Romans 8:29-30

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Again, we are in Romans 8, verses 29 and 30 this week.
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I said we're slowing down as the further along we get. But as usual, starting in verse 1,
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Scripture says, There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
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For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do, by sending His own
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Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin. He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the
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Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh.
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But those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the
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Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot.
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Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the
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Spirit. If, in fact, the Spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the
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Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the
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Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of Him who raised
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Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
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So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh to live according to the flesh.
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For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the
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Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the
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Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the
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Spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the
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Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba, Father.
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The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirits that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.
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For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
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For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons, the revealing of the sons of God.
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For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself would be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
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For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
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And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the
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Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, redemption of our bodies.
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For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees.
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But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
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Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought.
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But the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the
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Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
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And we know that for those who love God, not all things work together for good, but those who are called according to His purpose.
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For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn of many brothers.
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And those whom He predestined, He also called. And those whom
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He called, He also justified. And those whom He justified, He also glorified.
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As we have walked through chapter 8 over the past several weeks,
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Paul has been quite the encouragement to the saints in this chapter. We've gone through the promises, and Paul has shown us our hope.
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Last week, we talked about the fact that God works all things for the good of those
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He has called to His purpose. This week, we are talking about the continuation of that same encouragement that Paul has been going through in his giving of an understanding of the work and the order of our salvation, and that it is a spiritual work rather than a human one, that God Himself performs in us rather than we do ourselves.
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I've broken this down a little bit different than I normally have, so we'll take it in snippets rather than verse by verse.
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There's a reason for that. We enter into verse 29.
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It says, For those whom He foreknew. The reason I break it down the way that I break it down today is because these verses, 29 and 30, especially 29, are a great point of theological contention in the church.
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I want to be very clear about the word foreknew. This is a major verse between Arminianism and Reformed theology or Calvinism.
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The word here in the Greek is progeno. I hope I'm saying that correctly.
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There's a combination of two words, pro, meaning before, and gnosis, meaning knowledge, foreknowledge, foreknew.
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There are those that teach that because of the position of the words in the sentence and a misunderstanding of the words themselves, that God looked forward in time in His foresight and omniscience and saw those who would choose
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Him when given the gospel call and therefore elected them to do so.
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Now, there's a very condensed version of that doctrine. The issue is that God didn't choose you because you chose
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Him. That's not what happened. The rest of Scripture, first of all, there's a very small view of God and His sovereignty.
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It is also incongruent with the whole of the rest of Scripture. Just before, as I read through in chapter 8, verses 7 and 8,
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Paul says, For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law.
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Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. It's not a matter of may.
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It's a matter of can. It's a matter of ability. They lack the capacity to do so.
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Now, back in chapter 3, if you remember going through chapter 3, verses 10 and 11, it says,
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As it is written, none is righteous, no not one, no one understands, no one seeks for God.
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Please tell me with just these two references here, going off of Scripture is sufficient,
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Scripture is true, right? This is the truth, the two things that I just read.
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How can one do something that opposes these?
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Paul is saying you can't choose. You lack the capacity to do so. So if we can't first choose, if we can't choose
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God, then He didn't foresee it. But Paul, along with the rest of Scripture, make it very clear that natural man, being corrupted by sin, a doctrine that we understand is total depravity.
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This allows this conclusion, and therefore to hold this view, not only do you have to have an off view of predestination and of election, but also of total depravity.
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Not the five solas, but the doctrines of grace are out the window.
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The amount of doctrine that you have to get around to hold that conclusion is monstrous.
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The simple fact is that Paul isn't saying that God foresaw who would choose.
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He is saying that God knew us beforehand. That there's a difference between knowing, there's a difference between knowing someone and knowing someone.
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Paul in chapter 1 makes it clear that God, he makes it clear that everyone is aware of God because of general revelation.
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This is plenty enough knowledge to be convicting. But he also makes it clear later, he articulates, that Christians, those that are saved, know
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God. The different knowing in similar language, in Genesis and in the
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Old Testament. The word is different, obviously, but they use a thinly veiled terminology of a husband knowing his wife.
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Obviously, Abraham knew his wife. He lived with her. That's not what they're talking about, is it?
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He's talking about a deeper manner of knowing. Similar to that, but not the same, because of the veiled reference that they are making.
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Paul is saying that beforehand, God knew us intimately and personally.
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It's a deeper manner of knowing. I'm going to point to a reference here.
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You don't have to flip to it, because it's very short. But in the book of Revelation, all the way in the back, in chapter 13, verse 8, it says this.
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And all who dwell on earth will worship it. This is in reference to the beast.
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And all who dwell on earth will worship it. Everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the
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Lamb who was slain. I'm not here to argue eschatology.
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But what in the reverse does this tell us? It's saying all those who were not written in the book of life, right?
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Worshipped it. That means all who were written in the book of life were written in it when?
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Before the foundations of the earth. Scripture has made this reference several times in regards to Christians.
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How can God write your name in the book of life before the foundations of the world if He doesn't know you, if He doesn't know your name?
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This is the foreknowing that Paul is talking about. He knew you.
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Continuing in the verse, he says he also predestined.
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Here, another doctrine that so many have trouble with. We discussed this in part last week with verse 28.
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As we see the doctrine of predestination, you look through Scripture. This is not an invention of Luther.
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This is not an invention of Calvin. It's not an invention of Augustine. It's not an invention of Paul.
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You can go all the way back, all the way back to the very beginnings of Scripture and see predestination.
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This is a doctrine that is throughout Scripture. Now, I'm not going to get into it explicitly heavily right now because we're fixing to go into Romans 9, and we will deal with it more there, but I have a couple of references for Ephesians here.
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Ephesians 1 -4 says, Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.
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In Ephesians 2 -10, For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which
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God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
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Now we move on to our next question. Why? Why election?
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Why predestination? Why did God from all eternity elect to save any of us?
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And that's the real question. The question isn't, Why did God decide to save some?
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It's, Why did God decide to save anyone? We're all guilty.
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To be just as glorified, He saved no one. Here's why.
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Paul continues, To be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn, meaning preeminent, elect the first among many brothers.
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The purpose of this is that we come to know Christ and ultimately, that His Son be glorified.
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That the Son be glorified. I want to point you back for a moment to the high priestly prayer that we had in our reading for today.
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John 17, verses 2 -10. The beginning. Christ says,
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Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify
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You. Since You have given Him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom
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You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they know
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You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.
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I glorify You, I glorified You on earth, having accomplished the work that You gave me to do.
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And now, Father, glorify me in Your own presence with the glory that I had before, that I had with You before the world existed.
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I have manifested Your name to the people whom You gave me out of the world.
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Yours they were, and You gave them to me, and they have kept
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Your word. Now they know that everything that You have given me is from You, for I have given them the words that You gave me.
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And they have received them, and they have come to know in truth that I came from You, and they have believed that You sent me.
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I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those whom
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You have given me, for they are Yours. All mine are
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Yours, and all Yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.
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This is why the predestination. This is why the election. Because from all eternity,
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God decreed that He would give a people to His Son, that the
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Son would come into the world to effect atonement for those people, and that in those people the
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Son would be glorified. This brings us to verse 30.
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This we know as the golden chain in Latin, the
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Ordo Salutis, or the order of salvation. And those whom
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He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified.
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Now Paul is not included here. All that is covered in our confession, all that we confess that is in the order of salvation, what he is doing is hitting the things that are out of time, and for lack of a better term at the moment, the highlights of those that are in time, that happen in time.
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The foreknowing happened from eternity, it's not in time. The election happened from eternity, not in time.
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But us being called, us being justified, us being glorified, all happens in time.
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In full, the order is this, election from before the foundations of the earth, atonement effected by Christ on Christ's work in His life and on the cross.
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Then the gospel call, when we hear the word and are called to repent and believe on the work of Christ for our salvation alone.
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Then the inward call, when the Holy Spirit opens our eyes and shows us that this is the truth and begins to show us that we are indeed sinners in need of a
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Savior. Regeneration, the instantaneous renewing of the human heart, this is where we are given a heart of flesh.
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Conversion, when God grants the gift of faith in Christ to us and grants us true repentance or justification.
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When God the Father instantaneously sees our sin as having been atoned for by Christ's work on the cross and thus sees us righteous in His sight.
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From the call, well, let's say this, from the inward call to justification happens like that, quicker than you can imagine.
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It's effected by the Holy Spirit. Our sanctification is the day -to -day changing of ourselves from one degree of glory to another.
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The putting on of Christ's righteousness and the showing of the fruit of sanctification and our continued conformity to Christ's likeness.
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This happens from the moment of justification till your death.
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Glorification, when our Lord Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead and we, the saints, as well as the entire universe, as we discussed before, are made perfect and whole.
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Now, some of us may be in heaven when this happens, awaiting for this, and some of us saints may very well be on earth when this happens, but that's another conversation for another time.
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But dear friends, I point back to what I said before. Do you think any of what
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I just said could be effected by anything a human can do? The gospel call, the inward call, the sanctification, the justification, any of that?
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The answer to that is, in fact, no. As I saw most of you shake your head.
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It is wholly the work of God. Even the sharing of the gospel is the work of God.
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This is why, earlier in the scripture,
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Christ tells the apostles that he's sending them a helper, one, the
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Holy Spirit, that will indwell them and cause them to do righteous work.
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This is why we have the scriptures, because of the work of the Holy Spirit. This is why we thank
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Him for our salvation. Please tell me that no one in this room, when they pray, get down and say, thank myself for my own salvation.
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We have a much longer conversation when we get done with this. You do not effect your salvation at all.
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No manner of choice and no degree of piety effects your salvation, your sanctification, your justification, none of it.
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Notice one other thing here. Paul talks of the order of salvation in the past tense.
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Did you notice that? We'll go back.
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Let me scroll up just a little bit. And those whom he predestined, he also called.
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And those whom he called, he also justified. And those whom he justified, he also glorified.
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At the very least, you can say glorification hasn't happened yet. But all of this is past tense.
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It is done. It's not a manner of, well, you know,
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I might get there. No, Paul is talking about this in the past tense. He's writing this to saints, and he is saying it is done.
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Your glorification, it's already done. It is a done deal.
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It will happen just assuredly as you are reading the words on this page. Because you were inwardly called, because you were justified, because you were being sanctified, you will be glorified.
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There's no losing it. There's no getting out of it. You, yourself, and us collectively as the church, as saints, have been given already.
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We have been given to the Son as a love gift from the Father, to paraphrase a couple of pastors in just this manner of sanctification and glorification.
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God began a work in you. There's no need for you to worry about whether or not it will be completed, because God doesn't trust you with it.
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You can't affect it, okay? And also, if you could lose it, as some people teach and some people believe, if you could lose your salvation, you would have lost it three milliseconds after you gained it.
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Guaranteed, it had done been lost. Friends, it is a wonderful truth to the believer, and it is a terrifying one to the unbeliever that God finishes what he starts.
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Not a single thing, not a single laid plan has ever been laid forth by God and not finished.
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The fact that this is spiritually done is one of the things that Christ is conveying to Nicodemus in their conversation in John 3.
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This is a spiritual work. It is done by God. Now, Nicodemus didn't really pick up on it, but in 1 through 15, it says,
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Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night, so he wouldn't be seen, and said to him,
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Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.
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Jesus answered him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
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Now, I want to stop for a second and just point that out. Christ says that unless you're born again, you can't see it.
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We haven't even got to the entering part yet. You can't see it. Nicodemus said to him,
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How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?
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Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the
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Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the
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Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.
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The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.
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So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus said to him,
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How can these things be? Jesus answered him, Are you the teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?
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Meaning, I'll stop for a second and point that out. Nicodemus should have known these things.
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Because these things are evident in the Old Testament Scriptures.
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Not because Nicodemus should have some divine revelation of his own from God, but because they're evident in the
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Scriptures. Truly, truly,
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I say to you, we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.
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If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
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No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the
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Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the
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Son of Man be lifted up. If you don't get that reference, go back, start from the beginning, read forward.
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It's wonderful. That whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.
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Now, the part that we all know by heart. For God so loved the world that He gave
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His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
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We all know that part. Keep going to 17. For God did not send the
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Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.
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Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already.
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I'm not getting into double predestination. I'm just saying condemned already.
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Because He does not believe, He has not believed in the name of the only
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Son of God. And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.
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For everyone who does wicked things hates the light.
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He does not come to the light lest his works should be exposed. How many times have you been having a conversation, evangelizing with someone, and you start sharing the law with them?
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Because first, they have to be condemned first before they can really understand the good news of the gospel in Christ.
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And they goalpost move. They move around.
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They get wishy -washy. They start backing up. Yeah, but I did that. Yeah, but everybody does that.
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Yeah, but everybody does this. Everybody's a sinner. They got to keep moving back from the light.
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But whoever does what is true comes to the light. So that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
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So I make this point again that salvation is not the work of any human being. It's not a choice that we make to be saved.
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It is not piety or good works that we are saved. It is wholly the work of God.
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It is a spiritual work and one that only
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God is capable of. He's the one, as Paul said before, who has elected us, who has called us, who has justified us, and who will absolutely glorify us in time.
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As you go through the week, consider these things. As a saint, consider them as a hope, as a wonderful, wonderful blessing.
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The work that has been begun in you will be finished. And if you are not a saint, please consider to stop running from the light.
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Understand that you are a lawbreaker, like we all are.
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You have stolen. You have blasphemed. You have adultered.
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And only one of those counts. The one time. And just as Paul is saying that this work in the saints has been started and will most assuredly be completed, there's another promise.
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If you understand and truly have a godly sorrow over your sin, cry out to God for Him to save you from His wrath.
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He will do it. And saints, again, just before we finish, consider this also when talking with your friends and talking with your family, talking with your coworkers, that you have these in the gospel.
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Your justification, your sanctification, your glorification. And out of love for those you know, do you not want them to have it too?
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I say this over and over and over and over again.
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As saints, one of the most hateful things that we can do to another human being is not share the gospel with them.
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Either because we're afraid that it'll make us look weird, or because we don't like them.