WWUTT 302 The Election that Really Matters?

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When we were powerless to save ourselves, it is God who was mighty to save, and it is by God's power we are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, when we understand the text.
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This is when we understand the text studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.
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Find all our videos online at www .wutt .com, as well as links to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. It is election day in the
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United States of America, and all the eyes of the world are on this nation as its citizens go to the polls to elect the next president of the
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United States. Also, senators, representatives, some other local offices will be on the ballot as well, but president of the
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U .S., that's the big one. That's what we've been talking about for the last 600 plus days. And finally, this wacky, crazy election comes to an end today.
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We're talking about election on the podcast as well, but an election of greater importance.
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Those who are elect in Christ Jesus our Lord. There are those who have asked me, how can
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I know if I am elect? And the answer to that question is, believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.
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That is how you know that you are elect. Jesus said in Luke 9 23, if anyone would be my disciple, if anyone would come after me, he must take up his cross daily and follow me.
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Doing that, you will know that you are elect. Peter addresses the elect at the start of his letter.
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We began this study yesterday, a study of the book of first Peter. We start in chapter one, verse one.
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Once again, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the father in the sanctification of the spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.
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May grace and peace be multiplied to you. Blessed be the
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God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading kept in heaven for you who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
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In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
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Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
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What a beautiful paragraph. We come back here to the beginning of the letter as Peter addresses the elect exiles.
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And as we talked about yesterday, this is specifically talking about those Christians who have been spread out throughout the
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Roman Empire, sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. These churches that have gone up in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the
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Father. So this is a continuation of Peter's statement to the elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the
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Father. We are elect because God knew us from the foundation of the world.
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He placed his affection on us before anything was made.
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Furthermore, we are elect in the sanctification of the spirit. So we've not only been chosen for salvation, we've been chosen for sanctification.
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As we read in Romans 8, 29, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
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And those whom he predestined, he also called. Those whom he called, he also justified.
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And those whom he justified, he also glorified. If we have been justified, we are being sanctified.
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And so having been predestined for justification, we are also predestined for sanctification in the spirit.
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And also, we are elect for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.
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We have been chosen to obey Christ. John says, 1 John 5, 3, for this is the love of God that we keep his commandments.
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And his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world.
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And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. And remember that it says in Hebrews 12 that Jesus is the author of our faith and the perfecter of our faith.
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He gave it to us, and he is growing us and perfecting us in that faith as well.
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Now we were not born this way. We were born again this way.
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We were born into sin. As David prays in Psalm 51, in iniquity was
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I born. I was born into sin. We read in Romans 3, 23 that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
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Ephesians 2, beginning in verse 1, says you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.
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Following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature children of wrath.
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It was in our nature to sin, to not seek after God, but to follow in unrighteousness like the rest of mankind.
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But Ephesians 2 goes on, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our sins and our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
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By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
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God did this, not us, but God did this to the praise of his glorious grace so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
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For by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing.
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It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
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For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which
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God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. So this is that sanctification that God has even prepared us for and the obedience to Christ Jesus for sprinkling with his blood.
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And here we read as we go on in 1 Peter 1, verse 3, blessed be the
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God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to his great mercy. Once again, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
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So previously we were dead in our sins and our trespasses. We are born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
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It is Christ who has the power over the grave. You who were dead in your sins and your trespasses, did you have the ability and the power to give yourself life?
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No, of course you did not. It was Christ that gave you life and it was the hearing of the gospel and the working of the spirit in your heart that caused you to hear the gospel, repent of your sins and obey and follow
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Christ. The apostle Paul said to Titus, he saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the
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Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ, our savior, so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
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And as we looked at yesterday in Ezekiel 36, beginning in verse 25, God says,
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I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses and from all your idols,
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I will cleanse you and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit. I will put within you,
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I will put my spirit in you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
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That's what it is that we read in the scriptures, the faithfulness of God to those whom he chose before the foundation of the world, that we would be given this living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
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We have been raised from death to life in Christ Jesus to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading.
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Just as Paul said to Titus, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
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So it is by the power of God that we have been saved, brought from death to life.
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And it is by the power of God that we are being kept in that faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
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There are often several ways that that word salvation is used throughout the New Testament. Salvation is used to describe a moment in which we have passed from death into life, repented of our sins and are now standing in the righteousness of God.
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We have been saved. But the word salvation is also used to describe that day when we pass from this life into the next to be with God.
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Then our salvation has become complete. We are being guarded through faith, the faith that has been given to us by Christ, that we are being perfected in a faith that came that came not from ourselves, but from God.
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Remember, by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing.
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It is the gift of God. Even faith itself is a gift that has been given to us by God.
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And we are being guarded by this faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
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Verse six, in this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.
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So we go through these trials that are perfecting us for this, this glory, this wonderful treasure that awaits us, this imperishable, undefiled, perfect treasure that is awaiting us in heaven.
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And what is that treasure? But that we become fellow heirs of the kingdom of God.
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Not only are we born again, but we are adopted as sons through that adoption that is given to us in Jesus Christ.
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And we become fellow heirs with him in his kingdom from treasonous criminals in the sins that we once walked, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were under the wrath of God.
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We've gone from treasonous criminals to fellow heirs of the kingdom of God.
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So we go through these trials for the perfection of our faith so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
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This faith that we have is more precious than anything else that can be given to us in this world.
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There is nothing on earth that can be granted to you that could ever be of greater satisfaction than the faith that you have in Christ Jesus.
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Again, a faith that does not come from ourselves. It was given to us as a gift by God.
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There is nothing in this world that can satisfy when our focus, our mind, our heart, our attention is on Jesus Christ, our
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Lord. This is truly what Jesus meant when he was asked, what is the greatest commandment? And he replied, to love the
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Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. We repeat that like a textbook answer.
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What is the greatest commandment? To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. But do you understand the weight, the gravity, the awesomeness of what is being said there?
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That we love God with everything that we are, with all of us, to the core of our being.
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We love God with our bodies. We submit ourselves as living sacrifices to God, Romans 12, 1.
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With our very souls, we commit our emotions. We commit our longings, our passions, our desires, our ambitions, our hopes, our dreams.
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All of these things committed to the Lord Christ. There is nothing on this earth that can satisfy like Christ can satisfy.
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And when we know that, we are guarded, we are protected from false teaching, from the lies of the enemy.
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We will be protected from any sort of temptation that would attempt us to woo us away from God and into the things and the trappings of this world.
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We will be kept away from false philosophies and empty deceits. Things that cannot satisfy or give us an answer greater than the answers that we find in Christ Jesus.
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And this is what Paul meant when he said to the Colossians that in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
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Every secret we could ever unlock. Every wonderful treasure that could ever be given to us.
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We find it in Jesus Christ, our Lord. I've heard Dr. James White talk about how much he loves fractal art.
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Are you familiar with what fractal art is? Go to Google sometime and type in fractal art and you'll find these glorious pictures largely made by computer because fractal art is based on mathematical equations.
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This is art that essentially could go on forever since we don't know where numbers end, then we don't know where art that is made by numbers could possibly end.
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So it is art that would, and you'll notice this by the designs when you look up fractal art, it's art that goes on and on and on and on.
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And Dr. White has said one of the reasons why he loves fractal art is when it comes to that day that we joined the
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Lord in glory. We may literally be spending an eternity unlocking all the different secret intricacies and beautiful measures that God went to to save us to himself from our sins to his glory.
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And we will spend all eternity discovering all the little nuances of the perfections and things that God did for our salvation.
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It will be so glorious and so beautiful and so difficult to fathom.
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It will take us all eternity to get to the end of just how glorious our
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God is. And so that's one of the reasons Dr. White says that he loves fractal art because it's kind of that taste, that glimpse, just the things that I can enjoy about the beauty of this art.
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Give me but a fraction, no pun intended there, but a fraction of the kind of glorious exploration of God that we will be doing for all eternity.
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And here we are talking about a wonderful, precious treasure that awaits us in Christ that is imperishable, that is undefiled and unfading.
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Contrast that with the things of this world, perishable, defiled, fading.
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None of these things will last. None of the joy and the delight that you get from the material possessions you own, even that doesn't last.
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After a time, you get bored with it. You want the next model. You want the next thing that comes along. Our own bodies are perishable and can be defiled.
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We are tempted by all sorts of evils. It is a struggle, even through our
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Christian faith, to keep ourselves from the temptations of this world because we exist in these corruptible bodies, which is why we need the help of the
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Spirit of God to keep us from temptation and to walk in the path of righteousness.
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We need the help of other brothers and sisters in Christ to help us in this as well. And that is what the church does for one another.
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All of the things of this world that we think bring us some delight or hope or happiness, all of it will fade away.
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It will all pass. All of it is perishable. All of it is corruptible. I mean, for goodness sake, today is
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Election Day. You talk about the election and these two candidates and everything that has been said about them over the last 600 days or so.
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They are corrupt, two corrupt candidates, Trump and Hillary, that are running for president of the
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United States. And one of those two are going to end up being president either at the end of the day or tomorrow or whenever the votes are finished being tallied.
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This election is perishable. In the scheme of things, it really doesn't matter much.
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I mean, whoever is going to be elected today is going to be what, the 45th president of the United States. Is that correct?
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Can you name all of the previous 44? No. In fact, I could probably even name some presidents for you.
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You would have been going, really? I didn't know that was a president of the United States. So even these things that we think are so monumental and seem so significant to us right now are insignificant when compared with eternity.
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What is important is that we know God. We know what is written in his word.
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We obey the commands of Christ. And if we do these things, if we endure the tested genuineness of our faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, will result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
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Verse eight, though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
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Hold steadfast, Christian, to the faith as we endure these trials, giving glory to God, knowing that God is working all things together for good for those who love
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God and are called according to his purpose. Let us pray. Our God, as we study about the election that truly matters, the election that is in Christ Jesus, knowing that we are elect if we have renounced our old sinful ways and passions of the flesh and are living in a new mind that has been given to us by God in his spirit that dwells within us, being shaped more in the image of Christ, help us to meditate on these things and glory in God over these things that when we were powerless to save, you were mighty to save.
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And to the praise of your glorious grace, we have been predestined for this salvation in Christ Jesus, our
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Lord. This is the election that matters. And so let this gospel message, turning from sin to the righteousness of Christ, be the gospel that is on our lips, that we take to this lost and dying world, perishing in their sins, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind by nature, children of wrath like the rest of mankind, like we were, except that God saved us by the declaration of his gospel.
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And we turn from our sins and we believed God, I pray for our elected leaders, those that are going to be elected today, whether it's mayors or governors or senators or representatives or the presidents of the
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United States. We know that whoever has been granted authority would not have that authority if it was not granted to them by God.
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Even these leaders have been chosen by you. And some of these leaders have been chosen for our judgment because this nation is sinful and falls further and further into depravity.
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The only thing that can save them is not who is elected to this position, because the people who are being elected are who we deserve to have elected to those positions.
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The only thing that can save those who are indulging in these sins is the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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And so let us not withhold that good news, knowing that it has the power to save. I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to all who believe.
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It was the power of our salvation when we heard it and believed. And so let us know this gospel that we must take to the world so that they would repent of their sins and be saved.
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Let us preach this gospel for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness in hope of eternal life, which
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God who never lies promised before the ages began and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which we have been entrusted by the command of God our
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Savior. In the name of Christ, Amen. Gabriel Hughes is the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.