The Sovereignty of God Over Salvation

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If you would, open your Bibles to John chapter 6.

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So again, this is part two of the sermon from the book of Proverbs on the comprehensive sovereignty of God.

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So in part one, we went through the text in the book of Proverbs that speak to the sovereignty of God, His rule over all things.

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And I use the terminology, the comprehensive sovereignty of God. And so I wanted to go away from just the general descriptions and even down to the details of even casting the lot itself that's in the hands of the

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Lord and move it into a very personal, a very, very intimate and personal portrayal of the sovereignty of God.

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Because this cannot just remain in the area of the space above us, this very heady thing about the sovereignty of God and the rule of God.

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I think one of the most glorious things about this doctrine of the sovereignty of God is just how intimate this is and precious this is to us as children of God.

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I truly believe this is one of the most important things for you to settle in your theology connected to the word of God, because this will give you a secure hope.

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It will give you life and peace and joy and comfort that will be rejoicing even in the worst of times, because you know who you are in the hands of your heavenly

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Father. You know what Jesus has done to save you. And in terms of the world that we live in, even right now, and the horrible things that happen around us, this is an anchor for us, that God is not out of control.

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He's not an absentee landlord. This is not just time and fury signifying nothing.

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It's not just chaos going on around us. God is truly sovereign. This is the anchor for your life and mine.

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And so in John chapter 6, it's one of my...you all know that the Gospel of John is my favorite of the

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Gospels, but in John chapter 6, Jesus says something that is so spectacular.

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I hope that you put this on the tablet of your heart. In John chapter 6, starting in verse 32,

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Hear now the word of the living and the true God. Jesus then said to them,

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Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.

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For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

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They said to him, Sir, give us this bread always. Jesus said to them,

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I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

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But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.

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All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me

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I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

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And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given to me, but raise it up on the last day.

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For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.

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As far as the reading of God's holy and inspired word, let's pray together as people. Jesus, thank you.

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This is such a beautiful and powerful, precious promise to those who know you and those who trust, those who have received your grace,

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God. Lord, we can see in this text alone that we don't deserve you.

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This is all your work. It's not ours. It's all to your glory and all to your praise. But these promises,

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Lord Jesus, are so incredible and amazing. I pray with all of my heart,

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God, that you pin these words onto our hearts. We would never, ever lose them or neglect them or doubt them.

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And I pray today as we talk about your sovereignty over our salvation, I pray that you'd bless and get the teacher out of the way,

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God. Teach by your spirit, through your word, in Jesus' name, amen. So again, in the book of Proverbs, Wisdom from Above, amazingly, the book of Proverbs has those incredible details about how to apply skillfully the truth of God, the knowledge of God, and all these amazing circumstances in terms of the scoffer, the person who was slothful, lazy.

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We've learned about God's wisdom, about how to have interaction between one another and in the world that is just, that is righteous, that is godly, that is good.

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We've learned about our mouths. We've learned about what God hates in terms of division. We've learned about slander.

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We've learned about gossip. We've learned to protect and preserve justice for our neighbor and keeping our mouths closed, requiring witnesses.

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All of that. There's so much divine wisdom and skill. And then the book of Proverbs leads us through several passages into these great and amazing descriptions of the sovereignty of God, that He rules over everything.

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We might have plans, but it's God who directs the steps. You might even think the random casting of a lot is something that is just random.

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It's just out of control of God. It's like, it's something that's totally insignificant and God says even the lot that is cast is something that He is sovereign over.

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And so the first message we did through the book of Proverbs on these truths was talking about how does scripture talk about God by way of His sovereign rule over every detail in the universe, in creation, in the bad things, in the good things, the beautiful things, the hard things, the painful things, the tearful things.

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God is truly sovereign and we couldn't even do it in a comprehensive way. It's just one standalone message series thing and we just talked about a few places and it's just obvious and it's powerful and it's interesting because we did the message on the comprehensive sovereignty of God and that was before the world that we're living in currently in terms of the news cycle.

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Think about it. I preached a sermon on the comprehensive sovereignty of God saying that God rules and reigns. He's not out of control.

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Everything is decreed by God or strained through His hands. I gave that message and then

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Hamas. And you've heard about the unbelievably horrible, terrifying, heartbreaking things that have happened to many families in the land of Israel.

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And it's incredible because it's painful. It's the world that we live in.

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And so you have two choices in my mind. You have a sovereign God who decrees all things, is in control of all things.

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He rules and reigns over all things. Everything has a purpose. Everything has meaning. There are no blind events, no purposeless events, no meaningless events.

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God rules and reigns even over a fallen world and the evil choices that people make and the things that they want to do.

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They only get away with what God has permitted for His own purposes and will and ultimate victory.

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Or you've got another God. A God who wants to save, wants to help, doesn't like these things, but He's somehow shackled.

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He's in fetters. He's in chains. He can't do anything about it. He's somehow constrained by the will of man and the will of the creature.

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And people can do things and God just goes, oh, I wish I could do something and I just really can't. A God who maybe doesn't even know the future completely.

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A God who just didn't see it coming. You have that option as well within that framework.

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A God who doesn't even know what's actually going to occur. He knows about possibilities or potential incidents, but He doesn't actually know the shape of the future.

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I argue that God is so sovereign He declares the end from the beginning. Those are the words of Scripture.

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That God is sovereign and He rules over all things and there's no one thing anywhere in the universe that happens that hasn't happened apart from the will and the decree of God.

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He's that kind of sovereign. And again, I confess that you hear a message like that and it's so soaked in the

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Word of God. It is so standing on the words of God from the Old and New Testaments and it's obvious you embrace it.

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Yes, that's what God says about Himself. I may struggle with it as a creature. I may not fully comprehend these things.

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Of course I wouldn't. But that's what it says. I believe that. Yay and amen. And you stand on that.

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You rejoice. You raise your hands to it. And then the next week, Hamas rapes, gang rapes, murders, beheads, shoots innocent civilians in their homes.

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And that event happens after you hear a sermon on the comprehensive sovereignty of God. And then you really have to deal, of course, with that emotionally.

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Yes, I agree, emotionally, the pain of that. But the truth of the matter is, if these evil things happen in this world apart from the will of God and decree of God and the purpose of God, then they are meaningless, purposeless evil.

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And I refuse to believe that about God. That is not what God says about Himself. And so what we've been arguing is that the

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Bible teaches the comprehensive sovereignty of God, that God decrees things like the murder of Jesus.

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God decrees things like the murder of Jesus. And it's been asked this way before, so many times before. But you ask yourself the question, was the murder of Jesus good or bad?

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Answer that. What can you say to that? Well, you have to say, yes, of course.

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It was the most awful, evil, wicked thing of humanity's history in terms of we are such rebels against God.

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We hate God with so much passion. We hate God so much. We're so rebels that if God can come down from His throne, if we can get our hands on Him, we would kill

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Him, and we did exactly that. The murder of Jesus is the murder of the most innocent person who ever lived.

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He was the righteous one, the blameless one. He is the perfect image of God. And Pilate knew that he was innocent and still delivered him over to murderous people.

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They couldn't get their testimonies working together. They just wanted the blood of the Son of Man. They just wanted

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God incarnate pinned to that tree. It's such a wicked thing in human history.

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And Scripture says about that evil thing in history, that was the very thing that God used to bring about your redemption, your salvation, my salvation, the gift of eternal life.

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And so it's the greatest act of evil, and it was the most gracious, amazing, merciful thing

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God could do for His people. In one event in history, you've got the greatest evil and the greatest act of graciousness and glory for God, the redemption of God's people, the atonement.

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And yet, what does the Scripture say in Acts chapter four? What's it say about that event? It says, without being ashamed, without flinching about it, it says very clearly that in the city gather against your holy servant,

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Jesus. And it names everybody, all of the participants, Pontius Pilate, Herod, the peoples of Israel, the

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Gentiles, to do what? To do whatever your hands predestined to occur.

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That the God of the Bible, the true and living God, the only God, predestined the murderous acts, the lies in the trial of Jesus, the crucifixion of Jesus, that God declared that in history and determined that in history, the murder of Jesus Christ, and it was for His glory and our good.

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Did God make anybody there sin? Did He make them do anything against their will?

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They all wanted to kill Jesus and they would have done it sooner if they had a chance. You've read the Gospels.

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You and I see in the Gospels as you're moving along through the story, the narrative, the historical narrative of the

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Gospels, you're moving through the ministry and the life of Jesus and you get to the crucifixion only after you have the incidents where they're actually trying to kill

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Jesus, where He has to slip away from their hands. They pick up stones to kill Him. Jesus says before Abraham was,

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I am, and they pick up stones to kill Him. And He tells them, many good works have I shown you from the

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Father. For which of these do you stone me? They knew what He was saying. For your good works we stone you not, but for blasphemy and that you being a man make yourself

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God, they wanted to kill Jesus. And if they had been permitted to, they would have.

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But Jesus said, what about His life and ministry? That nobody has the authority to take

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His life. He says what? I lay it down of my own accord.

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And He says, of course, you know the story. I could ask for a legion of angels to come and rescue me. Nobody's doing this.

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I'm doing this willingly. I'm laying my life down. You guys aren't in charge of this process.

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You don't have any authority except that what's given to you by God. Pilate's saying that. Like, don't you know, Jesus, I have the ability to let you go.

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Like, give me something to work with. Please, Jesus, please. He wants to release

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Jesus. Give me something to work with. I can let you go. I've got that authority. And Jesus says, you don't have any authority except that what's given to you by God.

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It's all in the hands of God. And Jesus, in His ministry, they're trying to kill Him. They're trying to trap Him. And in His ministry, it's not until He sets

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His face towards Jerusalem. In Matthew chapter 20, He sets His face towards Jerusalem and He says,

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I'm going to Jerusalem. They're going to crucify me. They're going to kill me. And three days later, I will rise again.

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And so when He goes in, that's Him laying His life down. That's the authority of God. That's the sovereignty of God. It's now my time.

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Now is the time. Now is when I'm going to lay my life down. Nobody controls us, but they wanted to do it before.

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And it's the hand of God that either permits or does not permit the evil of mankind.

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For what purpose? It's what you and I know, and I hope you have this memorized. I hope you have it in your hearts and your minds, because in this fallen world, you will need it.

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We're going to need this. God causes what? All things.

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To do what? To work together for good. For who?

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For those who love God. And what? Are the called according to what purpose?

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His purpose. His purpose. God causes all things to work together for good. For those who love

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God and those who are called according to His purpose. Do you love Jesus? Do you trust Him? That promise is yours.

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It can never be broken. It will never be torn to shreds. It's never going to go bankrupt.

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That promise is always going to be true, whether you feel like it or not, whether it appears to be the case or not, it's going to be true.

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And you and I, brothers and sisters, I think the summary of it all in terms of wisdom from above and like letting this heal us is we have to allow that voice of God about His sovereign rule and reign over all things and His good purposes for us.

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We have to allow that to be the very thing that gives us peace and joy and comfort in the midst of this awful, broken, fallen world.

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You have to know that truth as to heal your heart, as to heal your mind. You and I can't walk with wisdom.

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We can't walk with divine skill in this world if we don't understand that His voice is the truth, not mine.

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It's not my internal monologue. It's not my circumstances of Monday.

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It's not what Fox News is feeding me. It's not what CNN is feeding me. It's not what MSNBC for sure is feeding me.

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It's not what's coming in. These voices that are coming in, they're not the ones that I can stand on as the absolute truth.

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The certainty that you and I have is based upon the revelation of God. Amen. And if He says that He's the sovereign,

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He declares the end from the beginning, I'm not going to believe Him. Even in the midst of death, even in the midst of decay and sickness and abandonment and betrayal and apostasy,

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I'm going to believe God at His word, and I'm going to trust Him. This is why Paul can say while in basically a prison and dungeon, he can say things like rejoice in the

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Lord always. Again I'll say rejoice. And he can say to the church, he can say, don't be anxious about anything.

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Be anxious for nothing. Don't worry about anything. How can somebody have that kind of wisdom and skill in the midst of persecutions, in the midst of being lowered out of windows, in the midst of forgetting how many times you've been beaten?

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How many times is it 10, 12, 14, 16? I don't know how many times I've been beaten. In the midst of being in danger constantly, in danger from your own countrymen, in danger from false brethren, how can you be there in that kind of awful situation in darkness and say rejoice in the

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Lord always? Again I say rejoice. Don't worry about anything. How?

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I believe with all of my heart, it's because Paul knew at least two things. One, the love of his

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Savior for him, his life. He knew that Jesus was going to keep him, because he says that he's confident that he the beginner would work and you will complete it.

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He knows what God is doing. And the second thing I believe with all of my heart is that Paul has a robust, a robust theology of the sovereignty of God.

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Nobody's beating the gospel. Nobody's beating God here. Nobody's even beating my ministry.

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Which is why Paul can say things like, with an understanding of the robust theology of the sovereignty of God, why

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Paul can say things like, I don't know what I want to do. I am caught between two great things.

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And I'm paraphrasing here, of course, the Jephthah Urban translation. He says like, to stay with you is fruitful ministry, it's great, but to depart and be with Christ is far better.

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So I'm hard, I'm pressed between two issues. I don't know what I want to do. If I want to stay and keep ministering to you miserable people, or if I want to go.

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Like, okay, I threw that in there. If I want to go and just be with my Savior and weigh the anchor, weigh the anchor, that's the term he's using, it's an able term,

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I want to weigh the anchor to go sail away to be with Jesus. He understands the sovereignty of God.

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And so here you are in John chapter six. The reason why I find this so amazing, passages like John six and John 10 and Ephesians one and Romans nine, is that we're not talking about a proof text, like, you know, a verse here, seems to say this, but is that really the context?

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Is that how it's used? And what's the full explanation? It's just difficult at times, not to say that you don't have to bring proof of texts, but proof texting can be dangerous in terms of like, well, here's a verse, it seems to disrupt that entire system.

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It's like, well, we're going to go into it, read the context, does it really say that? I love John six because it's this entire discourse of Jesus about me, about you, about his people.

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And it's, it's, it's about what the father has done in the ministry of Jesus for you.

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If you know him, if you trust him, it's about what Jesus makes a promise about in terms of you and I trusting in him, never being lost.

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Like think about like this gets missed a lot of times when we look at John six and you think about the exegesis here,

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I want you, I want you to think about how precious this, this, this one line is here in the text in terms of the comprehensive sovereignty of God and salvation.

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Let's just first talk about how amazingly loving and intimate this is.

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It gets missed a lot. It's in verse, starting in verse 37, all that the father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me,

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I will never cast out. Stop for a moment there, the eternal father, the true father, the good father, the never failing father, the father that we know our own failures as men, right?

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And as fathers, because we see him and his character and we see who he is and we realize that's how

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I know I failed as a father because he is perfection. He is the unmovable one. He is the true heavenly father.

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He's the standard of father. It says this about him. Think about how precious this is. It says all that the father gives me will come to me.

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The father, according to Jesus here, has given a people to Jesus.

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And so Jesus makes a claim, everyone that the father gave to Jesus will guaranteed come to Jesus.

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Never going to be lost. You're going to come. He's that kind of sovereign, but think about the glorious heart of the father that there's a people that he chose and he comes and he gives these people to Jesus.

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I want you to save them and raise them up. And Jesus says they will come and whoever comes to me,

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I will never cast out. You're never going to be lost. You can't be lost.

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The father gave a people to Jesus and they will never be cast out. Where did you ever get the idea?

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Where did we ever get the idea that there's just some blind nebulous group of people like, you know, there's, it's not really sure or fixed and, or maybe it's every person who ever lived and somehow they, they go to hell and they get lost.

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How does that even work? Where did we ever get the idea that someone could truly know Jesus, trust in Jesus and then be cast out.

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Jesus makes his word on it. He says, I will never cast out that.

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Here it is. Here's the precious words. This is what I want to lead, lead us to. Look at the text. Verse 38. Here's this. Here it is.

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We often miss this for I have come down from heaven, stop.

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Nobody else can say that we get, we pass it up quickly, don't we?

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Like it's just so powerful. It's so beautiful. You go for, I've come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

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And this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing because we focus on the fact that that's me. That's that's me.

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The father gave me to Jesus and I trust in Jesus and he's never going to lose me. It's the will of the father that he loses nothing of all that is given to him.

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And you miss the part he says, I have come down from heaven. Could Moses say that?

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Could Isaiah say that? Could Jeremiah say that? Can Paul say that?

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Nobody in their ministry can say what Jesus says there. I have come down from heaven.

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I bet you there's some Jews that are kind of squinting for like, what? What do you mean? I've come down from heaven?

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You're saying you had a pre -existence that you actually, you weren't formed in the womb just there.

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That's where you sprang into existence in the womb, like the rest of us, right?

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That God forms a spirit of man within him, right? We'd learned about a story about Psalm 139 and God, we're fearfully and wonderfully made.

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You saw my unformed substance and that we're in the wombs of our mothers and God has this special, beautiful creation, but that's where we come into existence and Jesus doesn't talk like that.

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He says what? He says, I came down from heaven. And the glory of that, why I think it's so powerful, it's just this, is that here is the eternal son of God.

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In the beginning was the word and the word was what? With God and the word was God. I've come down from heaven.

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And so Jesus is in this intimate, perfect, amazing, holy relationship with the father from all eternity.

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They need nothing. The persons of the Trinity need nothing for satisfaction, for pleasure.

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And yet the father chooses a rebellious people and he gives them to Jesus and he says, don't lose them, save them, give them eternal life.

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And Jesus says, I've come down from heaven to do his will. This is the will of my father for me, that I lose nothing of all that he has given to me.

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Now think about the preciousness of that promise. He's not going to lose anyone that's given to him, but the fact that he came down from heaven to do it.

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Absolute perfection for all eternity. And let's be honest, I'll just admit it, I can't fathom that.

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We try so hard with the doctrine of the Trinity at times to sometimes talk about details of the

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Trinity that we just don't have answers for as creatures. We just can't fully comprehend

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God. We can apprehend the words that he's given to us. We can know what he said and say, that's true, I affirm that.

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But there are details to God that as creatures we're not going to fully comprehend.

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You've heard me say before, if you're putting calculus up on the chalkboard and you're trying to teach a class full of cockroaches, at a certain point, do you understand how creatureliness breaks down?

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They're not going to get it. And there are aspects to God and his eternal nature and the relationship between the

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Father, the Son, and the Spirit that are incomprehensible, but they are beautiful, and they're there on the page.

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And I can't fathom perfection for all eternity, that there was never a time where God was not, and there was never a time where there wasn't perfect, intimate relationship and fellowship between Father, Son, and Spirit forever ago.

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Try to think about it, and you're going to break down at some point. Wheels start to come off as soon as you start thinking about it, because you go,

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I can't think of that, because I have a beginning point and I have an ending point. I can't think about that. I can't go that far back.

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Well, that's how God has always existed, and Jesus says this, the Father gave me a people, and I've come down from heaven, and I won't lose any of them.

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And so I know at times when we talk about the sovereignty of God and our salvation, there's times where we struggle.

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You have doubts over your salvation, you have questions, you look at your life, you look at your fruit at times, and you wonder, like, how could

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I have thought that thing, or done that thing, how could I have failed in that way? And you start to look so much inside, that at times you get lost in that, and you start to get scared even, or depressed even, or you start to even doubt.

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That's because you're looking in, and you're not looking up, you're not looking to Him and His promises, and what

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He has committed Himself to. So the question of course is, we should have that internal look at ourselves and say, like Paul says, to examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith, and say, do

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I actually believe in Jesus? Do I see Him, and even see my own sin, and I want

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Jesus, I want Him, He is the good news, He is the gospel, I get

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God, do I want Jesus to save me? We've got to look to Jesus, but in terms of the anchor of your life, and the joy you and I should have in eternal life, it can't come from you looking down at your navel.

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It can't come to you looking to how you've done this last week. We will fall into a works righteousness, even with these promises, if we keep looking into our own life, to examine our own fruit, to say, have

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I done enough to demonstrate? No, we need to look to Christ, because the promise of eternal life is based upon what

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God has done in Christ. And here's the promise, the Father gave a people to Jesus Christ, that's sovereignty.

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Jesus says, it's the will of my Father that I lose none of them, that's sovereignty.

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And Jesus says, I will raise them up on the last day, that's sovereignty.

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It's a commitment that God has made, it's something that God is doing for God's glory, and the anchor is on the revelation of God.

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Not your works, not your circumstances, not your life, not your season, it is

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God all the way through to his glory. This is something that God does. And let's be honest here, listen, listen, two points, one, people hate the doctrine of God's sovereignty in the midst of evil in the world, they feel like they need to protect

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God's reputation, right? There's evil in the world, God must not have anything to do with this, and they end up actually impugning

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God's character and his reputation, because what they're really saying is that God's asleep at the wheel of the universe, that evil things happen in this world and God can't do anything about it, he is impotent.

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So that's one issue, one issue, one failure, people hate the doctrine of the sovereignty of God.

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They don't want God to rule over them, they don't want God in control, that's what we've been rebelling against since the beginning.

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The second thing here is this, when you look at a passage like this, the heart of man is so prideful, they don't want a sovereign

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God like this. They don't want a God who chooses before the world was, who is in Christ.

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They don't want a God who by his own will and grace chooses an unworthy people and says,

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I will set my grace upon you, I will set my justice upon you. They don't want a God like that, why?

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Because we want to be in charge, we don't like that kind of sovereign. We don't like a God determining who he gives grace to, who he saves.

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We want to have a part of it. We want to put our hands in it, we want to say, wait, wait, wait, hold on, I have something to say,

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I think I've lived a pretty good life, I think I'm better than this guy over here, I mean I know guys that are living much worse lives than me, like on a spectrum, and so I don't like the fact that you're just choosing by your grace,

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God, who you choose to give grace to and mercy to, and who you choose to judge. We don't like that, even in evangelical churches, we don't like a sovereign

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God like that. We want a God that we control through our own will. We're the ones in charge of the story of salvation, it's up to really us, not

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God, he's tried everything he can, but it's really up to us. And so where does this often get a hitch?

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Because you can't get clearer than Jesus in John chapter 6. How are you going to overcome that, exegetically?

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With the text? How are you going to overcome that? Jesus saying, the Father has given people to me, and it's the will of the

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Father that I lose none of them, and I'm going to raise them up on the last day. How do you get around that? Why would you want to get around that?

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It's beautiful, it's glorious, it testifies to God's love and his grace, his compassion, his mercy, and the power of Jesus Christ to save and to never lose.

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How would you, why? And the answer is, well, we oftentimes try to get around a clear discourse like this because we have traditions that we've adopted that come into collision with the text.

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We have to find some way to squeeze our tradition into the text. And what is the hitch?

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What's the thing that causes the regular conflict over clear passages like this from the

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Lord Jesus? What causes the conflict? What's traditions like? Free will.

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Free will. Like, well, but what about free will? People will say that like, okay, I see what you're saying, but you're saying that God chooses, he chooses a people?

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Why? Like, why not everybody? Well, that's, God doesn't know grace to everybody.

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See the unbiblical tradition that comes in. Why doesn't he just give it to everybody? Are judges required to give grace and mercy to everybody?

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Or what's a judge required to give to the guilty? What, what? Justice. Do you see how the tradition comes into conflict?

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Someone sees this and says, wait, God chooses a people, he gives them to Jesus, and Jesus says I'm never going to lose any of them?

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And people go, that's not fair. And you see the tradition coming in and the collision with the text.

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It's a philosophy that comes in that collides with the text itself. And there's the challenge. And then people say, but wait a second, but what about the free will of man?

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And the question really needs to be asked is where did you ever get the idea that fallen men and women are free?

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That idea doesn't come from the Bible. You can't get that from the Bible. We could go over scripture for days and days about the nature of men and women in the fall that humanity is dead in sins and trespasses.

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By nature, children of wrath. There's none righteous, no, not one. And there is none who seeks for, what,

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God. I mean, we're just getting started. And we see that scripture is telling a very different story.

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When we oppose glorious discourses like this about the sovereignty of God and our salvation, we oppose this.

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We're seeing that we're opposing it for reasons that just cannot truly be found in Holy Scripture.

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Because if we believe just those few verses that we're dead, by nature children of wrath, we're non -God seeking, we're not righteous, we're no one good, not even one of us, where did we ever get the idea that humanity has a free will and that people can choose

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God or not choose God, whatever they please? Scripture is abundantly clear. You see, this issue of the free will of man comes into conflict with these clear discourses on the sovereignty of God and salvation.

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But we have to challenge that at its root. And you know your history, many of you. You know the history of the

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Reformation when the issue of the nature of man in the fall and the grace of God and salvation comes front and center.

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And that is a big part of dispute. Of course, Sola Scriptura is there as well. But the issue of, well, how dead are people?

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How fallen are people? And how gracious is God's grace was one of the big disputes of the

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Reformation. It's not as though the conversation hadn't happened before in church history.

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Church history is wide and it's a beautiful mess. You have heroes saying great things and heroes saying absolutely unbiblical things, contradicting themselves, contradicting others.

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But this conversation had happened before in history. The question of how dead is man, how fallen is man.

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You got into Pelagius and that controversy, you know, where the original sin issue was in history.

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But you get into the time of the Reformation where there's so much corruption now when it comes to the grace of God and salvation.

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And all that Rome is just piling on to people in order to be reconciled to God.

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The issue of the will comes into clear focus. And you, of course, know about Luther's work, the bondage of the will.

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And the argument that's coming when that's in clear focus is that no, no, no, no.

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The will is in bondage. It's not free. We're not open to God. Scripture has a lot to say about us in the fall.

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A lot to say about us. It says things like John 6, 44, no man can come to me.

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It's here in the very discourse we're in. After Jesus says people from the

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Father to me, it's his will, I lose none. I will raise them up in the last day. There's still people there gungus mooing.

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They're complaining. What? And Jesus says, don't grumble amongst yourselves.

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No one can come to me. No one has the ability.

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No one has the ability to come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up.

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Who does Jesus raise up? Who does he raise up, brothers and sisters? The one the Father draws.

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Who was that one? The one who was unable to come. So you're not able to come according to Jesus.

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God incarnate. I think we should take him at his word. He says no one can. No one can. Where do we ever get the idea that the will is free and people can somehow come to God on their own?

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Or maybe with just a little assistance. Jesus says no one can come. No one's able to come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I, here's the guarantee, will raise him up.

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Who does Jesus raise up? The one the Father draws. So if the Father is drawing salvificly, it is absolute guaranteed that Jesus raises them up.

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If Jesus fails to raise up the one the Father draws, Jesus is a liar and that's forbidden to believe.

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Amen? Amen? And so Jesus teaches total depravity.

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No one is able to come to me. And that was one of the issues again during the time of the Reformation is just how fallen is mankind?

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Where is everyone at when they're in Adam and not in Christ? How dead really are they? And here was the question of the

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Reformation. How gracious is God's grace? Like how big is God's grace?

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How big is it? That was one of the main issues. Verses like John 6, 44 teach us what

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Jesus taught and believed about the nature of men and women in the fall. And then just go over two pages. In John chapter 8,

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John 8, verse 34, well, let's actually do this better.

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Let's start in verse 31 here. This is a powerful moment. It says in verse 31 of chapter 8, it says,

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So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, If you abide my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

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They answered him, We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free?

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First of all, how blind are you guys? Just take a peep around, right?

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I mean, we can name a couple of things like Babylon, we can talk about Egypt, we can talk about the fact that there's an emperor over there that has something to say about what you just said.

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We've never been a slave to anybody. They're so blind, they can't even see that. But Jesus actually speaking to something deeper.

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It says in verse 34, Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

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Again, brothers and sisters, who practices sin? Everyone.

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There is none righteous, no, not one. The wicked go astray from the womb, in sin my mother conceived me, in Adam there's condemnation and death.

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And we got all of that story. And so Jesus says whoever practices sin is a slave to sin. So where did we ever get the idea that the will of the fallen person is free?

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Jesus says whoever practices sin, whoever commits sin is a slave to sin. And Jesus then says the slave does not remain in the house forever, the son remains forever.

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So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

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It is only Jesus who sets us free from our bondage to sin.

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Those are the words of Jesus on our sinfulness. And again, if you want a good, solid, quick portrait of the nature of humanity in the fall,

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I encourage you to read the list of verses from the Apostle Paul as he explains the gospel in Romans chapter 3.

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He pulls together a collage of verses from the Old Testament revelation to say this is what God has always said about us and this is why the law will justify nobody because Jew and Gentile are all in exactly the same category, enslaved to sin, lost, non -God seeking, and enemies of God.

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That's his point in Romans 1 through 2. But the Bible teaches, even in the midst of the bondage of the will and the enslavement to our sin, the

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Bible teaches that God is sovereign over salvation. The argument of the last message, that there's a comprehensive sovereignty of God, God is comprehensively sovereign over all things.

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There is nothing meaningless, nothing purposeless. Everything is God's story that he is telling for his glory and his purpose, to some degree either for his grace and mercy stories or his justice and wrath stories.

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Both of those sides all will abound to the glory of God in heaven.

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Everything, comprehensively sovereign. But scripture teaches in terms of our salvation, it teaches the comprehensive sovereignty over our salvation.

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And here's what I wanted to do today, simple enough, I just want to read the text mostly to you. In Ephesians chapter 1, go there,

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Ephesians chapter 1, verse 1,

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Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, oh, there's that sovereignty thing again, sometimes you miss those things, right?

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There's like a little thrown in there, like we just pass right past it, it's like, oh, there's a little mark there again of God's sovereignty.

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Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, God did this, to the saints who were in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God our

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Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved, in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

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In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.

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In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in him, were sealed with the promised

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Holy Spirit who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory.

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Sounds like John 6, doesn't it? The Father blessing us, choosing us in Christ before the foundation of the world, predestining us to adoption as sons, and then we receive the

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Holy Spirit of God who is our guarantee. He is the guarantee of our inheritance.

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That sounds like Jesus saying, I will lose none of all that the

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Father has given to me. I will give them eternal life.

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You see, it's the same story. It's a huge section. It's the same story that Jesus has for us in John 6.

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It's the same story he has for us in John 10. It's the same story as Romans chapter 9. It's the same story that God tells throughout his word.

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God is the one who is receiving all the glory. Do you see that? The will of God, predestination of God, God's plan,

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God's guarantee, God, God, God, God. You know why people hate Reformed theology?

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Because it is God -centered. People don't like Reformed theology because it takes you and I out of the equation.

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No glory for me. None. None. I've got nothing to do with this. Wait. What do you mean?

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It's just all God? He just, like, before the world began, chose us to be saved? Well, that's what Ephesians 1 says.

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That's what Jesus was saying in John chapter 6. You're saying, like, he does all this grace and this mercying.

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He does that, like, all for the praise of his glorious grace. Well, that's, yeah, that's what Paul says in Ephesians chapter 1.

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And let's be honest, prideful, stubborn, rebellious human beings don't like a God that does stuff for his glory and for his praise, because that's the thing we're avoiding in the first place.

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I want to be the center of attention. I want to be somehow part of the story. I want some sort of trophy in this.

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And this tells a story of a very sovereign God who's doing this for his glory and for his purposes.

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And let's be honest, we're the rebels, and we don't like his sovereignty. It's the very thing we've been fighting against since the very beginning.

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This is a story that's all abounding to the glory of God, and we don't like it. And so that's Ephesians 1.

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Now, I read to you John 6. Go back now, because there's more in John chapter 10.

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Now, you'll notice, brothers and sisters, of course, what I'm doing is I'm just giving you bullet points.

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Like as Zach said this week, when we were doing the show at Apology Radio, we're taking a brisk walk through some of these passages, but it's my hope that if we're going to learn from divine wisdom about the sovereignty of God, that we have an anchor for each and every one of us in God's word for our souls, because we will need it to live with wisdom, to encourage one another, to bless one another, to heal in our hearts in those dark moments of our lives.

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You're going to need it, brothers and sisters. So John chapter 10, this is one of my very...

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I know I keep saying that about John, but this is so beautiful. But think about two things.

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One, think about the love your Savior is speaking over you as his child.

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So let me ask you this real fast. Before you go to the text, I want to ask you the question. Are you trusting in Jesus and in Jesus alone for forgiveness and salvation?

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I heard two... Okay, so there's three people in this church that believe that. Okay. Now, I want you to go with me now, because we need to stop letting this be up here and think about it in the way that God wants to speak it to us.

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Do you trust in Christ alone for forgiveness and salvation? Do you confess him as Lord with all your heart?

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Okay, so if you're trusting in Christ, he says he gives you eternal life. He'll never lose you.

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He'll never forsake you. You already saw that. He'll raise you up. But here is this discourse in John 10, where Jesus talks about his relationship as shepherd to you.

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And here's what he says in John 10 1. These are the words of God for his sheep.

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He says, Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter through the sheephole by the door, but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.

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But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens, the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

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By name. By name. Almost like there's a book of life.

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Our names are in that book of life, recorded before the foundation of the world. Almost like God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world and it's the will of the

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Father that I lose none of all that he has given to me. I've come down from heaven to get them. And Jesus says this, he says about you, if you trust him, he says that he knows you by name.

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He knows you by name. And it says this, when he has brought out all his own, he goes before them and the sheep follow him.

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For they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.

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This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So Jesus again said to them, truly, truly,

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I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.

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I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.

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The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

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I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

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Who are the sheep? They're his. They're the ones that he knows by name.

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They're his own. He knows them. He calls them out. They hear his voice and they follow him.

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And Jesus says, I'm the good shepherd who lays his life down for the sheep.

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He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees.

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And the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd.

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I know my own and my own know me, just as the father knows me.

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And I know the father and I lay down my life for the sheep.

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Now that's something I think I've told you all before, right? I don't fully comprehend that.

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It's big. I'm trying. He says, I know my own and my own know me, just as the father knows me and I know the father.

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That's big. I have to confess my little mind can't get around that, that relationship of knowing

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Jesus and him knowing me is like the father knows Jesus and Jesus knows the father. That kind of depth of intimacy is something that I hope shocks me out of my despair.

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And I hope it does you as well. But here he says this, and I have other sheep that are not of this fold.

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So not just Jews. I must bring them also and they will listen to my voice.

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So there will be one flock, one shepherd. There's a lot here, a lot here.

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Are there two people of God? Are there two peoples of God, Jews and Gentile church over here? Is there one?

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It sounds like there's one flock. But he says, sheep, I know them all. They will be one flock.

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For this reason, the father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.

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I have authority to lay it down. I have authority to take it up again, sovereignty. This charge

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I have received from my father. And here it is. Watch this. Here it is again. There was again a division among the

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Jews because of these words. Many of them said, he has a demon and is insane. Why listen to him?

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Others said, these are not the words of one who is oppressed by a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?

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Good point. Good point. At that time, the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem.

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It was winter and Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon. So the

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Jews gathered around him and said to him, how long will you keep us in suspense?

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If you're the Messiah, tell us plainly. All right. So they want an answer now.

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Apparently Jesus hasn't told them. According to them, don't keep us in suspense.

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Just say it clearly. And here's what Jesus says. And it's powerful in terms of the bondage of the will and the nature of mankind and the words of Jesus and God's sovereignty over salvation.

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Jesus has already told us I have a people. I know my sheep by name. I call them out. They follow me. They will hear my voice. I have other sheep.

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There'll be one flock, one shepherd. I lay my life down for them. I know my own. They know me.

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Jesus has said that. And they're like, tell us finally, goodness gracious, will you just say if you're the

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Messiah? And Jesus says, I told you. Oh, so Jesus, who is the truth and cannot lie,

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Jesus has told them. They're like, tell us plainly. We want to hear it.

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Jesus says, I told you. And here's what he says. He says, and you do not believe.

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The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me. Here it is. Are you ready? Here it is.

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The sovereignty of God and salvation. But you do not believe because you are not among my sheep.

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These are the words of God. I have a people. Father gave them to me.

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I'll lose none of them. I will raise them up in the last day. I know my sheep by name. They hear my voice and they will come. They will follow me.

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I lay my life down for the sheep. They know me. I know them. I'll raise them up on the last day.

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And he says to these people, they're like, tell us plainly. He says, I told you. And the reason you can't hear me is because you aren't mine.

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You're not mine. That's why you can't hear. And then Jesus goes on and he says, my sheep hear my voice and I know them.

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And they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish.

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And no one will snatch them out of my hands. My father who has given them to me is greater than all.

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And no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand. I and the father are one.

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Wow. Apparently Jesus believes in the doctrines of grace. Apparently Jesus believes that God is sovereign over salvation.

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Apparently Jesus believes that God is free to give grace and mercy to whom he chooses. Apparently Jesus believes that people are responsible for their own sin and if God wants to leave them in their sin, he can.

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It's just and right for God to do so. But note, not just the intimate portrait there, eternal life never snatched out of my hands, but note that second point, what it says about this other group of people that Jesus can freely say to them, you are not my sheep.

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You're not mine. You don't hear me because you're not mine. My sheep hear my voice and they will come and they will follow me.

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So watch. Ready? We're winding up here into the second part of the sermon. Just kidding. I wanted to land on this.

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I hope that I've given you enough today as we're talking about divine wisdom and God's sovereignty that blesses your life and your heart and your soul.

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Brothers and sisters, you need this. You need this. I need this.

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You need to see Christ as he is. You need to believe these promises. You need this. You need these words of Jesus to heal your heart and your mind.

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You need to have this in the dark times of your life. You need to have this in those moments in the closet where you feel absolutely broken, betrayed, your face filled with tears.

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You're going to need these verses in a hospital room. You're going to need it when you're at the funeral home.

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You're going to need it at the graveside. You're going to need this when you're betrayed. You're going to need this when you're abandoned. You're going to need these truths.

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This is your good shepherd. He'll never lose you. You're never, ever going to be lost by Jesus. Never. It can't happen.

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It's impossible. It won't happen. The universe would unravel. It's never going to happen.

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But I wanted to give you this. People will often say, well, if that's the view of sovereignty, if God is that kind of sovereign, then what's the point of preaching the gospel?

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And I always found that question so peculiar. Like, even when I was in reforms, I never really bought that objection myself.

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Like, what's the point of preaching the gospel? I think Jesus answered the point of preaching the gospel with that kind of sovereignty, is that I have sheep,

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I know who they are, they will hear my voice, and they will come. What I actually say is, actually, the problem should be flipped a bit.

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If you don't believe God is that kind of sovereign over salvation, my question to you is, why are you preaching the gospel?

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I'm being serious. Think about it truly. Why are you working so hard to preach the gospel if God has done everything that he can,

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Jesus died for the sins of every person who's ever lived, God is trying to save, wanting to save, he's been thwarted at every turn, why are you preaching the gospel?

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God's already done everything he can. Why are you preaching the gospel? I preach the gospel with full confidence that God has a people that he will save, and Jesus is never going to lose, he will raise them up.

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And so, guess what? Are you ready for this? With these words of Jesus, when I go out to preach the gospel, it is a 100 % success rate.

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Every time. Every single time, because God is sovereign over every detail, the ends, and the means, and sometimes,

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I go out to preach the gospel, and it is absolute hostility, and I say, praise God, that was a success, amazing, right?

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Because I know that God is doing something, I know that God is sovereign, and sometimes you go out to preach the gospel to a hostile crowd of people, and all of a sudden, you see the lights come on in one person, they hear the voice of Jesus, they break down, they trust in Christ, you say, praise

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God, 100 % success, the sheep are coming. The sheep are coming. How does

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God save? He does it through the voice of the shepherd. So what is our responsibility as the church, as the people of God, as Christ's sheep, is to give people the voice of God.

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Give them the voice of the shepherd. Let them hear Jesus calling out for life, and forgiveness, and peace, because that's what

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God uses to open the eyes of the blind, and to bring dead people to life, and to take off the chains of bondage to sin in the sinner.

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That's what God does. What does scripture say? The gospel is the power of God for what? It's what

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God uses to save. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by? God uses his word to save.

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Jesus says, they'll hear my voice, and they'll come. They're not going to follow somebody else, but when they hear my voice, my sheep will come.

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And so, when we talk about the sovereignty of God and salvation, you need this sweet word from God for your soul, to heal you, to cause you to rejoice, and you also need these words of Jesus to give you and I confidence to go out there into a broken and lost world, and to give them the voice of the shepherd, because his sheep are guaranteed to come.

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Why? Because he is truly sovereign. Brothers and sisters, he is truly sovereign. Amen? So let's go get his sheep.

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Let's pray. Father, I pray that you would take these words that you gave from your word today, and put them into our hearts and minds.

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Heal us where we need to be healed. Bring to life where there is death. Thank you for your salvation, your mercy, your grace, your love for unworthy people like us.