Chosen by God

Well, if you have your Bible, and I hope you do, we're going to be in Ephesians 1
again this morning. And if you have been reading the first chapter of Ephesians
every morning, as I encouraged you to do last week, you know that what's coming
this morning is one of those passages that is challenging,
one of those passages that there can be a lot of questions about. Maybe you've come
thinking, "Finally, somebody is going to answer all of my questions about what the
Bible teaches about God choosing."
his own for salvation, how he chooses to adopt certain people into his family.
And the debate among Christians on this issue has been going on for centuries, for
centuries. And the idea that I'm going to answer all of your questions and resolve
the tensions for you this morning, that's a lot to put on me, don't you think? So
let's just chill about that. I remember the first time, somebody pointed me to a
passage like this and said, "The Bible teaches that God has chosen his own for
salvation. He chooses and predestines people sovereignly for salvation. It's his
choice." And I heard that, and I remember thinking, "I know that's not how it works
because I remember choosing. I remember what I did." In fact, the first time I
heard this idea, I thought, "I'm I thought, I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna start
in Genesis one and I'm gonna start making a list of all of the verses that teach
that we have free will, that we are the ones who act, that it's not God, that
it's us. But over time, I kept coming back to passages like this one in Ephesians
one, where I read these verses and I came to a place where I had to say whether
I can wrap my head around this or not, And there's a lot about this that I don't
understand. And even if I don't like what I'm reading here, this seems to be what
the Bible is saying, and I either need to get on board, or I'm in trouble.
I mean, the issue is not, do I like what I'm reading? The issue is, what does the
Bible teach? Does the Bible teach that those who are in Christ were chosen in Him
before the foundation of the world and predestined for adoption as sons. Well, that's
what these verses say. And our job is to try to understand that as best we can.
And when we get to a point where it goes beyond our understanding, we say, "You
are God. I'm not." And whether I can figure all of this out or not, I'm going to
believe it's true. Let me just say This morning when you get to the place where
you you say, okay, I Can't figure it all out, but I'm a surrender and submit to
what I believe is true here Your understanding about who God is changes in that
moment. At least it did for me So as we look
I was going to try to do three, I could only do one. So we're going to zero in
on verse four. We're going to read the first 14 verses just so we have the context
for it. So let's do that before we do. Again, I want to pray. Father, we need you
to direct our thinking this morning. We need you to be the one who provides
clarity, the one who is our teacher.
And I pray, Lord, that all of us would come with hearts and minds eager to
understand and eager to obey and eager to submit to Your Word.
I pray it in Jesus' name, amen. This is the Word of God for the people of God,
Ephesians chapter 1 beginning at verse 1. The Bible says, "Paul, an apostle of
Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful
in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus
Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us
in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
even as He chose us In Him, before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for
adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His
will, to the praise of His glorious grace with which He has blessed us in the
beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our
trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he has lavished on us in
all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will according to his
purpose, which he has set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to
unite all things in Christ, things in heaven, things on earth, in him.
In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the
purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will. So that
we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.
In him You also when you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation and
believed in him Were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of
our inheritance Until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. Amen.
May God bless this reading of his word The grass withers and the flower fades the
word of our God will stand forever Did you hear me emphasizing in him in him,
in him, how many times that's in here, because everything he's writing about in
these verses is for those and about those who are in him. So being in him is the
key to everything we're reading here this morning. Now, if you look at verses four
through six, again, we're gonna focus on verse four, but four through six are a
part of this letter where Paul is talking about what God has done for us in
eternity past. God the Father, how he has blessed us in eternity past.
And so the outline for those three verses, four, five, and six, is we have been
chosen by God, chosen in him. We've been predestined for adoption by God or in him.
it was by the will of God that all of this took place and it was for the glory
of God that all of this took place. That's the big idea of that section from
verses four to six. Actually those three verses could fill a semester long seminary
class where we could be here all semester going over those four verses and mining
it for what's in there. So we're going to divide it in half. I'm going to give
you verse 4 this morning and Cole is going to take you through 5 and 6 next week.
So think of this as kind of a part 1 and part 2 in this passage. And since verse
4 is picking up mid -sentence, I want to go back and give you context. The context
for verse 4 is found in verse 3. Paul is beginning This outpouring of praise to
God for how he has given us every spiritual blessing in Christ It's just he just
can't contain himself And he is just pouring out his praise for all the ways God
has blessed us spiritually in Christ He is saying your soul in Christ is completely
cared for your soul, the deepest part of you,
the you who you really are, is surrounded in care, blessed with every spiritual
blessing if you are in Christ. You are lacking nothing for your soul if you are in
Christ. And then verse four is where he begins to spell out what he means by that.
What are these blessings, you say? How has he blessed me with every spiritual
blessing. What is it I should be looking for? So you put the two sentences
together, and verse three says, "God has blessed us," and verse four says, "even as
he chose us." How has he blessed us? Even as he chose us, he is blessing us.
Being chosen by God is where Paul starts in recounting the blessings we have in
Christ. So that's the context, pretty simple. Let's look at what it means to be
chosen by God, and remember, we're chosen in Him,
in Christ. The choosing and the work of Christ go together.
Apart from what Jesus did when He came and lived a perfect life, a sinless life,
and then died a substitutionary sacrificial death on the cross in our place, That
work that he did When we are united in him the choosing of God and that work go
together If Christ has not done the work the choosing is for nothing the choosing
and the work of Christ go together and Verse 4 says the choosing happened in
eternity past before the foundation of the world Before Genesis In one,
God chose us in Christ, and I think the Bible's telling us here, I don't think
it's speaking chronologically, I think it's speaking in terms of priority. The before
here, I think, means he chose us ahead of, he chose us in priority order.
Before God got around to creating the world and setting the world in motion, he
chose us in love. In other words, loving his own ranks as a higher priority to God
than the creation of the world and the functioning of the world. Now, that's a mind
-blowing thought for me right there, that God's love for me is bigger in priority
than everything that's going on on planet Earth, because God is thinking in eternal
terms, not in temporal terms. So the creation of the world which God knows is for
a time, for a season. It's just a moment in eternity. The Bible says it's a vapor.
It's like a grass that sprouts up and dies away. That's what time is compared to
eternity. God in eternity past set his love on his own and then he got around to
making the world. So before the foundation of the world, he chose us.
And he chose us, verse 4 says, for a specific purpose. That purpose is that we
would be holy and blameless before him. And I'm going to come back to that.
We'll get back to that at the end here. But that's the verse. That's a big verse,
right? I mean, there's a ton in that verse. So, let's get to the heart of it.
What is this verse saying when it says, "God chose us?" Well, the first thing it's
saying is that it was God who did it. God is the prime mover. When it comes to
the choosing, God is the active agent in this case. He's the initiator. It's God
who does the choosing. That's what the verse says. The second thing it's saying is
that he chose us in him. He did not choose all humanity as he's already said in
this letter. This letter is the written to the saints who are in Ephesus, the
faithful in Christ Jesus. Those are the ones he chose. God did not choose all
people. He only chose those who are the faithful, the subset of humanity who are
faithful. He's chosen the saints in Christ. But of course, the big word here is
"choose." What does it mean that God chose us? What does the Bible mean when it
uses that word? Well, the Greek word is "eclectso," and it means to pick out or to
choose or to select. We get the word "election" from "eclectso." So if you've heard
of the doctrine of "election," it's not about What you do in November every four
years, it's about what God did before the foundation of the world. Paul is talking
about choosing, that is his electing work. Now that word, choose,
there are three ways that Christians have come to understand what that word means
and what this verse means. The first way some Christians look at this verse and
look at this word is to say, "Choose can't mean choose." That's what they say.
They look at it and say, "I've read the rest of the Bible and I read whosoever
will may come and I read that you must follow Christ. There are invitations and
there are responses. That's how salvation works. God makes the offer. We choose it."
In fact, some people have expressed it this way. Maybe you've heard this. When it
comes to election, they say, God votes for you, the devil votes against you, and
you cast the deciding vote. Have you ever heard that? Well, you can forget it,
okay, 'cause it's wrong. That's not how it works. That's not what this verse is to
you. But some people read "choose," and they say, "Yes, okay, maybe God chose me,
"but it's not decisive or determinative." They will ultimately say, "I know, "I don't
know exactly what this verse means, "but I know it doesn't mean choose." God didn't
just choose us for no good reason. Well, I would agree with that part. God didn't
choose his own for no good reason. God has a good reason for why he did this,
but there's a difference between understanding God's reason and him having a reason
that I'm not privy to or that I don't understand. So we may look at this and go,
"I don't know what God's reason was or how it works out in his mind, but that
doesn't mean he doesn't have a reason. You're a parent, right? So you've had kids
and your kids say, "Why are you doing this?" And you go, "Because I what?" Said
so, because I said so. You don't have to explain your reasoning to them. You have
a good reason, but they don't necessarily need to know it. In this moment, they
just need to follow and obey. So we can't Just take this word "eclexo," choose,
and say, "It doesn't mean here what it means everywhere else. Everywhere else it
means picked, selected, chosen. God chose us not for no good reason,
but He chose us." So in my mind, we have to reject that view.
Option number one, God is not stuttering here when He says That in love he chose
us before the foundation of the world. He's not using the wrong word. He's saying I
chose you Here's the second way some people have understood this verse Yes,
God chose us But here's how it worked because God is eternal and omniscient because
he knows the end from the beginning because he dwells outside of time He is able
to know what the future looks like and he chose us because he looked down the
corridors of time, and he saw that we would choose him, and so he chose us because
he's responding. He's doing what he sees us doing. He's choosing us because we chose
him. And they will base this on the idea of divine foreknowledge.
So if you've ever read in Romans 8, 29, here's what it says, "For those whom Four
new, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he
might be the first born among many brothers. And they will say, "See, God four new,
he knew what was going to happen, and so that's why he predestined. He predestined
based on his own foreknowledge." Well, there are two problems with that idea. Here's
the first problem. The word for foreknowledge is a Greek word prognosco.
We get prognosis from that, and prognosco, if you break it down, it's two words,
pro, which means beforehand, and nosus, which means to know something. So prognosco
means you know something before it happens. But the word nosus in the Bible has a
bigger meaning than just knowing about something. It means knowing something
intimately, and when it comes to a person, It means a knowledge that's not just,
I know facts about you, but I am united with you. I have a deep knowledge of you.
There's a oneness in us. So when you read the Old Testament and the Old King James
in Genesis 4 -1, it says Adam knew his wife Eve and what happened next.
They had a baby. That wasn't just Adam sitting around one night and going, "You
know, I know some interesting things about Eve. Oh, look, she's pregnant. That's not
what that means, okay?" Knowing Eve means he had an intimate relationship with her
that led to progeny. When the Bible talks about God having foreign knowledge of us,
it's not just that he knew what we would do, it's that he knew us, that he knew
who we were, so it's a deep intimate knowledge. He had cast his love on us before
we ever did anything. That's what foreknowledge means. It's God not just looking
ahead and knowing information about something that's going to happen in the future.
When it says God foreknew you, it means he set his love on you. He joined himself
to you before you even existed. That's the first reason I look at these folks who
say God was looking down the corridor of time and he's responding to what we did
in choosing us.
His foreknowledge means more than just knowing facts. The second reason is, if God
is choosing us because we chose him, that's really nothing. God's not doing anything.
That's you in the driver's seat and God responding to you. This verse is not
telling us that God one day said, "Okay, if you pick me, I'll pick you." That's
not what this verse means. He's not saying, "Really, it's all up to you." In fact,
would that be one of every spiritual blessings that God has given to you? If you'll
pick him, he'll pick you.
That's not what this verse is saying. And that leaves, as far as I can tell, only
one other option. The word doesn't mean nothing, And it doesn't mean that God is
choosing us because we choose him. Here's what I think it means, are you ready? I
think it means God chose us, okay?
He chose us based on his own wisdom and his own will.
Now, we read a verse like this and our first reaction is, like I said,
that doesn't fit my experience. that was my first reaction. I remember I decided to
give my life to try. I remember choosing. And you're right.
Jesus did give an invitation. He did say, "Follow me." He did say, "You must come
after me." And you chose to do that. But what you didn't know,
what I didn't know when I chose to do that, is that I was doing it because he
had chosen me first. When Marianne and I got married, our wedding invitations,
we sent out, we included a Bible verse on our wedding invitations, and it was 1
John 419. 1 John 419 says this, "We love because he first loved us."
We were applying it to our marriage, but the reality is we love, we only have the
ability to love. We only are able to love him and others because he loved us
first. The only reason we're able to love him or anyone is because he loved us
prior. It came first and that's why verse 4 that we read in Ephesians 1 ends with
"in love." He chose us in love, not because he looked ahead and saw that we were
going to choose him him and so he said I'm gonna let that person be in because
they love me. His eternal everlasting love for us is unconditional.
God's love is eternal. Before you were even a thought in his mind, God's love
already existed as an eternal attribute.
And it was his love for you is not based on choice you would make someday, not
based on any decision you would make, it's based on his decision to set his love
on you. Another way we say this is when it comes to salvation, God is sovereign.
It's his choice. He's in control. He's the king. He does what pleases him.
Psalm 115 says, "Our God is in the heavens. He does whatever pleases him." He
doesn't need to ask for your permission to do things. He doesn't need your approval.
He doesn't need your advice He doesn't seek your counsel. He rules. He reigns.
He's in charge and that idea is all the way through the Bible
When Abram was called out of Ur of the Caldees To go to a lamb that God would
show to him. Do you think Abram was sitting around at night going? Gee, I wonder
if there really is a God. I wonder if I should be following him. I want...no, he
knew nothing. He was a pagan in Ur just like everybody else. And God came to him
and said, "I'm picking you to make you a mighty nation." Why? Because I'm picking
you. Why? Because it's my choice to do that.
And think about the nation of Israel. Great passage in Deuteronomy 7.
Israel, they're called God's chosen people. We don't have a hiccup calling Israel
God's chosen people. Why did he choose them? Did you know God tells them why he
chose them? In Deuteronomy 7, here's what he says, "For you are a people holy to
set apart to the Lord your God." They weren't a holy people. They weren't morally
holy. They've been set apart. "You are of people I am setting apart to the Lord
your God, for the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured
possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not
because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord has set his
love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was
because, here's why he chose you, because the Lord loves you and is keeping the
oath that he swore to your fathers that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty
hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery from the hand of Pharaoh the king.
It's not because of something about you, he's saying to the Jews, I didn't choose
you because you're special, I chose you because I made a promise to do this. God
chose us in him because there was a redemptive covenant that the three persons of
the Trinity made with one another, we're going to choose these people before anything
else existed. We don't typically have a problem with the idea that God chose a
people for himself as the nation of Israel. A lot of all the people on the face
of the earth, we don't sit around saying, "Well, it doesn't seem fair to the
Canaanites or to the Assyrians that God didn't choose them or give them an equal
opportunity to be his people." In fact, when Jonah goes and preaches to the
Ninevites and says, "Repent," and they do, what does Jonah do? He gets mad because
these people who he doesn't think should be God's people, God's inviting them in.
The only person God consults for counsel about anything is himself.
God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit are three persons who agree on
whatsoever comes to pass, including who will be saved and who won't. That's what
being sovereign means.
Sovereignty doesn't mean, here's what I have decided as long as you're okay with it.
It's really your choice, but it's up to you, but I'm deciding whatever you want.
That's not what sovereignty means. Now again, you hear this, God chooses some but
not all, he's ordaining, the first time I heard it,
I was a little taken aback, and part of the reason I was taken aback was because
that means I'm not ultimately in charge of my eternal destiny.
And you're also confronted with the dilemma because if God chose some for salvation,
that means there are some he does not choose.
And that doesn't sound, let's just be honest, that does not sound right or fair,
does it? God chooses some, but he creates others who are destined for hell and
there's nothing they can do about it. I'm supposed to believe that. Does the Bible
teach that? Well, actually, the Bible answers that dilemma for us in the book of
Romans, in Romans chapter 9. In Romans 9 the Bible says,
in fact I want you to turn there, turn to Romans 9 in your Bible because we're
going to spend a little time here.
In Romans 9 the Bible says God has mercy on whom He will have mercy and He
hardens whom He will harden.
That's what a sovereign is able to do and that's what God does. He shows mercy to
some, He hardens some. And, the Bible is saying it's right for God to do that,
it's just for Him to do that. God has the right to show mercy to whomever He
chooses to show mercy to, because He's God. And when we say,
"Well, God hardens the hearts," that doesn't seem fair. Listen to me, here's how God
hardens somebody's heart. He removes restraining grace from their life.
He gives them over to their own hearts. The only way God, the only thing God has
to do for you to have a hard heart is take away his grace and your heart will
harden on its own.
And God is not obligated to demonstrate grace to everyone. If he removes restraining
grace, it's your own heart that makes you hard toward God. But that brings up
questions. Paul knows it does, so as he's writing to the Romans, he says, I know
you're gonna ask the question, how can God find fault with anyone if he's the one
who is hardening their heart? And that's what Romans 9 .19 is asking. Look at verse
18, God will have mercy on whom he wills, he will harden whomever he wills. And
then Paul says, I know what you're thinking, how can that be fair? So 9 .19, you
will then say to me, why does he still find fault "for who can resist his will?"
That's a fair question, and he answers it in Romans 9 .20. "Who are you,
O man, to answer back to God?" Okay, so the answer to your question is,
wait just a second, you think you have the right to dictate to God what fairness
looks like? You think you have a better sense of fairness, rightness, and justice
than God does. He goes on to say, "Will what is to say to the molder,
why have you made me like this? Has the potter no right over the clay to make out
of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?
Now I've always read verse 20 and thought to myself, this has kind of a tone of
who in the heck do you think you are?
I don't know whether this means what was it as a stern rebuke or a gentle rebuke,
but it is a rebuke for a person who is doing the protesting here about God's
purposes and God's will, and the rebuke is you need to stop impugning the character
of God because you can't understand what he's doing. The fact that this does not
make sense to you does not give you free will to then bring a charge against God,
that he's unfair.
Here's the question Paul wants his readers and us to stop and consider at this
point. If God chooses to show you mercy,
is he not able and right and fair to do that? And if God chooses to judge you
for your sin, is he not fair and right to do that? Is it not perfectly appropriate
for God to bring justice if you have rebelled against him and rejected him and
hardened your heart toward him. Is it not fair for God to judge you? In other
words, if you want God to be perfectly fair, we're all in trouble because perfectly
fair means we get what we deserve and what we deserve is God's judgment eternally.
We deserve hell.
And If we all get what we deserve, then that's where we're headed. Let me just
stop here. Do you realize how hard your heart really is apart from God's grace?
Most of us don't. Most people you ask would say, "He's a good -hearted person.
He's got a good heart." Well, no, he doesn't. You don't either. I don't have a
good heart. But my heart is deceitful, it's corrupted,
my heart leads me in the wrong direction all the time, my heart loves things it
ought not love, my heart thinks things it ought not think, I have a wicked heart
and it's only by God's grace that any of that wickedness is softened and if God
removed his grace from my life my hard heart would, I would be just as angry and
just as rebellious and just as rejecting toward him as any other person. The old
hymn writer says it this way, "Guilty, vile, and helpless we." Spotless Lamb of God
was he. Full atonement, can it be? Hallelujah, what a savior. That's the picture.
We We are guilty, violent, helpless, and we can't help ourselves. God chooses to
show mercy to whom He will show mercy, including many of us here this morning. And
all we can do is look and say, "I don't deserve that. We don't deserve that.
Hallelujah. What a savior."
Listen, you don't have any problem with God being sovereign over other events in
your life. I mean, you read other passages in the Bible, things like Proverbs 16,
9. "The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps." You
read that and you go, "Well, yeah, that makes sense. I think I'm going this way,
but God sends me out of detour." You don't have a problem with God redirecting your
life by his own sovereign choice. You don't have a problem with Proverbs 16, 33.
"The lot is cast in the lap, but every decision is from the Lord? We can roll the
dice but God's the one calling the shots. Now when you read those verses, are those
verses comforting to you or are they troubling to you? The idea that God is in
control of all that's taking place in our world, does that bring you comfort or
does that cause you to think that's just not fair? I want to be in control.
It should bring you comfort in the midst of a world that's in chaos, where we see
what happens if we take control apart from God, we see how things spin out of
control. The idea that God is sovereign and is directing the affairs of men should
bring us great joy and comfort. But then when it comes back to our salvation, we
say, "No, no, I must have that one. That belongs to me. My eternal destiny belongs
to me. It's not up to God. It's up to me."
In fact, it just would not be fair for God not to make it an even playing field
for everyone to have the choice. Let me just talk about fairness and justice for a
minute. If God chooses to be merciful to some, including you and me, instead of
saying that's not fair, here's what we should say. Thank you.
Lord, thank you for your grace and mercy, which you've extended to me, which I
don't deserve, and you have decided to extend it. And that's the right response when
we --
this doctrine cannot restrain its petulance, that is a tantrum.
It boils and rages as if aroused by the sound of a trumpet. When you hear that
God has chosen you, it's natural in the human mind to go, that's not fair, and to
rage against that idea. He goes on to say that these are the most difficult
doctrines in all of sacred scripture and must be handled with great care, great
caution, great tenderness, and great patience for those who struggle with it. So if
you're here this morning, you're struggling with this, I want you to know, yes, we
should be careful and patient in how we unfold this and unpack it. We should take
time, and yes, I understand the tension. But I think we ultimately have to come
back and say, what does the Bible teach and am I going to believe what the Bible
teaches?
Let me show you a picture of someone. Who knows who this person is? Who knows who
that is? Raise your hand if you know. Who is that? That's Chris Christofferson. One
year ago today, he died. This is the anniversary of his death from a year ago.
He was living in Maui. He was 88 years old when he died. I don't know where Chris
ended his life in terms of a relationship with Jesus. He had a hard life, and he
wrote about it in the songs that he wrote. For those of you who are wondering
who's Chris Trotoff, actor, songwriter, singer, he was up for an Academy Award when
he was in the movie A Star is Born. But something happened in his life, in the
middle of his life, that he told about that was a spiritually awakening experience.
He says Connie Smith, who was another country music artist, she had taken me to
church. She had taken me to Jimmy Snow's church. And he said, "I had a profound
experience hearing Jimmy Snow preach the Bible, something that had never happened to
me before." He said, "It was a typical church service until Jimmy posed a question
to those who were in attendance." He said, "Everybody was kneeling down, and Jimmy
said something like, If anybody's lost, raise your hand. I was kneeling there, I
don't go to church a lot. The notion of raising my hand was out of the question.
I thought, I can't imagine who's going to do something like this. And all of a
sudden, I felt my hand going up.
And I was hoping nobody was looking because everyone had their head bent over, they
were praying. He said, I was in shock that my arm went up. And the even bigger
surprise was that I found myself getting up and walking to the front of the church.
And then Jimmy Snow said, is there anybody here ready to accept Jesus? Something
like that. He said, come down to the front of the church and I thought that's
never gonna happen. All of a sudden I found myself walking down with these people
and I said, I don't really know what I'm doing here. He said something to me like,
are you ready to accept Jesus in your life or something? I said, I don't know.
Chris said I began to cry Didn't know what I was doing there and Jimmy said kneel
down here said I can't even remember what he was saying But whatever it was it was
such a release for me that I found myself weeping in public I felt the forgiveness.
I didn't even know I needed Now out of that experience Chris Christofferson wrote a
song that was his only number one hit ever and The lyrics capture what should be
our response to what God does when he chooses us for salvation. The lyrics were,
"Why me, Lord, what have I ever done "to deserve even one of the pleasures I've
known?" Tell me, Lord, what did I ever do that was worth loving you or the
kindness you've shown?
The answer to the question, "Why me?" is because it pleased the Lord to do it.
It's grace. It's amazing grace. And our response to that is to trust the Lord,
to be grateful, and to, like Job, put your hand over your mouth. And if you're
going to say anything other than, "Thank you, Lord," just put your hand over your
mouth and say, "I'm talking about stuff I don't understand.
Now, some of you are wondering, but what about all those verses in the Bible that
talk about our responsibility to respond to the gospel, to believe the gospel, to
turn away from sin? Does the Bible teach that God chooses us and is sovereign when
it comes to salvation, or does the Bible teach that it's ultimately our
responsibility to respond and to believe and to follow Jesus? Which of those two is
true. The answer is yes.
Yes, both are true. God is sovereign in salvation. You have a responsibility before
God to respond to what He does in your life. This is called, you ready for a big
word, antinomy. And antinomy is two things that are true that we can't figure out
how they fit together. It's beyond your pay grade, and it's beyond your intellect.
You don't have the capacity to fit this together, so you have to hold these two in
tension, believe both of them, and by the way, believe both of them with equal
fervency. I'm talking to you this morning about God's choosing us in salvation
because that's the verse. When we get to the verses that talk about our responding
to Him, I will be just as passionate in saying you must respond. It's your
responsibility. If God's calling you, respond. God is sovereign,
yes. You must respond, yes. You are responsible for responding, yes. If you don't
respond, that's on you, not on God, yes. How does that fit? I don't know.
But both are true.
The last thing this verse says is that there was a reason that God chose us before
the foundation of the world. We've already looked at this. It's that we should be
holy and blameless in Him. God's purpose for choosing us is not just so we can
escape judgment and be in His family forever. His purpose in choosing us is to
change us, to transform us, to make us new, to take the defective us and renew it
to what we were created for in the first place. Sin corrupted us, God is going to
fix what's been corrupted in us. That's why he chose you to give you a spiritual
makeover. He didn't just choose you, so you could go to heaven and be with him.
His purpose, we saw it in Romans 8 .29, to conform us to the image of his son.
He wants you to look more and act more like Jesus. And by the way,
you should want to, as his child, look more and act more like Jesus.
That should be a desire of your heart. God is faithful to call us, but he's also
faithful. The Bible says, "He who begins that work in you will be faithful to
complete it." So he's going to make you look more like Jesus one way or another.
And you say, "Well, what if I don't want to look like Jesus?" Well, if you say
that, and my first question is, are you a Christian? Because there's an oxymoron,
somebody's saying, I'm a Christian, but I don't care if I look like Jesus or not.
Or, I'll look like Jesus on my own terms. I'll look like Jesus,
I'll look like the part of Jesus I agree with, and leave the other stuff for other
people.
In first John 1, John says this, "If we say we have fellowship with him, while we
walk in darkness, we'd lie and do not practice the truth." The person who says,
"I'm a Christian, but I don't walk in, I still walk in darkness," you're lying and
not practicing the truth. Now he's not saying if you ever sin, you're not a
Christian, he's saying if the pattern of your life is to walk in darkness and you
are okay with that and you like that, That's a problem. If you are his child,
God has chosen you to make you holy and blameless, and you have two choices now.
You can cooperate with what God is doing in your life, or you can resist what God
is doing in your life. He's gonna make you like Jesus. You can either go along
with his plan, and it will go better for you, or you can resist it, and it will
be harder for you. Either way, you're gonna look like Jesus. One day,
God's gonna Finish the work he started in you. You can cooperate or you can resist.
You can do it the easy way or you can do it the hard way. When we cooperate,
when we yield, when we walk by the spirit, his spirit empowers us, allows us to
live holy lives and to repair what's been done, the damage sin has done in our
lives. When we resist, then God's spirit is going to bring loving, corrective
discipline in our lives in order to continue the good work of making you more like
Jesus.
Again, your parents, when you give your kids instructions and they obey, it goes
better for them. When you give them instructions and they don't obey, they're still
going to obey, but it's going to be harder for them. There's going to be a timeout
or there's going to be this or that, whatever. Here's how Martin Lloyd -Jones says
it. I really like this. He says, "Being chosen and being holy are inseparable.
God who has chosen you to holiness will make you holy. And if the preaching of the
gospel does not do so, God has other means and methods. He may strike you down
with illness. He may ruin your business. God will make you holy because He's chosen
you unto holiness.
The point's clear. If you're a child of God, you should desire holiness,
you should cooperate with the Holy Spirit and seek to grow in grace, but one way
or another, God will finish what He started in you. This is what He chose you for.
He chose you to make you holy. I told you when we started this morning, when I
first heard about all of this, God choosing us, I didn't like the idea, But when I
came to a point where I said, "Okay, whether I like it or not, this is what the
Bible teaches," even if I can't make it work logically in my own mind, when I came
to that point and realized I was a Christian not because of some goodness in me,
not because there was something appealing about me, not because God looked and said,
"You know, he belongs on my team. He's such a nice boy."
That's not why I'm a Christian, that's not why any of us are Christians. When I
came to the point that I realized the only reason that God brought me into his
family is because it pleased him to do so and he did it by his grace, that
realization provoked in me marvel and wonder and worship.
And it should provoke that in all of us. This is a doctrine that should humble all
of us. God's election, John Calvin said this, "God's election is free and beats down
and annihilates all the worthless works and virtues of men."
I've met arrogant Calvinists. You probably have, too. Calvinists, that's those who
believe that God chooses some for election. I've met these who think they're more
theologically sophisticated than you are. They understand these things better than you
are. And if you would just become informed like them, if you would just become
smart like them, then you would be able to come to the higher levels. You've met
guys like that. Maybe you were that. When you first heard these things and started
to believe you went around to everybody else, kind of like, if you could only come
to where I am, you'd be so much better off. The Bible tells us that we are
children of God, not because we're smarter than other people. We don't have this
figured out because our intellect is superior in the same way that he chose Israel
Not because of anything about them, but only because he loved them the illumination
on these things comes to you Only because God chooses to reveal it to you Okay,
I got a lot more I could say I gotta wrap it up right Here's the last thing I'll
say some people will hear this and they'll say well if it's true if God chooses
some and doesn't choose others. If it's set in the turn that he passed, why do we
need to evangelize? Why do we share our faith with anybody? I mean, God's gonna do
what God's gonna do. It sounds like he's in charge. Why do we evangelize? Well,
think about the person who's writing these words. The apostle Paul, who says he
chose us.
If the apostle Paul believed, so that means you don't have to evangelize, what was
he doing out getting beaten and stoned and thrown overboard trying to share his
faith with other people? Why was he doing all these missionary journeys? Paul
understood that yes God has done this but God has chosen that the means through
which people will come to know Christ is you and you get the joy of cooperating
with God and being a midwife at new spiritual birth seeing people come to faith.
I mean I've imagined to myself being in and talking to Jesus and he said,
"Did you see that guy over there?" "Yeah, yeah, I'm so glad he's here." And he
said, "Well, you know, my plan A for him was that you were going to share the
gospel with him and you were going to share the joy in him coming to faith." I
had intended that you were going to do it, but when you chickened out, I had
somebody else do it and they got the joy and you missed out on that. I go,
"Really? I could have had it." Now, this is just not in the Bible, okay? This is
just me having one of my flights of fancy. But there's joy that comes when God
uses you to share good news with others and they respond, "Don't you want that?"
Now, the good news is the salvation of your family and friends doesn't depend on
your faithfulness.
There's nobody who's going to be in hell because you didn't share the gospel with
them. Okay, so we can just go,
but God who has showed you grace wants you and expects you,
he wants to work through you to be a dispenser of that grace to others, to
experience the joy that comes. Don't you want that? If you're in Christ, it's
because God chose you for salvation. Jonah when he was in the belly of the big
fish, he realized what was going on. In the middle of the book of Jonah, Jonah 2
.9, he says this, "Salvation is of the Lord." He was dying.
He knew the only way out was if God saved him. Salvation is of the Lord. He was
saying something much bigger than he knew at the moment. And in Revelation 7, we
saw the multitude standing around the throne when we studied this, and they are
singing praise to God. And what are they singing? "Salvation belongs to our God who
sits on the throne and unto the Lamb." If you'd like to study this again,
I can't go through all of it. If you want to study this more deeply, there's a
great book by R. C. Sproul that's called "Chosen by God." And I love the book.
I've read it. I'd defy anybody to read this book and come away with a logical
argument to show why he's wrong. it's just airtight.
And I'm gonna give the actual last word to a pastor named Juan Sanchez, who says
this, "The doctrine we've explored this morning, "this doctrine of election," he says,
"is precious to me because it moves me "to make much of God through Christ, "which
is true worship, and little of myself, "which is humility. "May we understand
election and may it strip us of all the personal pride and move us to worship the
sovereign Lord in all his glory and grace. And that's the main idea from verse four
in Ephesians chapter one. And we'll pick up here and look at the rest of this in
part two next Sunday. Pray with me. Father, these are challenging things we
acknowledge to you.
We thank you that you have revealed some of this mystery to us.
We thank you that you've opened our eyes to see these wonderful things in your
word. Help us to be content with what's been revealed and help us to be content
with the mystery. And help us to rejoice and to worship you for your glory and
your grace." And Lord, I pray this morning for any who might be here whose hearts
you are stirring today. Those who have been away, those who have,
they have wandered or they have wandered. They have not seen you as a priority.
They've been living lives on their own terms.
They've been maybe giving lip service to you But their hearts have remained hard
toward you Lord. I pray that you would soften their hearts this morning.
I Pray that they would hear your voice That they would respond to your voice as is
their responsibility to do and That you would graciously bring them into the fold
and make them your sons and daughters.
I pray for that work of your spirit in this place today in your name. Amen.