God only brings into being new creatures in conjunction with the preaching of the gospel so that the very first quiver of life

in that little child will be hope in the gospel to the glory of Jesus Christ crucified and risen again.

How could Christ get glory if there were no gospel to be believed or hoped in?

So why is it that God regenerates people through the preaching of the gospel.

That's the question John Piper answers from 1st Peter 1

in this episode of Light and Truth. This sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on

April 27th, 1986.

Let's say that Grace is the willingness of a world-class heart surgeon to save as many terminally ill heart patients as a give. And let's say that the gospel is the instrument that he created or developed on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

That's the gospel.

So you got a doctor whose heart is eager and willing and you've got an instrument that he can use to do his work of healing.

Now, if you're in the hospital with that heart condition, that's not enough.

You're going to die if that's all there is. You might know in your head

know in your head there's a surgeon and he can do it.

And there's an instrument. There's this new device he's created and it works and you die in your hospital bed if what doesn't happen

Surgery if what doesn't happen. Surgery, you gotta get on the table, your chest has gotta be opened.

He's gotta get his hands in there and get some disease out, get some blockages cleared away. He's got to operate on you.

Or you'll die. Doesn't matter whether he's there with his heart pumping or whether his gospel is there.

If you don't get on that operating table and experience a work from the almighty called new birth, you're going to die.

And so I want to talk today about step three in the hope-giving process, we have to be born again.

And it's all right here in 1st Peter, Chapter 1, verse 3. Four magnificent things in this analogy of the doctor. Let's read this verse and you see if you can see them as we read it.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

By His mercy, his great mercy, We have been born anew to a living hope through the

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