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“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).
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You have heard this stated a number of times before, but it is the kind of truth that all of us need to hear again and again. “Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. to write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.” (Philippians 3:1, ESV). And so here it is: Hard teaching creates soft hearts, and soft teaching creates hard hearts. Calvinism is hard doctrine, but it is hard doctrine for the tenderhearted—not hard doctrine to match the hearts.
“It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy” (Romans 9:12–16).
When Rebekah went to an oracle about the conflict that was happening in her womb, she was told that, of the twins, the older would serve the younger (v. 12; Gen. 25:23). This was reinforced centuries later, at the other end of the Old Testament, when Malachi said that God loved Jacob, but hated Esau (v. 13; Mal. 1:2-3). Keep in mind that Jacob here refers to the Jews, and Esau refers to the nation of Edom. But to take this up to a larger scale doesn’t really solve any of our ruffled feather problems. If you were a devotee of free will, would you feel better if somebody told you that God had only predestined that the airliner would crash, not that the passengers would? Now when we are told that God loved Jacob and hated Esau, our natural (fleshly) reaction is to charge God with unrighteousness. And so Paul raises the question. Is there unrighteousness with God (v. 14)? It cannot be. God forbid. And what is the reason given for denying unrighteousness with God? The reason is what God said to Moses when Moses begged to see His glory (Ex. 33:19). God will be gracious to whom He pleases. He will be merciful to whom He pleases (v. 15). Grace is grace, and mercy is mercy. Neither of them can be earned or merited—not a scintilla of merit anywhere in it. So then, we come to the hard conclusion that, rightly understood, hard grace creates tender hearts. But in order to be hard grace, it must be not dependent upon the will of man, or the running of man, but rather upon the mercy of God (v. 16).
The heart of man can manufacture merit—something that he can use to argue that God is required to show mercy—out of virtually anything. It is our knock-off of creatio ex nihilo. One of our favorite arguments arises from any mercy shown to others. Because our hearts are naturally envious, this argument seems compelling to us. What God gives to one, He must give the same thing to all others. But grace, by definition, cannot be demanded. For any reason.
Suppose there were two men on death row, and both of them richly deserve to be there. Each one was about as foul as a human being can get. Now also suppose that the governor pardons one of them, and does so for good reason. But that good reason has nothing to do with the worthiness of the one pardoned. It was dirty dozen mission or something. Now here is the question. Has the governor in any way wronged the convict that he did not pardon? Is that convict getting anything but what he deserves? He is getting nothing but justice, while the other is getting nothing but mercy. And mercy to one does not create any obligation within God toward the other. It is not of him who wills, or of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.
We do not insist on this because we have an emotional need that somebody be damned. Rather, we insist upon it because we want to remember that grace is infinite grace. When God saved me, and when God saved you, He was under absolutely no external obligation to do so. Our need was not His obligation. Our need was made up of our rebellion, our selfishness, our pettiness, our insolence, and our pride. In short, God could have refused to save you, He could have passed you by as He has passed by many others, and He would not have been an iota less gracious. His infinite holiness would not have been diminished at all if the number of the elect had been diminished by one. Subtract me from that throng in front of the throne of God, and the saints would still be able to sing, “Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb” (Rev. 7:10). Walk through that multitude, and you will not be able to find one person who deserves to be there.
Why emphasize this? Before we consider the extent of God’s grace, we have to anchor the nature of grace in our hearts and minds. That is because if we do not do this, we will draw false and destructive inferences about grace from the glorious extent of it. This is a filthy, undeserving, rebellious and insolent world—and it will be gloriously saved.
“All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: And all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee” (Ps. 22:27).
“The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, Until I make thine enemies thy footstool” (Ps. 110:1).
“For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, As the waters cover the sea.” (Hab. 2:14).
“For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved” (John 3:17).
“And again, Esaias saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles trust” (Rom. 15:12).
And all of it grace, all of it mercy, all of it Christ.
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Ready or not, a new season and a new school year is upon us. It’s good for us to review Christ Church’s mission which is “All of Christ, for all of Life, for all of Moscow.” Our mission of course is nothing short of the Great Commission that Christ gave to his Church––the evangelization and discipleship of the nations. That mission is our mission. And here we are in Moscow, Idaho attempting a small part of that Great Commission. In our sermon passage in Matthew 9 and 10, Jesus sends out his disciples on a pre-Great Commission. The way Jesus instructs and prepares his disciples exemplifies how his disciples will advance the Great Commission and how we advance Christ’s mission in Moscow. Jesus has 1) compassion on the crowd 2) calls and equips the disciples 3) commissions them to proclaim the gospel.
So let’s begin by looking at Jesus’ motivation which is his compassion for the crowd. Jesus is on mission and we should take note of what he is doing––teaching in Jewish synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of his kingdom, and healing every disease and every affliction. This ministry of course draws a crowd. How does Jesus respond?
“When he saw the crowd, Jesus had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (vs. 36). What happens to a sheep without a shepherd in the wilderness? Freedom…for a time. But soon they will be hungry and thirsty and tired of following themselves or another sheep. A sheep without out a shepherd is soon a dead sheep, and so Jesus has compassion for the life of these people. We all begin in the crowd as those who are helpless and harassed. We were among those wandering sheep without a shepherd. We were the diseased and afflicted of mind and soul. Our lives stank! Have you received the compassion of Jesus?
Jesus filled with compassion says to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” The harvest is the souls of men, and it is abundant. Imagine the abundance of the wheat fields on the Palouse, countless grains of wheat. Jesus looked to the present crowd of hundreds, maybe of thousands. That would represent only a handful of wheat. But Jesus lifts his eyes to the nation of Israel, to the Roman Empire, and to all the nations through the centuries and says the harvest is plentiful. So Jesus turns to his disciples and instructs, “Therefore, pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send forth laborers into his harvest.” Apparently, some of the disciples prayed and they were the answer to their prayer!
“And Jesus called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction” (Mat. 10:1). Jesus has both compassion and authority. He has the authority to heal and caste out and save, and he has the compassion to want to. He Jesus calls his disciples and equips them with authority. Those he has compassion on, he calls and equips and now commissions them.
“These twelve Jesus sent out, instructing them, ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And proclaim as you go, ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons” (Mat. 10:5-8). How capable would these disciples to do one let alone all of these tasks? Touch and heal that guy whose nose if rotting off. Go into the funeral home and raise the corpse. Command the demon to scram. Preach the kingdom. But, Jesus gave them authority and so they are equipped. Augustine rightly prayed, “Lord, command what you will and grant what you command!”
How fearful and wonderful this must have been. What a blessing for the disciples to participate in this restoration of life through Jesus. Imagine the joy of the family whose mom’s been healed, the astonishment for the friend who’s been released from demon’s hold, the celebration after twisted limbs and broken backs are made right. The disciples were sent out with the advanced proclamation that Jesus makes all things new! Jesus accomplished this mission through the cross and resurrection.
Jesus has again shown compassion to a crowd and again called his disciples in order to send them out on a mission. All authority is in his hand. Christ commands again his disciples to go. But unlike in Matthew 10 where Jesus says “Go nowhere among the Gentiles,” Christ’s command is now “Go everywhere!” Go to the Gentiles and the Samaritans and the Corinthians and the Romans and the Moscowvites and the Chinese and the Saudis. Go to all nations and declare Jesus as King and his kingdom is now here. The harvest is abundant and so is his abundant compassion.
May our church be devoted to “All of Christ, for all of Life, for all of Moscow!”
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The usual way people refer to this next doctrine is with the phrase “perseverance of the saints.” I believe that for the sake of a fuller accuracy, we should make the phrase longer, a bit more cumbersome, but much richer and more complete. We should call it the “preservation and perseverance of the saints.”
We do persevere, but only because God keeps and sustains us. If He did not, then we would not persevere. We could not. And yet, at the same time, when God preserves His own, the thing He preserves them in is perseverance in holiness.
Put another way, God is the one who saves us from drowning, but not by leaving us on the bottom of the pool.
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one” (John 10:27–30).
The sheep who belong to Christ hear and recognize His voice (v. 27). He is their shepherd, and they know it. They know Him. The still waters that He leads them to, the green pastures they are blessed to lie down in, are the gift of eternal life (v. 28). They are in His hand, and as a good shepherd He gives us this promise—no man is able to pluck them out of His hand. As Christ’s sheep, we are in His hand. But how did these particular sheep come to belong to Him in the first place? The good shepherd has a Father, and this Father is greater than all. The elect sheep were a gift to Christ from the Father, and were a gift going from the Father’s hand to Christ’s hand, without leaving the Father’s hand. And because the Father is greater than all, no man is able to pluck them out of the Father’s hand either. And this is why Christ then says “I and the Father are one.”
So you should see plainly that the idea of Christ purchasing the same individuals that were chosen by the Father is not some idea cooked up by theologians. The Father gave a gift to Christ (you), and as a result Christ gave you a gift (eternal life). And because there is no life apart from Himself, in order to give you eternal life, He had to give you Himself in the person of His Spirit. Your eternal life inside you is not some inanimate joy juice. He is a Person, and He is working inside you alongside the Father and the Son.
This is the one aspect of the gospel which the natural man thinks he might be able to like. But like all spiritual truth, the natural man can only love the truth through a distortion of it. We should therefore make a point to outline a few misunderstandings of the doctrine:
The passages of Scripture that talk about apostasy (and there are many) are talking about losing your covenant standing in the visible church. Someone can be covenantally a Christian without being numbered among the elect.
Man-centeredness causes some to talk about this as though it were a mere reversal of regeneration. But when salvation is understood biblically, i.e. as rooted in the eternal will of the Father in election, in the eternal blood of the covenant which secured their salvation, and the resurrection of the Spirit bringing them into life, the whole picture changes.
Man is mutable and what he does can be undone. God is immutable and what He effectually does cannot be undone. There are many passages which assert this, but one of the clearest is found in Romans 8: 28-39, which we have already considered several times.
Let us look at just one passage which is commonly brought forward as evidence that Christians can lose their salvation.
“For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?” (Heb. 10:26–29).
What does it say? It does not say anything about Hell or everlasting damnation. The context is that the author of Hebrews (in the mid to late 60’s) is trying to talk some Christians out of returning to the Temple sacrifices in Jerusalem. Obviously, they would have to go to Jerusalem to do this, and it was a masterpiece of bad timing, for Jerusalem was going to be destroyed. The Lord Jesus had prophesied that this would certainly happen within a generation, and that generation was almost up. The only thing they had waiting for them in Jerusalem was raging fire that would consume the adversary. They would not find in Jerusalem any sacrifice for sin. That was done, once for all, in the death of Christ.
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We have learned from Scripture that our salvation is from all eternity, which is the reason it will extend into all eternity. In accordance with His good pleasure, the Father has chosen those who will make up the number of His elect. He did this before eternal times, before all worlds. His choice determines what will happen in the world; the world does not determine what He will decide. In line with this choice, the Son came to earth, lived a perfect sinless life, and died on the cross in order to secure the salvation of those whom the Father had chosen. This happened outside Jerusalem, two thousand years ago.
And so what does the Spirit do? As I said last week, the Father decides on the purchase, the Son lays down the payment, and the Holy Spirit takes you home. He does this in the course of your life by giving you a new heart, forgiving your sins, and washing you clean. The Spirit is the one who takes you out of the miry clay, and sets you on a rock.
“And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body . . . For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified” (Rom. 8:23, 29–30).
We have already considered part of this passage. We see the golden chain—election > predestination > called > justified > glorified. But election occurs before ancient times, where we can’t see it. And glorification occurs at the last day, which we cannot see yet either. The two ends of your salvation lie outside human history entirely. We know that this is a reality for God’s elect because of the plain teaching of Scripture. But if you have no access to the roster of the election, or the roster of the finally redeemed, then how can you possibly know of your interest in Christ? The scriptural answer to this is the guarantee of the Spirit, as He works in your life.
The Spirit works in us, making us long for our adoption as sons, which is the redemption of the body (v. 23). This redemption of the body is the same thing as our glorification. The calling and the justifying are realities that you experience here, in this life, and you reason from that experience backward to election and forward to glorification.
What happens at the moment of the effectual call? We call this effectual because there is a distinction to be made between the kind of call that is issued, and may or may not be responded to, and the call that actually summons, actually gathers. For the first, “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matt. 22:14). For the second, consider this:
“But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:23–24).
The Spirit effectually calls and then regenerates the one He has called. We are not born again because we repent and believe. Rather, we are justified because we repent and believe, and we repent and believe because we were born again. The Spirit moves wherever and however He pleases, and no one can build a windbreak that can hold Him out (John 3:8). Think of it this way: called > regenerated > repentant > believing > justified > sanctified. At the crown of this process, the Holy Spirit takes up residence in us, making us the dwelling place, the Temple of the Spirit.
What do you think of guarantees that don’t guarantee anything? The merchant gives you a lifetime guarantee, and you take your busted one in for a replacement, he shrugs and says that lifetime guarantee means the lifetime of the product. Which looks like it has expired.
Election and glorification are outside our intellectual reach. Our minds cannot extend that far. But fortunately, God does not want them to extend that far except by faith. “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deut. 29:29). If you try to unravel the secret things, they will only unravel you.
The handles by which you are to hang onto election and glorification are handles that are within your reach. Here they are. You, right now, can experience the joy of sins forgiven. You, right now, can taste the relief in how God has declared you to be not guilty. You, right now, can experience the exhilaration of standing in the presence of the Holy One of heaven, and doing so upright, and clothed in the immaculate righteousness of Jesus Christ. It comes to you here. It is the word in your ears. It is the water on your head. It is the bread on your tongue. It is the wine in your mouth. The Word is near you, in your heart and in your mouth. “But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach” (Rom. 10:8).
And this is why God speaks to us in terms of guarantee. I have used the ESV here because I wanted you to see the word guarantee, which is stronger to us than earnest. And we need to feel the strength of it. God never saved a sinner who was not completely and entirely tied off with everlasting and celestial ropes.
“and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee” (2 Cor. 1:22, ESV).
“He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee” (2 Cor. 5:5, ESV).
“who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory” (Eph. 1:14, ESV).
And so those who have Christ now will always have Him. Those who are cleansed now will always be cleansed. Those who have tasted forgiveness in and through Jesus will, by God’s grace, never be permitted to taste anything else.
Christ Church