2 Timothy 1 verse 1, Paul, an
apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the
promise of life which is in Christ Jesus. To Timothy, my dearly
beloved son, grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and
Christ Jesus our Lord. I thank God, whom I serve from
my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance
of Thee in my prayers night and day, greatly desiring to see
Thee, being mindful of Thy tears, that I may be filled with joy
when I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in Thee,
which dwelt first in Thy grandmother Lois and Thy mother Eunice, and
I am persuaded that is in Thee also. Wherefore, I put thee in
remembrance, that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee,
by the putting on of my hands. For God hath not given us the
spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Be not thou therefore ashamed
of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner. But
be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the
power of God. And verse 9 is where we want
to focus our attention today. Who, this is speaking of God,
the power of God, who hath saved us, and called us with an holy
calling, not according to our works, but according to his own
purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before
the world began." And the title of our message today is, Grace
Given Before the World Began. Now Timothy believed the gospel,
and he believed it through Paul's ministry. And so he was called,
in verse 2, Paul's son in the faith. Paul was persuaded that
Timothy had faith that was God-given. And it was faith in Christ. And
he was also convinced that Timothy believed that salvation was altogether
of grace. Unmixed with any dependence on
works of any kind. And Paul prayed night and day
for Timothy. We read that in verse 3. And
he knew his tears. Paul knew that Timothy often
had cause for tears in his life. And Paul greatly desired to see
him, to come to him. and to encourage him. But in
the meantime, Paul urges him with this letter. He sends this
letter to him and he opens it up with these words of encouragement
and exhortation. First, they're words of comfort. He tells him, he tells him, I'm
glad that I think about you day and night according to the will
of God and that I'm praying for you. Can you imagine the comfort
that would bring to Timothy to know that the Apostle Paul was
thinking about him all the time and praying for him? And so he
tells him that, and it's right that we should pray for one another,
and it's right that we should communicate our concern for one
another to God and let people know that we're praying for them
because of our concern. Who else would we take those
concerns to? Do we just wish people well? That's what I experienced
in life is that you meet with people and they want to give
you some kind of comfort. The worst kind of afflictions
might be happening in their lives and about all they can say is,
well, I hope things go well or we're here for you. But they
really can't do anything. But prayer is the most effective
thing that we can do and love in prayer is God-given. So, Paul
calls to remembrance the faith that God had given to Timothy,
and he wants to put Timothy in remembrance of something that
had happened in Timothy's life. Paul had laid his hands on Timothy
and bestowed upon him a gift, a gift from God, a gift that
was communicated by the apostles laying on of hands so that Timothy
could teach and preach the gospel of God. And throughout the letter
that Paul writes to Timothy, you see that emphasis is that
Timothy is a preacher and a teacher of the gospel. But for our benefit,
God has left Timothy in a state where he's constantly weakened
by his own personality, by his own limitations, by his unbelief,
by his fears, by his tears. by his temptation to even be
ashamed of Paul and of the gospel. And so Paul writes to him, and
this exhortation that Paul gives to Timothy is the most emboldening, strengthening and
encouraging and comforting exhortation that could possibly be given.
So it's like Paul goes to the kitchen and he pulls out the
most effective ingredients and puts together something that
will actually strengthen Timothy in the faith. He goes to his
library and he pulls out the most pithy book and pulls it
out and lays it out and gives him the most important passage
that he can think of that will strengthen Timothy and embolden
him and give him comfort in all of his affliction. And this is
what he says. This is why he writes this way
to Timothy. And it's not enough that we are
moved by emotional and by salesman-like preaching. If we are able to be influenced
by the kind of preaching that gets us emotionally stirred,
and that's what actually we need in order to sustain us in life,
then anyone who has a greater gift of that ability to move
us emotionally will influence us and will be led away as easily
to the error as we are to the truth. But Paul doesn't do that. He gives him the truth. It says
in Ephesians 4, verse 14 and 15, But speaking the truth, which
means speaking the truth of Christ and Him crucified to one another, may be able to grow up in Him
in all things, which is the head, even Christ." You see how God,
He doesn't want His people to be children, but men in the Gospel. And He says this also, the Apostle
Paul not only said that, that I just read from Ephesians, but
this in 2 Corinthians 11. in verse 2 and 4. I'm jealous
over you, he says to the Corinthians, with a godly jealousy. Jealousy
is not always bad. God is jealous. And God's jealousy
is a righteous jealousy because His people are His. They're not
someone else's. He doesn't want them to be deceived
or led away by the error of the wicked. That would be to have
his people taken from him. He's not going to allow that.
He's jealous over them. And Paul reflects that when he
says, I'm jealous over you, Corinthians, with a godly jealousy. He says
for this, I have espoused you to one husband that I may present
you as a chaste virgin to Christ. Paul's job was to take the church
and to present them to their husband, to Christ, just like
John the Baptist. John the Baptist said, He that hath a bride is
the bridegroom, and he must increase and I must decrease. And that
was Paul's mindset. But he says to these Corinthians,
he says, But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled
Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted
from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh
preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if you
receive another spirit, which you have not received, or another
gospel, which you have not accepted, you might bear well with him."
And so the Apostle Paul was constantly on the guard against this from
happening. And so when he speaks to Timothy along these lines,
He knows that knowing the gospel will make a man bold. Knowing
the gospel will make a man so that he can live or die in peace
in this world though men may oppose him. Though he have the
strongest opposition. And this reflects the experience
of even our Lord Jesus in Isaiah 49 and verse 5. The Lord says this in prophecy.
He says, and you know what his life was like. He was preaching
and the people And the scribes, and the rulers, and the Pharisees,
and the high priests, and chief priests, all these men would
say, speak against him. And they were not gathered. And
so he says this in Isaiah 49, 5. He says, though Israel be
not gathered, that would be discouraging. Isaiah was sent himself in Isaiah
chapter 6. And God said, and he said, how
long, Lord? And he said, until The land be
wasted without inhabitant. And no one be left. Just keep
preaching the gospel. But Christ says this. He says,
Though Israel be not gathered, yet will I be glorious in the
eyes of the Lord my God. And my God shall be my strength.
You see, so the fact, the comfort, the strength that Christ drew
was that he was doing the will of God. That he was sent by God.
And that he would have a people for himself because God would
give him the strength to actually save them from their sins. And
so, this is the same thing that Paul is doing to Timothy. A man
who is accepted by God has nothing to lose if he is denounced by
men. A man who is called of God cannot
be deterred by men. If we're called by men, we can
be deterred. But if God calls us, if He gets
hold of us by His grace, we cannot be turned back. A man who receives
a holy calling will not trade it for an unholy siren. A man
who is justified by God cannot be condemned to God by men or
angels or devils or any. And a man God has purpose to
save and give grace to is actually and eternally saved by Christ.
And so this is what Paul writes to him. And so we read this verse
in verse 9. He says, "...who hath saved us
and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but
according to his own purpose and grace which was given us
in Christ Jesus before the world began." a full, abundant storehouse
of truth and comfort and strength we have in this verse. First
of all, who has saved us? Who has saved us? Who excludes
you? God did this. Who excludes men? The one who has saved us is God.
And this verse makes that entirely clear. He excludes our effort,
our sincerity, all that we have done, all of our knowledge, all
of our experience. God saved us. This is the message
of the gospel. And this is the starting point,
isn't it? God saved us. If God saved us, There's several
things that must follow. If God saved us, we're saved.
If God saved us, we're kept. If God saved us, He will bring
us to what He has intended for us. And if God saved us, then
it's not limited by my weakness or by my ability. It's God who
does the saving. Man cannot save himself. Man can't help himself. He's
opposed to God at every point. He's ignorant and arrogant, stubborn
and sinful, unbelieving. He's a mess. In fact, he's spiritually
dead. And so, this is the way he first
starts out. God has saved us. It's God who
has saved us. God the Father, God the Son,
and God the Holy Spirit has saved us. And notice that word, hath.
Hath saved us. Believers in Christ are now saved. Faith is the beginning point
in our experience of salvation. But our salvation is an accomplished
fact with God. It's not something that we look
forward to. Oh, I hope someday I will be saved. Salvation is
something that's already occurred. And so He says, God hath saved
us. Many speak of being saved when
they come to die. But God says His people have
been saved. And this is the way things are.
Either God has saved you, and you are now saved, or you're
lost. This is the fact. You're either
saved or you're lost. You're not on your way to being
saved and somehow between those two points. You're either saved
or you're lost. How we all need to, each one
of us, come to grips with this. God saves and when He saves,
He speaks of it in the past. He has saved us. What a blessing this is that
salvation is a finished work. It was accomplished for us. If
you call upon God in Christ, if you come to God because of
Him, if you call on Christ as God, and if you look upon Him
as the only man God will accept on the basis of His own merit,
the only one God accepts for His people, and if you look to
Him crucified, risen, and reigning as all your salvation and acceptance
and standing and holiness before God, and if you look for Him,
as the one who will deliver you from bondage, the bondage of
the corruption of your sin in your body, and worship God and
enjoy Him forever, then you are now at this present time saved
by God, and forever saved by Him. So I want to look at this
a little more carefully with you because, as I said, we need
to know the Gospel from the Scripture so that we, like Timothy, will
be able to stand in life, stand by faith. It's one thing to talk
about these things. It's another thing to see how
God has revealed them to us from His Word. First of all, I want
you to see this, is that first, God saved us And He speaks of
it in the past. He saved us in the past. Notice,
even in this verse, it says, "...who have saved us and called
us." You see the order? And I'm sure that's been pointed
out to you before, but the order is important. He saved us and
He called us. And calling is our experience
of grace. But here, saving that he speaks
of here is a certainty that's outside of our experience. Because
when he says he has saved us, he's speaking first and foremost,
and then secondly, the work of the Father and the work of the
Son of God in our salvation. But first, let's look at this.
God Himself has saved us on purpose. Do you see that? He says in the
end, He saved us according to His own purpose and grace. God's
purpose. Someone has said, I remember
this story, I think it was told by Spurgeon or maybe it was by
Henry Mahan or somebody else, I can't remember who. A woman
asked him, what does predestination mean? What does election mean?
And he answered it this way. He said something like, he says,
are you saved? Yes. Did you save yourself or
did God save you? Well, God saved me. Did he do
it on accident or was it on purpose? And she had to say, well, I guess
he did it on purpose. He said, that is election. That
is predestination. God has saved his people, not
by chance, not as a hopeful thing that if you do your part, then
God will do his part. But God has saved us on purpose.
And there was a purpose for saving us. There's sort of a two-fold
use of the word purpose. Not only did he do it deliberately,
but he had a purpose in view. God saved you on purpose, it
was not by accident. And listen to what the scripture
tells us about how God has saved us. He saved us in many ways,
and God the Father has saved us in many ways even before we
had an experience, before we were even aware of it. And this
is even a weightier reason why salvation is all of grace. Listen
to these things that God says in Scripture. First of all, our
names, our names were written in the book of life of the Lamb
from the foundation of the world. Who wrote them there? I didn't.
You don't enter heaven and write your book. You can't see your
name written there. But God wrote them there. That
means that God had a purpose that began before He created
the world. And that purpose included putting
names of individuals who He would give life to because Christ would
shed His blood and earn for them that right to eternal life by
His own obedience. That's what it means in Revelation
13.8 when He says, about those whose names were not written
in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of
the world." So much in that verse. The whole purpose of God is contained
in that one verse. But it goes on. It's more than
that. In 1 Peter chapter 1, 18-20, it says that Christ was ordained
as our Redeemer And His precious blood was determined by God to
be the price of our redemption before the world. Before the
world began. That's in 1 Peter chapter 1.
And then it says in John 17 that all those that Christ would
give life to out of the world were given to Him by His Father. And they were given to Him to
save. He prayed for them. And He says in verse 23 and 24
that they were loved by God. And that the reason that Christ
prays for them, He prays for them that the world might know
that they were loved by God, and that God loved them even
as He loved His own Son. And this is a love that extends
from the foundation of the world, because it says that in John
17, 24. The love that He had for His
Son was from before the foundation of the world. The love He had
for His people was not like the love He had for the world. It
was not at all like that. Look at John 17, 23, to see these
words. He says this, and this is right
in the middle of the prayer. We could go to each of these
verses. In fact, we'll take a look at
a couple of them just while we're here. Look at verse 2. Jesus
prays. He says, "...as thou hast given
Him," Christ, "...power over all flesh," over every individual
and man in the world, He says, "...that He should give eternal
life to as many as thou hast given Him." Words can't be plainer. "...there were some given to
Him." That gift was made before Christ prayed this prayer, before
Christ came into the world, before He laid down His life. And He's
speaking about those, He says, I'm going to give them eternal
life. That was the will of God, John 6, 37. His will was that
He should raise up all that God had given Him. But then in verse
6 He says, I have manifested Thy name unto the men which Thou
gavest Me out of the world. You see, a select number given
out of the world. And then in verse 8, And then
it often overlooked, but look at verse 10. All mine are thine. and thine are mine, and I'm glorified
in them." You see that? Now think about that. If I had
some things in my, let's say I had some books in my house,
and I said, all my books belong to my son. and all my son's books
belong to me." What does that mean? It means there's not a
book that's included in that set of books that doesn't belong
to both of us, does it? He doesn't have any book that
I don't own, and I have no books that he doesn't own. And that's
what the Lord Jesus says here. All that are the fathers are
mine, and all that are mine are the fathers. There's no difference.
There's not one person left out of those that belong to the Father
that are not given to Christ. And there's not one person that
has been given to Christ that was not chosen by the Father.
They're all the same set, the same people. He makes it an airtight
case that not one of God's people for whom Christ died were not
chosen. And not one who was chosen was
not one for whom Christ died. And this is what he says, look
over at verse 23. He says, "...I in them, and thou in me, that
they may be perfect in one, and that the world may know that
thou hast sent me and hast loved them as thou hast loved me."
What a powerful, powerful statement that is. Christ says, this is
what I pray, that the world may know that you have loved my people
as you have loved me. as you have loved me." Now, if
the world knows that God has loved his Christ people as God
the Father loved the Lord Jesus Christ, that necessarily excludes
the world from that love, does it not? What difference would
it make if the world knew that he loved his people as he loved
his Son, if they were all included in that love? It would make no
difference at all. That verse would make no sense. So He says
that clearly. And then in verse 24, He extends
that by saying, "...Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast
given Me be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory
which Thou hast given Me. For Thou lovest Me before the
foundation of the world." There's the love that God has for His
people. And that's the love He has for
His people. The same love. He loves them the same. And that's
the third thing I mentioned. And then in Ephesians chapter
1, It says that we were chosen in Christ. God the Father chose
us, but He didn't just choose us independently from the Lord
Jesus Christ, as if He was going to save us somehow by an influence. But He chose us so that what
Christ would do would be attributed to us. What we had done would
be laid on Him, and He would bear the weight of our sin and
the obligations for all of our righteousness. We're saved in
Christ, just like we died in Adam. And so He chose us in Christ
for that reason. He's our head. We are members
of His body. He's our husband. We are the
bride. We're the wife that He loved and gave Himself for. He's
the shepherd. We're the sheep that He sought
and laid down His life for. We're the peculiar people that
He calls His own nation. We are the ones chosen and built
as lively stones into the temple of the Lord. Who are those who
are not put in the temple? Those who were not part of that
temple, who were not chosen in Christ, who were not His nation.
And so you see that we were chosen. In fact, not just chosen in Christ,
but chosen in Christ to all the blessings that Christ obtains
from His Father. He says this in 2 Thessalonians
chapter 2. And again, a very familiar verse,
he says, we're bound to give thanks always to God for you,
brethren, beloved of the Lord. You see, there's that love again.
Because, verse 13 of 2 Corinthians 2, because God hath from the
beginning chosen you to salvation. Do you see that? And that salvation
is through sanctification of the Spirit. How do we know about
that salvation? How is that salvation brought
to us? How do we receive it? How do
we enter into the blessings of it? Through the Spirit of God.
Christ earned it. The Spirit of God gives it to
us and He says, sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the
truth. You see that? So this is what
we were chosen to by God the Father. God the Father saved
us. He chose us in Christ. He ordained
us to eternal life. He ordained Christ to be our
Redeemer, our Mediator. He was declared, He who, it says
in Hebrews chapter 7, that as He spoke to Him as His Son, He
also spoke to Him, He says, You are a priest forever. after the
order of Melchizedek. Forever Christ was a priest and
how could he be a priest unless he had something to offer and
a people for which he would offer to God for their sins. He couldn't
be. So all these things have to go
together. And we were chosen in Christ
to a blessing, a blessing of eternal life. All those who believe
were ordained to believe, according to Acts 13.48. And not only that,
but in all that we've talked about here, it's contained in
what God calls an everlasting covenant, in Hebrews 13.20. God made an everlasting covenant.
He made it with His Son on behalf of His people. And Christ's blood
is the ratification of that. It's the... thing that makes
the covenant go into force, just like the death of the one who
makes a will is put, that will is put into force when the one
who makes the will dies. And the Lord Jesus Christ died,
and He lives in order to make sure all that He promised in
His will is given to those that He promised, that it was promised
to. But God also prepared for us an eternal and spiritual kingdom
from before the foundation of the world. Look at Matthew 25.
Matthew 25 in verse 34. He says this, to those who were
on his right hand. It says in Matthew 25, 34, Then
shall the king say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed
of my father. And you know that if they're
blessed of the Father, they're His people, aren't they? That's
what we just read in John 17, 10. If they're God the Father's,
they belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. So He speaks to them.
Here's the highest blessing you can have. Blessed of my Father. And He respects that blessing. He respects the blessing God
has given to His people. And God respects the life Christ
laid down for His people. There's a mutual respect and
honor that God puts on His people. God the Father puts on His Son,
and God the Son puts on the Father on behalf of His people. And
here He says, How long ago was that? It was before Abraham,
before Noah. Before Adam, before Cain took
his brother's life, it was before God called the light out of darkness.
It was before there was a world. God had love for his people. He had a son and he agreed with
his son that he would lay down his life, spill his blood, suffer
for his people, pay for their sins, cleanse them from their
sins, redeem them to God, bring them to glory. And God prepared
a kingdom for them in his purpose and in his will. And he did all
these things before we had a being. Salvation must be, therefore,
of grace. Salvation, therefore, must be
certain and sure. Salvation, therefore, must be
of God. What could give you a greater boldness before men than to know
that your salvation is eternally secure in God, in God's purpose,
and that He would pay such a price for it? So this is what the Scripture
says. In many places, we've only mentioned a few, In Acts 13,
48 and 15, 18, God knows all of His works from the foundation
of the world, and God ordained those who believe to eternal
life. And so we must consider now that Christ has saved us. Not only did God the Father save
us in His purpose, in His ordination, in His predestinating love, because
He predestinated us into the adoption of children, but the
Lord Jesus Christ saved us by His death on the cross. And here,
I want you to think with me now, because if you just look superficially
into the Bible, what you'll see is that we're saved in our experience. Thy faith has saved thee. How
many times do we read that in the New Testament? Or, save yourselves
from this untoward generation. And so you get the sense that
salvation is something that always occurs in the moment of our experience
when we realize our salvation. But when you read the truth of
the gospel, you realize that our faith is directed to the
Lord Jesus Christ, who has finished our salvation. And this is the
blessing. Not only finished it, but all
the things that He did, He did with us and for us, and we receive
them because and at the moment of His death. So here, listen
to these verses. It says in Romans chapter 6 and
verse 3, Know ye not that so many of us, as were baptized
into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death? You see that?
We were baptized into his death. When did that occur? Paul says
this in Galatians 2.20, I am crucified with Christ. This is
speaking about something that happened when the Lord Jesus
Christ died. In our experience, we were baptized,
weren't we? We who believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ confess Him in baptism and that baptism signifies what
took place when Christ died. But the reason we're baptized,
what we confess is that our union with Christ means that when He
died, He died to sin once. And we died with Him. He says
in Romans 6.11, Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed
unto sin. We're dead by the body of Christ. We're dead to the law by the
body of Christ so that we might be married to another. These
things speak of our union with Christ, and the fact that God
put us in Christ, and that what Christ did, we did in Him. As in Adam all died, even so
in Christ shall all be made alive. When Christ died, we died. When
He was buried, we were buried. Look at, or just listen to this,
in Romans 6-4 he says, We are buried with Him by baptism into
death. That baptism into death occurred
at the cross. Jesus told His disciples, He
says, James and John who were trying to see, could I sit on
the one on my right hand and the one on the left hand? He
says, are you able to be baptized with the baptism that I'm going
to be baptized with? He was not talking about a water
baptism. He was talking about the baptism of divine wrath where
He would He would suffer the full penalty of our sins from
God and our sins would be put away by Him. That's the baptism.
We died with Him and we're buried with Him by baptism into death.
And then thirdly, we rose with Him. And this is something that
sometimes we might have a A hard time accepting the truth of this,
but we rose with Christ. He says, and I already quoted
it, Romans 6, 11, he says, And then in Ephesians 2, You know this verse, he says,
that when we were dead in sins, He hath quickened us together
with Christ, for by grace are you saved. And He has raised
us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in
Christ Jesus. Now, we might think, well, he's
speaking there about, in Ephesians 2, 4 through 6, he's speaking
about our spiritual regeneration, our being raised to life by the
Spirit. And he is. But he says something
there that can't be referring to our spiritual regeneration.
He says we were raised together with Christ and made to sit together
with Him in heavenly places. we are not regenerated to heaven
our experience of regeneration doesn't put us in heaven but
our Lord Jesus Christ as our head when he died was buried
and rose again ascended up and now sits in heaven and because
we were in him We were seated in heaven then, with Him. The
elect were given to Christ, He died for them, He actually redeemed
them, and they were seated with Him in heaven. And so He speaks
of these things as having already occurred. In Romans 8.30, He
says, those whom He justified, He also glorified. Past tense. So, these things
are teaching us that. Now, I want you to listen to
a few, not just a few, but several verses that speak to the fact
that we were saved by Christ when He died on the cross. Hebrews
1.3, When He had by Himself purged our sins, He sat down on the
right hand of God. When he purged them? When were
they purged? Before he sat down. Is he seated?
Yes. When was he seated on the right
hand of God? When he ascended up 40 days after
he was raised. And because he's seated, our
sins have already been purged. Who did the purging? He did it
all by himself. It didn't require us to participate
in it, because He did it by Himself. It's not a problem that He saved
us then, is it? And then, listen to this in Hebrews 9, 12. And not with his own blood. He
entered once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption
for us. Spoken of in the past. He obtained
it. When? Having obtained it. When
he offered his blood to God, he already obtained our redemption. And then in 1 Thessalonians 1.10,
he says we're delivered. He delivered us from the wrath
to come. He delivered us from the wrath to come. He reconciled
us to God. He made peace with God. For us, that's what propitiation
speaks of. Propitiation means that God has
taken away His wrath. He's brought satisfaction to
His justice. He's returned favor to those
who His justice should have called for their destruction according
to His grace and mercy. And many other verses, it says
in Colossians 1, 20-22, He made peace between God and us, reconciling
us to God by His death. And I already mentioned propitiation.
In Romans 5.9, he says, he justified us by his blood. In Romans 5.11,
we're cleansed of all our sins before the Lord because he accomplished
our atonement. And then in Galatians 3.13, we
were redeemed from the curse of the law. All these things
speak of the facts of what happened at the cross. We have been saved. God saved us. And He called us
with a holy calling. First, having saved us by God
the Father. Second, saving us by the Lord
Jesus Christ. The Gospel declares to us what
Christ has accomplished. What He has done. And that the
benefits for His people that He has obtained by His death.
That's what the Gospel, that's the object of our faith. What
God has done in Christ and what He thinks about that. When you
think about that, does that not give you boldness? Does that
not give you boldness to come, as Spurgeon wrote in the devotional
today, to go to God and to receive from Him grace as if you were
taking it out of your own purse? Do you ever ask yourself whether
you can take money out of your own purse? You don't even hesitate,
do you? Well, maybe you do. You never
do. But if you're going to God, we
hesitate because we think that somehow we are limited by what
we can have from God, by His grace, because He has to find
something in us to make us worthy to receive that. But our need
is all that we can bring, ever. And we always look to God, fork
to Christ, in coming to Him. And so we know that we have all
things in Him. There's many, many things in
Scripture that teaches this, but we've got to move on here.
So the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who has saved us, and He
obtained the highest blessing and honor that could possibly
be obtained from God, and we know He's worthy of it because
He made Himself of such a low reputation to save us from such
a dreadful thing that we are, our sin. And all that we have. But look at this in 2 Timothy
1.9 on the next part here. He says, not only did he save
us, but he called us with a holy calling. Do you see that? Now
remember, Paul is exhorting Timothy and us, Timothy don't be ashamed
of the gospel. Why would you be ashamed? Why
would you be ashamed if God from eternity set his love on you? Would you be ashamed of that?
Why would you be ashamed if God's eternal purpose was directed
to your salvation? Would you be ashamed of God's
purpose? Could you be ashamed of God in any way? for what he's
done? Especially when it concerns your
eternal salvation? And then could you be ashamed
of the Lord Jesus Christ who laid down his life? He who is
the King of Glory laying down his life for you. Could you be
ashamed of that? Don't be ashamed of the gospel,
Timothy. And then he goes on and he adds to that, he says,
not only has he saved us, and he speaks in the past tense,
but he called us with a holy calling. Now, you might have
received a promotion at work at some point in time. Maybe
they gave you a raise. Maybe they made you a higher
position at work. Maybe you received an honor at
school for having achieved some great goal. Maybe you received
a gold medal at the Olympics. Maybe you received some kind
of an honorary notification from men. What could be a higher honor
than to receive a call By God, a holy call from God to himself. What could be a higher honor
than that? A holy calling. Not just a calling, come here,
but a holy calling. Who could fault a call that is
a holy calling? Who could fault your vocation
as a holy vocation? And Timothy, while you're facing
all the adversity, The opposition, the mocking, the shame, the affliction,
and the trouble that comes from preaching the gospel. Remember
this. You've been called to a holy calling. Can anything stop you?
Can anything get in your way? It's a holy calling. If God called
you to this, God is going to see it through. It's a holy calling.
Gideon, I want you to take 300 men and go out and destroy the
Midianites. He couldn't do it. Not in himself. Moses, I want
you to take the people of Israel out of Egypt. Who am I? I can't speak. I can't do all
these things. David, I want you to rule over my people Israel.
But who am I? I'm just the youngest. I take
care of sheep. Solomon, I want you to lead my
people Israel. I'm just a child. I don't know
how to go out or how to come in. You have been called with
a holy calling. If God made the call, God's going
to give the grace to fulfill that call. It's a holy calling. This call will not fail. This
call is a right call. This call is of God and God will
see it through. And what is the nature of this
call, a holy calling? It's the call of grace, the call
to life, the call to faith in Christ, the call which God makes
when he calls us to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. To look
upon Him who laid His life down for His people, who was cursed
by God, who finished our salvation, who accomplished the will of
God, who sits in glory. You're called to Him, to life
in Him, to draw grace from Him, to draw life and to live in Him,
and to honor and worship Him. This is a holy calling indeed,
because the one who called us sits on the throne of God's glory. It's a holy call. And not only
is it a holy call, But it's a call that we will not be able to resist. When God calls us, He calls us
with an irresistible call. He says in John 6, verse 44, The Father which hath sent me,
draw him." And this is like drawing, like it says in the book of James,
that don't the rich men drag you before their councils? These are the men who profane
the name of Christ. Don't they drag you before, to be judged? He says, unless God the Father
draws us, we will not come. But if He draws us, then He says
in Psalm 110, My people shall be willing in the day of My power. They shall be willing. They will
come. Because I've called them. And what God calls is not going
to fail. God calls us with a holy calling.
And then notice next. And it all follows, but He says
it explicitly. Not according to our works. but
according to His own purpose and grace." You see this? When
God calls us, when He saves us, it's clear that it's not according
to our works. Because if God saved us because
of our works, then it wouldn't be of grace, would it? It would
be a debt. God owes us for what we've done.
He would reward us for something. God never rewards us with salvation
for what we've done. Our reward is for what Christ
has done, and what Christ has done had nothing to do with our
participation or our contribution. It's outside of our experience.
But notice, He says here, according to His own purpose and grace. What is this purpose? What is
this purpose of God that He calls us to? Remember, He called, He
saved us, and He called us with a holy calling, not according
to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace. What
purpose? Well, remember what Jesus told
His disciples? He says, you haven't chosen me, I've chosen you, and
I have ordained you that you should bear fruit. Remember that? In John 15, or John 13, I can't
remember which. But look at Romans 8. chapter 8. And I want you to
look at this, because here you see that this is a parallel passage
to what Paul is telling Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 1. Very
parallel. And if you put them side by side,
you'll see really an amplification of what Paul says to Timothy. In Romans 8, he says in verse
28, You see that? Purpose. Those who are called are called
according to God's purpose. And what is His purpose? Well,
He says it in the next verse. For whom He did foreknow, He
also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that
He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom
He did predestinate, them He also called. and whom he called,
then he also justified, and whom he justified, then he also glorified."
All these things happened in God's eternal will. Foreknown,
predestinated, called, justified, and glorified. All those things
happened there. And it was all according to this purpose of
God, which was to conform us to the image of His Son. In other
words, God is going to receive every one of His people just
as He receives His Son. We read about it in John 17,
23, and 24. He accepts His people just as He accepts His Son. Accepts us in Him. Accepts us
as Him. When He accepted Him, He accepted
us. When we die and our bodies go
into the grave, He'll receive us to glory and give us, on the
last day, a new and glorious body with Christ. He will seat
us with Christ on His throne. He will give us the inheritance
He has given His Son. He will give us all things. And
so He speaks about this purpose. He's predestinated us to be conformed
to the image of His Son. Not only in what He has, but
in who we are. Perfect before Him. Perfect before
Him. Receiving from Him everything
because of what Christ has done. What a glory, what an honor,
what a purpose, an eternal purpose that God would do this for us.
And notice what he says here, because I think that this gets
to the issue of Timothy here. If God has predestinated us to
this purpose, if God has chosen us to this purpose, saved us
and called us by His grace, look at Romans 8, 28. Timothy, I want
you to not be ashamed of the gospel. Timothy, I want you to
be bold I want you to know who called you. I want you to know
who saved you. I want you to know when He saved
you. I want you to know it's not something found in you, but
according to His own purpose and grace. Look at Romans 8,
28. And we know that all things work together for good to them
that love God. to them who are the called according
to his purpose. Here is the application, if you
will, of what Paul told Timothy. Timothy, do you understand who
called you? Do you understand who saved you? Do you understand
when he did this? If these things are true, not
only should that give you the utmost confidence, Not only should
you be so sure that your salvation will not fail, that God will
do all of his pleasure, but know this also, that everything, everything
is working together by God's design for your good. Everything. Well, what does that include?
Everything? Everything. All things work together. It means, and this staggers the
mind, It means that God the Father, in all that He does, and all
that He intends to do, all of His love, all of His purpose,
to glorify Himself, to show forth His glory, To make covenants
and promises and provisions and make purchases of his people.
All that he does is for the good of his people. And everything
the Lord Jesus Christ does. In all of his offices as our
mediator. As our high priest. As our king.
As our prophet. In giving his life. In coming
in our nature. In rising again. In his death
and in his life. All of it is for our good. And
the Holy Spirit. His ministry of the gospel to
our hearts, pointing us to Christ, teaching us, comforting us, bringing
to our remembrance, revealing Christ to us, quickening us in
our experience to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, raising
us from the dead, giving us a new body. All these things are for
our good. Not only that, but the angels
are all for our good. And the ministers that God has
sent to preach the gospel are for our good. And those who are
in authority in the world, who are good leaders, are for our
good. God put them there. But what
else? Not only that, but all the bad
things are for our good. And this is surprising to us.
But the devil is for our good. And so are the persecuting governors,
and presidents, and leaders, and the heretics, and the false
teachers, and the false prophets. They're all for our good. God
is going to use everything for the good of His people. Not only
people, but things. All good things, all outward,
whether it's famine or feast, it's for our good. Isn't it?
Whether we enjoy good things in our temporal life or we don't
enjoy them, it's for our good. Not only these things like our
jobs and our homes and our families are for our good, but all the
evil things and the sin itself of our own father Adam was for
our good. Isn't it true that because of
Adam's sin, and fall, and our fall in Him, that we were preserved
in Christ, and we were restored to eternal life, and not just
life, and to union with Christ Himself, and to a righteousness
that's the everlasting righteousness. All the things we have in Christ
are much greater than they were in Adam. God used even the fall
of Adam to our good. And He even uses our own sin
to our good. And not to say that God is the
author of sin, or that our sin in itself is good, but God uses
it to good in order to show His wisdom, power, and grace to turn
what's evil in our lives to good. Don't you find it so? Don't you
find that because God has saved you and given you faith in Christ,
when you look back at what He saved you from, it makes you
more thankful? And don't you know that when
you fall into sin, it grieves your heart and causes you to
call more upon Him, the righteous cry, because sin itself causes
them and brings them back to the Lord Jesus Christ, like an
affliction, like a whip, it brings them back. And they loathe their
sin, Lot vexed his soul from day to day with their unrighteous
deeds. All the wickedness that's in
the world is for our good because it teaches us how little we love
this world, and how we hate it in fact, and how we love the
Lord Jesus Christ. We want to be holy, don't we?
Doesn't sin make you want to be holy? It does. And doesn't
Christ want you? Everything works together for
our good. This is what God is teaching
us. And Paul was teaching Timothy
when he wrote to him, "...who hath saved us, and called us
with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began." Look at Romans 8.27. This is the Spirit of God working
for our good. He that searches the hearts.
His office is to search our hearts
and know our ways. And He not only searches our
hearts, but He knows the mind. He that searches the hearts knows
the mind of the Spirit. Actually this is speaking about
Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ searches our hearts. He knows
the mind of the Spirit because He makes intercession for the
saints according to the will of God. This is our Lord Jesus
Christ doing all that He does for us and searching our hearts
in order to find out What is in our heart? What is the will
of God? How can I work all this together
for good for my people? It's a blessing, isn't it? It's
an emboldening thing. Who can lay anything to the charge
of God's elect? Everything, every accusation,
every inward accusation, and every outward accusation, God
is going to use to manifest His glory in our salvation by the
Lord Jesus Christ. And He's going to work it all
for our good. To the praise from our lips and
our heart, to the glory of God for saving us. What a salvation. What a Savior. He has given us
grace in Christ Jesus before the world was. And this does
so much for us that it's hard to speak about everything it
does. But it produces in us a knowledge of God, doesn't it? We know the
Lord. Don't we know the Lord when we
know what He's up to? When we know why He's doing what He's
doing? Who He's doing it for? And it causes us to worship Him.
It causes us to have humility before God. He saved us apart
from our works, in spite of our evil. And He gives us His greatest
love for Him, faith in Him, confidence and boldness in judgment, fervency
in prayer, openness before God and men, consecration and devotion
to God. That's what it does to have the
foundation laid sure in our hearts that God has saved us. by Jesus
Christ, apart from our works, He did it in eternity at the
cross, and He brings it to us in time when the Lord Himself
opens our heart and calls us with a holy calling to receive
from Him what He gave us in the Lord Jesus Christ from eternity.
Let's pray. Father, we pray that we would
not be ashamed of the gospel. We would not fear. We would know
that you have given us the spirit of power and love and a sound
mind. And we would stand in life by
faith in Christ. And we would hold forth the word
of the truth of the gospel undeterred. because we're called with a holy
calling, unashamed because he who loved us sits on heaven's
throne and died on Calvary's cross and rose from the tomb
in order to bring us to glory to himself. to the eternal enjoyment
of knowing God and worshiping Him. Lord, we pray that we might
know these things by faith now. Cause us to be reminded of them
by Your Spirit. Cause us to know them in our
heart and to live upon them. And give us the fruits of Your
Spirit, which You have ordained us to walk in according to Your
good pleasure and Your purpose. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.