It is not that I did choose thee,
Lord, for Lord, that could not be. Yuba-Sutter Grace Church
would like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Rick
Warda. We currently meet at the Yuba
County Library, located at 303 2nd Street in downtown Marysville,
California, on the corner of 2nd and C Street. Weekly services
are held on Sunday at 11 a.m. at the library. For more information,
visit our website at ysgracechurch.com. Now here's our pastor, Rick Warda. The text of our sermon today
is Romans chapter 9. I've entitled this message, The
Elect of God. Paul says in verse 1, I say the
truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness
in the Holy Ghost that I have great heaviness and continual
sorrow in my heart, for I could wish that myself were accursed
from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the
flesh. who are Israelites, to whom pertaineth
the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving
of the law, and the service of God, and the promises, whose
are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ
came, who is over all God, blessed forever. Not as though the word
of God hath taken none effect, for they are not all Israel which
are of Israel, neither because they are the seed of Abraham
are they all children, but in Isaac shall thy seed be called.
That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the
children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for
the seed. For this is the word of promise.
At this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son. And not
only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by
our father Isaac, for the children, being not yet born, neither having
done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election
might stand not of works, but of him that calleth it was said
unto her, the elder shall serve the younger, as it is written,
Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say
then? Is there unrighteousness with
God? God forbid, for He saith to Moses, I will have mercy on
whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will
have compassion. So then it is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. For the scripture saith unto
Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I
might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared
throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom
he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt
say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? for who hath
resisted his will? Nay, but, O man, who art thou
that replyest against God? Shall the thing formed say to
him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the
potter power over the clay, Of the same lump, to make one vessel
unto honour, And another unto dishonour? What if God, willing
to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with
much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction,
and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the
vessels of mercy which He had afore prepared unto glory, even
us, whom He hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of
the Gentiles? If God made so many promises
to Israel, that nation of people who were born to Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob, why did so many in that nation perish in their
own unbelief? If God promised to be their God,
if He promised they would be His people, If he promised to
take away their sins and remember their sins no more, then why
did most of the people in that nation remain in their sins and
unbelief and were eternally lost? The answer is given in Romans
chapter 9. That answer is that not all in
the nation of Israel are in the true Israel. Birth to Abraham
does not make one a child of God. Ishmael was born to Abraham,
but only Isaac was given the blessings of God's eternal promises
in Christ. Jacob and Esau were both born
to Isaac, but only Jacob was given spiritual blessings in
Christ. It was not failure on the part
of God's Word, but it was because God's Word did not promise to
everybody born to Abraham that he would be God's adopted son.
Nor did God promise everyone born to Isaac that he would be
God's adopted son in Christ. Nor did God promise to make everybody
born to Jacob his own adopted son. You see, men naturally have
a mistaken notion about God's Word. Men naturally think that
God's promises in some way depend on man. They do not. If God's promises depend on man,
then God would have pointed to Israel's unbelief and Israel's
disobedience as the reason why Ishmael and Esau and most in
Israel perished in unbelief. But the only reason he gives
is his own sovereign eternal will. Men have three objections
to God's electing love in Christ for his people. The first objection
comes as an assumption, a false premise. That false assumption
is that God's word requires man's cooperation. Men think God requires
them to meet conditions before God will do His will. How often
do you hear this expressed by people today? How often do people
today say that God can only save you if you will let Him? But
this is not the truth of scripture. The most common way in which
this objection is expressed is as follows. It is almost universally
claimed that God loves everybody and that Christ died for everybody
and that it is up to you to accept or to decide or to exert your
will for God to save you. Because it is mistakenly thought
that God loves everybody and that Jesus died for everybody,
then it must come down to man to make the difference between
himself and others. When we do not understand God's
salvation, we cannot get beyond thinking that salvation ultimately
hinges on something that I do. as if God cannot save unless
those he saves approve, or help him in some way, or even cooperate. But this makes salvation conditioned
on man. God here denies this in Romans
9. He says, "...not as though the
word of God has taken none effect, for they are not all Israel which
are of Israel." In other words, there is no deficiency in God's
word. The reason most in Israel perish
is because God did not choose to rescue them from their sin
and unbelief. Scripture makes clear that salvation
is God rescuing those who are not only unable to save themselves
but positively opposed to God who are his enemies. They oppose
the truth of the gospel and therefore oppose God in their own salvation. But this is the glory of God.
He will have mercy on such as these by motives of grace found
in His heart from eternity without any influence from men and without
any conditions placed on men. God has chosen to have mercy
on whom He will by choosing them in Christ to eternal salvation. And this is all to the praise
of the glory of His grace. God saves rebels by His sovereign
will, because of His sovereign grace, by the work of Christ
alone. And He tells this to sinners
who are bound in the prison of their own unbelief and their
own heart's deception. And in telling them this, he
opens the hearts of those he will and gives them faith to
see and depend on Christ alone as all of their salvation. The
best news any sinner ever heard is that in spite of my sin, in
spite of my rebellion, in spite of my hatred for God and my love
for myself, in spite of my pride, in spite of my self-deception,
in spite of my lust that always seeks my own way, God has from
eternity stepped in by his sovereign will to save hell-deserving sinners
by giving them to Christ in eternal election. There is no greater
news to this sinner than that in the eternal purpose of God
he has found complete satisfaction to his justice and perfect fulfillment
of his righteousness in his son for chosen sinners. He does not
look for one thing from me, the sinner, but looks to His Son
for all that He requires of me, O blessed Gospel, O blessed Sovereign
God of all grace, in Christ Jesus the Lord. If God were to look
to me to meet one condition, I could not do it. If salvation
depends on me in any way, then I will justly perish under God's
wrath. But God has eternally ordained
that Christ should stand for His people and that they should
stand before God in Him. He has eternally ordained to
receive from Christ all He demands and requires of His people. and
he has determined to accept them for what Christ has done in their
place. God justified his people when
he justified his son. Romans 4.25 God made his people
holy by the offering of his son. Hebrews 10.10 God has blessed
and will continue to bless his people with all of the blessings
God gives to Christ because of his obedience unto death. all
the blessings Christ earned for his people. The fact is the only
condition I can meet is that I am a wretched, hateful sinner
without strength to remove one sin or to obey one law. In myself my sin is great. My
sins are many and I cannot obey God. I cannot believe His Son. But in spite of my complete inability
to do what God requires, and my utter inability to suffer
what God demands to pay for my own sins, in spite of all that
I am, God looks to His Son for sinners like me. This is the
truth of scripture, and this is the good news of the gospel.
1 Corinthians 1.30 says, Of Him, of God, are you in Christ Jesus,
who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification,
and redemption, that according as it is written, He that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord. And in Isaiah 45, 25, it says
this, in the Lord shall all the house of Israel be justified
and shall glory. All of the chosen people of God
are in Christ. And in Christ, all of them are
justified. For this, they boast in Christ
alone as their all before God. exactly according to the truth
of the way that it is and has been from eternity. This is the
faith of God's elect. Titus 1.1 Election is God choosing
His people in Christ from eternity and finding them in Christ, not
having their own righteousness, but the righteousness of God,
the obedience unto death of His own Son in our human nature,
the righteousness of God which we receive from God by faith
alone in Christ alone. The first objection God deals
with in Romans 9 is swept aside as a faulty premise. Men naturally
assume God's word requires them to meet conditions for God's
promises to be fulfilled, but Romans chapter 9 verse 6 through
8 exposes this as a false assumption. God's word always accomplishes
His will. The problem is not that God's
word cannot save because men fail to meet the condition. The
truth is God's word actually and unfailingly saves all those
God intended to save. Isaiah 5511 says, So shall my
word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return
unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please. It shall
prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. Jesus said in John
6 37 all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. Therefore we see that God's Word
unfailingly accomplishes God's intended will. it is therefore
unmistakably clear all whom God chose in Christ from eternity
are saved in time they shall never perish they shall have
everlasting life the gospel is the power of God unto salvation
because in it the righteousness of God is revealed and that righteousness
is the obedience of Christ in his life and death even the death
of the cross. He answered justice and fulfilled
God's law by His obedience. That is what the gospel declares. God gives faith to His chosen
people to believe that truth. Acts 13, 48 says, when the Gentiles
heard this, as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. God God's Word in the Gospel
is His power to salvation. The second objection men raise
against God's electing love of His people in Christ is that
God is unfair. We know this is the second objection
because this is addressed in what follows in Romans 9.11,
for the children, being not yet born, neither having done any
good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election,
might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth, it was said
to her, The elder shall serve the younger, as it is written,
Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say
then? Is there unrighteousness with
God? God forbid, for he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on
whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will
have compassion. So then, it is not of him that
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy."
Romans 9 verse 11 through 16. make no mistake. Salvation is
not of him who wills. It is not of him who runs. It is of him who shows mercy. Salvation is of the Lord." In
these verses, God anticipates and answers this objection. If
God Before Jacob and Esau were born, before they did any good
or evil, if God loved Jacob and hated Esau, isn't God unrighteous? But notice, Scripture reveals
this truth and makes this claim without apology. Knowing what
man's reaction would be, the Spirit of God raises the objection. What shall we say then? Is there
unrighteousness with God? What do you and I think? Don't
you and I naturally think that if God alone made the difference
between these two twin boys, without regard to their good
or bad works, that God must somehow be unfair in His choice? Isn't
that our objection? But God answers our objection,
and it is in His answer that we are greatly instructed. He
says, God forbid. Now that simple no is sufficient. God is a God of truth, Psalm
31 5. He is holy in all His ways, Psalm
145 verse 17. Therefore if God did it, it is
right. But what the Spirit of God does
next teaches us how we know truth, the truth of anything, and how
we are to be assured in our conscience of what is true. Scripture is
brought to bear to the objector's question. The Gospel, as you
recall, in 1 Corinthians 15, is according to the Scriptures. That fact gives the strongest
assurance possible to believers. Scripture is unshakably and unalterably
true. It cannot be broken. Scripture
is God's written word. It is for this reason that when
Jesus was tempted by the devil, he responded three times with,
it is written. He referred to God's written
word as the ultimate authority. That is what the Spirit of God
does here in Romans 9, and that is what we must do. We must never
make our confidence in God to hinge on our own reason. To do so is to elevate man's
reason above God's written word. We only know anything because
God has spoken, and He has only spoken in Scripture. The Bible
alone is the Word of God. All additions and subtractions
are false. God repeatedly pronounces His
curse on all who add to or take away from His written Word. If
Christ, who is God over all, and if the Spirit of God, who
is the Spirit of Truth, make their final stand on Scripture,
then Scripture must be our only ground of confidence and our
assurance before God. It is what God says, not what
I think, that is the answer to every question. And Paul therefore
says, it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. This establishes the undeniable
truth that God loved Jacob and hated Esau before either of these
twins were born. It also proves that God does
not love everybody. He did not love Esau. And scripture
continues, For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. This scripture establishes without
a doubt that salvation is by God's sovereign mercy to sinners,
a mercy that springs from His own will. It must spring from
God alone for several reasons. Mercy must be by God's will alone
because mercy, by definition, presupposes that mercy is the
only solution. Understand this. Where there
is a Savior, there is a sinner. And where Sovereign God wills
to show mercy in that Almighty Savior, there is a sinner who
deserves wrath in himself, but is unfailingly saved from the
wrath he deserves in his substitute. When God speaks of salvation,
two things are always held in contrast to display His great
grace. First, the complete ruin and
utter helplessness of those He saves, and second, the perfect
work of salvation that our great God and Savior Jesus Christ accomplished. Scripture says that Christ is
the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, 1 Peter 1.20 and
Revelation 13.8. If there is a Lamb slain, there
is a sacrifice. If there is a sacrifice, there
are sinners for whom that sacrifice is offered. And if there is an
accepted sacrifice for chosen sinners, the sins of those sinners
are remembered no more. and if their sins are remembered
no more, those have been saved by the Lord. These two things
are always held up to our view, what we are in ourselves as sinners,
and what we are in Christ, washed, redeemed, clothed, righteous,
and perfected. Romans chapter 5 says this, when
we were yet without strength, that's what we are in ourselves.
Christ died for the ungodly, that's what we are in ourselves.
If when we were enemies, that's what we are in ourselves. We
were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Much more,
being reconciled, that's what we are in Christ. We shall be
saved by His life. It's because of Christ that we
are saved, even and in spite of what we are in ourselves.
God speaks of His chosen people as they are in themselves, without
strength, ungodly, sinners, and enemies of God. And He speaks
of them as they are in Christ, reconciled, justified, perfected,
righteous in Him, sanctified, raised from the dead. God has
mercy on sinners, but His mercy is sovereign. It is mercy out
of His uninfluenced will. It is mercy that is free and
depends on the goodness of God in Christ alone. It is not mercy
that finds something in the sinner, and it is not mercy that waits
for the self-condemned sinner to respond. It is a mercy that
saves the undeserving and the helpless in spite of their sin
and their unbelief, and it provides all that justice demands in the
sinner's substitute. It is a mercy that brings every
grace repentance and faith and love that works by faith. It
is a mercy that gives righteousness and gives eternal life. None
of these things can be earned. None of these come from the sinner.
All flow from God. All come from Him alone because
of His sovereign grace in Christ alone and to chosen sinners alone. Now, who could fault God for
showing such undeserved grace? But men will point to Esau and
say, God hated Esau before the world began. That makes God unjust
and unfair. Does it? If mercy is holy God's
prerogative to sinners, if mercy is the only wise and good God
choosing His people in Christ, so that their standing is only
what they are in Christ, if by God's mercy God answers all for
His people in their place and on their behalf, then what injustice
is there in God that he would choose one in Christ and leave
another to answer God in his own person? What injustice is
there in God that he would predetermine to deal with a man in his own
person according to God's justice? Isn't the most we can say about
this is that God is just? Think again what this sovereign
mercy is. It is the free mercy of God in
Christ. But what does mercy in Christ
mean? It means that God determined
before to lay the sins of His people on Christ. It means that
God determined before to punish His Son for the sins that were
not His but made His by the sovereign will of God. And it means that
after the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled all righteousness by His own
obedience to the will of God, that God poured out His wrath
on Him as the greatest sinner that ever lived, and Christ,
more than any man, deserved to die because He bore the sins
of every one of God's elect people. Their sins were made His. God
therefore plunged the sword of His justice into the heart of
His own dear Son. Zechariah 13, 7. Now, think again
about your objection that God is unfair because he hated Esau
before he was born. Which was more unfair? That he
determined Esau would stand before him in his own person outside
of Christ and require Esau to obey his law and answer justice
for his own deeds or that God required Christ to answer for
the sins of His people in His own person. which should raise
our sense of abhorrence more, that God would eternally require
Esau to keep his law and suffer under the hand of his justice
for disobeying that law, or that God would require Christ, who
is without sin and obeyed God perfectly, to then bear as his
own the sins of foul sinners who only deserve God's wrath? I think if we are fair, we will
judge God to be fair for requiring that sinners be punished for
their own sins, while we stand incomprehensibly amazed that
God would punish His Son to save chosen sinners. What is more
shocking, that God required Esau to answer injustice for his own
sins, or that God saved that lying Jacob by requiring Christ
to answer justice in his place. It doesn't surprise me that God
judges men for their sins. What surprises me is that God
judged Christ for the sins of His people. God was uninfluenced
by men to offer His Son for His sinful people. And God was uninfluenced
by those sinful people whom He would save because there was
nothing but sin in them to influence Him. Who can fault God for holding
Esau to the demands of justice? But someone will say, didn't
God hate Esau before he was a sinner? God hated Esau by not choosing
him in Christ. God left Esau outside of Christ. All men in themselves are sinners. It is only in Christ that any
are righteous. Therefore, outside of Christ,
all men are hated of God. In justice, God says, Thou hatest
all workers of iniquity, Psalm 5, 5. But in sovereign mercy
in Christ, God says, I have not beheld iniquity in Jacob, Numbers
23, 21. But doesn't this doctrine make
men fatalistic? If God damns men for no cause,
why concern myself with these things at all? God will do what
He will do. No one can resist Him. And that
is the third objection that sinful men raise to God's electing love
of His people in Christ. If God has mercy on whom He will,
and gives men up to their own hearts, lust, pride, and deceit,
why does God then find fault with men? For who has resisted
His will? God answers this objection, and
He answers it from Scripture. Again, we too must find peace
in what God says. To go beyond Scripture, to rely
on our reason to determine why God chose one and did not choose
another beyond His declaration that it seemed good to Him, Who
alone is good, and who alone is wise, is to put our reason
above God's word. It is to make God answer our
reasoning. But this is the idolatrous pride
of man's heart. We don't even practice what we
demand of God. Who in a family or a business
or in government requires everyone affected by decisions to be involved
at every step in the process to understand why a decision
is made and to be satisfied with the outcome? Any family or business
or government that attempts to operate on such a principle will
miserably fail. Is not God sovereign? Is He not
all wise? Does He not do what pleases Him
at all times? And isn't He alone good? Is not His wisdom beyond men
to comprehend? Therefore, to require God to
answer our reason before we can be satisfied is the height of
folly and pride. It is a flat denial that God
is God and we are only flesh. To the objection, why does he
yet find fault? For who has resisted his will?
God answers, Nay, but, O man, who are you that replies against
God? Shall the thing formed say to
him that formed it, Why have you made me thus? Doesn't the
potter have power over the clay? To make of the same lump one
vessel to honor and another to dishonor? Scripture answers simply
and unapologetically. It is right for God to do with
His own what seems good to Him. He created all things for Himself,
even the wicked for the day of evil. Proverbs 16, 4. He does
not give account of his matters to any created being. Job 33,
verse 13. God is God. Let us therefore
come as the publican and cry, God is God. Be merciful to me,
the sinner. Look upon Christ for me. Receive
satisfaction from Him for me and receive His obedience as
all my righteousness. Find me, gracious God, in your
own dear Son. This is the true mercy of God
declared in the Gospel. You've just heard a sermon by
our pastor, Rick Warda. You may contact us by email or
by phone, or download a copy of this sermon by visiting our
website at ysgracechurch.com.