7/26/2015 Irresistible Grace Pastor Josh Sheldon

As I said earlier, we continue in this series that we're doing on TULIP, on the doctrines of grace.

This morning, irresistible grace, the irresistible, powerful, effectual, working grace of God that accomplishes that for which

He intends it. We began with T, totally depraved, totally depraved sinners who are you, unconditionally elected by God, elected by God before the foundation of the world, to be in Christ.

With no condition in us that would compel God to choose us,

He chooses unconditionally based upon the free movement of His own sovereign will.

So, choosing totally depraved sinners to be elected to be in Christ, and therefore having their sins atoned for, and having that distinct people's sin, that elected people's sin atoned for definitely and certainly in Christ.

As we discussed last week, the limitation of the atonement, that that atonement was meant for and is powerful and effective for the people intended by it.

And this morning, irresistible grace, as we call it. The grace of God that brings these blessings to us.

The grace of God that is the nature of God, that makes them even think to make such a blessing possible, to even save sinners in the first place, is by grace.

I wish to start us with a familiar passage to most of us,

Ephesians chapter 2 verses 1 -10, as we consider this idea of this grace of God that is powerful, that is effective, that is irresistible, that accomplishes the sovereign design behind it.

Ephesians chapter 2, beginning at verse 1, And you He made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved, and raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come

He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

And may God bless the reading of His word and the message to be preached. This passage from Ephesians revels in this grace of God that we're talking of this morning.

It's for us like those turnouts on the road down into Yosemite Valley, where you pull over and you're almost overwhelmed by the magnificent scene stretching out before you.

And so these words from the Apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter 2, I think encapsulate for us this grand scene of the grace of God, this unmerited grace of God poured out upon undeserving sinners.

By grace you've been saved, through faith, not of ourselves, but the gift of God, not of works, all of grace, by grace and grace alone.

Our statement of faith for this church is the London Baptist Confession of 1689.

We're going through this in Sunday school. Paragraph 1 of chapter 10 says this,

It goes on. To understand the things of God.

He takes away their heart of stone and gives them a heart of flesh. He renews their wills by His almighty power, causes them to desire and pursue that which is good.

He effectually draws them to Jesus Christ, yet in such a way that they come absolutely freely, being made willing by His grace.

Come freely, made willing by God's grace. Underlying these words is our topic this morning, the fourth of the doctrines of grace, irresistible grace.

Where election is the Father's grace, because it is God the Father who elected the people. Redemption is the

Son's grace, because it is God the Son who went to the cross to redeem that people elected by the Father. Well now, irresistible grace.

Is that part of our salvation exhibited by God the Holy Spirit? God the Holy Spirit who applies this redemption of Jesus Christ to us.

God the Holy Spirit who by grace changes our heart. Changes, replaces our heart.

Takes out the heart that was in there, gives us a new heart that can believe. That is made by God in order to believe.

All because of grace. Our salvation, of course.

The salvation of sinners. When one sinner repents, all heaven stops and before the face of God rejoices.

Salvation of sinners being the intent of this whole. The London Baptist Confession actually calls it effectual calling.

In the doctrines of grace in Tulip, it's called irresistible grace. In the Confession, effectual calling.

J. Mitchell Jr. gives us a classic Calvinistic reformed definition of what we're speaking of this morning.

Effectual calling refers to the inward work of God that effectually summons particular individuals to receive the blessings of his redemption.

Effectual calling, really no different than irresistible grace. Effectual calling is the inward work of God that effectively summons individuals to receive the blessings of Christ's redemption.

Irresistible grace is the means God employs to apply to us the salvation won for us by his son, the

Savior, by Jesus Christ. This speaks of the entire transformation of a sinner into a child of God from one who hates him to one who loves him.

From one who avoids him to one who can't get enough of him. God accomplishes this by his spirit, by recreating despoiled sinners, giving faith to believe and granting repentance.

So the flow of our logic so far is this.

God the Father selected a people in total and by name to be his special, his peculiar treasure.

God the Son, Jesus Christ, redeemed this people, this people and no other, this people and completely this people, by taking upon himself the wrath of his

Father at the sins of those people and only those people. And then

God the Holy Spirit by the working of God's mighty power, that power which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead, he then applies the redemption to those redeemed by the

Son in accordance with the election of the Father. And this he does irresistibly, unfailingly, missing not a one redeemed and adding not a single one unintended.

What does irresistible grace mean? The very word strikes at the pride of man because you cannot resist

God. However strong you think you are, you are not going to resist

God. His grace is irresistible. What does this mean? Irresistible grace?

I can tell you in two words what it means. Christ wins. Christ wins.

That's what irresistible grace means. He wins. He overcomes our enmity towards God.

He defeats our sin nature. He smashes our defenses by which we kept

God at bay and our consciences easy. He does this by and because of his grace.

He does this by his Spirit who turns us towards the very grace and truth of God, the person, the man,

Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God. It's beyond human ability to tell you just how

God's grace operates. The hymn we just sang, I know not why God's wondrous grace to me he hath made known.

How does he work? By grace. Yes, he works by grace, but the mechanics of it are not for us to know or to understand.

The hymn goes on. I know not how the Spirit moves convincing men of sin, but praise

God, he does move. And does convince us of our sin, does show us our depraved state and the horrible eternity stretching out before us without Jesus Christ as our advocate.

I know not how the Spirit moves convincing men of sin, but we can, with God's help, with his word, describe it.

We can speak of the results of it according to God's word. We speak of the grace of God that does convince us of our sin.

The grace of God that gives us faith. The grace of God taking out hearts of stone and replacing them with hearts of flesh.

The grace of God that applies Jesus Christ to us.

Let's speak of this grace of God, this irresistible grace of God. The first thing I want to say about God's grace is that it is prevenient.

It's a prevenient grace. Now, that's a word that needs some explanation, because it's a word that is so misused today.

Prevenient, especially in the context of God's grace. Now, R .C.

Sproul says this about the prevalent, this common view of prevenient grace and how it's understood.

This is how R .C. Sproul phrases the wrong way to understand prevenient grace.

It is normally defined as a work that God does for everybody. He gives all people enough grace to respond to Jesus.

That is, it is enough grace to make it possible for people to choose Christ.

Those who cooperate with assent to this grace are elect. Those who refuse to cooperate with this grace are lost.

That's what, I would argue, a majority of the evangelical church believes.

And he's right that this is the way people understand God's grace, working in the salvation of sinners.

That it's a grace that's just available. If only you will reach out and take it.

If only you will, as R .C. Sproul said, cooperate with it. When I say

God's grace is prevenient, that's not what I mean. That's not the way I'm using the word. Remember, Calvin himself taught us that one man's misuse of something does not prevent another man's proper use of something.

So by prevenient grace, I don't mean a grace available to everyone. If only they'll accept it and work with God, should they be so kind and condescending as to allow

God to save them. That's not at all what I mean. I mean that God's grace comes first.

It comes before any human involvement or movement in anything related to saving faith.

God's grace comes first. And this must necessarily be the case because we're born, how?

In trespasses and sins. We are, as our first in the series established, depraved, affected to at least some degree in all our parts by sin.

And as such, there's no partially depraved faith that needs only improving. There is no faith at all.

It is foreign to the natural man who neither is able or willing to comprehend the things of God.

See, the difference here is whether this grace of God is internal or external to us.

For the one view of prevenient grace is external to us. It is merely made available to broken, dead, and depraved sinners who somehow come out of their spiritual stupor and accept it.

All of which, in my estimation, is illogical, unbiblical, and if the condition of the natural man before God is rightly estimated, well, it's ridiculous.

If we're born dead in trespasses and sins, if we're conceived in iniquity, if we're born in sin, as David says in the psalm, how are we going to reach from this dead state, spiritual corpses, and through a coffin and up through the earth as it were, and reach out and say, well,

I want some of this? We cannot do it. Depraved, dead sinners cannot help themselves to anything, much less

God's grace. We speak of God's irresistible, powerful, effective, accomplishing grace.

We speak of a grace of God that He gives to depraved sinners, those whom He's elected without prior condition or merit to be redeemed by the atoning work of His Son Jesus on the cross.

I speak of a grace not offered, not simply made accessible, but literally applied to the heart of the undeserving rebel.

You see, it's not just out there for you, but it's applied to you by God's Holy Spirit.

One scripture we might look to is 1 John 4 10 19.

Verse 10, in this is love, not that we loved God. Let me stop. Not that we loved

God prior to God's grace working in us, because what does

Paul say? While we were yet enemies, Christ saved us.

Not lovers of God, haters of God. Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent

His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. And then verse 19, we love

Him because He first loved us. Not that we loved God. No, not loved

Him, but hated Him, ignored Him. It is God who must take the initiative. And if this is true, then

God's love towards us is distinctly and profoundly neither deserved nor merited.

Once love has been made known, we can join the apostle with the other verse and claim to love God, whose love and grace precedes anything we do or anything we did.

And in fact, more than just non -lovers of God, while still sinners,

Christ died for us, says Romans 5 .8. That's a demonstration of God's own love toward us in that while we were still sinners,

Christ died for us, very much like I was speaking of before in verse 10 of that same chapter.

For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

Now, not just non -lovers, not just those who didn't love God, ignorers, enemies, haters.

Grace is the weapon God employs against our natural animus towards Him. Grace is how our malice is overcome.

Grace is what puts our weakness on display for when we were still without strength, in due time, Christ died for the ungodly.

Without strength, weak, helpless to save ourselves, helpless to know God, helpless to repent.

Without this prevenient grace of God, we are and would forever remain lost sinners, wallowing in a cesspool of iniquity like pigs in mud and happy for it.

By grace, you've been saved. By grace, totally foreign to you, totally antithetical to you, a grace with which you have nothing to do except by the mighty working of God's Spirit.

What I was speaking of before in Ephesians 2 .1,

the description I just gave is spiritual death. Spiritual death that only rebirth by the

Spirit of God will help. That's what John 3 .3 says. Unless one is born again, said Jesus to Nicodemus, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Cannot see. Cannot know it's there. Cannot care about it. Certainly cannot enter it.

How is it that God's prevenient grace is thought of as ubiquitously available to everyone?

I mean, it makes me think of sourdough starters. My sister -in -law has a great sourdough that she uses for pancakes, you know, for bread, for waffles.

It's wonderful stuff. And she made her own starter and asked her how to do it. It's really easy. You put out a jar of milk and you cover it with cheesecloth so the bugs don't get in and you just leave it out for a while.

And sour -producing yeast microbes are everywhere and they're attracted to the milk.

They get into it. It metabolizes them somehow and there you have it. You have sourdough. That's what it seems that so many are saying about God's grace.

It's just floating around out there looking for a likely jar of milk to land in.

It's just there. If you will but take it. No. We are unaware of God and his love, dead in trespasses and sins without strength, enemies against God the

Most High. If you find in there any chance that we could generate our own faith, then grace is unnecessary and we can end right now.

If you read your Scripture and you find any chance that you, without God's working, sans the

Spirit's work in your life, in that condition, you can reach out and avail yourself of God's grace in Jesus Christ.

Basically elect yourself to the redemption of the cross. If you can do that on your own, if you can show me in Scripture, we're done here today.

We might as well change the name of our church from Providence Bible Church to Providence Social Club.

That's not the case. Prevenient grace. God's grace.

Prevenient grace is absolutely the only starting point. I don't even want to say essential because that seems to rank it.

Solely, exclusively, that and nothing else. Without it, all is lost.

God's grace is prevenient. Not out there for everyone to grab onto if they so wish.

Prevenient because it has to come before all other manner of things in our salvation.

And God's grace is efficacious. It's efficacious. It accomplishes that for which it was intended.

Now why is it that? Why is God's grace efficacious? It is that because it emanates from God.

God's purposes cannot fail. His will cannot be thwarted. As the Lord says through Isaiah, when he sends his word, it accomplishes that for which it was sent.

Now this works for us towards our doctrine of God himself. If God says something, it must come to pass or else he's not

God. Is that important? If God says something and it does not come to pass, if it does not happen just as he said it would, it must, if that is the case, he's less than God.

If he wills it to be and it's not, the answer is the same. Yet the pagan Nebuchadnezzar was given a moment of lucidity from his madness and what did he say?

He said God does not, excuse me, God does according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.

No one can restrain his hand or say to him, what have you done? Isaiah 46 .10

says, he declares the end from the beginning and from ancient times things that are not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure.

And just one more, Psalm 115 verse 3. But our God is in heaven. He does whatever he pleases.

You see, it is God's nature to bring to fruition whatever he desires. That his grace is called efficacious means just that.

His grace has a purpose that will certainly come to pass. This power of God exerted on sinners is seen in sinners turning from light to darkness.

This transforming power of God bring, boy, let me say that again, wow, from darkness to light.

Thank you. Peter says, you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Jesus is the grace that is efficacious to redeem us and bring us into God's light. John 1 .14

says that Jesus was full of grace and truth. It is he who enacts the efficacious grace of God.

It is by him and through him and because of him that the grace of God becomes something. Not just theoretical, but real.

Not just nice sounding words, but the manifestation of all of God's self -revelation. Not some vague abstract, but the truth of God experienced in life.

Jesus said, all that the Father has given me will come to me. This has as much to do with election as it does with grace.

Those who come are the ones elected and those elected will certainly, by the working of his efficacious grace, come to Christ.

Efficacious grace is our experience in this life. Anyone who has repented of their sins and by faith pleaded to be forgiven by God on the merit of his son's sacrifice can only do so by the efficacious grace that transforms us and brings us inexorably and certainly and definitely to Christ.

This is not just for the here and now in this life, though it is for the here and now. It is for this life. But if God effectively and efficaciously calls us now, it is only a down payment on our future.

Jesus went on to say, after all that the Father has given me will come to me.

What? I will raise it up on the last day. As certain as it is that this grace will bring about God's purposes in giving sinners to his son, it is equally powerful to keep us in the faith as we await the consummation of our faith.

Peter says we are kept by the power of God. He's speaking now, in this life.

All who have Jesus Christ are maintained in this life on this world while we remain in these tents by the power of God.

Paul says God's power is worked towards us who believe, meaning now, today, while we live here. The grace that converted us didn't just go away like those heroes in those old westerns riding off to the next town that needs their help.

God is here and with us and in us by his Holy Spirit leading us to good works, to the mortification of sin, to being like Jesus.

It's prevenient. It's efficacious. God's grace is sufficient.

It is sufficient. It is full. It is complete to save us now and to bring us to our eternal destiny.

Hebrews 7 .25 says that Jesus is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for them.

You see, Jesus saved and saves by the cross. The cross was determined in eternity past and was consummated in history.

It was the culmination of all God had spoken of by his prophets and is the enduring symbol of what?

Of his grace. His grace. The gracious cross of Christ where he suffered for our sins was sufficient.

Jesus' last words before he died recorded by John in his gospel were, it is finished.

All that is necessary for sins to be forgiven was done at Calvary. It was, it is sufficient to save.

It's heresy to the point of blasphemy to think that we need to add anything to it or that his death on the cross was a repeatable event.

It was sufficient and complete to save. And this powerful, sufficient grace didn't end at Golgotha but it continues as long as we are here.

2 Corinthians 12 .9 is where Paul receives from Christ his answer to the thrice offered prayer for healing of some infirmity that Paul had.

Three times I prayed to him to take this thorn out of my flesh. But how did

Jesus answer? My grace is sufficient for you for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

Christ's grace sufficient to save us and sufficient for us now as we go through the trials and the tribulations and just the troubles of this life.

An all -sufficient grace. You see, whatever our

Lord has for us in this life is all within the Father's sovereign will.

And he provides the grace to see us through. One of the more encouraging and well -known scriptures to this effect is 1

Corinthians 10 .13. No temptation is overtaking you except such as is common to man.

But God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. But with the temptation will also make the way of escape that you may be able to bear it.

This is by the same sufficient grace and power of God Jesus spoke of to Paul. My grace is sufficient for you.

By grace you've been saved and grace isn't suddenly taken away and you're left on your own. But by grace

God sustains us. And Paul gives us the application. The here and now, the rubber meeting, the road application of all this.

Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

If infirmities shows the perfection of Christ's strength, give me more.

And with the infirmity give me more of your all -sufficient grace, Father. By God's grace, sufficient to save.

By God's grace, sufficient to carry us through. Without God's grace our infirmities, our cancers, our multiple sclerosis, our

Sjogren's syndrome, our ankylosing spondylitis as one member had, cancer, diabetes, all these things are just hard and unpleasant facts of life.

But God's grace is what changes all that. His grace assures us that we are His. It speaks to our souls.

It gives purpose and it gives meaning to all the travails we face, which is what? To show that God's grace is sufficient to be perfectors of Christ's strength in us.

Think of 1 John 1, 7 and 9. 1

John 1, 7. But if we walk in the light as He, meaning Christ, is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

A sufficient grace continuing with us. By grace you've been saved and forgiven of your sins and by that same grace

God still forgives and just as completely and just as sufficiently. God's grace is irresistible.

It's a grace that cannot be rejected. Now many people, even

Christians, are offended by this doctrine. We often hear it said that God is too gentlemanly to force

Himself on us. You ever heard something like that? God's a gentleman. He's not going to force you to believe in Him.

I think we say praise God then that He is no gentleman. Praise Him that He was no gentleman when

He forced Himself on Saul the Pharisee who became Paul the Apostle. And I would ask, was it a gentlemanly offer when

Jesus told the tax collector, Matthew, follow me? No, it would take more than a gentleman's request to get him out of his wealth -producing booth.

It would take just what Jesus engaged. Irresistible grace. That's what got

Matthew out of his booth. That's what knocked the arrest warrants out of Saul's hands. Not the unmatched strength of an aggressor, but the irresistible grace of a

God who is love. God is too gentlemanly to force

Himself as though a gentleman would stand by and see His children forever ruined.

As though a gentleman seeing His children in danger, not any children, but His children, were all

His children by creation. So what I mean is His children by the covenant of grace and redemption between Him and His Son and His Spirit, as though such a one could stand by and do nothing.

Praise God that He overcame our resistance by remaking my heart. Praise our gracious King that He took no concern for my feelings, but did violence to my soul by drawing me to His Son, Jesus Christ, by His Spirit.

And by His Spirit, make me want to be drawn. Where would we be if God were more concerned for our sensibilities than for our eternal soul?

What kind of God is it whose will bends to that of the creature? I mean, who would serve such a

God as the one who is so often depicted? You know, let us go to hell and suffer forever, waiting for us to decide from a state from which it is impossible for us to make such a decision?

I say give thanks to Him, all you peoples, because if you know Jesus Christ, it is because God made you able, and more than able,

He made it necessary for I could do no other than to obey the call. There is not violence against our wills, but a total rehabilitation of that will.

And I would say, Lord Him, all of you, for He in His mercy and His kindness disregarded the fondest desires of the old man and gave us instead the cross.

His grace is irresistible to His glory. His grace is infallible to the praise of the glory of His grace, and none of the elect, be they ever so rebellious now, not one for whom

Christ's blood was shed, be he ever so hateful of the things of God at this moment, shall be lost.

Not a hammer stroke against His feet, not a nail in His hands, not a stroke of the torturer's whip, not a spike of the thorny crowns was for nothing.

Not a drop of blood was wasted, but God shall have as His own peculiar treasure every last soul, meant by every last trace of His beloved

Son life poured out. Why? How?

By His grace, which is irresistible, powerful, effective, as the very word of God, which will have its purpose accomplished.

You know, we often hear another thing that I hope to dissuade you from this morning.

Have you ever heard this, that God drags us kicking and screaming to Christ? That because we're rebels, because we're depraved sinners,

He drags us violently to His Son and we're fighting it all the way?

Have you ever heard something like that? God, the Omnipotent One, Omnipotent One, by His sheer strength forces us into the kingdom.

Now Jesus did say, no one can come to the Father, excuse me, no one can come to me unless the

Father draws him. Unless the Father draws him. Draws translates to the

Greek word elko. And it can mean to drag, as an ox drags a load, as 153 fish were dragged from the

Sea of Galilee, or Paul and Silas were violently dragged from a house and set before rulers to be judged.

It can mean that. Excuse me. It can also mean to compel, to draw, to draw, which is how the

ESV, the NET, the NIV, and the New King James Bibles all translate that word from Jesus.

Unless the Father draws him. But as well as that,

Psalm 119 verse 131 translates it to pant, to pant with desire for God.

In Song of Solomon, chapter one verse four, the Shulamite woman wants to be drawn away with her love.

It seems improper to assign violence and force to Jesus' word. I think it's at least unnecessary.

Here's what part of our confession says. He renews our wills, and by his almighty power causes us to desire and pursue that which is good.

He effectually draws us to Jesus Christ, yet in such a way that we come absolutely freely being made willing by his grace.

Did you hear that? He renews our wills by his power.

He causes us to desire and pursue him. He effectually draws us to Christ in such a way we come freely being made willing by his grace.

Irresistible grace says that God doesn't force his will on unwilling automatons.

Rather, by rebirth and regenerations, he changes our wills.

This is the regeneration of Titus 3 -5. According to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the

Holy Spirit whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our Savior. You see, irresistible grace is not a brute bullying someone weaker than himself.

It's God changing us from within. It's the heart of flesh and the residence of the spirit promised in Ezekiel 36, verses 26 and 27.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statues and you will keep my judgments and do them.

Then having given us a new heart, a new will, a new self who desires only him on earth and heaven, then what does he give us?

Psalm 37, 4. He gives us the desires of our heart, which is him. He gives us the desire of our heart, the heart that he just gave us because whatever it might be, it's a heart that desires him.

That your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. He hears our prayers.

He gives us whatever we ask for. Isn't that what Jesus said? How can this be? Because by remaking us, our will is for his will to be done.

Our wishes for Christ to be honored, our requests are for what pleases him. See, God's grace is a transforming grace.

This idea that God with extreme force grabs ahold of us and tears us out of this world and into his kingdom.

As I studied for this message, I like that idea less and less.

God first gives you a new heart. He changes your will. He changes your inclinations.

He says, here's my enemy, now my lover. Here's one who despised me, now loves me and my son.

Here's one who would have nothing to do with me, and now he wants all of me.

That's the one that he brings into his kingdom. Not one who deserves what

Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross, but one who wants what he accomplished on the cross.

And why do we want it? Because we read about it in the Bible, it says, well, this sounds good. No. Because there's grace out there just kind of floating around like those microbes, and you grab onto them and say,

I like this. No. Because God, by his irresistible, effectual, sufficient grace, remakes us.

He makes you want his son. He makes you want him. He makes you amenable to his spirit, by his spirit.

And then we come willingly and gladly, to our credit, no, to Christ's, by the power of his spirit.

Very important. He makes us willing. And then he brings us to him gently.

He gives us what we want. Him. Why do we want it? I'll say it again.

Because he made us want him. That's what grace is about. This is all done by grace that is prevenient.

It necessarily comes first. It must come first. Dead in trespasses and sins, we know nothing about it.

What little we might have heard, we want nothing to do with. By his transforming power, he makes us gladly come to him.

He gives us our desire. Him. As I remember still, I came anxiously to Christ.

I resisted, and I resisted, and I resisted. I remember the moment God came upon me.

And at that moment, I came willingly.

I was rejoicing to finally know him who alone in heaven and earth I desired. Because God changed me. He gave me a new spirit.

He gave me a heart to match. And he did this by his irresistible, prevenient, efficacious, all -sufficient grace.

How are we saved? How can you be saved? By grace.

You are saved. Through faith. And it's not of yourselves. It is the gift of God.

Not of works. Lest anyone should boast. For a long time in that verse,

I thought that faith is the gift of God. And I don't make any objection to that. I held that for a long time, and I don't think it's anything terribly wrong with it.

But I've changed my mind. As I look more at this verse and preparing for this message, what is the gift of God?

I think it's in those three words. By grace. By grace.

By God's nature. By God's gracious nature. His desire to forgive sinners. Through faith.

Foreign to you. Foreign to me. Faith that is given to believe. Not of works.

Faith, religious obedience, that's not what saves. Christ on the cross.

His redemption. When he said it is finished, that's what saves.

It is the gift of God. The salvation that he by his grace has accomplished.

Prevenient grace. Irresistible grace. Efficacious grace. All -sufficient grace. The grace of God that brings salvation to sinners such as you, such as me.

Amen? Lord God, we do thank you again for the day that you've given us.

We thank you for the grace of God exhibited and shown and manifested and extolled in the

Lord Jesus Christ. And for all that he has done to bring sinners to you.

I thank you, Lord, that by your grace you have transformed so many. That by your grace, through the power of your spirit, you've removed hearts.

I thank you, Lord, that my heart is not just changed and modified and rebuilt, but your word says taken out and replaced completely.

And it is you, Lord, who made me or anyone else who's come to Christ. It is you who made us willing.

It is you who made us want your son. Thank you for the faith that you've given to believe and all that your word promises by and through him.