What is a Reformed Evangelical?

Opening Prayer and the Church’s Historic Transition

We come to you in Jesus' name, and we thank you and we praise you that you have given us this time and opportunity to study from your Word. I pray first and foremost that you would keep me from error as I seek to give exposition of the Word.

And Father, also, that you would open the hearts of your people to the truth, and if there are those among us who have never heard the Gospel, that it will be clearly enunciated to them today, and that your Spirit would use this time to build up your people and to convict and convert the lost.

We thank you for your glorious Gospel. We thank you for the truths that we get to proclaim because you have called us to be your children. And we praise you and give you all glory and honor in Jesus' name and for His sake.

Amen. Today is an historic day for Sovereign Grace Family Church. This church has been in existence for over half a century. We began as Forest Christian Church in a different building and in a different time in history.

Throughout the years, the denomination which we were formerly associated with became increasingly further from the Word of God. And so, at the end of last century, 1999, we decided we could no longer stand with them.

Then, in 2008, we experienced a time of revival. We began to see the need to fortify our doctrinal positions and to take strong stands on the truth. This did not please everyone. In fact, it displeased some.

But those among us who were fighting for the truth were most concerned not about pleasing people, but about pleasing God. In 2010, as a result of this revival, we even changed our name to demonstrate the fact that we had, in many ways, become a new church.

We are Sovereign Grace because we are committed to the historic principles of the Protestant Reformation, and specifically Reformed Theology, which is centered on God's Sovereign Grace. And we are a family church because we are also committed to the role of the family in the life of the church.

The role of fathers as disciples of their wives and children. The role of mothers as nurturers of the home. And we are committed to building strong and godly families. Well, today we have an opportunity to take another step in our continued Reformation.

Our elders, after a long time of study and prayer, have decided to seek the congregation's affirmation that we join the fellowship of independent Reformed evangelicals. As I said, this is an historic occasion.

One that a decade ago would have been considered unreasonable even to suggest. Yet God, in His sovereign providence, has brought us to a very important place and time. One of the great quotes that came out of the Reformation was the phrase Semper Reformanda.

Most of you are familiar with the term Semper Fi, always faithful, the Marine quote. Well, Semper Reformanda means always reforming. We are always to be reforming the church in accordance with Scripture.

The church has the responsibility to always be seeking to ensure that it never deviates from God's Word. And it is always willing to make reforms where they are necessary. So today is a good day. Today is an exciting day.

It is a day of continued Reformation. So in keeping with what we are doing, I want to address a question which I imagine many of you already know the answer to. But as we know from Scripture, it is good to be reminded of certain truths.

It is good to be reminded of principles. So we are going to ask the question, what is a reformed evangelical? We are joining the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals. Well, what is a reformed evangelical?

Evangelical Means Believing and Promoting the Gospel

Well, let's begin first by answering the question, what is an evangelical? The term evangelical, the root word is evangel. And the evangel is the gospel. So an evangelical is a person who believes and promotes the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The title evangelical should apply to all Christians. Because to be a Christian is to be a believer of the gospel. If a person doesn't believe the gospel, then they are not a Christian. A few years ago, a term, back in the 70's I think it was, the term born again Christian was popularized.

You realize born again Christian is superfluous. It is saying the same thing twice. If you are born again, you are a Christian. And if you are a Christian, you are born again. Well, the same thing is true for evangelical Christian.

The term evangelical identifies you as a Christian. And if you are a Christian, you are an evangelical. Because it means you believe and promote the gospel of Jesus Christ. So why not just call ourselves evangelicals?

Sounds simple enough. The problem is, like with many phrases, certain things become hijacked and misused. The term evangelical has been used to apply to just about any type of Christianity there is. Including easy-believe-ism, open-theism, even cultish groups are now identifying themselves as evangelical.

So it is important that we add a qualifier. What type of evangelical? So we add the qualifier reformed. That's the type. That is the class. That is the group that we identify with. So what is a reformed evangelical?

Reformed Theology Beyond the Solas and TULIP

Well, when most people discuss reformed theology, two sets of doctrines tend to come to mind. You are either going to be talking about the Latin solas, or you are going to be talking about that favorite flower of many reformed people, the tulip.

You are either going to talk about the solas or the tulip if you are talking about reformed theology. However, over the past ten years, I have invested a lot of time teaching on both of those subjects.

So I felt like it would be a little bit of a rehearsal of things I have already said many times to simply go over the tulip or to go over the five solas. So this morning I wanted to step away from both of those lists.

I wanted to deal with a distillation of what it means to be a reformed evangelical. Because people who teach reformed theology differ on certain things that we would consider secondary issues. Things like eschatology is somewhat debated among reformed theologians as to what is and what isn't the right view.

And even the ministration of the sacraments, whether or not a person should be baptized as a baby or whether or not they should be baptized. And I am not saying that is necessarily secondary here. As primary here, we believe in baptism of believers only.

But I am saying that in whole, we believe a person like R .C. Sproul who might differ with us on baptism can still be a Christian and a good, solid teacher of the word, yet we would differ with him on that subject.

But as I was considering this week and praying and considering what it is that really, really, really joins the reformed community together outside of solas and tulips, what is it that joins the reformed community together?

And I came to four things. No, this does not make me a four-pointer. For those of you who know why, that's funny. I am a committed five-pointer when it comes to the tulip. But on this issue, I want to distill it down to four ideas, four things that solidify what it means to be reformed.

I put, and this is the first time I've done this in a long time, I actually put the notes in your worship folder with blanks. So I did that because I really wanted to keep your attention today because this is such an important subject.

The Complete Sufficiency of Scripture

The first one, the first principle that we would say is a bedrock of reformed theology is the complete sufficiency of Scripture. The complete sufficiency of Scripture. If you'll turn in your Bible to 2 Timothy, yes, you know where I'm going.

Chapter 3 and verse 16. As I said, many of you have heard these things many times, but we need to be reminded of truth. 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 16. It says, all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

Now, in the old King James Bible, you would see that it would say that all Scripture is inspired by God. In the newer translations, it says it is breathed out by God. I do think this is one of those times where the newer translations are closer to what the original intent of the author was.

Because the Greek word here is actually one that I believe Paul created. Because this is not a word that we find in other sources. It's actually a word which is a combination of two words, theanoustos.

The word theos is the Greek word for God. And pneumos is the word for breath or to breathe out or to breathe. That's where we also get the word spirit, where we get the word Holy Spirit. The pneumatology is the study of the Holy Spirit.

So when he says theanoustos, he's creating an idea. He's saying that the Scripture is from God. It is God breathed. The words of Scripture are the words of God. The Holy Spirit superintended the writing of Scripture so as to ensure that we would have the truth and that it would contain no error.

2 Peter 1 and 21 says,. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. It's an important passage because it sort of tells us how the prophecies came about.

It tells us how Scripture came about. The Holy Spirit was carrying the men. He was undergirding them as they wrote the Scripture down and ensuring that they were giving to us the very words of God. During the time prior to the Protestant Reformation, the ownership of the Bible outside of the church was illegal.

In fact, sometimes they would even chain the Bible to the pulpits so that it could not be removed from the church. During the Inquisition, a person could be killed, burned at the stake for even reading privately a copy of the Psalms.

The Bible was only to be allowed in the Latin language. It was not legally owned in any other tongue. That was the Bible of the time. For a thousand years, Jerome's Vulgate had been in the church. And for a thousand years, this was the Bible.

And if you translated it into another language, it was heresy, condemnable by death. William Tyndale, many of you know that name, Tyndale Publishing. William Tyndale was burned at the stake for having translated the Bible into English.

His last words, Lord, open the King of England's eyes. And with that prayer, not 100 years later, the King James version of the Bible was commissioned. Beautiful testimony to the prayer of William Tyndale.

The reformers believed that the word of God was necessary for people to be able to read so that they would be able to understand God for themselves. They believed in something called the perspicuity of Scripture.

Sorry, that's hard to say. It means clarity. Ironically enough, Martin Luther said this. He said, a simple layman armed with Scripture is greater than the mightiest pope without it. So true were his words.

You see, they not only believed that the Bible was the word of God, they also believed that it was sufficient. They believed that it could do what it said it could. It could teach. It could reprove. It could train in righteousness.

It had the power to do those things. They knew that the word of God was more powerful than the words of men. It was capable to cut a man in half and expose him for who he really was. As Hebrews 4 .12 says, the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

I've said over the years, and I continue to believe, that Reformed Theology, the idea of Reformed Theology, is really just a synonym for biblical theology. Reformed Theology holds a high view of Scripture.

We do not just say we believe the Bible is true. We believe it and act upon it. We teach the Bible expositionally, which means that we allow the Scripture to speak for itself, and we seek the proper, consistent interpretation of it, because we believe it is sufficient to teach and to correct and to train.

And somebody might ask, well, Pastor, don't all churches believe that? That seems like such a foundational thing. Don't all churches believe that the Bible is sufficient? The answer, sadly, is no. There is a very low view of Scripture throughout the church today, even among those who say that they hold to the inerrancy and infallibility of it.

This is how it is often demonstrated. A man will get up, he will read a verse of Scripture, and then he will depart therefrom through a series of personal tales and stories about how to live a better life or make more money or get a better parking spot or how to have your best life now or yesterday or tomorrow or whenever it is supposed to come.

It's always about you. It's always about your life. It's always about health and happiness. Rarely is it based on Scripture, and even when Scripture is involved, it's used in sort of a hanging attachment.

It's not the root. I remember one time years ago, I was in a church, and I used to do music. I don't do it much anymore, but I used to lead music, and I was asked to come lead the music at a church. And I knew that it was a holiness church.

It was not a reformed church, so I kind of knew what I was getting into when I went, but I went. And I led the music, and then I sat down on the chancel, and the gentleman got up to preach. And I was interested as to what would happen, because I wasn't sure.

He walked up to the pulpit, he opened his Bible, and then he walked away, and he never went back. He said, I was going to read the Bible to you this morning, but God spoke to me and told me that somebody out here needs a word from the Lord.

And people started coming up and crying, and he started laying his hands on them, and they would fall over, and I was thoroughly embarrassed, because I think such is nonsense. But the point is, he left the only thing that gives us authority and power in the church, the Word of God.

He left the only thing sufficient to lead anyone in that room to Christ, the Word of God. And he abandoned it for some other method. Beloved, may it never be that we abandon the Word of God for some other method.

In a Reformed church, the Word of God is central. And preaching takes a place of preeminence. And not preaching as me telling stories. Preaching of God's Word. Because when we hear from God's Word, we are hearing from God.

We know that the Bible has the ability to change lives, to convert souls, and to open hearts. And we've seen it down through the ages. The Word of God changes people. We do not trust in pizza parties, in light shows, in emotional music, and in a coffee bar.

We trust that the Word of God is sufficient to save the soul. And we believe in the complete sufficiency of Scripture. So what is it first to be a Reformed evangelical? It is a person who believes in the complete sufficiency of Scripture.

The Utter Inability of Man

Moving on to number two. You probably already wrote sinfulness. If you did, take it out, because that's not what it is. The utter inability of man. That is what is number two. I was going to put sinfulness.

In fact, that was my first draft. As you know, I write my manuscripts early in the week. And I rewrite throughout the week as the Lord opens my mind to new ideas and things as I'm reading the text. And so I wrote originally the utter sinfulness of man.

But then I got to thinking about it. You know what? A lot of people are willing to say that they're sinners. A lot of people are willing to say, hey, I'm not perfect. I'm a sinner. But you know what? Not many people are willing to say what the Bible says about them.

And that is that apart from grace, we are absolutely incapable of doing anything good towards God. That there is a natural moral inability of man. But that's what the Bible teaches. Turn with me. I want you to look at this one.

Romans chapter eight. And I hope that you are writing. If you are writing notes, I hope you're writing down these Bible verses so that you can spend some time with them this week in your meditations. Because these are important texts.

Romans chapter eight and verse seven. The apostle is comparing people who are in the flesh and people who are in the spirit. And in essence, he's comparing believers and nonbelievers. The believer is a person who is in the spirit.

The nonbeliever is a person who is in the flesh. And it says in verse seven, for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God. Just stop right there. I love it when people tell me, well, I don't know about Jesus, but I love God.

No, you don't. You don't. The people who say, well, I love God. No, you love God's blessings. You don't love God's being. You don't love who he really is. And you don't seek after God because he goes on to say, for it does not submit to God's law.

Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Notice that it doesn't say may not, but it says cannot. It speaks of ability. It says we cannot please God if we are in the flesh. Prior to our conversion to Christ, we are unable to do anything good toward God.

Ephesians chapter two and verse one we're all very familiar with. And you were what in your trespasses and sins? Dead. That is what we are prior to God giving us new life. We see two things in this passage in Romans eight.

We see that those who are in the flesh cannot submit to God. Neither can they please God and beloved. The unsaved person has a natural inability to do anything good towards God. And that includes hear me on this because it is so important.

The person who is in the flesh has the inability to do anything good towards God. And that includes the exercising of saving faith. Let me ask you this. Is saving faith pleasing to God? Yes. The answer would be yes.

Can the person who is in the flesh do anything to please God? Not according to Romans eight and verse eight. So can the person who is in the flesh exercise saving faith on their own? No. It is impossible for the unsaved person to exercise saving faith.

This is because he has a moral inability to do so. He lacks a desire in and of himself. In fact, the Bible says there is no God seeker. Romans chapter three and verse ten. As it is written, none is righteous.

No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. That is why I love when I hear these people talk about I go to a seeker sensitive church. Well, who in the world are you talking about? Well, there is all these people out there seeking God.

No, there are not. Well, what about all those people that go to those big negative churches that talk about health and wealth? They are seeking health and wealth. They are not seeking God. I mean, it is very clear.

People ask me, well, what about these people who seem very sincere about seeking God? The answer is this. I say everyone seeks the blessings of God. No one seeks obedience to God. And that is what Paul is saying when he says no one seeks for God.

No one seeks obedience naturally. We are rebels naturally. So the question is if no one can exercise faith and no one seeks for God, then how can people get saved? That is an important question. If no one seeks for God, no one can exercise faith.

How does anyone get saved? The answer is that God seeks us. We have a natural inability to come to Christ. So God comes to us and enables us to come to Christ. John 6 and verse 65. Very important passage.

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me grants it to him. Or it says it a little different in the ESV. This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by my Father.

Very important passage. Number one, it says you cannot come. Why? Because you have a moral inability to do so. It says the only way you can is if God does something prior to your coming. And that is giving you the ability to come.

In Reformed theology, we believe that the work that God does in our hearts to cause us to come to Christ is a work called regeneration. God takes a dead soul. He gives a dead soul new life. And as a result, we believe.

People think, and hear this again. Again, I am teaching you some things this morning. This is an important one. People think that they believe to get born again. That is backward. You are born again so that you might believe.

We are dead. Dead people cannot exercise faith. God gives us life, and as a result, we believe. Think about Lazarus in the tomb. Did Lazarus believe he could come alive and then came alive? Did Lazarus get up and walk out before Jesus gave him life?

No. What preceded Lazarus' coming to Jesus? The granting of life. This is an analogy in Scripture. Jesus says, Lazarus, come forth. And thus he came. So too, when we are dead in our trespasses and sins, the Holy Spirit of God quickens us, awakens us from our spiritual death.

Not spiritual lethargy. Not spiritual sickness. Not spiritual wandering. Spiritual death. And he awakens us from our spiritual death. He gives us spiritual life, and as a result, we believe. Because the very natural thing for a spiritually alive person is that he would believe in Christ.

The Absolute Sovereignty of God

So we believe first in the complete sufficiency of Scripture. We believe second in the utter and ability of man. And thirdly, we believe in the absolute sovereignty of God. I imagine some of you probably already knew that one.

We believe in the absolute sovereignty of God. Now this is a subject which we have devoted many hours of study to here at SGFC. Yet in all of our studies, we have not even cracked the surface of this important doctrine.

The sovereignty of God references His almighty authority of all things which have ever come to pass. The sovereignty of God is the Godhood of God. If God is not sovereign, He is not God. Man has a tendency to rebel against God's sovereignty because he wants to maintain his own human autonomy.

In fact, Reformed theology has been accused of robbing people, robbing men of their free will. Well, allow me to say a word about free will. Since we're all here and have nowhere else to go, I'm going to spend a moment on this.

This is very important. We hear all the time about the declaration of the importance of human free will. Let me say something about human free will. The Bible does not say that we have an autonomous free will.

In fact, we have already seen that the Bible says that prior to God opening our hearts, we have a moral incapability. We have a moral inability. So if we are completely free, then we don't have a moral inability.

And if we have a moral inability, then we're not completely free. Jesus said, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. In fact, he says prior to conversion, you're a slave to sin.

After conversion, you're a slave to righteousness. You're never, ever, ever called morally free. Ever. However, at the same time, the Bible does teach that we are not robots and Reformed theology does not teach that we're puppets, as some have accused.

We believe that men have moral agency. That's not just a fancy word. It actually has meaning. It means that we believe that men and women, of course, but men in general, men, mankind has the capacity to make choices.

We just believe that all of those choices will be in accord with our nature. And so as long as our nature is enslaved to sin, what will our choices be bound by sin? As long as our nature is dead in sin, what will our choices be reflective of?

Our death. Likewise, while we do say that man is free to make choices, we also believe God is more free than we are. So many people make a big deal about the free will of man, but they never talk about the free will of God.

Do you know that God is the only creature in the whole universe that has an absolutely free will? God is the only being. He's not a creature. I call God a creature. Let me back up and let me reiterate.

God is not a creature. God is the only being. I want to correct myself if I don't. The elders will. God is not a creature. We are creatures because that indicates being created. God is the only being in all of the universe that has an absolutely free will.

And I love what R .C. says about this. R .C. Sproul. He says you are free and God is more free than you are. And so when your freedom runs into God's freedom, God wins. So that's what we believe about free will.

Yes, you have the ability to make choices, but God also makes choices and God's will always trumps yours. God is sovereign over every area of life. And the part that about reformed theology that tends to disrupt most people is that we believe that God is sovereign over every area of life, including salvation.

But beloved, that is the natural extension of man's inability. We do not want to come to Christ. By nature, we rebel against Christ because we're enslaved to our sin. But God elects people from every tribe, tongue and nation to come to his son to ensure that his son will have a bride.

People say, I don't like the word elect. I don't like the word elect because that means God chooses. The word elect means choice. That means that God chooses. Well, I'm going to run through a few verses.

You may just want to write these down and we'll put them on the screen. I just want to show you that though you might not like the word elect, the Bible writers, the authors of Scripture, ultimately the Holy Spirit of God, who is the ultimate author of Scripture, had no problem with that word.

Matthew 24 and 31. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call and will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other. Luke 18 and verse seven. And will not God give justice to his elect who cry to him day and night?

Will he delay long over them? Romans 8 and verse 33. Who shall bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Romans 1 and 17. What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it.

But the rest were hardened. And then 2 Timothy 2 and verse 10. Therefore, I endure everything for the sake of the elect. That they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

The Bible uses the word elect many times to describe those who are saved. And again, the word elect means chosen by God. If you are saved this morning, it is not because you are better than someone else.

It is not because you are smarter or more spiritually sensitive. If you are saved, it is because the sovereign God of the universe saw fit to give you life where you were dead and had no desire for him.

John 6 and 37. All the Father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out. When God gives a person to Jesus, that person comes. As we've already seen in John 6, 65, no one can come unless God gives him.

And if God does give him, he will come. So the natural conclusion of that is that if we have come, it is because God has given us to the Son. God has given us something that we would not do on our own.

The Bible says that we love because he first loved us. 1 John 4 and verse 19. If you are a believer, you have nothing to boast about. You cannot say you were smarter, more spiritually pliable, or more willing to receive the truth.

You were dead in your trespasses and sins. You did not want to come to Christ because you were a rebel. But God saved you by His grace. And this is why we say that salvation is sola gratia. By grace alone.

Grace from beginning to ending. It is all of grace and none of you. You contribute not an iota to your own salvation. The great failure of modern religion is the idea that we in some way, form, or fashion contribute something to our own salvation.

Such a thing is heresy. God gave you as a gift to His Son. So that His Son would have a bride chosen for Him. And finally, number four. What is a reformed evangelical? The complete sufficiency of scripture.

The utter inability of man. The sovereignty of God. And finally, the perfect atonement of Christ. The perfect atonement of Christ. This is an area that causes some people to scoff at reformed theology.

Particularly because of the L in the tulip. Which is the phrase limited atonement. And they say, well that limits what Christ could do. It's often a misunderstanding. Because here is what we believe, and it's very simple.

We do not believe that Jesus died potentially for the sins of all the world. We believe that Jesus died actually for the sins of His people. We don't believe that Christ's atonement was a potential thing.

We believe that Christ's atonement actually did something. On behalf of believers. The atonement of Christ is sufficient for anyone. And no reformed theologian has ever denied that. The atonement of Christ is sufficient for anyone.

But it was made for believers. It was made for the elect. And in that sense, it is a perfect atonement. Because it actually accomplishes what it set out to do. Christ's death atoned perfectly for every person it was ever intended to atone for.

That is why we use the phrase substitutionary atonement. We believe that Christ, when He was on the cross, actually was substituting for His people. That He was there for them, taking their sins on Himself perfectly.

I want to show you a couple verses on this. Hebrews chapter 10. I'll ask you to turn there. Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 12 talks about Jesus as our high priest. Priests make sacrifices. Priests make sacrifices on behalf of people.

And that's what priests do. Priests intercede with God for people. They're mediators. In the Old Testament, they would sacrifice animals. But Jesus gave Himself as the perfect sacrifice. But still was acting in the role of priest.

This is why He said, no man takes my life from me, but I give it up in my own accord. I give it up myself. I am the priest. I am doing the act of sacrificing here. And this passage tells us. It says in verse 12.

But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins. By the way, stop right there. That kills any idea of the mass and the Roman Catholic communion. That just slaps it right in the face.

Because the idea of the mass in Roman Catholicism. Is a continual act of sacrifice that happens every time they come around the table. The bread and cup become the body and blood of Christ. And thus it is an unbloody sacrifice.

This verse by itself destroys the idea of a mass. Because it tells us. This had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins. And it needs not be represented. But it goes on. He sat down at the right hand of God.

Waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. And then in verse 14. A very beautiful passage. Good one to memorize. For by a single offering. He has perfected for all time.

Those who are being sanctified. Beloved, who are being sanctified? Believers. Who are being sanctified? The elect of God. Who are being sanctified? Those who have called upon Christ in faith. They are the ones who were perfected by that one sacrifice.

I want to end in. All right. Not quite ready to end. I want to take you to John 10. I'm close to the end. We get too excited. Go to John chapter 10. I want to show you one of my favorite sections of scripture.

From the words of Jesus. In regard to people make a big deal about limited atonement as if it's a bad thing. I tell you this. I think it's one of the most beautiful doctrines in the world. And I would love to talk to anyone about it.

And sure, there are people. Well, what about this passage? And what about that passage? I think that by by itself, if you simply take the words limited in atonement and you just take that and you don't seek to understand what it means, it's easy to sort of rail against it.