Sermon notes:

A new origin (John 2:23-3:22)

I.     Unbelievable believers (2:23-3:6bff. Luke 8:13-14).

A.  To call Jesus “a teacher” is to assume that all we need is ____________________ (v.2).

B.  If the believer’s faith in Jesus does not graduate from teacher to __________________, there has been no birth from above.  There is not yet adequate faith.

C.  Life with God requires more than improvement.  It requires __________________ (vv.3-8).

II.    God at work.

A.  We must be “born of water and Spirit” (i.e. __________________; vv.5,22).

1.  Scripture repeatedly connects the work of the Holy Spirit with water (Genesis 1:2; Ezekiel 36:25-27; Matthew 3:16; Acts 2:38; 11:44-47; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Titus 3:5). 

2.  The “_______________” of the new birth remains a mystery (vv.7-9).

B.  We receive not only new birth but a new _____________________, and this is something we manifestly cannot give ourselves (v.3 “born again/from above”; v.6b).

1.  “I have given them Your Word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world” (John 17:14).

2.  “But our ___________________________ is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20). 

C.  We do “what is true” (v.21).

1.  We acknowledge the centrality of _______________________ (vv.13-17).

2.  “To do truth is to confess one’s sins and to receive forgiveness” (St. Augustine; 1 John 1:9; 1 Corinthians 2:16b).