How do we know if we have truly experienced the spiritual reality of new birth? How do I know if God has acted on my life? This is such a critical question in our lives and John Piper addressed it in a 2007 Christmas sermon of all places. We pick up with John Piper citing 1 John 5 verse 12.

Verse 12, "Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory. Glory is of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth, and from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace." That's where our life comes from.

The Son, the Word made flesh is our life. This is the testimony. How do you know that you're a child of God? How do I know that John Piper is alive? It's my birth certificate. Does anybody believe you're alive because you have on file a birth certificate? You don't because you breathe.

It's exactly the same with Jesus Christ. You know that you're a child of God because you breathe. You're alive. You see Him for who He is. You love Him for who He is. You trust Him for who He is. You embrace Him for who He is. That's how you know you're alive.

The testimony is within you. And what is it again? The testimony? Verse 11, "This is the testimony. God gave us life." That's how you know you're alive, to Him, alive to God, and dying to sin. The aim of the new birth is to awaken faith in the crucified, incarnate Son of God.

And if there were no incarnate, crucified Son of God, then the new birth would not be performed because the point of it would not be possible. The incarnation of the Son of God is necessary because the life that we have in the new birth, in union with Him, is the life of the Son of the incarnate Christ.

I am the way, the truth, and the life, and I became the way by being man. I come now to close with justification and purification, or if you want to use the old sanctification, you can, but purity is what's used in this text. I'm going to use it. Look at 1 John 3, 3 through 5, "And everyone who thus hopes in Him," in other words, if you're deeply confident that you're going to see Him someday and become like Him, that's what that's referring to.

Verse 3, "Everyone who thus hopes in Him purifies himself as he is pure. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. You know that He appeared to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin." John says, "If you've experienced the new birth, and thus your heart has been awakened to hope in Jesus Christ, and you cannot wait until He appears because all your sin will be done away with, and you won't be battling with the internet anymore, and you won't be battling with pride anymore, and you won't be battling with selfishness anymore, and you won't be battling with all the bitterness and anger in your life, you'll be free and like Him if that's the passion of your life." This text says, "You will purify yourself now." If you want it to happen in the future, you're just kidding yourself if you don't want it to happen now.

"Oh, He's going to show up someday, and then I'll really want to be pure." You won't. I used to play those games when I was a kid. Get saved when I'm old, because it's boring to be saved. So get saved when you're old. It won't happen. The hardness will creep over you, and you will lose all your capacity to know Him, see Him, love Him, and God will withdraw from you, and you will perish, thinking that on your deathbed you could repent, and you'll be an Esau pleading for repentance, and it will not be given.

Don't play that game. If you're 30 years old, don't play it. If you're 40, don't play it. 50, don't play it. And sure, don't play it. If you're six, don't play that game. We will purify ourselves, meaning we're going to fight, right? We're going to fight. Nobody in this room is perfect.

Nobody will be pure perfectly before you die. The question is, who's fighting? Who's fighting? Who says, "Yes, I want Him to come. Yes, I'd like to be like Him perfectly. It grieves me not to be more like Him than I am. Now I'm going to fight this thing." Who's that?

It's the children of God talking. I don't care how many times you fall down, if you get up talking like that, you're a child of God. Amen. That is such a powerful little clip, and it was taken from a sermon titled "The Reason the Son of God Appeared Was to Destroy the Works of the Devil," a Christmas sermon from John Piper preached back on December 23, 2007, and the clip was emailed in to us by Christopher Burdeen from Oklahoma City.

Thank you, Christopher, for the clip, and John Piper is going to return with us tomorrow, and a listener wants to ask whether tardiness and chronic lateness is a sin issue. I'm your host, Tony Ranke. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John Podcast.