Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has

begotten us anew unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

We have been born anew through the living and abiding word.

That word is the gospel which was preached to you.

And we drew out this lesson that the aim and the goal of God in regeneration, in new birth, is to create a living hope.

I wonder if anybody last week

experienced the new birth.

I have a feeling someone did.

I'll tell you more about that later.

Maybe somebody this morning is coming under the influence of the Holy Spirit in such a way that the

upshot is going to be regeneration. How would it happen? What would it be like? Let me describe what it might be like.

You come in here as a lost sinner. You sit down in the pew, you feel a little bit uncomfortable in this religious atmosphere,

but nothing not a good dinner and some TV this afternoon won't take care of.

You look around and actually it is sort of interesting to be here. In fact, you've thought from time to time in your life I wonder if I ever could really become religious. I wonder if I could

be like those people. I never happened but that would be an interesting thing.

If I could become like one of those people who really sings and seems to get emotional about God and

talk about him as though he's real.

And so it's curious to be here.

And then the message begins, and the first thing you hear

is that all men are sinners.

And that they're not only sinners, but they're sin full, they have a love affair with evil, with disobedience,

and that by nature we are all anti-God, and for the first time in your life, that sounds reasonable. And you say to yourself,

...