Ministry's Only Hope: Election (part 2)

I have a few idiosyncratic behaviors and a few quirks, some of you know about those already. And if you don't, you'll find out if you hang out with me long enough. Here's one of my quirks. I don't like it when people say, good luck.

I don't like it when people say, that was lucky. And if you say that around me, in a nice, pastoral, quirky, idiosyncratic way, I'll act like I didn't hear you. You'll say, good luck, and I'll say, what?

Oh, good luck, what? And then about the time the person is ready to respond with a little more volume, the third time, they finally realize that I don't believe in luck, that I think luck is pagan, fortune is pagan, karma is pagan, coincidence is pagan, serendipity is pagan.

Did I mention luck is pagan? And that I believe in the sovereign hand of God. Wasn't Lenny and the family lucky that they're still alive? Wasn't Chris lucky in the accident? Weren't we lucky? Of course not.

I mean, it just sounds so horrible. Why does anything happen? The answer is not luck, karma, or anything else. We serve a God who is a designer, who is a planner, and who sovereignly controls every molecule in the universe, and he controls you.

I don't try to say it to be mean. I just try to say it to make a point that we don't need to go around ascribing something to luck when we can ascribe something to God. If it's luck, who do you thank?

Thank? You know, I just was at a doctor's office the other day. You know, your wife goes out of town and everything falls apart for many reasons. First, I get the phone call, Gracie's sick. Go get her to school, then come back.

Then Friday, Haley's got strep throat. So we're in the doctor's office, and three times she's looking around for something to knock on. It was all plexiglass, or it was all some kind of press board. She was just trying to find some wood to knock on so we could hope that this strep is the kind that the amoxicillin kills because there's a new kind of strep out that amoxicillin doesn't kill.

The Sovereign Hand of God and Christian Praise

God is sovereign over everything. God is a designer, and it should be proclaimed and heralded from the pulpit often that God is in control, that God can be trusted. And since He is in control and He can be trusted, it should elicit from our lips and from our hearts praise, worship, adoration.

If you don't know this paradigm at the church, then let me let you enjoy it today. What you believe determines what you do, determines how you will praise. In other words, your theology, what you believe about God and His Word, determines what you do and how you praise.

Theology, methodology, what? Doxology. And when you learn that God is sovereign and high and lifted up, and He does whatsoever He pleases, as He pleases, only as He pleases, with no influence from anyone else.

God is not influenced or turned or deviated by His own plan. Isaiah 46 .10 says, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure. Whatever happens, God is in control. God has foreordained and decreed life.

Everything falls underneath the umbrella of God's total control. And when I pull up behind someone and I read the little God as my co-pilot, it's kind of like me and God. It just is rubbing my idiosyncratic ways wrongly.

There are only two options in this universe. Either God is sovereign absolutely, unconditionally, or God is not. God is either sovereign on the throne, or He is not. God sits doing whatever He commands, or the other option is that the world and everyone in it are in unholy defiance against Him by their actions, thoughts, words, and deeds.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism succinctly states God's total sovereignty. Quote, His eternal purpose, according to the counsel of His will, whereby for His own glory He hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.

Isn't that good? That makes my heart confident and sure, trusting God, that God controls, directs, guides, plans, decrees. You say, well, I don't hear that often enough. I don't know why we don't hear that often enough, because sometimes that's my only rock.

When Luke is born and he's going to ICU and they don't know if he's going to make it or not, that's my only rock. I can trust God no matter what the outcome is. He is sovereign. He does what He wants.

And with that sovereignty comes another element that sometimes we don't really like to talk about in mixed company, and that is God is sovereign over not just the weather, not just creation, not just how we live, how we die, not just sovereign over evil, not just sovereign over good, not just sovereign over trivial things, but He is sovereign over salvation.

God is sovereign over the souls of men and women. It's hard to hear sermons about elections sometimes, that God would pick out or gather or choose some individuals by His sovereign decree to be saved.

And you think, I don't know if I go for that. So much so that Professor James Dane said, sermons on election are so rare that even a regular churchgoer may never hear one. No other doctrine has been so central in theology and so ignored in the pulpit that God is sovereign, that God elects, that God predestines.

And it is my joy today to boldly, without hesitation, to affirm again this truth that will change the way you think about God. And what I love about election is you can't be on the fence. If you're on the fence today, I'm hoping to push you off towards biblical thinking.

But you might not like biblical thinking, and you might push back against that, and you might fall on the other side of the fence. But you can't stay on the fence very long. You can sit on a fence for quite a while, but it becomes quite uncomfortable.

A .W. Tozer said his sovereignty requires that he be absolutely free, which means simply that he must be free to do whatever he wills, to do anywhere, at any time, to carry out his eternal purpose in every detail without interference.

And that includes sovereignty over salvation. And so with a pastoral heart, today we're going to look at several questions that will ask and then answer the question of election. Some of you already know it and affirm it, and so this will cement those truths to your mind again.

We always need remembrances about this doctrine. But for those of you that don't, I want to try to gradually move you to the point where you're going to have to get off that fence. Taken from the book of Ephesians, for the most part.

So if you'll turn there, please. We're making a minor deviation from the book of Matthew. But we're going to look at the book of Ephesians for the most part today, and I'm going to give you several questions that I will ask and then answer that will help you understand the doctrine of election.

My goal is that you will think about this topic from a biblical perspective. No matter what you've been taught, I don't want you to believe me per se, but what does the Bible teach about election? That is what you should believe, yes?

If your thoughts are anything less than biblical, I want to move you over to that position. And so that's just what we do when we teach. Right pretty much from the book of Ephesians, these questions about election, which will help you with your worship, which will help you with your evangelism, and help you understand God, because God requires you to worship Him with your soul, yes, with your spirit, yes, with your being, yes, but also with your mind.

And hopefully this will be that jacked up kind of sermon that we talked about last week. I even learned of another word today from Mr. Reddy about this kind of jolt, this kind of verve, this kind of enthusiastic kind of term, and it was...

Now let me just think if I can get it right. Josh, Josh. Here's some Josh for the white bread congregation of New England for the most part. Here's some spice. Here's some capsicum pepper. Here's some habanero pepper sauce to spice up your praise life.

When was the last time you got down on your knees and you cried out to God with utter gratitude that you were elect? If you don't do that, you should be doing that, and I hope to show you that from Scripture.

Matter of fact, this should be number one with a bullet. This should be at the top of your list. May I go so far to say that today I'll try to show you that before Paul even praises God for the death of Christ Jesus, on his behalf, in his stead, in his place, he praises God that he predestined Paul before all time.

Now, of course, there's nothing wrong with immature praise because we are all starting off in the Christian walk, and when we first get saved, we say to ourselves, Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

And then you get exposed to the truth, and all of a sudden, your praise becomes prism-like because the Scriptures show you the depth and the riches and the counsel of God, and you just think, I can't believe how wonderful the salvation is.

You might ask yourself the question, why is Romans not just one verse? I'm not ashamed of the Gospel of God, for it's the power of salvation to all who believe. And that Gospel being, Jesus died in my place, was raised from the dead, and will come back again, and believe it, period, paragraph, the end.

That would be an easy book of the Bible to memorize. But as you take a look at this doctrine, outside of my own salvation, nothing has, to use the vernacular, rocked my world like the doctrine of election.

Election Is for All Christians, Not Just the Mature

Question number one, do you view election as something for mature Christians only? Do you view election as something for mature Christians only? That is to say, you know, this is a good thing to talk about, but kind of for second-level Christianity, something a little bit later.

You certainly wouldn't want to tell your kids about election. You wouldn't want to tell somebody in a new members class about election, or some kind of fundamentals of faith. Or would you? Well, if you look at the book of Ephesians, I find it interesting that here, Paul writes, in chapter 1, verse 1, identifies himself early, kind of the opposite way which we write letters, but I like this better.

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, interestingly, by the will of God. It was God's will that Paul be an apostle. And he's writing to the saints who are at Ephesus, the original doesn't have Ephesus there, it's just a circular letter, and certainly it went to Ephesus.

And these saints, he writes, grace, verse 2, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, certainly putting Jesus Christ and the Father on the same plane. They are both divine. He just says that.

As Jesus God, it's obvious that He is. And then he begins to burst out in this praise. And he praises God to start. What a great way to start a letter. What a great way to start your prayer life. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

And so Paul says, here's who I am, I'm writing to you with a general introduction, grace, demerited favor, peace, kind of a shalom idea of wholeness that the Hebrews would have, from certainly the Father and Christ.

And then he says, God has blessed you. He's blessed you with everything. When God gives, He doesn't give out of. He gives according to. He just gives it all, pushed down, shaken together in full measure.

He just gives you the maximum. God is not, as we say in Nebraska, chintzy when it comes to giving. Just kind of a little dab will do you, kind of prel giving. He doesn't do that. I'm dating myself. Gee, your hair smells terrific.

But back to the text. Here's this umbrella statement that God blesses. And you notice the text says every spiritual blessing. Shame on these false teachers on TV saying all these physical blessings. They're losing out.

All the spiritual blessings, and they're all found in Christ. That's this whole epistle. Everything's found in the person and work of Christ Jesus, the second person of the Trinity that incarnated in himself with human flesh.

And what's the first thing that he praises God for? Verse 4. Not Jesus died for him, which is obviously a praise found in verse 7. In him we have redemption through his blood, forgiveness of our trespasses.

Not that we have the spirit as an engagement ring, as a seal, although that's wonderful and good, found in verses 13 and 14. When Paul shoots up the praise. By the way, he has not forgotten his salvation 25 years earlier when he was on the Damascus Road.

Paul is not saying, I remember I got saved 25 years ago, and when I was a new Christian, I really praised God with fervency. But now, you know, it's kind of old hat, so off we go. Paul doesn't do that at all.

25 years later, he has not gotten over his first love. That not just he knew God, but God knew him. And he just burst out. It's almost like you have a hose at home. And you turn it up all the way, and you try to cover the top of that, and there's only so long you can cover the top before it just sprays out.

And Paul, by example, shows that he's praising God for election. Do you see the text? Verse 4. He chose us in him. Verse 5. He predestined us. End of verse 5. According to his will. He just starts right off writing to this group that many of the people at Ephesus could not read.

They were illiterate. It's a fairly new church. It's not one of these institutions where everybody is kind of, you know, been walking with the Lord for 25, 30, 40 years. No. Do you see who he writes it to?

Verse 1. Who are faithful in Christ Jesus. In other words, if you're a Christian, you should be praising God for election, for predestination. This is not just for second-level Christianity, for the higher spiritual life, for the victorious life.

This is for every Christian, not just mature ones. And my question is, why don't we know that? And I think the problem stems from it's not proclaimed from the pulpits, and it's not proclaimed from the parents to the kids.

Do your children know about election? Do your children know that God is sovereign over the souls of men, and he chooses predestines according to his will? And if you think it should be trumpeted from the pulpit, when you're trying to teach your children about Christianity, do you just pass over those verses?

This is a doctrine for all. The answer to the question is, is this only for mature believers? The answer is, no, it is for all believers. And you say, well, when I evangelize, I don't lead off with election.

I know that, but for all Christians, this doctrine must be taught. The problem is, some people don't like it, and it doesn't take very long to realize that if God's sovereign over salvation, that means what?

I'm not. But Paul doesn't make any apologies. He doesn't even give a rationale for it. He doesn't even say, this is why I believe it. He just says what? No case for it, no defense, no apology, no polemic.

He just says, I believe God, and I praise him. He didn't even bat an eye, proverbially. I could ask you this question. If God put this in the Scriptures for a church, which would include children, men and women, older, immature, mature, and Paul put this in the book of Ephesians, do you think the Holy Spirit made a mistake in including it in the canon?

We would never say that, would we? But some almost act like, you know, that's kind of the stepchild we have over here, and we're kind of ashamed, or, you know, yeah, yeah, we believe in election, but, you know, we better not talk about it until later.

One man said, here's what happens when you try to suppress election. Scripture is the school of the Holy Spirit, in which, as nothing is omitted that is both necessary and useful to know, so nothing is taught but what is expedient to know.

Therefore, we must guard against depriving believers of anything disclosed about predestination in Scripture. Now listen to this. Lest we seem either wickedly to defraud them of the blessing of their God, or to accuse and scoff at the Holy Spirit for having published what is in any way profitable to suppress.

In other words, it's there for a reason. And if Paul is praising God, what a good illustration for us. And I think it's good for mature believers and immature believers to say, I don't understand it all.

But that doesn't mean I can't believe it because it's obviously in the text, and I'll talk later, maybe even next week, about the difference between full understanding and comprehension, and full trust and belief.

We don't have to understand it all, but we have to believe it. It's in the text, and we have to believe it's for our good. And God's not going to give us some kind of snake or rock to eat spiritually.

He's going to give us the good stuff. How about 1 Peter chapter 1? The church, we don't even have to turn there. The church is suffering. The saints there are dying for their faith in Christ Jesus, being burned alive.

I've been in the court of Nero that they've found in Rome. And here he's eating tongues from flamingos. It kind of takes a lot to get full on flamingo tongues. And then he's burning Christians there, putting pitch on them, and sticking them, and impaling them on a large stick, and lighting them on fire so you can have a little light so you can actually see the tongues when you eat them.

And what does Peter say to this group of Christians who are dying for their faith? The first thing he tells them is what? We'll get to election later when you kind of grow up. Grow up? There's no grow up.

It's promotion in about two days called glorification and death. So you need to know when you're suffering that God has chosen you. Election isn't just for mature Christians. It's for every Christian.

Election Produces Praise, Not Stifles It

Question number two. Do you think election stifles praise? The first question is, do you think it's for mature Christians only? No. Secondly, do you think election stifles praise? I mean, after all, this is kind of heady.

It's oppressive. It's fatalistic. It's dull. It's stifling. It doesn't make me smile. It makes me seethe and shiver. So much so that Herman Melville writes Moby Dick as a reaction to election. So much so that the Fall of the House of Usher novel is a book talking about the fall of the doctrine of election.

Thankfully, we've got men on a side note like Daniel Defoe who writes Robinson Crusoe as a tract for this great doctrine of God's sovereignty over the souls of men and women. But this text is here in Ephesians 1 and many other places it will go to.

And it is written with an indelible ink pen for a reason. And Paul's reason here is, which I touched upon a little bit earlier, is for praise. Praising God for election. Do you see what happens in verse 6?

Do you see what happens at verse 11? Excuse me, verse 12. And do you see what happened in verse 14? As Paul talks about the umbrella of the praise of God in verse 3. He then talks about the Father choosing, the Son dying, and the Spirit sealing.

And he ends each section with a refrain. With a chorus, if you will. He talks about election, verse 4, 5, and then 6. What is the response to election and predestination? To the what? To the praise of the glory of His grace.

When it comes to election, the proper response is not, I don't believe it, how could it be? What about my family that's not elect? What about my evangelism? We'll get to all those questions. But the proper response should forever and always be, God, you're to be praised.

Yes, he says at the end of verse 12. To the praise of the glory of His grace. For Christ dying, redeeming. Yes, he says in the Holy Spirit section, verses 13 and 14. Do you see the text there? To the praise of His glory.

But what is written with an iron stylus is this. Election for Paul elicits praise. And would we say Paul was a godly saint that should be imitated? I think the answer is, obviously. I love what Charles Spurgeon said.

If they could but know that the Lord had chosen them, it would make their hearts dance with joy. That's what it's supposed to do. I sometimes say to myself, I can't believe, God, you chose me. What's the difference between me and my friend Scott?

Scott and I grew up together from age, I think, five months old until we were about 20-something together. What's the only difference? Because I'm better? Because I did something good? Because he did something bad?

There's only one difference between my calling to God, my calling to ministry, and my friend Scott, the drug addict drunkard. And that's what? The grace of God. That God would save me, that God would love me.

And so what's my response? I can't believe it. I've stayed up late at night thinking, I can't believe God would save me. He knows all about me. He knows what I've thought, what I've done. He knows what I'm going to think and do in the future.

And yet he still chose me. He still elected me. He predestined me. And my only response is submission and on my knees thinking, I can't believe that God did that. For Paul to speak well of God, that's what the word blessing is, to give a eulogy about God while he's alive, it starts off with election.

It's just not for the mature. It's for praise. I love this song, don't you? Come thou fount of every blessing. Accept election. Tune my heart to sing thy praise. Streams of mercy never ceasing call for songs of highest praise.

About election too. All praise for God. So much so that John Calvin, he started to talk about election, and he had it in the theology section under God. The theology section of God proper, of the Godhead.

And then later as he revised the institutes for Christian religion, he took it out of theology section and he dumped it into another section. What section did he dump it into? The doctrine of the church.

Ecclesiology. How the church should operate, what they should think. And for a church to properly praise God, they must know that God has chosen them. God has a plan. He works out that plan through Christ, and he does it for the praise of his glory.

And I like it because as I push and push and pull and look at the text, it's like a little teapot almost. And you put the teapot on, and it starts to kind of just a few bubbles come up, then a few more, then pretty soon it's this rolling boil, and then all of a sudden that pop tops off, and out comes a what?

That's right, I didn't know I was going to get sound effects. You ask a question, you never know what you're going to get. 25 years later, Paul was still counting his blessings. The blessings of God. He blessed us.

This is a word used not in classical literature, the word to bless. Zeus doesn't give blessings to anyone. He causes good luck and good fortune. But in the Old Testament, this word to bless over 400 times, how God bestows good gifts to his people.

Wise gifts, good gifts. Blessings. And this sentence, did you know? Ephesians 1 verses 3 to 14 is one sentence. 202 words, all one sentence. You see there's little periods in your text, but you won't find them in the original.

One sentence designed and put together for one purpose, so you would praise God. You shouldn't stifle praise. You should elicit it. And you say, well, you know, I don't agree. Well, then I might just say it this way.

Who's wrong, you or Paul? The Spirit of God or you? I don't want to praise God for election. Well, I'd never thought you would, and neither would I. That's why we need Paul to show us the example, so we would understand it.

You say, I have other questions. Good, so do I. Question number three, hang in there with me. We've turned the one part into two parts, and I already have enough for next week. So we are just going to sit and camp and look and stare at this doctrine so we can be praising God for it.

Number three, not only is this just for all Christians, not only should all Christians praise God, but question number three, do you think that all Christians believe in election? Do you think all Christians believe in election?

The answer is yes. If you're a Christian, you believe in election. If you believe the Bible is written by God, you believe in election. You just might have a different definition, but you believe in it.

How could you not believe in it? Do you see it in verse 4 of Ephesians 1? He chose us. Verse 5, He predestined us. Verse 6, it says grace. Verse 5, it's according to the kind intention of His will. You believe in election, and you either believe in a predestination or you believe in a post-destination by definition.

We can't get it out of the Bible. We can't say like Spurgeon would talk about Solomon when they were trying to figure out whose child this was. And Solomon comes up with a good idea that he'll take the sword and he'll cut the child in half and give a half to each of its mothers, so-called mothers.

We can't chop it up. It's there. And it helps me when I realize that God has the right to do whatever He'd like to do. Does Christ have the right to choose His own bride? For those of you that believe in love marriages, in America we have love marriages.

In India they have love marriages and they have arranged marriages. Does Christ have the freedom to pick His own bride? Well, let's go how about for arranged marriages, if you don't like that analogy.

Does the Father have the right to choose a bride for His Son? Because both are really there. God has the right to do this. Romans 9 .21, does not the potter have right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?

When the potter takes some clay, he makes some really good china and he makes some stuff that's just to be used for unspeakable uses. Can He not do that? The answer is yes. God has a right. Sidney was just singing the song about God as the Creator.

And if you see the text in verse 4 of Ephesians 1, just as He chose us, the word means to call out, to choose, to have the masses here and to pull out some, to take a large group of something and take out a few, not all.

And it's always used in the middle tense. That is to say, God is pulling out for Himself. It's the middle tense in the original that He pulls it out not for another, not because they pulled themselves out, but because He pulled them out for Himself.

It's used in the Old Testament of God's choice of Israel, to pick out, to choose. As God chooses Israel, as God chooses elect angels, as God chooses elect Levitical priests, as God chooses elect prophets, Jeremiah.

We are in no position to judge God for whatever He does. And this doctrine of choosing out of a larger group was not invented by Augustine. It was not invented by Calvin. It was not even invented by the Apostle Paul.

It was invented by God Himself. It is by His nature and by His grace. And Paul doesn't even, as I said earlier, argue it. He just states it. He clearly teaches it. And full understanding is not even what we're after, but full belief in the revealed text of Scripture.

True or false? God can do anything He wants without our permission. See, we believe that. We have to affirm that. Everyone believes in election because it's there. It's in 2 Timothy 1. It's in 1 Peter 1.

How about this one? If you keep your finger on Ephesians 1, why don't you turn to close to the end of your Bible? How would you like to get a letter like this from the Apostle John? Turn to 2 John. Here's the letter.

And how do you write a letter to a lady who really shows love for the truth and really ministers to people by love, and you want to warn her a little bit, encourage her, give her wisdom and counsel? How do you write a letter?

Everybody believes in this doctrine, and here's an example with bookends. The letter of 2 John. How does he start? This is so amazing. The elder, that's John, to the chosen lady and her children whom I love in truth, and not only I, but also all who know the truth.

Maybe your translation says to the elect lady. That's exactly what he says. I'm writing a letter to you, and how does he start? You're the elect lady. I'd love to get a letter like that. And he even says at the end to bookmark it to put kind of a wraparound here.

How does he end it in verse 13? The children of your chosen sister greet you. Everybody believes in it. It just oozes out of them. You write a letter and you say you're chosen. It's a good way to introduce ourselves to other people around here.

We had 16 people in the new members class. Hi, you're chosen of God. Nice to meet you. Well, we're getting carried away. I'm getting carried away. Everyone believes in election. We just have to define it.

And so let's move to the fourth question as we're taking the large view of God's sovereignty, asking some questions, and we're trying to narrow us down in to think properly about this this week and next.

Election is not just for mature. It's for all Christians. Election should elicit praise, not stifle it. Thirdly, all Christians believe in election. It just depends if you believe in post-destination or pre.

And number four, when do you believe election took place? Now we're getting kind of to the nitty gritty. Now we're getting to where the rubber meets the road. When do you believe election took place? Now here's what people typically do.

I don't know where we got the slogan. Oh, I do know where we got it, but God looks down the corridors of time. How many of you have heard that? He's looking down the corridors of time, and he sees what people are going to do, and then therefore based on what they do, he does.

Is that right? That's a bad slogan just like this popular slogan is bad that I used to see in bumper stickers when I was 12 years old listening to my mom's radio station when I was a kid on the way to school.

She used to listen to Chuck Swindoll and Jimmy Swagger. And I didn't care about either of those two because I had one concern, and that concern was on the way home, would we get back in time so I could watch the Tarzan sequel?

Preaching was for Sundays. And here she is listening, and all of a sudden we look at this car, and there's a bumper sticker with these three words, I found it. Where did that slogan come up with? And you're supposed to put it on the back of your car if you're a Christian.

And people would say, well, what did you find? Oh, I found it. Oh, no, really, I found him, and I found Jesus Christ, he's my Lord and Savior, and you want to have your sins forgiven? Accept Jesus in your heart and everything's fine.

Well, that slogan's all man-centered because as Paul would write, it's not that we found God because we were not searching for God. It was not just man one day that thought, you know what, I'm so depraved and corrupt and spiritually unable, I think I better call on a Savior.

It was God in love sending His Son on a rescue mission for us. It is God finding us. He is the seeker. We don't seek. And so, too, this idea of God looking down the corridor of time and choosing us based on foreseen faith is not found in the Bible.

It is found in lore, it is found in Christian myth, it is found in every man-centered theology book, but you can't find it in the Bible, and I'll prove it. Verse 4 of Ephesians 1. Back there, please.

Verse 4. When do you believe election took place? That is to say, when did God make the decision to select or to elect or to choose out of? When did He do that? Ephesians 1 .4 says, just as He chose us in Him, in Christ.

When? Before the foundation of the world. Pre -Genesis 1 .1. How about that? In eternity past, before time, before creation, before the angels, before any person was born, before the cosmos, before anything, God says, I'm going to determine to choose some out for My glory.

I like the story about an old lady and John Newton, the writer of Amazing Grace. She said to John Newton, she said, I am sure that God chose me before I was born, because He would never have chosen me after I was born, based on what I would do.