In 1 Timothy chapter 2 we read
these words. First of all then, I urge that
supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for
all people. for kings and all who are in
high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly
and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing
in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be
saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one
God, and there is one mediator between God and man, and men. That is the man, Christ Jesus,
who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony
given to me at the proper time For this I was appointed a preacher
and an apostle, and I'm telling the truth, I am not lying, a
teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth." And then he goes
on to say, therefore, then I desire that in every place the men should
pray, the women should pray, this should happen, that should
happen. And he goes on to talk about the order of the assembly. when we gather together what
must take place and how it must be understood. But I told you
several weeks ago, this is Sermon 25 out of 1 Timothy, and as we
see, we've not gotten very far, and it's not on purpose. I thought
I'd breeze right through these letters, but there's some things
that we need to pause and really reflect upon, and this is one
of those things. We need to pause and reflect
upon the reality of what we consider God to be like versus what He
is actually like. in what areas? In all areas,
but as the text gives us this opportunity, we can say, oh,
wow, there's something here that people
get wrong about God. There's two ways of bringing
out words into our mind. We can bring them into our mind
within the context, that means within the full structure of
everything that they're written in and around, or we can bring
them into our minds in what's called a pretext. We can just
take what we see and we can assume what it means based on our definition
of what we read in this small little myopic, blinder-driven
cognition. Know what I mean by that? We
can read the Bible and take words how we want them to be taken,
or we can read the Bible and take the words as they're actually
printed in the Bible in its context. Seems simple enough, right? But
it's not as simple as we think it is. If it were so simple,
we would not be fighting for 500 years, for 2,000 years. We would not have all the different
commentaries and the different and the different denominations,
and the different sects, and the different types of faith
systems, and the cults, and the other world religion. We wouldn't
have all this, because there's always somebody looking at even the
Bible and beginning to say, well, this is what I think it means.
This is what it means to me, or this is what it's saying in
my opinion, of which none of those things are relevant. My
opinion, to me, this is the way I see it. These things are not.
Nowhere in the Old Testament do we see God saying, I see things
the way you see it. Nowhere does it ever say in the
Psalms, David never worshiped. Oh, God, thank you that you trust
my thoughts. You're such a kind father to
just ignore everything that's right and just listen to me.
I mean, we don't see that. How horrible of a worship song
with that. The ancient of days, old man, sit in your chair and
leave us be. We know what's happening. I mean,
that would be the worship, wouldn't it? Yet we are quick to say,
that's not the truth. This is not the God of the Bible.
But in a subtle way, sometimes we think, well, these things
are the God of the Bible, but they contradict what the Bible
teaches. God is sovereign. What does that mean? That means
he is God. The word God is a word. It's
not his name. We don't know God's name, except
that God has revealed his name to be Joshua, Yeshua, Jesus,
whichever language you want to put it in. The Christ, the anointed one of God, set
apart, the Holy One, Jesus Christ, the God-man, that is the only
name of God that we know. He has a lot of adjectives, he
has a lot of theological terms and names, but God is not his
name. That's what he is. That's who
he is. It means the highest of all things,
in a real simple way of explaining it. So how many gods can you
have? How many highest of all can there
be? None. Only one. Only one. So God is sovereign because he
is God, the highest of all things. He rules over all things. The
scripture would show us, and you know, we've gone through
Genesis chapter 1, 2, and 3. We've been there. We're going
to go some more into Genesis toward the end of the year and
look at the gospel through the lens of the narrative, the historical
record of God's people, Israel. and see the Christological reality
of what all of that means. Just like today, if we were able
to, you know, for some way to just hone in the lives of certain
individuals, significant or insignificant, and start to see how God works
in there, we can see God is sovereign over the lives of everything,
everyone. The Bible says that he causes
a bird, he causes a bird to fly from one place to another. Paul tells the church of Colossae
that what? That Jesus Christ, the creator
God of the cosmos, holds it up by the word of his power. That
means he declares it to continue. He says that it shall and it
does. But yet what do we do as a culture? We're fretting about
the last day. We're fretting about the war. We're fretting
about the end of the world. We're fretting about the sun burning
out. And there's no politics in that statement. I'm just saying
that's what we do. We're fretting about gas prices.
We're fretting about wars. We're fretting about everything.
When the Bible commands us, do not fret. Do not be anxious about
anything. If anybody's got that down, I
want to talk to you after service because I need help. Anxiety is the number one killer
of pastors and then deacons. God is sovereign. That means
everything is under his control. And we see that because we have
this mentality sometimes in our culture. We hear it from fledgling
Christians. We hear it from young, excitable people who just now
gotten to the reality that the Bible exists and we're going
to read it. And then we hear it in the preschools and we hear
it in the high schools and we hear it in the academy and we
hear it in the nursing homes and everywhere in between. You
know, what God is trying his best. And the devil's working
hard. You know what the devil does?
Exactly what God has ordained him to do. You know where the
devil goes? Only where God sends him. Now
see, for some of us, it's like, what? Yes. Greek mythology comes
from the philosophy of man trying to make gods like them. But the
God of the universe, the God of the Bible is not like us,
okay? And how do we know? Because God
speaks to us. Here it comes. And Brother Trey did a fantastic
job last week opening up the letter to the Ephesians and really
expounding on that transmission of God's divine revelation to
the prophets and the apostles. But what is Hebrews 1? He made
it very clear. God has made it very clear. He
reveals himself through the prophets. through the pages of the word
of God, but in these last days he speaks only and always forevermore
only through Jesus Christ, his son. No one else. Not through James Tippins, not
through any other historical record, not through a commentary,
not through anybody but his son. So if what I say is not from
the record of the scripture, then I am not speaking for the
Lord. And if my own interpretation is tangled up in there, if my
own cultural insistence is tangled up in there, if my pretext, if
my theological babies are all given birth in there, then I
am not preaching the truth. I'm not preaching the truth.
And we are inundated with this kind of stuff. And it's the very
same thing that Paul was talking to Timothy about because in Ephesus
they were inundated with this very cultural ideology, this
humanism, this superiority, this knowledge, this puffed up theological
things and everywhere in between. And Paul's instruction to Timothy
is to pray. Charge them, command them now
to stop talking this nonsense and for everybody to settle down
and be unified under the authority of Christ, an apostle of Christ
by the command of God our Savior. See, don't ever forget that. And of Christ Jesus our hope.
So when Paul writes a letter, it's as if Jesus stood up before
the churches and says, I command this of you. We don't get to
say, well, I'm not going to listen to Paul because he ain't, you
ain't God. I mean, you know. We have that attitude sometimes,
but God speaks. We know that God is sovereign because his
word speaks to us that he is. And we see even in the book of
Job, where the devil himself is in the abode of God, in the
presence of God Almighty. And God sends him to Job. God gives him the authority to
touch Job's life. and to take everything away from
Job, even his health, but he cannot take Job's life from him. He cannot kill him. See, is this
the God that you know? I would encourage you to read
the scripture, to read the scripture, to realize that, you know, the
gospel is not God's punt. He's not punting. He said, well,
Adam and Eve messed it up. I guess I'll have to do plan
B. There's no plan B. The fall was plan A. The reason
God said, let there be light is that Adam and Eve would fall
because they are not Him. And so only God can maintain
righteousness because only He is righteous. Anything else left
to itself in its own volition will fail and die. An infant that is born cannot
be left in a bag for a day, much less a month, it will die. And
beloved humanity, we're all babies and we all start out there. And
in the spiritual sense, we're dead already when we're born. And so only God in his sovereignty
can speak to us and teach us who he is. And God has revealed
himself fully through Jesus Christ. And the scripture teaches that
this was a mystery, that even when the prophets spoke, they
didn't have full understanding. And we saw that through the generations
of the historical record of what was going on in the first century,
especially in the Acts of the Apostles. We saw how the Pharisees
and the Sadducees and the Sanhedrin, we saw how the Jewish, the spiritual
leaders of God's people, of God's worship, how they misinterpreted
and misapplied so many things, how they got to a place where
they thought that a level of piety was what got them justified. A certain type of dress maintained
their presence before God. You know what dictates dress?
Weather. And some of the most nonsensical
missionary stuff that I've ever seen in my life is talking to
a person one time who said when they were in West Africa and
they came to a village and this village received the gospel and
the first thing that they did after that gospel belief took
root was to ship them Western clothes to try to cover their
bodies. It's nonsense. God's bigger than
a loincloth or a dress or a hat. This is not what Christianity
is about. It's not what the faith is about. God is sovereign over
this thing. So the Pharisees, they're like, well, we dress
this way, we act this way, we speak this way, we wear. I mean, they
took so literal the instructions of scripture about having the
word of God forever before them and near their heart that they
wrote it out in little scrolls and put it in what's called phylacteries
and put it in front of their face, hung it like a Christmas
tree ornament in front of their face. No one else is obeying
God like me. I have the Bible. I mean, could
you imagine me walking around with the Bible like this? How
you doing? Man, am I holy or what? You're
hilarious. It's not about that. The mystery,
they didn't understand it because God alone can reveal the mystery.
If we go over to Ephesians, go to Ephesians if you can for a
moment. And here's the point of the sermon today. Let me give
it to you so we know where we're going. Some people say, and they don't understand
the fullness of God and His sovereignty and how He reveals Himself, some
people say, oh, God does want to save every person in creation. And I disavow that, not only
because of my faith and lineage and our Baptist faith, we disavow
that. I disavow that because Scripture
teaches against it. I disavow that because it is
in like manner to suggest that God is what He says He's not. I disavow this idea of the systemized
theology that talks about the revealed and hidden will of God
and all these different wills of God. It depends on who you
talk to and what school you go to. You could have two, you could
have five, you could have seven, you could have twelve. And if you're
a mystic or a gnostic, it's exponential. But it says here in verse three
of Timothy, This is good and pleasing in the sight of God
our Savior who desires all people to be saved and come to the knowledge
of the truth. I'm dealing with that thing this morning. I've
already talked about what it means. But I want to prove to
you through scripture today that it does not mean that God desires
to save every human being. God is not frustrated. God is not frustrated. And I'm
not even going to talk about the evangelical tradition because
that's foolishness, but even in the Reformed tradition, this
has been sort of washed away. And people have just stopped
thinking about it. But beloved, I'm going to tell you right now, for the
sake of our worship and our unity, we need to understand that this
is not a proof text for a hidden will of God that He desires something
alternative that He's going to accomplish, because that would
contradict what He says. I will accomplish all my desires. My word will go forth and do
exactly what I want it to do. So is God Bipolar? Is God frustrated? Is God subject
to the fairness of how we view what is good and right? Is God
even, would he be evil if he saw fit to save no human being? No, he'd be perfectly righteous
and perfect. He would be loving and awesome. He'd be worthy of
all praise if every human being in the world was condemned. Because that's what justice is. The mystery. Ephesians chapter
3. I don't know how long it's going to take
Trey to get here, but it's going to be good when he does. For this reason, what reason?
That you were far off, Ephesus. Gentile, and God brought you
near. See, Ur, Chaldeans, you worship
in the moon. Abram, you were far off, and
I brought you near. And then from you, I created
a promise of a son who would create a people who were far
off, and I brought them near. There was nothing, and the earth
was void, did not exist, and then God called it into being. He created everything from nothing. He brought it near. He displayed
Himself to that which He creates, and that All of the things that
God does is to show his superior, sovereign, redemptive work for
his people in this life. It's all about the Christ. So
for this reason, that's why Paul says that, a prisoner of Christ
Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles, not Jews, assuming that you've
heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me for
you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelation. This
mystery, as I have written very briefly, When you read this,
you can perceive, you can look into the mystery that now I understand.
I see it. I thought I knew it, but I couldn't
see anything. And the only time I could see it is when God blinded
me and showed me supernaturally, you see. That's the picture of
Paul being blinded at his conversion. And Paul's conversion was so
far away from the evangelical sense of how we teach the gospel. Christ stood before him and threw
him off a horse and slammed him and dragged him down to the ground
and said, why are you persecuting me? You know, boy, what's wrong
with you? That type of thing. I mean, how
would that be on your next mission trip to New York? It wouldn't work. But yet that
is the evangelism of God. Abram, go. Moses, hey, you, take
off your shoes. You're on holy ground. Okay. Now go do what I tell you to
do. All right. Now you can perceive. When you
read this verse four of Ephesians three, you can perceive my insight
into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known, which was
not made known to the sons of men and other generations. It
was not given to them. They didn't have the full picture.
As it has now been revealed, it wasn't that they were completely
dumb and ignorant. It wasn't fully understood. And
how do we know that? Because Israel became an isolated
people. They thought that holiness was
by isolation. They thought that expansion of
God's kingdom was by blood purity, which none of them were. They
weren't a people. Then they were called a people.
But maybe in the nation of Claxton, all of a sudden, yeah, welcome
to the new nation. That's how it was, what God did,
he declared it. Now, he says the other generation has now
been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit, and
then explains it. Verse 6 of Ephesians 3, he says
the mystery is this. This is it. The Gentiles are
fellow heirs. That means God has created a
people for Himself in the picture of Israel, in the picture of
creation, Adam, Eve, and the garden, separating them from
the temple because of sin, and the only way that they can come
back into the presence of God is through the seed of the woman who was
born of a virgin. so that that child may be their propitiation. That means satisfy his wrath.
Why does he have wrath against humanity? Because they've fallen
into sin. They rebelled against his promises. They didn't believe
that if they just did what he said that they would have eternal
life. There was something more that they wanted. That's what
we do. And we do it every day, beloved, in our study of the
Bible. We want something more. We want
something deeper. We want something more interesting.
We do it every day in our service to the Lord. Well, if I'm not
in danger, I'm not really serving God. If I'm not really sacrificing,
I'm not really serving God. If I don't know all the languages,
I'm not really serving God. If I didn't get my doctorate,
I'm not serving God. If I'm not a member of this church
or that church or doing these things and I'm not serving God,
that's hogwash. The mystery is simple. The Gentiles are fellow heirs.
Now, I don't know about you. But as a son, if all of a sudden,
if it was like it was in the old days, and my dad's real old,
and he calls his boys in there around his deathbed and says,
I've got billions and billions of dollars. I mean, he doesn't,
but let's just say he did. 900,000 acres, and I'm just gonna
leave it all to you, but I met a guy yesterday that he seemed
a little hungry, and I'm gonna make him an heir with you, and
we'll split it four ways. Oh, we'd be upset. We'd be upset. Even worse, we
said, I made 20 guys. I'm going to split it 23 ways.
What? Who is this guy? I don't remember
his name, but he's right outside. Bring him in here, and we'll
give it all to him. See how that makes you feel? You have the
reading of the will, and your mean old neighbor who left burning
dog poo on your front porch every week, got half your inheritance. That's the mystery. God is not a respecter of persons.
He sent his son into the world to save sinners, of Paul would
say, as already said in 1 Timothy, of which I am the foremost. Members of the same body. Onesimus,
Paul would say to Philemon, when that slave of yours comes back,
he is your free brother. And as you roll out the carpet
for me and tend to me and give me money and give me food and
give me a place to stay in high stature, you better do the same
for him because he is just as I am a brother in the Lord Jesus
Christ. See, that is against the grain. It is ridiculous to
think that God has his elect people in the lowest parts of
the world. And some of us, when we hear
that statement, lowest parts of the world, we think culture
or country. or wealth or family or name or
melanin. Sometimes we think maybe it refers
to worldview or politics. Sometimes we think it refers
to what people agree as sin or their theological bend. Beloved, there's not a person,
there's not a iteration of persons in this world from whom God does
not have an elect person to save. Of this good report, Paul says,
verse seven, Ephesians three, I was made a minister according
to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of
his power to me, though I am the very least of all the saints.
This grace was given in order to preach to the Gentiles the
unsearchable riches of Christ. and to bring to light for everyone
what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created
all things so that through the church, the manifold, that's
the assembly of the saints, the gathering as one body, the church,
the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers
and to the authorities in the heavenly places, including the
devil and his angels. This was according to the eternal
purpose that he has realized now, has come to pass, has come
to fruition in Christ Jesus, our Lord, in whom we have boldness
and access with confidence through our faith in him. So I ask you
not to lose heart over what I'm suffering for you, which is for
your glory. There you go. So we have unity. We see that
the Bible reveals that the mystery of the gospel is literally about God is going to save his
people out of all nations, out of all tongues, out of all tribes,
out of all types of people, all kinds of people. This is the
sovereign message of the cross. It is not convoluted. It is not
mysterious anymore, even though it is mysterious in the sense
that it's a supernatural and divine work. We can't fathom
the depths of it. It has been given to us. So we
do not have to wonder what God wants or what God is going to
do, because the Bible teaches completely and holistically without
any type of interruption or interference and no contradictions that God
has saved his people in the death of Christ. And it is finished. And it is revealed to us in this
way. So the question then on the table back to 1 Timothy is
what does it mean when he says, I want you to pray for all people? For example, kings and those
in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful life, godly,
dignified, quiet in every way. This is good. What is good? Living
a life this way and praying for all peoples. And it is pleasing the sight
of God, our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to
come to the knowledge of the truth. So all of a sudden when
we know what the gospel is and does and we know the will of
God revealed to us through Christ Jesus, do we have this tension
in our hearts and minds theologically and culturally to try to make
God in some way a little more tolerable or palatable to the
culture? God wants to save you. That's
not even the gospel message, is it? Where in the book of Acts
does anyone say God wants to save you? Will you come? No,
Jesus commands them to come. We're going to get to John 6
in a minute. I haven't got to John in a while. We're going to get back
in there. He commands you to come. He calls his people to
come. And those, according to John
10, who have ears to hear will hear and they will come. The
word of God does not return void. Evangelism is not about an opportunity
for salvation by the will of man. In John chapter one, we
see that it is not by the blood of the decision of humanity,
but by the will of God that he declares them to be his children.
And he can do so in a just way and justified way without being
wicked, therefore not being God, because he has satisfied all
justice and righteousness in the death of his son, Jesus Christ
on the cross. Why is this important? Why this
theology this morning? Because, beloved, you can't really
worship a God who you really can't fully see. In Jesus' own words in John chapter
4 is that we must worship in spirit and in truth. And if the truth of the God we
worship is not the true God, then what are we worshiping?
An idol. an idol. So this is important
for the people of Christ to understand so that we get it right, so that
we can be encouraged, so that our joy would be full. Because
there's nothing worse when that knock on your door comes and
somebody's evangelizing your house. Whether it be a Russellite
or whether it be a Methodist or whether it be a Baptist or
whoever, they'll all knock eventually. And they start to tell you about
this Jesus that's not found in the Bible or this God and his
desires and his heart and his love that's not found revealed
by him. So what is the revelation of
God fully known to the saints is Jesus Christ, his love for
his people, laying down his life, the satisfaction of the wrath
of God in the propitiatory work, in the substitutional work of
Jesus Christ. It is revealed to us. And this
work of salvation is the mission of Paul. I mean, look at 1 Timothy
2. Let's go back there for a minute. This is good and pleasing to
pray for these people, all kinds of people, not just each other,
not just the people in your own circle, not just the poor people
over here for the poor folks, not just for the rich people
over here in the rich section, not just for the brown people
and the yellow people and the green people and the red people and the purple
people. All kinds of people. That's literally
what it means. All kinds of people. I want you to pray for all kinds
of people, like kings and those in high places. I remember just
four weeks ago when I said how often we pray for Joe Biden,
and there were laughters in the congregation. Because it's laughable
for some of us to think about praying for the president. And no matter who's there, I've
heard that type of stuff. I mean, it's just what we do.
Praying for the governor, praying for the mayor, praying. I'll pray for him, all right.
Rain down, Lord, brimstone and hail. See, that's what we do. And Paul's saying, no, pray for
him. Pray, for God is pleased. He is our savior, and he desires
all kinds of people to be saved. How can you say that? Because
that's what the context says. He's talking about all kinds
of people. Paul's not stupid. He's not going to change. He's
not like me. He doesn't just flit all over the place and have
five conversations in one. He stays on task to come to the
knowledge of the truth. There is one God. Look at verse
five. One God and one mediator between God and plural men. mankind,
and that mediator is the single man, Jesus Christ, who gave himself
as a ransom for all. Nowhere else do we see this kind
of conversation mean the entire universe, which is the testimony
given at the proper time. For this, I was appointed a preacher
and apostle, and I'm telling the truth, I am not lying, a
teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. So now here it is,
it gives you the extra oomph. You want to understand the context.
All types of people pray for people who are in high positions,
pray for people in low positions, pray for people because God is
going to save His people out of all kinds of people, as I
was called to preach to you who are not my kind of people. John 3, Nicodemus. Same thing. Nicodemus, the teacher of Israel. That is what Jesus calls him.
He knows it all. He's theologically sound. He's
got it all together. He knows it. He's memorized it.
Folks, they didn't walk around with scrolls. It's not walking
around with rolls of wallpaper. It was in their minds. There
was no verses. What did Isaiah say? Can you
imagine having to just say in the middle of a paragraph? Nicodemus didn't understand.
It was a mystery. It wasn't revealed to him by
the Spirit. So Jesus says, you must be born of the Spirit. You
must be made alive by the spirit. It's not something you could
come to your own conclusion about. You can't come and sit here and
talk with me academically. I can't show you this theological
things and these arguments. I can't logically bring you into
the kingdom of heaven. It's impossible. That's what
we do. You'll five-point track with
a prayer then. Please check the box. All I had to do was check
a box. Gosh, I shouldn't have. Why am I in hell? You didn't
give me a pen. You see the pathetic ideology
in that kind of evangelism? It's not hopeful. It's desperate. God is not desperate. God is
not hopeful. He is. what he is, and he does not change. So Paul is just reiterating exactly what
the evangelists, the evangelist Jesus had to say. Because, I
mean, you realize 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Ephesians, Colossians,
these are not evangelistic writings. Peter, those letters, they're
not for evangelism. If you teach these things to
unbelievers, they get confused. Why? Because there are reminders
of gospel truths in there. They're not holistic. What about
Romans? Oh, please don't use Romans in
evangelism with your neighbor. They won't get past the first
chapter. Well, that's not fair. You're right. Grace is not fair. Grace is just because Christ
paid for the sins. You see, it's a big difference.
A big difference. Jesus, the evangelist. So if
we're going to evangelize, let's use the gospels. Let's use the
message of the gospel, the good report, which is Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John. I personally think, for me and my people,
John is the best one because I don't have to spend 900,000
hours digging through the Talmud to answer all the questions that
come. I'm just saying, you can use it all. But I purpose to
use John's gospel almost all the time in evangelizing. And
when we get to John chapter 6, it's always a cool little situation,
isn't it? John 6, you know, feeds the 5,000.
It's really cool. Walks on water, teleports a boat.
I mean, this is like sci-fi before there was science. That's a joke. There's always been science. And then they go over there and,
oh, how did you get here? Man, you're not looking after
me because you want me. You want what I have for you.
You want me to dig into this bag and bring out some magic bread
again and just give you more bread because you're hungry.
You want me to be your little slave. And the irony behind that is
that Jesus was the slave of his people. He did not come to be
served, but to serve and to die on a cross. And he gets on through, and they're
like, give us a spread, show us this sign, what are we supposed
to do? In chapter 6 of John, verse 35, Jesus gets into some
theological evangelism that blows their minds. And imagine who he's talking
to. He's talking to the thousands upon thousands upon thousands. If 5,000 men were fed, wasn't
a whole lot of single families back then. Let's just be, let's just be
conservative and say there were 15,000 people there. Man, woman,
and child, make it even. Dog, cat, whatever they brought
with them. Give us this bread. That's what
they'd say to Jesus. We'll take it. We'll take it. Give me, give me, give me. And
Jesus says, I am the bread. Here I am. Somebody ringing your
doorbell, you know, remember back in the day where every man
is supposed to ring your doorbell with a big check? You know, what
if he rang the doorbell and, oh my gosh, I won? He's like,
no, I'm just coming to live with you. I'm broke. I gave all my checks out. You're
like, oh, really? I mean, we don't want him, we
want his money. We don't want the sweepstakes telephone face,
we want the money. We don't want the mortgage debt,
we want the house. Here it is, they're fixing to get something
from Jesus. And Jesus says, well, here I am. I'm the bread of life
that come from heaven. Whoever comes to me shall never
hunger. And whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But
I say to you that you have seen me and you do not believe. You're
looking at me. And it explains why. All that
the Father gives me will, without fail, come to me. And whoever
comes to me, I will never, ever, without a possibility, cast out. So how do I come to Jesus? The
Father gives you to Him. For I have come down from heaven,
not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. And
this is the will of Him who sent me. This is the revealed will
of my Father in heaven, that I should lose nothing of all
that He has given me, but I will raise every one of them up on
the last day. For this is the will of my Father,
that everyone who looks on the sun and believes, will have eternal
life and I will raise him up on the last day. It's a done
deal, it's a promise, it's a purpose, it's a power of God revealed
in the teaching. This is evangelism. Now how do
you give an altar call after that? It's already been given. It's
not about action, will, decision, checkbox, not about any of these
things. It's about God supernaturally causing a person to rest in his
promise of salvation that has been effected and solidified
and finished in Jesus Christ. It is a divine work. That is
why a child is easier to believe than we. A child goes, so it is. And we go, well, what about this?
Yeah, but there's going to be a section in heaven for the year
of butts, I think. It's a joke. So the Jews grumbled. Because
they heard him say, I'm the bread that came down from heaven. They
knew this man did not come from God in their own eyes. And they
said, is this not Joseph's son, you know, born out of wedlock? We know them. And how does he
now say, I've come down from heaven? Jesus said, don't grumble
amongst yourselves. Don't worry about it. Don't bother
your little heads about trying to figure this out, because no
one can come to me. unless the Father who sent me
drags them to me. And I'm going to emphasize for
the state of the context and the syntax and the meaning of
the words, unless the Father snatches them out and hurls them
unto me by force. That's not the God I know. Forcing
somebody to believe. Beloved, if he doesn't give you
faith divinely and supernaturally, apart from your will, You haven't
been born again. You're still working through
the process of what you must do in order to establish justification
and righteousness and stand before God. You're trying to figure
out if you did it right, if you said it right, if you wanted
it right, if you desired it right. Are you living right? Are you
dressing right? Are you looking at the Bible right? Have you served
enough? No one comes to me, no one can
come to me, as the Father who sent me gives him, draws him,
drags him. And I will raise him up on the
last day, as it is written in the prophets, and they will all
be taught by God. So see, here's your answer. And we could go right to John
10. The sheep hear his voice. Don't hear my voice. Don't hear
my arguments. You can agree with them if the
spirit of God gives you understanding. And if we're speaking in the
same spirit. Everyone who has heard and learned
from the father comes to me. Everyone who is born of God comes
to me. Not that anyone has ever seen
the Father except me. That's what he says there. He
who is from God, he has seen the Father. Truly, truly, I say
to you, whoever believes in me has eternal life. Whoever rests
in me, whoever eats of me, whoever drinks of me, whoever is satisfied
in me, whoever is at peace in me has eternal life. Because
I am the bread of life. And your fathers, by the way,
he says to them, they ate the manna in the wilderness. They
ate that perishing bread that wouldn't last but a couple of
hours. They tried to store it away, but it perished and they
died. This I am the bread that comes
down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die. I
am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats
this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give
for the life of this world is my flesh. You see, the gospel is about
Jesus saving his people from the world, out of the world.
every nation, every tongue, every tribe. That same language, by the way,
is over in Titus chapter 2 about all men And Paul talks to Titus and he
says, teach what accords with sound doctrine. He starts talking
about old men and sober men and older women and younger women
and younger men and children and all these other things, slaves
and masters and employers and employees and all this stuff.
And then he says, for the grace of God has appeared, bringing
salvation for all people, training us. to renounce ungodliness and
worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and
godly lives in the present age. Same context, same words, same
grammar. It's talking about all types
of people. In 1 Timothy chapter 2, he's talking about all types
of people. This does not teach us, except
in a pretext, out of context, that God wants to save every
person. And I'm not interested in the errors of antiquity. Because
they hold no authority over my sovereign grace, Savior. You see? Because that's what
we get. For some of you who are students of theology, you're
like, yeah, but so-and-so was so-and-so. I mean, I've got a
list this long. I disagree with you. I don't care. I can read
this, and I know the context here. And you can read it, too. But
if you try to make it say anything else, you are bringing to that
passage something that's not in the Bible. God's desire is not frustrated. He gets everything that he wants.
Nicodemus was upset when Jesus said, God loves the world. Just like I would be upset if
my father added 20 heirs in his will that I did not know. Sometimes I think in our tight
knit, high circles, we get really tense
when we think about somebody else affiliating or associating
with us in any way that might not be exactly like we are. I
didn't say we call everybody a brother. But beloved, there's
a lot of knuckleheads out there that will one day be revealed
as brothers and sisters. There's a lot of demon-minded
people out there that'll be, there's a lot of ridiculously
sinful people. And you know what? We're not
gonna know that they're a child of God by them coming out of
their wickedness. We're gonna know they're a child
of God because they've been born of God to know the gospel. and to rest in Christ. And then
we get together and we get to work it all out, don't we? We
get to serve and learn and grow and serve one another and love
one another through the service and in doing so we worship Christ
fully. And then we're able to literally
live our lives at rest and at peace and go to bed at night
knowing that God is sovereign over everything, especially salvation. And so we can pray for our children
accordingly. We can pray for our neighbors
and our spouses accordingly. We can pray for our enemies.
We can pray for all the people in the world. that bother us
and the people that don't bother us and the people we like and
the people we don't like and we can pray that God would bring
His purposes to a certain end that He would call His people
out of darkness into the light of Christ and that He would show
Himself and His glory in that work And what do we do when our
winning team wins the championship? We like to get together and scream
and shout and cheer. Beloved, that's one of the things
that we get to accomplish when we come together in the assembly,
is we get to scream and shout and cheer praises to our Father,
who is the Savior of all of His people, which is inclusive of
all kinds of people. And when we recognize this grace,
it really shuts our pride down. And I was saying this yesterday,
just general speech at the wedding reception, that I have chained
myself to my pride so many times and wonder why I was in prison. It's a terrible roommate. And along comes, beside it, a
couple of other roommates. Anxiety, fear, suspicion, frustration,
of which don't describe God at all, and none of the spiritual
fruits are described therein. It's the exact opposite, the
antithesis of these things. So part of understanding the
nature of grace is to understand the nature of God, and God is
getting what He wants. We have one God. One mediator between God and
men, that is the man, Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom
for all. For all of his people. It is finished, it is paid, therefore
the gospel, when it is taught. Effectually brings when the father
desires. Faith. Because that's the result
of the new birth. And that's a logical order. You
can't breathe until you're born. You can't believe until you're
born. You can't see until your eyes are opened. And this is the call of the apostles. This is the call of God's revelation.
He's revealed himself. The mystery is not difficult
anymore. It's crazy. It's wild. It's amazing. It's glorious. And how deep does
it go? The unsearchable riches of Christ
and grace and love. We don't understand how to grab
hold of that, but we do understand how to hold fast to it. Jesus Christ came to save sinners, and Paul was not like the people
of Ephesus. Paul's sin was not like the people
of Ephesus. Paul's hatred and murder was
not like the people of Ephesus. And as Brother Trey said last
week, we're all just like Paul. Sinners. Guilty. And if not recipients of God's
everlasting, redemptive love in Christ, Jesus would still
be charged guilty before our father today. But we're not. Because his blood, his death,
his life, all of it has satisfied God's wrath. And it is a finished
work. And saving faith is resting in
the finished work of Christ. All the rest of the growing and
understanding and debates, as uncivil as they can be, is just
part of the journey that God has divinely ordained for us
to experience. Let's pray. We thank you, Father, that just
as you gave Paul strength as a wicked man to stand before
those that he persecuted, And then to preach the gospel
to them. Lord, you give us the same grace and the same strength
to teach the gospel to others. To take what you have done through
your apostles and how you've revealed yourself through Jesus
Christ. And to establish your will on earth, Lord, that you
would save your people from their sin. as a promise, and Lord,
that promise has been fulfilled. So let us preach the gospel indiscriminately
to everyone. Let us share the truth of who
you are to everyone, not worrying about how people may receive
it or that we want to try to mold you into something that
you haven't revealed emphatically. And Lord, just let the outcome
of your word and your gospel power be in your hands. so that
we are not guilty of Adam and Eve's sin of trying to be like
you. Lord, we are not like you. But we have been declared to
be just like you because the righteousness of Jesus Christ,
your son, has been given to us. We are clothed in another one's
perfection. Give us peace that the world
does not know. that the academics cannot know,
that the most logical person in the world cannot fathom. Lord,
it is a divine gift of rest, of faith in the finished work
of Christ that nothing we can do, nothing we can bring, but
only to the cross of Christ we cling. And we thank you for this
amazing grace in Christ's name. Amen. Let's prepare our hearts
for the Lord's table. Come as you can.