Vineyard Grace (Part 2)

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No Compromise Radio Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author,

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Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the

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Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

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Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the Scriptures, verse by verse with no compromise.

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Now the next verse is very, very important. And you don't get the parable unless you get the next verse. And when evening came, 6 p .m.

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now, it's time to pay because Leviticus and Deuteronomy both say pay wages at the end of the day because they're living day by day.

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They need the money. You can't say I'll pay on Friday, you get paid the 1st and the 15th. No, Leviticus 19, you shall not oppress your neighbor nor rob him.

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The wages of a hired man are not to remain with you all night until morning. Pay them right away.

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So 6 o 'clock, it could be 6 .15 now, they're going to divvy up the money and it's very important here. The vineyard owner said to his foreman, call the laborers and pay them their wages.

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So far, so good, nothing that interesting to the story. But here is where it's amazing, beginning with the last up to the first.

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By the way, does that sound familiar? Last first, see? It does, doesn't it?

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Pay them those beginning with the last up to the first. If it was switched around, the parable is no longer a parable, it's a dud, it is boring.

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Owner of the vineyard, Kurios, the Lord, said to the foreman, call the laborers, pay them their wages, beginning with the last up to the first.

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That's where the power is in this story, because we've got a surprise coming. If Jesus would have said in this parable, a foreman,

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I want you to bring those who I hired at 6 a .m. and I'll give them a day's wage, then send them home, the story would have no power.

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Have them come at the very, you know, those who got here early, you worked all day, you get paid first. We're going to mess up the punchline of the story.

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But do you see the text? That's not what's said here. Beginning with the last, those hired at 5 p .m.

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at 1700. And when those hired about the 11th hour came, each of them received a full day's wage for one hour.

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Anybody ever done that for you? You were for one hour. I haven't had too many jobs where I've had to punch in, but I've never punched in for one hour and they said, here's a whole day's work for one hour.

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Now what are you thinking if you were hired at 3 o 'clock in the afternoon?

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I get three. I get three denarii. This guy's so generous.

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What do you think if you were hired at noon? I get six, I get a week's worth of pay.

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What happens to you if you're there and you're thinking, you're watching them give the one to the guy hired at 5, and you thought, nine days' pay.

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And what if you were the one hired at 6 o 'clock, you'd be saying to yourself, what, I am going to get how many days' pay for my one day's work?

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Based on what he did to this guy, I'm getting 12 days' pay. This is going to be great.

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Go buy an eye touch or something. This is going to rock. Going to just buy food is what these people are going to buy.

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Verse 9, and when those hired about the 11th hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when those hired first came, they, like you and like me, thought they would receive more.

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But each of them also received a denarius. Where is Jay Sekulow when we need him?

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Where is Johnny Cochran? I'm going to have to call up some kind of union representative,

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ACLU, AFL -CIO, AFL -NFL. I'm calling somebody. No one was ungraced.

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No one should have been picked at Lowe's at the beginning, and yet they were.

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They got what they bargained for. They got what they agreed upon. They got the normal thing for the day's work.

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Some even got extra based on the good, sovereign, distinguishing pleasure of the Lord. And what's the response?

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Sadly, what's the response in evangelical churches to the sovereign, distinguishing grace of God who saves some at 15, who saves some at 90, and who doesn't save some?

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Verse 11, and on receiving it, the gift generously bestowed, yeah, they had to work for it, but he had to pick them to work for it.

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And on receiving it, they grumbled at the master of the house. You know the word grumble there, right?

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You know the Greek word, gungismus, gungismus, gungismus, gungismus, and it is an imperfect verb that means it was ongoing, muttering, whispering, complaining.

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We will not tolerate this inequity. When they first got chosen out in front of Home Depot, they're happy.

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And now they see some get extra based on the goodwill, good pleasure, free will of the owner, and now they're having a conniption fit.

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The conniption fits of like that I haven't seen since I've been to the grocery store that says eight items or less, and you see somebody in there with 22 items.

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It's that kind of visceral reaction you get. Now here's what they said.

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They complained, complained, complained, complained. Verse 12, saying, these last worked only one hour.

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Now look at the intensity here with initiation, who's in charge, who bestows, who distinguishes.

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These last only worked one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.

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Literally, they call those scorching east winds burners.

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There's a real scorcher out there, this dry east wind that comes in the Middle East. It was super hot. We worked all day.

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You gave us only one day's wage, and you gave them 12 days wages in essence.

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You made them equal to us. That part was right. Verse 13, but he replied to one of them.

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Maybe the spokesperson, maybe the union steward. Friend, by the way, that's not super close best friend.

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We're close work associate, but it's got a little sting to it. We know each other, but we're not best buddies.

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We have something in common, this work, but we're not going to go have dinner together. Friend, I am doing you no wrong, not cheating you.

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Did you not agree with me for a denarius? I by my own good, free, distinguishing, sovereign, pleasure, am generous.

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So now you're going to get mad at me because I was generous to other people? That's not fair.

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Fair, in case I forget, I'll say this. In salvation, you don't want fair.

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Fair is justice, holy judgment. God gives us what we've earned.

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The wages of sin is what? Death. Eternal death. I was thinking about this the other day.

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I had an MRI in my brain, and they put this kind of thing up on your face so you can't really move, and you go down in the tube.

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I didn't really think I was that claustrophobic. They give you the little button, the panic button, it does nothing, you just push it for your own good.

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It's like, what's that supposed to do? It's like exercises on the airplane, please wiggle your toes on the 19 -hour flight, it does nothing.

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And so I'm laying in there, the thing's like this, I'm in the tube, I'm a bigger guy. I talked to the people, and they said, one out of five, bail.

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You can get some Quaaludes if you want, or some kind of tranquilizer or anything. I don't have any of those handy, and so I'm just in there,

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I'm thinking, you know, I'm slowly becoming a Christian scientist. There's mind over matter, there's no such thing as an

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MRI, I'm not in the silence of the lamb's mask. I mean, I'm just laying there going, okay.

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Okay, and I absolutely hated it, I hated it, hot, sound, and I thought, you know what?

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I can't get out. I can get out. I could have scooched down in there and got out, and I thought, no, but I wanted to see what's going on.

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I could have got out, and then I thought, just for a brief moment, nobody knows the horrors of the damned, and how bad hell is, but they are going to scream their heads off just for one second of,

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I want out, if I could just get out for one second. And to think, God, that's not fair.

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We don't want fair, because fair is myself included, everyone in here, in hell, now being tortured for their attitudes towards Jesus Christ, the only

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God. We don't want fair. We want what? Generosity of God, that's what we want.

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God, you're generous, God, you're gracious. Jonah knew that, hey, how can you go over there,

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God, I knew you were going to save those people, because you're kind, you're loving, you have steadfast love, you're gracious.

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And for all of us, including these people in the parable, including the listeners of Jesus, we live, eat, and breathe in a works righteousness world, don't we?

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We are born Pelagian, we are born thinking, God is, I know, holy, and He's lofty, and He's up there, but if I'm just kind of good enough, it'll be okay, and you know, bell curve, kind of, you know,

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I'll just be a little bit better than the next guy, let me try to find somebody who's worse than I am, turn on the TV, that helps, and I'm not so bad.

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But God doesn't grade on some human curve, He grades on the curve of Christ Jesus, which is perfection,

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He doesn't grade on a curve. And so when we live in this works righteousness world, it's easy for us to identify with these other people, somehow they got robbed, they didn't get what they're supposed to get.

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And so, two shots come across the bow here, as these people separate, in Matthew 20 verse 15, am

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I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Now the master of the field, the

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Lord, He could do whatever He wanted with it, hiring, firing, paying, right?

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This is teaching us something about God too, is this not true of God? Am I not allowed to do what

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I choose with what belongs to me? God's created everyone, can't He do what He wants with this creation?

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Yes. He asked another question, verse 15, or do you begrudge my generosity?

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Literally, why do you have an envious eye, why do you give me the evil eye? Why? No one's treated unfairly, no fraud, no deception, everybody gets the generosity of the landowner.

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So, hearkening back to chapter 19, some follow

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Jesus early, some follow Jesus late, some follow Jesus as a missionary for 80 years, some follow

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Jesus for two days, they're a cannibal for 80 years of their life and they get saved two days before they die, and what happens to all of them when it comes to being recipients of full forgiveness and grace of God?

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Matthew 20, 16 answers the question. That reverses chapter 19, verse 30.

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19, 30 was first or last, last, first, here it's reversed, Matthew 20 with the same meaning.

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So the last will be first, and the first last. When it comes to salvation, everyone, as MacArthur says, finishes in a dead heat.

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If you've come to faith in Christ Jesus, you receive the same blessings of forgiveness, full forgiveness that everybody else has.

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This text is not talking about who gets what rewards, this has nothing to do with rewards, this has to do with salvation, the equity, the equality of God's generous salvation.

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Every believer is part of the church, no matter when they come to faith, true, yes. If you're a social rascal and get saved, or a pastor's kid and get saved, guess what?

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Christ's righteousness for you, full forgiveness for you, slave or free, rich or poor,

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Jew or Gentile, American or Indian, born in the first century, born in the 21st century, all believers get the crown of life, all believers get the crown of righteousness.

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You say, yeah, but it doesn't make sense, I labored for 50 years. That's the wrong question to ask, because what did you deserve?

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Labor for 50 years, you deserved hell, and God gave you forgiveness. Every believer is a child of God and a fellow heir with Christ Jesus.

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Every believer has been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

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By the way, if you've got an old relative, you've got a grandma or a mom or an aunt or a neighbor who's super old, and you think their heart is hardened, how can they ever come to faith?

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If they get saved, they get full, free forgiveness.

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I like that. Of course, there are rewards, but this passage has nothing to do with rewards.

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I don't have too much time left, so let me just ask you a couple questions. Matthew chapter 20, verses 1 to 16 stimulates my mind to ask questions, and so since I'm the pastor,

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I will ask you the questions that haunt me. No, just kidding. Some are a reiteration, some are new.

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One, does God owe people grace? Does God owe people grace?

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We've answered that before, no. God didn't owe angels grace when they fell.

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They fell, He gave them justice. God doesn't owe grace to anyone. Do you owe gifts to people? Sadly, during Christmas time, we think that way.

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You know, somebody just gave me a gift, and I want to say almost to Kim, let's buy about six extra gifts this year.

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We'll just wrap them up, and then if anybody gives us a gift, we didn't have one for them, we've got an extra one, and so they gave us a gift, we give them a gift.

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That's not grace. That's not the right way to look at it. The hymn says, though justice be thy plea, consider this, that in the course of justice, none of us should see salvation.

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God is rich in mercy. He gives what we don't deserve. Sinclair Ferguson, I think, was right when he said, grace is not unmerited favor, it's demerited favor.

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It stems and flows out of the mercy of God. We are vessels of mercy. Let me ask you another question.

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If God has graced you with salvation and full forgiveness, does He love you more when you obey?

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If God has given you the righteousness of Christ, God has given you full forgiveness, confirmed by the resurrection of Jesus.

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Does He love you more when you obey, and does He love you less when you disobey? Because if you say yes, you haven't fully experienced what it means to know what grace is.

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We are placed in Christ, and when God looks at us, do you know He loves you like He loves

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Christ Jesus? God cannot love you more, God cannot love you less, God loves you in His Son.

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And for us, we're thinking, you know what, I didn't have my daily devotion today, God's kind of really angry with me. Should we have devotions?

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Please. But you don't become less of a son or more of a daughter because you do anything.

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You're saved by grace, held by grace, and confirmed by grace. Listen to what Jesus said, can you imagine this?

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John 17, He's praying to the Father, I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that you did send me, and did love them even as you love me.

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If you get distinguishing, sovereign, generous grace, you should say to yourself, yes, it's freely given by God, yes,

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I deserved hell, but I get heaven, and yes, if He does decide to love me, He'll love me forever, and He can't love me more.

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Next question, we went into this the last two weeks, so I won't belabor it. When did

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God determine to give you this sovereign, distinguishing grace? And the answer is found in Ephesians chapter 1, verse 4, before the foundation of the world.

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We love because He first, what? Loved us. The love of God, the mercy of God, the grace of God causes your salvation.

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Did you get that? It's the cause of our salvation. What is the cause of your salvation? And friends, if you run to the day that you prayed the sinner's prayer, went on the altar call, asked

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Jesus into your heart, that did not cause your salvation. I'm not mad at you, I just want to emphatically tell you,

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A, it's wrong, and B, you're robbing God's glory. Who causes salvation? Salvation is from the

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Lord. It's God's generous, sovereign, distinguishing grace. And when God graces you, how do you respond?

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Everybody that has been distinguishingly graced by God responds what way? I used to not like you,

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God, but now I like you. I used to love sin, now I hate sin. I used to hate you, now I love you, and I believe.

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I confess. But which one's first? Especially if we say, if salvation was determined in eternity past,

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I was not there to believe, to repent, to exercise my free will or do anything else back then.

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Salvation was determined in eternity past by the Trinity. God is the prime mover.

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God is the only mover. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was neutral, lost, the text says.

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The actor, the initiator, the active one in bestowing grace is God. Think about it. I receive grace from God.

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If God gives me grace, then what do I do to receive the gift? I can't do anything.

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God is the giver. Man is the recipient. He's passive. My mother used to have on her car years ago,

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I remember driving to school. I didn't live that far away. It was in Nebraska, and she would drive me to school, and on the radio, on the way there, we would listen to Jimmy Swagger, true story.

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And on the way home, we'd listen to Chuck Swindoll. Now, of course, I'm not equating the false teacher with a very good teacher.

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But I remember driving in the car. My mom wasn't even a Christian. And she put on the back of her bumper this sticker,

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I found it. And what it was, it was a special kind of catchy motto, slogan, catchphrase where people were supposed to say, oh, what'd you find?

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Oh, I found it. Let me tell you about who Jesus was. Probably good motives, probably wonderful in that regard, but probably horribly awful in its theology.

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Why? Because we didn't find anything. If you mean God found me and I responded to him with faith, then okay,

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I get it. Not the labors of my hands can fulfill thy laws demands.

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Could my zeal no respite? No, could my tears forever flow? All for sins could not atone.

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Thou must save, and thou alone. How can we, dead in trespasses and sins as an unbeliever, begin to think to ourselves, you know what?

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My unbelief is pretty sinful. My lifestyle is very rotten. I'm really bad.

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I'm corrupt. I'm depraved. God should pour his wrath out on me. Yeah, yeah, I think that's the right way to think.

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Who thinks that way? Nobody does until God has what? Illumined your mind to think that.

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No one can come to me, Jesus said, unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

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God chooses graciously. God chooses distinguishingly.

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God loves freely. That is my hope this morning, by the way, if you're not a

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Christian. I'll wrap it up this way. If you're not a Christian, here's my hope. Not that you will assess things properly today, and by your own good works and your own kind of fortuitous mental deductions,

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I'll figure out what he says is true, what he says is right. Jesus is the only Savior. I'm a sinner. I deserve to go to hell.

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I think that's a good thing to believe in. If my hope for you today was that, then we might as well just say, bar the doors.

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Don't let unbelievers in, because we can't help them. So here's my hope. Wonderfully, strangely, mysteriously,

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God opens the minds of people through the preaching of the word, and the Holy Spirit of God, sent by the

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Father, applies the work of the Son to change people like that, and God said,

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I promise that I will go and bring all my chosen ones home. Spurgeon said,

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I do not come into this pulpit hoping that perhaps somebody will, of his own free will, return to Christ. My hope lies in another quarter.

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I hope that my Master will lay hold of some of them and say, you are mine, and you shall be mine. I claim you for myself.

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My hope arises from the freeness of grace, and not the freedom of the will. And once God graces you, that grace is irrevocable.

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So, I guess it would only be apropos if we change the last song to Amazing Grace. Can you imagine?

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T 'was grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved. How precious did that grace appear the hour

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I first believed. But we're not going to sing it quite yet. We're going to have the Lord's Supper, and then we'll sing.

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Pray with me. Father in heaven, you are a great God. You're a

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God worthy to be praised, to be worshipped. You're a God worthy to have our entire lives devoted to in service.

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Overseas, here, full -time, part -time. Thank you,

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Father, for being so generous with your grace. That you would send your Son, and demonstrate very conspicuously that you love sinners.

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Thank you for that. Thank you for all the redeemed people here at Bethlehem Bible Church. You put a song in our hearts to sing that you're amazing.

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And now, Father, do a special work as we're reminded with elements like bread, and with the cup, that Jesus Christ was in fact a real human

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God -man who lived on this earth to die for our sins, and was raised from the dead, and who's coming back soon.

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In Jesus' name, amen. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroff is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

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Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible -teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life -transforming power of God's Word through verse -by -verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 10 .15 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston.

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You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.