him, well, then what I want you to do is go and sell everything you have and give it to the poor and follow Me. And he left sad. He left sad because he couldn't do that.

He couldn't abandon his own life and follow Jesus. Well, that's what being saved is. That's what being born again is. You surrender. You repent.

The same power that did that is the power that can walk you. That's the same power that catches you when you jump off the edge of the cliff and trust in Christ. We don't have that in ourselves. And so the effects will be seen. You'll have a new family.

You'll be a child of God. Child of the King. You're adopted. We are made up of, in this family, we're made up of many different races, many different cultures and many different types of people from many different locations all over the place, from Luxembourg to Seymour. We're all over the place and we come together.

This is a family that God built here. This is God's work. And we are part of what He has done as a result of being born again. We're a family. We're made up of different groups of people.

But we're all family. And the beauty of it is that this is eternal family. This doesn't stop here. This goes on forever. And so When Saul was born, again, he became Paul, the apostle, right?

And so he took on a new name and a whole new family. And it records their first response to this new member of the family when he came in in Acts 9, 26, and 27. But we know what a part of the family he became. But it says, and when Saul had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him and did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles, and he declared to them how he had seen the Lord on the road and that he had spoken to him and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus.

Isn't that something? Barnabas took him and he brought him and he declared to them how he had seen the Lord. Isn't that the testimony of anybody that comes into a church body, family? Their testimony, I've seen the Lord. He is real to me.

I can't hold it in. I need to tell people about it. I want to be part of your family. Isn't that exciting? Well, it is to me, maybe.

Maybe not everybody. But this is amazing to me. This is the work of God in the redeemed. And so it's nothing that we achieve, it's what we receive. It's what He's done for us.

A new identity, a new view of the world. A new view of our place in the world, what our purpose is. And everything that once mattered to me, I don't hold it dear anymore. My old friends are my new enemies. My old enemies are my new friends.

My new family. And so, and I earmarked this one in here, but Philippians 3, 8, it says, and the Apostle Paul, Yet indeed I also count all things lost for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ." Is that our profession? Is that what we have to say? This is the point of being born again. This is the life of a born again believer.

And here Jesus is telling Nicodemus that he doesn't need to become more religious. You don't need more intelligence. You don't need more knowledge. You need to be born again. You need to become less intelligent.

You need to become less important. You need to become less wealthy. You need to become nothing that he can be everything. You need to be born again. That's what he's telling him.

And so when there was a famous reformer was asked, what is the first sign of regeneration in a believer? He said, humble contrite spirit, self abasement. And I think of the song that is an age old song that is amazing grace. How sweet the sound that saved an excellent person like me, right? An upstanding young successful businessman as myself?

No. That saved a wretch like me. See, Jesus is telling Nicodemus what is the entry level. The basic mechanics on how being born again works pretty much. But he can't understand the basics.

So, let us focus on what Jesus said. And I don't mean people that question their salvation. I don't care if you're saved for 80 years. We all need to take this and put it in front of us. And say, what is being born again?

What does this look like? How do I live in light of the reality of this text? See, this isn't individual happening. This doesn't happen. I'm not going to beckon God's Spirit on this congregation, and everybody gets saved at the same time.

No, this happens in the heart of individual people. This is how the Spirit of God works in lives, individual, not corporately. The fact is that God doesn't have any grandchildren. And so Jesus is telling Nicodemus that this is an individual happening. God doesn't have grandchildren and no infant ever did anything to warrant their own birth right I don't even remember mine does anybody remember theirs I didn't think so I didn't have anything to do with my own birth.

And I sure didn't have anything to do with my being born again. And so, the new birth is not something that we do, It's something that God gives. It's the work of God. And so Acts 412, Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. See, God is the sole source of our rescue and our eternal life.

Jesus is not demanding Nicodemus in this text that he experience a new birth now, but he's saying this is what must be experienced to enter the Kingdom of God. And he's telling all of us that this morning as well. Have you experienced a new birth? Have you been born again? When asked, what can I do to be born again?

The answer is, nothing. You can't do a thing to be born again. It's not your work. It's a work of God. But when asked, what must I do to be saved?

The answer is to believe. To surrender to Christ's Lordship. You need to repent. You need to understand the fundamental basics of the Gospel is the holiness of God, the sinfulness of man, and our inability to gap this. We don't have the possible scenario or any way in our human efforts that we can build a bridge from our sinfulness to God's holiness is in Christ alone my hope is found.

That is it. There is nothing else. And so the answer is to surrender, to repent for our sins and receive the free gift of salvation through the grace of God through His Son Jesus Christ. That sacrifice, it's all we have. Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Without God turning our hearts to Him, we would be lost forever. We wouldn't have a hope. And so I want to look at some real life experiences, some examples that have gone before us. There's a couple of brothers by the name of John and Charles, last name Wesley. So after a lot of ministry, they came to realize the doubt of their own salvation.

And so they had been in ministry for quite a while. And in May of 1738, three days away from each other, not even being close to each other, but separate towns. John describes their previous life. They both got saved, by the way, three days apart after living a life in ministry a long time. But he describes their previous life as a fair summer religion.

A fair summer religion. Have you ever had a fair summer religion? Or are you living in a fair summer religion now? A fair summer religion. They both preached, they taught, they wrote, they composed hymns.

They practiced much discipline. They gave themselves some missionary work all to no avail. They did all that, and they were all that, and yet they were not born again. They were not born again. They did not have Christ.

Instead, they had themselves. And so, they needed Christ to have them. And they were living by good works and not by faith. By God's grace, They got saved. By God's grace, they got saved.

And so there's a text I wanna read, and it's long, but Romans 3, 10 through 23. I wanna read this because this speaks directly to us in this text this morning. I don't want to miss this. As it is written, there is none righteous, no not one. There is none who understands.

There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside. They have together become unprofitable. There is none who does good, no not one. Their throat is an open tomb.

With their tongues they have practiced deceit. The poison of the ass is under their lips. Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their ways.

And the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now, we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, no flesh will be justified in His sight. For by the law is the knowledge of sin.

But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." This is a powerful text. This shows us the beginning of this gap of the Gospel understanding. We can't understand what salvation is without understanding who we are that need to be saved.

What we're being saved from. And so, looking at these real life, I have one more example of God working, of the work of God in a mountain. It's probably one of my favorite preachers of all time, Charles Spurgeon. I probably have said this to some of you before, but on January 5th of 1850 in London, in a small Methodist church, there was a snowstorm going on that day. And as the snowstorm persisted, Charles Spurgeon, the son of a preacher and the grandson of a preacher, was on his way to church.

And the storm was so bad, he ducked into this tiny Methodist church when he heard singing going on. And just to get out of the weather, and he crept in and he sat in a back row. And he was 15 years old at the time. And so he sat down And there was maybe a dozen people in this church at the time. And so he heard, there was a guy that got up to preach, and this man that got up to preach was a shoe salesman and a cobbler.

Okay, He sold and he fixed shoes. And so he was a thin, tall man, pale looking from every description I've heard. And he was trying to convey, desperately, to convey how to be born again. And what he did was he picked a text from the Bible, and that text was from Isaiah 45 verse 22. And it says, look to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other.

And then he went on to preach. He stumbled and repeated this message for about ten minutes, and that was his whole message. But in his message, he said, a child can look. A poor man can look. And he said, never find comfort in yourself.

He spoke for about ten minutes and near the end of it, he said, look, look, look, look and live. And then he pointed out, he said, you have lived miserable and you will die miserable. And then he raised his voice to the back bench where Charles was sitting and he raised his voice saying, young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look. Look.

You look miserable. And Charles was. He said look and live. And he did. Charles Spurgeon gave his life to the Lord in that small church that day.

And Charles Spurgeon wrote, Then and there I looked, And finally the clouds rolled away, I trusted in his grace and mercy entering His family. So I ask this morning, it's that you look. Look and live. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face.

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. Look. Father, we thank You this morning for your word and the power of it, Lord. I pray, Father God, that if there is one soul in here that does not know you, Lord God, as their savior, as their personal Savior, Lord God, know you, that you would strike them now, Lord God, and make them miserable. Make them miserable in life, Lord God, till they turn to you, until they look unto you, Father God.

Thank you for this word and the power that it carries. I pray for strength and boldness, Lord God, to carry that word as we leave here and walk in you, Lord. I pray in Jesus' name, Amen. Thanks for watching!