The Sovereignty of God (Part 1)

No Compromise Radio. Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

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

Contentment in Light of God’s Sovereign Call

This morning I think you're going to be really encouraged because no matter what has happened in your past, God is king and God knows what is best for his glory and what is best for your good. We'll all see this weave together.

I have a question though to start and that is, are you a content person? Are you a content person described by those as one having lots of contentment? Are you content with what you have? Are you content with what you don't have?

Are you content with where you are? Your situation in life? Your ethnic background? Social background? Let's get very personal. Are you content? Are you joyfully content even though you have an unsaved spouse?

Are you content even though you have unsaved children? Are you joyfully content even though your job is less than fulfilling? Are you content if your health isn't optimal? Are you content to be single even though you'd like to be married?

Yeah, I would only be happy if I'd have a spouse. I'd only be happy, I could be happy if my husband or wife would get saved. I want you to know that if you live in Nazi Germany, Communist Cuba, if you're free or if you're a slave, you can have joy and you can have contentment.

Let's turn our Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 7 and see with our very own eyes a doctrine about God that is a wonderful balm for the ailments of the soul. The sovereignty of God. Maybe my favorite topic short of the cross of Christ.

The sovereignty of God. If I had two messages to preach in my life, the first one would be on substitutionary atonement, the second one would be on the sovereignty of God and it would be in that order.

My favorite things to talk about and it happens to be our passage today as we simply go verse by verse by verse through 1 Corinthians. And we're up to 1 Corinthians chapter 7 verses 17 through 24. And we'll learn this morning about a God who personally cares for His people and who is sovereign over all.

He makes no mistakes. He is all wise. The universe is going on track. No circumstance, listen to me, no circumstance can inhibit you as a Christian from having joy and contentment. Your joy and your contentment or your lack of joy and your lack of contentment has nothing to do with to whom you're married, if you're married at all, if your kids are saved, how much money you have, what your health is like.

It does not matter. Do you know you can get a new job, a new wife, new kids and you still have the old you. You can say, you know what, if I'm single I can get a wife, I can have some kids, I can have a husband, but we still have to live with the old us.

And so we're going to learn this morning that it has nothing to do with circumstances, it has nothing to do with marital status, about our joy and contentment. We can be content where God has called us.

And I like that. I like that. As I was studying this passage the last two weeks, since Phil was here I got two weeks to study and you know what that means for you. It's like three sermons in two weeks.

First of all I've prepared for two weeks, second of all I haven't preached for two weeks and so then it's just pretty much excitement. I was studying and I thought, you know, I normally wouldn't like this passage that much.

And I could probably prove it by asking you the question. In 1 Corinthians 7 verses 17 through 40, how many underline, if you've got an older Bible, did you underline one of those verses? Did you underline one word?

Maybe you underlined verse 23 or bought with a price. But these verses from 17 to 40 aren't typically the underlineable verses. How many people here have anything underlined between 17 and 40? Some have.

How many people here underline every verse in the Bible? When my kids were little and we were teaching them, you know, you underline some things, you know, that are really convicting or something, kind of, this is how you're a little mini Karl Barth neo-Orthodox person, you underline the things that mean something to you, they become scripture.

No, just kidding. But you underline things. And I remember Haley and then Luke, then they were getting, you know, catching on, and yellow and pencil and all that. And they were just underlining every single thing and I thought, that's good theology.

Everything is underlineable. But my point is verses 17 through 40 don't really hit us in a way that I think they should. The richness of the word, the amazing discoveries when you dig into verses 17 through 24 for today, I think you're going to say, oh, I love these verses.

And there's a gold mine of God's goodness and wisdom and knowledge in every single verse. You don't want to miss one verse, do you? I saved my love letters from Kim and I have them in a secret file, a secret attache.

Sometimes I pull them out and re-read them. I don't really read only the underlined things. I don't think I really underline things on those, but I just wanted to re-read the whole thing. And this passage, 17 to 24, you're going to see three spiritual vitamins, let's call them, designed to help boost your spiritual stamina in a very, very tough world, regardless of your status.

I could say it this way, three kind of protein boosters to help you stay content and joyful no matter what your lot is in life. We're only going to get to the first one today, so. That first spiritual vitamin is grip God's sovereign call.

If you'd like to be content, if you'd like to increase your contentment, if you'd like to be joyful, even though your circumstances are bad and sin-tainted, you need to grip God's sovereign call. Now let's take a look at verses 17 through 24, and I'm going to read these verses and I want you to see if you can hear and then see with your own eyes what is the word that's repeated.

If you'd like to study the Bible, one of the best things you could do is to say, are there repeated words? Are there repeated phrases? Is there an idea that's repeated, even though the vocabulary isn't exactly alike, but it's a repeated idea and you're going to see this word just come out very, very clear.

There's one word that unlocks this whole sentence, a paragraph, and if you don't get it, you don't understand the passage. So let me read 17 to 24 as we're learning how to accept our lot in life with joy under the sovereign hand of God.

Verse 17, only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised?

Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision. For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God.

Each one should remain in the condition into which he was called. Were you a slave when called? Do not be concerned about it, but if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity. For he who was called in the Lord as a slave is a freedman of the Lord.

Likewise, he who was free when called is a slave of Christ. You were bought with a price. Do not become slaves of men. So brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God.

The Effectual Call and the General Call

Any idea what the key word is? The call of God. When God calls you, where He calls you, when He calls you, what should be our response? If you want to know what this passage is about, it's about the call of God.

And Paul has a very strategic digression here. He wants to help people who are married, who have been divorced, who are single, but then he has this digression to bring out another point about the call of God.

People at Corinth wanting to change their marital status. People at Corinth wanting to have a spouse that was saved. One writer said the unity of the church at Corinth was seriously fractured. Not only were there numerous parties and factions, but some groups were encouraging those with the gift of celibacy to get married, while others were encouraging those who were married to become celibate.

Slaves were chafing under their bondage and were trying to find spiritual justification for demanding freedom. But the issue here is you can be content and happy and joyful right where you are. The sovereign call of God.

Turn a few words to chapter 1 of 1 Corinthians as I remind you how many times this word call is used and how popular it is for Paul. I think it's probably, if you ask me in the middle of the night up at the camp out or where we're going for the beach party, you knock on my room in the middle of the night and you said, Mike, what's the key word of all of 1 Corinthians?

Summarizing 1 Corinthians with one word, it's going to be what? Call, or called, or calling. Has everything to do with that. These carnal people at Corinth, of course they needed to be told, stop this, do that.

But it all stems from who they are in Christ as they were called by God's sovereign call. I just want to just quickly review 1 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 1, Paul called by the will of God. 1 Corinthians 1, 2, to the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be saints together with all those in every place who call upon the name of the Lord.

Same chapter, verse 9, God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son. Verse 24, but to those who are called, 1 Corinthians 1, 24, both Jews and Greeks. And then lastly, before we define what the call is, verse 26, to show you that call is found everywhere, 1 Corinthians 1, 26, for consider your calling, brothers, not many of you who were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many of noble birth, et cetera.

All right, let's summarize it. If you understand the divine call, it will help you with contentment and with joy. Say to yourself, I'm struggling with contentment, I'm struggling with joy, I'm acting like a practical atheist.

How many people here are atheists? Well, I don't know if anybody's got enough courage to raise their hand. Karen Ulo just fanned her face, but I don't think she means I'm an atheist. This and this are different.

Practical atheism says, I'm going to act like there's no sovereign God and I just complain, I murmur, I'm not content with my lot in life. That's practical atheism and you are going to be helped this morning if you can get your mind wrapped around what is the call.

What is the call? And lots of times we think, oh, the call is, my God called the ministry. No, what's your call? If you're a Christian, you've been called and Paul says, I want you to remember your call so it helps you with your lot in life.

It helps you want to be everything you can be by the grace of God, not saying, I wish I was so-and-so, I wish I was so-and-so, I wish I was married to so-and-so, if I had to marry so-and-so. What is the call?

It's called the effectual call. Let me tell you what the call, how the call is described by the Westminster Confession, a good definition. Don't write it down, just listen. All those whom God has predestined unto life and those only He is pleased, listen now, in His appointed and accepted time, effectually to call.

He is pleased in His appointed and accepted time, effectually to call by His word and spirit out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ, enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone and giving unto them a heart of flesh, renewing their wills and by His almighty power determining them to that which is good and effectually drawing them to Christ Jesus, yet so as they come freely being made willing by His grace.

This is what we have, the word call is, if you think theologically, the effectual call, irresistible grace, invincible grace. Now there's two kinds of calling in Scripture. The first calling is everybody repent and believe that Jesus Christ is God.

That's called the general call. If you meet somebody down in Worcester and you say you must believe that the Lord Jesus Christ was a sin bearer, was raised from the dead, you must believe you're a sinner and Jesus was, He's the only way of salvation, begin to preach the gospel to them, that is the general call.

But the problem is men are depraved, men are unable to respond to that. Adam before he fell, he could hear the words of God and respond. But after Adam fell, the general call wasn't enough because sin and depravity and inability and corruption makes the human unable to answer the call.

Everybody believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Well they're dead in trespasses and sins, they're not able to hear, they're spiritually dead, spiritually blind, they can't hear, they're spiritually deaf, they're unwilling to be saved.

So, if you say you must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but they're not willing, they're not able, they don't want to, something has to be done to them to make their willer want to, to make them willing to believe.

Something has to be done to their nature, to their person. How can you take a dog, sometimes I'll try to do tricks for the dog, and tricks to the dog rather, sometimes I'll make her do tricks. And I try to give her food that I know she's not built to eat.

And so if it's meat, it's very easy because the dog's right over there. I grilled some burgers outside yesterday and I took a little bit about that raw, as we say in New England, hamburger, but that raw hamburger, and I gave it to her and she was following me around.

She was following me around. I wanted to take some of that hamburger and just push it up on the top of the roof of her mouth and just kind of like peanut butter, just have it stick there, just to kind of make her not eat it as fast.

This is going nowhere. Let's go back to the passage. I can tell when the congregation's like, okay. But sometimes I'll try to give her food that I know she doesn't want to eat, but I'll pretend like it's a treat.

And then I'll give it to her. I gave her a nut the other day, a piece of walnut that was in my oatmeal. And to the age now where every morning I have the same breakfast, it's oatmeal. Put some walnuts in there and some blueberries.

And so she was over there, I'm like, this is really good, you know, good for you. Here's a special treat. You say the special word treat and she puts that walnut in her mouth and she's like, and then just spits it out.

I'm like, I'm trying to trick her. It's not in her nature to like fruits and nuts. She's not from California. So how do you have a person who must repent and believe, God doesn't repent and believe for you.

How does that person who must repent and believe, but has no nature for God, who hates God, who's an enemy of God, who can't do anything, Ephesians chapter 2 and many other passages, they can't change their own spots, they can't change their own stripes, they can't do anything.

A dog can't say to himself, I'm going to force myself to have a different nature. So something has to be done to that person. That person can't do it to himself, the world's certainly not going to do it, Satan's not going to do it.

So it has to be God who effectually calls the people, who effectually by the Spirit's work, works in the life of the person. It's God alone doing that work. And you think about the triune God, we sing holy, holy, holy, God in three persons, blessed Trinity, the Father, the architect of salvation, the Son, the one who accomplished salvation at the cross, and then the one who applies what the Father's Son has done, is the Holy Spirit as He effectually uses prayer and the preached gospel to change people so now they become willing.

One man described the call as that efficacious operation of the Spirit by which men are brought into the kingdom of God. B .B. Warfield said, sinful man stands in need not of inducements or assistance to save himself, but precisely of saving.

And Jesus Christ has not come to advise, or urge, or woo, or to help him save himself, but to save him. That's the effectual call. Shorthand in your text today, the call of God. If you are saved, it's because God has called you through the preaching, and then through the effectual call, and then God made you a Christian, 1 Peter chapter 1.

He made you alive, Ephesians chapter 2. He made you alive, Colossians chapter 2. The canons of Dort said in 1618, it's priceless, it's timeless. But when God accomplishes His good pleasure in the elect, or works in them true conversion, He not only causes the gospel to be preached to them, and powerfully illumines their minds by His Holy Spirit, that they might rightly understand and discern the things of the Spirit, but by the efficacy of the same regenerating Spirit, He pervades the most inner recesses of that man.

Everybody be saved, external call, people can say, nah, forget it. The Spirit of God working on the inside of people and changing them into a new person cannot be resisted. That's why we call it irresistible grace, or invincible grace.

God’s Sovereign Timing in Salvation and Life Circumstances

Now, think about that for just a second. If God alone saves you, did He not know exactly when to save you? You say, what do you mean by that? I'm getting lost. If you could contribute to your salvation, friends, let me just look some of you in the eyes right now.

You should have saved yourself a lot earlier. You would have had a lot fewer regrets. You wouldn't have married that person. You wouldn't have married that other person. You wouldn't have committed all those sins left that though forgiven, haunt you forever.

You would have saved yourself a lot earlier. And Paul is trying to say this. Some people say, you know what, I'm circumcised, I don't want to be. I'm a slave, I don't want to be. I'm free, I'm glad I am.

I'm married, I'm celibate, I'm this, I'm that. And Paul says, when God saved you as a slave, did He know what He was doing? When God saved you when you had already married an unbeliever, as an unbeliever, you're both unbelievers.

And what do unbelievers do? They act like unbelievers and they both marry unbelievers. And then God saved you. If you get it that He affectionately called you then, then you can, as Elizabeth Elliot says, bloom where you're planted versus try to undo all this.

We believe in the sovereignty of God that He saves you exactly when He wants to save you, not a minute before. And that's what Paul is trying to say. These people are trying to get out of their situation.

If only my circumstances were different and I would have got saved earlier, or saved later, I'd be better. And Paul says, God saved you at the exact right time. So, think about your marriage, or how about this?

Think about it if you're not married. God knows exactly what He's doing. When He calls people, He calls them. We don't believe like the Pelagians do. I hear preaching and I'll call myself. Me in my own bootstraps, I'll pick myself, pick myself up out of the mire and I'll make myself a Christian.

We don't believe that. And by the way, if we do believe that, if you believe that, you should have saved yourselves a lot earlier. We also don't believe what Pelagian's half-brother taught, semi-Pelagian.

Semi-Pelagianism means this, that I cooperate with God. It's God and I, holding hands. He kind of makes a first movement, I kind of help him a little bit. We together, you know, if I finally get to heaven, as my brother says, I high-five God and say, God, we did it.

We did it together. Jesus is this gentleman, He would never do anything to you that you wouldn't allow. That's a semi-Pelagian. And if that's the case, and you are where you are right now, especially if you have an unbelieving spouse, or you have unbelieving kids, or you're at a job you don't like, you should have cooperated with God a lot sooner.

Who wants to live like that? If you think you're responsible for your own conversion, that is, your own regeneration, you think you have to regenerate yourself, that just makes you defeated. But if you think, I get Christ Jesus, I get forgiveness, I get Christ righteousness, Christ gets my sin imputed to His account, I get the Spirit who seals me to the day of redemption, and God saved me not a minute before and not a minute after He had designed to do in eternity past.

I'm to live in light of who I am now with the spouse I'm with, if I have a spouse, to the glory of God. And Paul says, why would you freak out about your marital status when God called you perfectly at His right time?

Pillar Commentary said, in Paul's view, my station in life is under the sovereign and gracious direction of God. He assigned it to me and called me to it. Paul tells the Corinthians, no matter what circumstances they find themselves in, whether married or not, circumcised or not, free or not, to conduct their lives to live according to thus walk.

There's no need to change to improve yourself in relation to God. God does not reckon one condition better than another in terms of serving Him. In fact, God has placed the Corinthians in these circumstances.

Jesus. So do you have an unbelieving spouse? God placed you in that circumstance. Do you have a believing spouse? God placed you in that circumstance. So if you spend all your time on trying to extract yourself out of your circumstances, you're going to lose joy.

God is just as sovereign over you as He was over the Corinthians. I don't like to do it all the time, just most of the time. If somebody says to me, oh, you're so lucky, I just lie in wait for that question, that statement, that comment.

If my life was orchestrated by chance, accident, luck, fate, serendipity, karma, coincidence, or kismet, then I should be a person with no contentment and with no joy. Because what's going to happen in the future?

A lot more of random accidents. I don't think it holds very true, but you know, it's the people who believe in the sovereignty of God. And another guy who doesn't believe in the sovereignty of God, and the guy that believes in the sovereignty of God, falls down the steps.

And he looks over to this friend, and the friend says, you know what, I'm sorry you had that accident. But he looks back at the friend and he said, I'm glad I got that over with. You know, it's like, okay, that can be pushed too far, I'm not trying to say that.

But either God is sovereign over every molecule and every atom and every proton and every neutron, or He's not, and He's sovereignly placed you where you are.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. 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.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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