Romans chapter 8. Specifically,
we'll look at these. It's not the first time we've
seen these verses in the last six to eight months. Verses 28
through 30. And there's a little chain there,
some theologians would argue that there's not a chain, there's
not a sequence of events, but I don't understand how they can
say that. Today, I want to talk to you about the effectual calling. In this little series out of
Ephesians, as we look at the learning of Christ, part of learning
Christ is to learn the gospel. Part of learning the gospel is
to learn how God orchestrates that good news in the life of
those whom He elects and saves and redeems. There is a great
divide over evangelical churches and theologians and theologies,
if you will, on so many counts. And here's the way the argument
is always displayed. We have the argument that there
are those whom God elects and predestines and saves, and that
there are those that God elects and predestines and condemns. And then the other side of that
argument says this. Well, we don't believe in that
either way. So we believe in another theology
which says that God makes possible the salvation of every human
being. And then God places it before
all human beings, and then every person must choose as to whether
or not he will take that salvation. So one theology says God gives
salvation, and the other theology said God provides the possibility
of salvation, but that man takes salvation. Now there's a large
spectrum in between. We see the debates, and we can
put labels on them, we see the debates of Calvinism and Arminianism,
and Arminians by doctrinal, by the way they believe, doctrinally
believe that man has what is called an absolute free will
and that man can fully elect to do anything he chooses to
do in the context of this world. And so that any person can freely
do anything and freely receive anything, freely choose to do
anything that he or she puts her mind to and makes a decision
to do. I'm not going to preach on free
will. Although it may come in the next few weeks, I want to
talk then about how one is saved with those things in mind. What
does it mean to have free will? I'll just throw out the idea
of my personal belief. According to the Scripture, there
is no such thing as the freedom of the will. Though we do have
free will, that will in itself is bound by the confines of the
world, by the structure of our own culture. by our prejudices,
our pre-understandings, our presuppositions. Our will is not free at all,
but rather it has been formed based on who we are, where we
grew up, what we believe, what we've been taught. And so in
that, then, the decisions that we make, we make based on our
experiences, not necessarily our freedoms. The Scripture also
teaches, as I looked at last week in Total Depravity and looking
at the doctrine of the nature of sin, The Scripture teaches
that man is dead in his sins. He's blind to the truth. He does
not seek God. No one seeks after God. No one
can come to faith except that the Father draw him. And all
that the Father do draw are given to the Son. And all who are given
to the Son, the Son holds and never casts away. And so we do
believe in the preservation of the saints. We believe that God,
those whom he saves, he saves forever. And that salvation is
in Christ alone through faith, by faith through grace, or by
grace through faith, as Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 says. And then there
is therefore no boasting on man's part to say, I am saved because
I... No, the answer is, I am saved
because God, in all of His sovereignty, saved me. So that is the debate. So it boils down, well that's
the midst of the debate. It gives you a little bit of
a picture. It's not even all the possibilities. It ultimately
boils down to the sovereignty of God versus the free will of
man. And if you think about that argument,
that argument is actually a fallacy in the beginning, because how
is it that we measure and compare a finite man's freedom with an
infinite creator of that man's power? It's as though we are
comparing a grain of salt to the sun. Now, we may use it as
a simile. We may think of it as an incense
metaphorically, but we are not able to compare the two because
there's no comparison. That's how ridiculous it is to
try to argue whether or not we believe in the sovereignty of
God versus the free will of man or the free agency of man. But
a better thing is to say, is man free then to refuse salvation? And I would say absolutely. But
man is not free to receive salvation. The Scripture teaches that. And
so we will look at that effectual call today. God, in the working
of His great power, effectually calls. Now, the term effectual
call is something that we've coined in Christendom over the
last several hundred, five hundred years or larger. And what it
means is that there's a call that goes out and it has an effect. on the person that hears it.
And it has an effect that purposes something, that causes something,
that establishes something, that moves something. And so in that
now, the effect would be sort of if I got up here and I begin
to speak this sermon in French, it would be a little difficult
for us, some of us, because we might not speak French. And so
the sermon would have no effect on you from its truth other than
go, this is really irritating. What is he doing? Or if you are
watching someone do sign language and you don't understand sign
language and you think, look at them swatting gnats up there.
I don't know what's happening. And it has no effect on you.
Someone calls your name and they see and they say, hey, Charles,
and your name's not Charles. And you don't turn around. And
after the fourth or fifth time, they scream, Charles! And you
turn around to see what kind of a moron's back there. And he goes, oh,
you're not Charles. Sorry. It has no effect on you
in the context because you don't hear it. You don't receive it.
You can't understand it. This is the natural man when
God's call goes out. The natural call or the general
call. Now, there are a lot and you
can, and I don't even do this, but you could get online and
you could look and you could see websites and every blogger
with, you know, his own mailed in PhD and all these different,
there's so many bloggers out there and there's so many bloggers
that are very good, but most blogs are garbage. because they
don't argue correctly. And so they're garbage in the
sense that they'll use something they took from somebody else
to take it from somebody else and they become the expert on
it. They put it on their website and you think it's all truth
and there's no claims to it. And then there's some academic
stuff out there that you could see. You can find both sides
of the coin on this argument about the effectual and the general
call. And this preaching today is a little bit more academic,
if you will, from the scriptural perspective, because it requires
you to think a little bit more in the abstract. The effectual
call, this is not something that God has established and said,
this is how I do it. I call effectually these, I do
not call effectually these. So what we have to do when we
preach this is we have to use the grammar, the syntax of the
New Testament. We have to use the evidences
and the examples of the scripture as a whole to show the full and
holistic picture of God's salvation under those whom he chooses rather
than man having the freedom of the will to reject and deny and
then also to receive salvation. The first thing I want you to
feel in your heart is to understand the attitude of Jesus Christ
when He says in the Gospels, I came to do what? To seek and
to save the lost. I came to seek and save the lost.
So, if Jesus, of course, He is fully man, But He is also fully
God. And these natures do not interpose
on one another while He was in this earthly ministry. And so
with that then, how is it that if Jesus is fully God and without
error, if He says, I came to seek and save the lost, did He
find what He sought? And did He save those He found?
Does Jesus find what He seeks? And does He save that which He
finds? If he does not, then my dear
brothers and sisters, Jesus by definition is not a savior, but
a failure. If Jesus did not effectually
save all he intended to save, he is a failure. There is another
idea that is flowing through Christendom by some very highly
academic people. in that God desperately – now
hear the words that I'm about to say – God desperately desires
and longs to see every human being saved, but He cannot do
so without affecting the free will of man. And that is actually
a quote from Dr. Norman Geisler. If you go look
him up, you'll see. And I'm not refuting that man's
complete word. I'm just saying he's wrong on that count. To
say such a thing will absolutely blow the sovereignty of God away.
Now, from that statement, there have been four books written,
and if you'd like to read those, you probably should get online
and just look. Rebuttals to Norman Geisler's Sovereignty of God,
or Salvation is Desperation of Salvation. And you'll see the
firestorm that came from it. But God effectually calls. He
unites people to Himself. He rebirths those who are dead
in Satan and in sin, and in Adam, and He rebirths them whereby
they respond in faith and repentance with an everlasting and enduring
faith in Christ Jesus. There is a call though, and of
the same wording in this sense, a call that goes out outwardly. There is a call through the Word
of God that goes out outwardly. So instead of saying a general
and effectual call, I've changed my terminology to say there's
an outward call and an inward call. The outward call goes out
with the Word, as the Word of God is preached. As we see, therefore,
now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
As we understand that Paul and James and John and Peter and
the rest of the apostles proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, we
grasp the reality that in that, it will hit the ears, the human
ears of whoever hears it with their human ears. But there are
so many people that hear the call of God through the outward
preaching of His Word that never come to faith. And not only do
they never come to faith, but they sometimes reject the very
truth that they've been given. The reason for this is because
they have received an outward call, but not an inward call
by the Holy Spirit. So we'll look at the outward
and inward call, given the argument that there is an effectual call,
and the Scripture proves that. By showing the outward call goes
out to all the world, the inward call goes out to only those who
believe in Christ Jesus. And how God affects that is a
mystery. But what we don't want to do
is because it's a mystery, we don't want to philosophize on
how it must play and then put ourselves at the apex of creation
and as the creator of our own salvation when it's very clear
the scripture says Jesus is the author and the finisher of our
faith. The outward call is given freely,
several things, to all mankind. All mankind. Isaiah 55, God speaking
to the prophet, verse 1, says, Come, everyone who thirsts, come
to Me, to the waters. And he who has no money, come,
buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without
money and without price. Do you see that free call? Do
you see that free outward calling where God, through Isaiah, is
saying, all who are thirsty, come? Jesus quotes this very
same song. I mean, this very same Old Testament
prophecy. He quotes it and says, I am the living water, come.
All who thirst, come. You will never hunger and never
thirst again. Come, drink. He says in John chapter 6, Come,
eat of the bread of life. I am the bread that comes down
from heaven, and anyone who eats of me will never die. But do
not labor for the food that perishes, but labor for the bread that
endures up to eternal life. And then he says, My body is
that bread. Eat of my flesh and drink of
my blood. The Spirit and the bride say, Come, Revelation 22,
17. And let the one who hears say, Come. And let the one who
is thirsty, Come. Let the one who desires take
the water of life without price. Yeah, we see this same conversation
happening in John chapter 4 with the woman from Sychar at the
well, the Samaritan woman. And she's sitting with Jesus
and Jesus says, may I have a drink? And she goes, you a Jew, asking
me for a drink? And He says to her, woman, if
you knew who it was asking you for a drink, you'd ask Him for
a drink and He'd give you living water. Water that wells up into
eternal life. She looks at Him and looks and
sees He has no picture and she cannot understand what He's saying.
And she says, how is it that you give me water and you have
no pitcher to dip it with? Are you greater than our father
Jacob who gave us this well? And so the general call to this
woman's ears was very clear. She heard it. She knew what water
was. She desired water herself. And then Jesus, speaking spiritually,
says to her, I'll give you living water that wells up to eternal
life. And she says, give me this water
always that I might not have to come back to this well. I
want it. But she still doesn't understand
it, not until Jesus reveals Himself to her supernaturally toward
the end of that chapter, where she says, there will come a man
who will tell us all things. He will be Messiah. And Jesus
says, to whom you are speaking, I am He. She goes back and she
says this to her village. Come see a man that has told
me everything I've ever done. Could it be the Christ? Well,
That general call that went out to her also went out to her village.
And the Scripture says that many, not all, were saved that day.
Not all men can hear it. Why weren't all men saved? The
same reason in John chapter 2, and it's sort of an expose, if
you will. You hear me going to John a lot because, by the way,
on Tuesday nights, starting this Tuesday, we'll be starting a
study in the book of John. And so I'd love for you guys
to come. And if you didn't pick up one of these, it's going to
be part of our study. And if I don't have enough, I'll
bring more Tuesday. In chapter 2 of John's Gospel,
it says that many believed in his name that day because of
the miracles and the signs that he did. But Jesus did not entrust
himself to them, for he knew what was in man. No one had to
tell him the heart of man. So this general call is given,
but not everyone can hear spiritually this call. falls on deaf ears. The only way someone hears the
true effectual call is if they've been born again, as Nicodemus
is told right after the heels of that illustration of Jesus
knew what was in the heart of man. Now, there was a man named
Nicodemus of the Pharisees who came to Jesus by night asking
or professing, we know that you are from God, for no one can
do the things God does unless you be with Him. And Jesus says,
truly, truly, I say to you that no one can see the kingdom of
heaven except he be born again. So in other words, Nicodemus
could hear the truth and see the truth and behold it with
his natural eyes and ears. And with the depth of his incredible,
brilliant mind, he could contemplate who Jesus was and he could come
up with some incredible answers. But it did not give him eternal
life, though he knew he was sent from God. What gave him eternal
life was the new birth, not his profession of faith. Never is
it ever shown that profession of faith gives new life, except
that profession of faith come from the rebirth. In 1 John 5,
verse 1, it says, All who are believing in Jesus Christ have
been born of God. It doesn't say all who are the
believing ones, then were born of God. But all who have been
born again then believe. The Scripture teaches that. And
you might ask yourself, well, why is that important? Why do
we still have this argument? Because, friends, according to
Paul in Galatians, if you believe in a gospel that's not the gospel
of the Bible, if you put yourself and you put confidence in the
flesh at all, you cannot be saved. And so the reality of the Word
of God, why we hold to expositional preaching to such a high standard,
is because if we fail to do it, if we do these topical sermons,
I can pick pet doctrines all I want to. If this was all you
got, you'd be in trouble, because I can indoctrinate you. But if
you get the Word of God verse by verse, book by book, letter
by letter, you will see the full counsel of the Gospel. You'll
see the full counsel of God's grace and the full counsel of
His Word. And then you will be given understanding. and you
will be given eternal life. No other way. No other way you'll
come to faith except through hearing the Word of God. Romans
10, 17. And the true hearing, what? Comes through hearing.
The true hearing comes through hearing. Not all men can hear. Through hearing is given by the
Spirit, and it is only effective. And then a man responds in faith.
In John 6, 45, it is written in the prophets, and they will
be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned
from the Father comes to me. Hear that. Everyone who has heard
and learned from the Father comes to me. Now, Jesus is very clear
in that. Everyone who has heard and learned
from the Father comes to Me. The difference is some of us
learn from man. Some of us learn from humanistic
perspectives. We have academics, but we don't
have rebirth. John 6, verse 63. It is the Spirit
who gives life. The flesh is no help at all. The words I've spoken to you
are Spirit and life. So the outward call has no effect
apart from rebirth. So if you hear the outward call,
why do so many people resist it? As Matthew 22, 14 lists Jesus'
words, for many are called, but few are chosen. Jesus didn't
say many are called, but few respond. Jesus said, many are
called, but few are chosen. We don't like the word election
and chosen and predestination. We don't like that word. But
it's the very language of the of the apostles and of Jesus
Christ is the very language of the prophets of the Old Testament.
God elected Abram in the middle of worshiping the moon. Abram
did not come to his senses and go, there must be more than this
moon. Let me seek after God. The Scripture says that Abram
in Ur was called out by God and Abram obeyed. Why did Abram obey?
Because by faith he knew God was calling him. How did he know
that? He didn't have a prophet to tell him. Because God spoke
to his heart. God saved him and brought him
out. And through an idol-worshipping, moon-god-lover, God created a
people He called Israel to give a son of promise that through
Abram's offspring, Jesus the Christ, all the world would be
blessed. What does it mean by that? In
other words, God selected Israel to be His shadow, to be His picture,
to be His small remnant to save them in spite of them. They were
wicked, disobedient, rebellious, worthless people. They were awful
people. The history of Israel in the
Old Testament, they were awful, godless people. And the only
time they repented is when God just about destroyed them. So
it wasn't their faithfulness that God blessed them for. It was God's faithfulness that
God blessed them for. So this outward cause no effect
except that God teaches it to you. You must be born again. For it is God who works in you,
both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Philippians
2.13 So God works in those who believe, both to will and to
work for His good pleasure. In other words, what we desire
to do, the decisions we make, and the work that we produce
for His good pleasure. So the gospel then is preached
to all people, for it's commanded to do so. Isaiah 42, Behold my
servant whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights. I have
put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to
the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or
make it heard in the street. A bruised reed he will not break,
and a faintly burning wick he will not quench. And he faithfully
bring forth justice. He will not profane or be discouraged
till he has established justice in the earth and the coastlands
wait for his law. And so what we see there in Isaiah,
the prophet is saying, God is saying, look, I'm going to send
the Messiah so that the world will be blessed. My promise was
to all nations, not just to Abram and Israel. So I'm going to choose
people from every nation to be part of my people. But Israel
is the example. It's the shadow of what I'm about
to do through Jesus Christ. God's grace. And God's Word,
then, were no longer just for Israel, just for the Jews, but
to all men. John 3, 16, where Jesus says,
In this way God loved the world that He gave His Son. The world
there, that kosmon there in the Greek of John 3, 16, is a reputation
or rebuttal against Nicodemus' theology. It felt like all the
world, all the nations of the world were condemned. But now
Jesus is saying it's not just as God saved the Jews in the
desert by lifting up the snake on Moses' account, so must the
Son of Man be lifted up, that he would what? He would save
all peoples, not just Israel. We know that doesn't mean universalism,
because Jesus is very clear that not all will come to faith. Very
few will come to faith. Very few will find it. So this
is evidenced by the New Testament example. I mean, Peter went to
Cornelius in Acts chapter 10, the ministry of Paul in Acts
chapter 11, Acts chapter 13, Acts chapter 15, Paul's writing,
his letters to the Gentiles, the Ephesians, the Galatians,
the Romans. And it's also commanded in Scripture.
Jesus says in Mark 16, go into all the world and proclaim the
gospel to the whole of creation. Whoever believes and is baptized
will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.
And so the Jews and the Gentiles, as we've seen in Ephesians chapters
2 and 3, are no longer two separate people, but out of the two, He's
made one. So in other words, out of Israel, or out of the
Jews, and out of the Americans, and out of the Egyptians, and
out of the Assyrians, and out of all the enemies of God, God has drawn
people up to Himself to make a people for His own possession.
And so with that now, there's not just one or two peoples,
or the goats and the sheeps, if you will, from a national
perspective, but God has reached through time and given the Word
to all people. There's an outward general call
going to the world. It is commanded by God. Go preach
the world and proclaim the Gospel to the whole of creation. On
the last day of the feast in John 7, 37, the great day, Jesus
stood up and He cried, If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and
drink. He says, come, drink. But what we see there is that
people don't respond to that or they look at it from a cognitive
point of view and say, I don't understand what you're saying.
We'll get to that in a moment. So what I want you to see next
is that preaching and hearing with human ears has no effect
apart from grace. We see that in the testimony
of the seeds in the sower. You see, there were many who
received it, some received it with joy, some even bear fruit,
but their roots are shallow. They don't really have it. Sometimes
the devil takes the word of God. Sometimes the world tears out,
clouds out our judgment and we reject the word. The gospel will
not be heard effectually by all and it will not be received by
all. And it's not because the gospel fails. The gospel does
not fail. In 2 Corinthians chapter 4, my
favorite text of the entire Bible, in the first five verses, we
see, therefore, having this ministry by the grace of God, we do not
lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways.
We refuse to tamper with God's word or to practice, excuse me,
to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word. But by the open
statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's
conscience and the light and the sight of God. And even if
our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to only those who are perishing.
Because in their case, the God of this world has blinded the
eyes of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the
gospel and the glory of Jesus Christ, who is the image of God.
For what we proclaim is not of ourselves, but Jesus Christ is
Lord with ourselves as your slaves for the sake of Christ. And so
in that, we know that Paul and the apostles directly and purposely
and perfectly declared the plain gospel. They didn't use techniques
and tactics to draw people in to large masses of places. They
didn't try to get into a situation. where they learned all they could
about NFL so they could get into a group of NFL players so they
could get in there and try to hook them. And two or three years
down the road, then they start to say, hey, you want to talk
about Jesus a little bit? That isn't the way evangelism
is done. The gospel is either proclaimed or it's hidden. And
when it's hidden through false practices, then it's an abomination
before God. It's a joke and it makes a mockery
of the power of the cross and the power of God's Word. And
we say that the Spirit of God is not powerful enough to affect
salvation of man because they're not interested in hearing what
you have to say because it's an antiquated mission. And if the mission is
changed, then we must change, and therefore God is changed.
And if God is changed, He's not immutable. And if He's not immutable,
that means we are down. Then there's no hope for us,
and why are we here anyway? And so in that, we need to be very,
very careful to understand that people will, more than likely,
reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ when it is preached. Because
the Gospel that you teach will show the God of the Bible instead
of the God of the world. The God of the world is put on
the face of Yahweh, but deep down inside, He's not Yahweh
at all. And so what we know is that Satan wants to be like God,
and so what he did and what he does is he puts on the image
of the Gospel by saying things from the Word of God. Do you
know that the devil tempted Jesus by the very Word that He is?
And he does it the same way in the pulpits of churches every
day. James Pettigrew Boyce, the founder of Boyce College, which
is the seed college for Southern Seminary, he wrote, Interesting
thoughts on this very topic about how people and why people reject
the gospel. Yes, 31. Let me read them to
you. People reject the gospel because of pride. Self-righteousness. Love of praise. The love of the
world. You know scriptures pop into
mind. You've got 1 John 2, 15-17. Self-righteousness. You see the
parable of the Pharisee and the publican. You understand how
that works. Pride. Love of the world. Love of money.
Mark 10, 17. The cares of the world. The seed and the sower
in Luke 10 and Matthew 13. The fear of man. John 7. with
John 11. The worldly self-interest. John
11, verse 48. Although many believed in His
name that day, they dared not to proclaim it, for they cared
more about the glory that came from men than the glory that
came from God. So in their hearts and heads, they knew that Jesus
was the Messiah. But what did it have an effect
on them? No. They stayed in the same course. Friends, understand
that's a dangerous position. When your attitude in your relationship
with sin, when your attitude in relationship with the Word
of God, when your attitude in relationship with the saints doesn't change, You're
probably not saved. It ought to scare you. There
should not be hope in the hopeless. With a false gospel, your hope
is in Christ alone. Unwillingness to separate from
impenitent friends. I love these people. I'm going
to stay in this sinful relationship. I'm going to stay in these sinful
things. I'm going to stay with these people who deny Christ. Unwillingness
to believe what they cannot understand. John 3, 9, Nicodemus. Jesus said,
you know, tomorrow they'll say you must be born again. How is
it that you're a teacher of all Israel, yet you don't understand
these things? If I teach you earthly things,
how do you understand spiritual things if you can't understand
earthly things? Unwillingness to believe what they cannot.
Unwillingness to have their sins exposed. This is the judgment,
Jesus says, John 3, 19, that people love the darkness rather
than the light. Lest their sins be exposed. spiritual blindness,
prejudice, hatred of the messenger, unfaithfulness to the light,
which they had, waiting for a convenient season. I hear that more than
all. I hear that. Well, I'll come
to Christ when I'm ready, when it's right. I got to get some
things squared away. That's an excuse. Frivolous excuses. Lack of deep convictions. Lack
of earnestness. The neglect of the Word of God.
The neglect of worshiping together as the church. Blindness to special
opportunities. Desire for special signs and
gifts and tongues and outlaying of the Spirit. The regard for
human traditions. Insincerity. Controversial spirit. A murmuring spirit or a gossiping
spirit or a hateful spirit. No desire for good. No desire
for God. The hatred of God and of Christ.
Hatred of the truth and the power of the devil. As we just saw
in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, the God of this world is blind to
the eyes of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of
the glory of God and the light of the gospel in the face of
Jesus Christ. We understand even in Luke 10 and in the gospel
of Mark and the seed of the soul, it says that the devil, Jesus
himself, translates that parable and says that Satan takes the
word from the hearts of unbelievers so that Jesus follows up and
says, even what they think they have, I will take it from them.
So this open and free offer that everybody's getting, this is
why people don't respond to it. They're unable to, because these
things keep us from seeing, keep the world from seeing and believing
and coming to faith. This open and free offer is not
effectual. And so the effectual call is
not given to all who hear the gospel. We cannot say that. To
say that denies the very sovereignty of God as the Savior. The sovereignty
of Christ as the Savior. We may not like it. We may not
understand it. But we cannot say that the Scripture
doesn't teach it. And so we must work. We must
study. This is not man resisting the
grace of God. This is not man receiving God's
Spirit and then going, no, get out of here. It doesn't work
that way. It's the natural man who's unable to see the real
thing they're looking at, who's unable to hear the words that
are coming into their ears, and unable to believe because their
mind is dead and depraved and their heart is wicked. This free
offer is received through natural means and natural ears and natural
minds. Therefore, it has no supernatural end except a man be born again. That means he's given new ears
and new eyes, a new heart, new mind, new soul. He cannot be
saved. Now, let's go to Romans eight. And we know. That for those who
love God. Verse 28, all things work together
for good. for those who are called according
to His purpose. And verse 29 is the keys. And
we're not going to go through all this. I just want you to
see how this looks. For those whom He foreknew, He
also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order
that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those
whom He predestined, He also called. And those whom He called,
He also justified. And those whom He justified,
He also glorified. So what this is showing us is
that we have confident assurance of our salvation because Paul
has firsthand knowledge as well as the word of God to ensure
that all things good and evil work together for good for those
who love God and are called effectually for his purpose. God's purposes
are sure, they always come to pass. God's love and call for
His church always results in good. God's call for His church
always has a purpose. And God's purpose for His church
is what? That we look like His Son, holy
and blameless and righteous and loving and affectionate toward
the Father, desiring for the glory of God the Father. And
God's plan and purpose are under His sovereign care. So in this,
I want you to see several quick things in closing. Several quick
things. Number one, in verse twenty nine,
for those whom he foreknew God's purpose, and I've said this many
times over, began before you began. God's purpose for you began before
you began. You were not accidental in this
world. Your parents did not plan you,
God did. The question is, for what? Foreknowledge constitutes an
idea of being adopted or ordained, a predestined. God, therefore,
being God, ordained, and the word here is not the knowledge
of, but the intimate knowledge of. The intimate relationship
with. There you go. Not the knowledge
of, but the intimate relationship with. So God foreknew His people. intimately, and purpose them
to come to Him. He gives them to Christ. God's grace is a gift. Never
a work of the heart of man. Ephesians 2.8, For by grace you
have been saved through faith, and this is not of your own doing.
It is the gift of God. And God's grace is His work alone. John
6.44, No one can come to me, Jesus says, unless the Father
who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.
So all that the Father draws will be raised up on the last
day. John 6, verse 44. All that the Father draws will
have eternal life. So God doesn't draw everybody,
does He? God's grace is His purpose, not
man's purpose. 1 Corinthians 4, verse 7. For
who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you
do not receive? Quit boasting about what you have like you
took it. You were given that. You received
that. You didn't go shopping for it and pick it up. That was
given to you. It was a gift. It was handed
to you. It was imparted upon you. When you were dead, God
put the defibrillator of His grace in your heart and boom!
You came to life. You didn't get it all out and
hook it up and tell God to push the button. He put you to life. And Paul says, then why do we
boast as though we hadn't received grace? God's grace is the granting
of belief, Philippians 129, where it has been granted to you that
for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him, but
also suffer for his sake. So $4 stands in God's supreme
pleasure. That's what we need to understand.
In Genesis 18, I have chosen him that he may command his children
and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing
righteousness. so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what He
promised him. Jeremiah 1.5, before I formed you in the womb, I knew
you. And before you were born, I consecrated you. I set you
apart. I made you holy. I appointed
you a prophet to the nations. Jeremiah didn't just get about
the age of nine and go, you know, I think I want to be a prophet. I didn't just decide one day,
I think I want to be a pastor. Many people do. I fought it.
There's a lot of stuff that that could be done. Now, there's nothing
else I could do. I'd rather die. And not teach the gospel. For
knowledge that stands in God's supreme plan to conform. He also
predestined us to be conformed to the image of his son, so it
goes from God called, doesn't mean foreknew, he predestined
to be like his son. So did he call everybody? Did
he predestine everybody? Is everybody walking wholly before
his eyes? Is everybody righteous? Is everybody
justified before him? No, it's not that way. The effectual
call is absolutely God's work because if it's not. Then we've
got to really reword the New Testament in such a way that
I think that some of these paraphrases probably do a better job because
it's easy to paraphrase based on your ideals and your theological
position. You can make it say what you want to say out of context. Heaven is really not the ultimate
goal of the church. It's not eternal life in a spiritual place.
It's eternal life in a physical place that would be physically
like Jesus Christ, immortal, immutable, glorified, sinless. In their case, though, where
people cannot see, we know that the God of this world is blind
in their eyes. We know that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of all creation. If we can't see that, if we can't
see Him, we haven't been given eyes to see. So if the church
is going to be restored like all creation into the image of
God purely, then what it means is that we're currently being
restored. We're currently being sanctified. We're currently being
made into the image of Christ as we grow together, not individually,
but yes, individually, but more importantly, corporately. So
God's purpose is working out for good now, even through suffering
as Christ suffered. So with that, the next point,
for knowledge stands in God's sovereign purpose to create a
people for himself and Christ's whole with his redeemed people.
I've mentioned this before. Matter of fact, I think I'm going
to preach the whole sermon about this and the idea that Jesus
is fully full in his own heart, mind and affections when his
bride is fully restored to him. He's not incomplete. We're not
saying Jesus is a piece of himself. But Jesus does long for His church. So when we say there's a desperation
for God, there's a desperation for God to make right those who
are righteous and to declare judgment on the wicked so He
can separate that darkness from light forever. That's evident
by His nature, His character. His holiness requires such things. But we're not drones. We're the
body. The next thing, in verse 30,
God's, and those whom He predestined, He also called. So God's good
purpose for you is that He effectually called you. See the beauty of
the Gospel? It's a beautiful thing in that
God has effectually called you into life. God specifically and
effectually calls us to faith in Him with full effect. We're
not going to have to wonder if we've missed it. We're not going
to have to Hope, we hear it. We will hear it. If it's preached,
we will hear it. And that's why our neighbor,
hearing the same word, will never come to faith. And while we're not smarter than
our neighbor, we're just effectually called. The reformers, well, actually
after the reformers, what we call the tulip in a Calvinistic
outline would be called the irresistible grace. This is when irresistible
grace begins to make sense and that those whom God calls always
come. Why? Because when God allows
the human heart to be reborn and to see the beauty of Jesus
Christ, his glory and his grace, that heart that sees will savor. It will. God's calling, the second
part of verse 30, and those who may call you also justified God's
calling always results in the called being justified, you see
that. So if he's called us for our good. And we might be like
Christ, and we're justified. Justified is a clear word. Nobody
ever argues that. Justification means you've been
saved. You stand right before God, and it's a legal declaration.
It's not something that can be changed. The judge has slammed
the gavel. The case court has been closed. The penalty of your
sin has been put on Christ, and therefore it's been paid. So
anybody that causes you to pay for a sin that you've committed
that's already been paid for is a crook, a wicked devil. So
that's not God. So God has called, and those
whom He called, He has. And Paul's so confident in the
expectation of what God is doing, he puts it in the past tense
in the Greek. He's justified you. He has called you. He has
justified you. They will be justified. Justified
as being made right with God, being declared right. Righteousness
is not a condition of man's actions, but a statement of fact because
of Christ. By grace, God's judgment now
has justified us in that our sins have been placed on Christ
and His wrath has been satisfied. So therefore, there's no other
debt. Unless you want to say worship's
a debt. I say worship's the outcome. Worship's the payment. His worship
is joy for us. We ought to love worship. Justification
is purpose and promise for the called. But the question is, are you
called? Are you called of God? Are you justified before him?
Are you being transformed in the image of his son? See, God's
promise to save is our hope. Our hope is not our hope. How do you worship? You see this
and you worship God with thankfulness. You work out your salvation.
Listen to Romans 5 9. Since therefore, we have now
been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by
him from the wrath of God. For if we for while we were enemies,
we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. Much more
now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life? You
hear that? See, God didn't wait for us to
come into the surrender line and say, He's coming. While we
had open arms, shooting Him in the face, behind enemy lines,
God went, No, you're here. Not going to have that. You're
mine and you're mine. You just keep shooting. And that picture makes it seem
very, I don't know, eeny, meeny, miny, moe-ish, but that's not
how God works. But we know that God whom He calls, He called
us while we were dead. He called us while we were enemies.
He justified us while we were enemies. And because of that
declaration, we were no longer enemies. Did we change our position? No.
God did. He changes our disposition, our
will, our affection, our heart. For if while we were still enemies,
we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more
now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by the life of his
son? More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord
Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
See, God's promise to save us is our joy. But while we were
still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.
You believe that? Do you believe in that? Do you
believe that that's effective in your life? Do you see grace
in your life? Do you see salvation? Do you see God calling you daily
to repentance and faith? Or is it something that just...
Well, maybe today is that day. Maybe now, maybe the words of
God are calling you. Maybe Christ is calling you out.
Maybe He's giving you a heart for the first time to hear, to
see. It comes through faith alone. By faith, we receive the word
of justification. We hear it and we go, you mean
I'm free? You mean God has declared me
right? What do we do? That's faith.
We do one of two things. We go, that's not possible. I've
got to do something. I know, okay, God wants to declare
me right, so I'll do something about it. What can I do? Oh,
well, Finney said this, and Graham said this, and Pastor said this,
and Sister said that, and my mama said this, so I've done
all those, so I'm pretty good, right? I've covered all the bases.
I've prayed this prayer, and I've done this, and I've been
baptized, and I've joined the church. Okay, I'm working. I know I'm
okay, because look, I'm maintaining, I'm maintaining. Well, what happens
when you fall off? Where's your faith? In what God has declared
as absolute. Or is it something else? See,
that's so hard for us to see, knowing who we are, to say God
has made us innocent through Jesus Christ and that's how we're
saved. He's declared us so. That's the
effectual call. The effectual call sees that
and the natural mind goes, nah, I don't think so, but what else
do I have? That's my only hope. Christ is
it. And if I've looked and there's
no other way, I can satisfy Him. So by faith, I receive your declaration,
God. I am now justified. And the fruit of that then boils
out. By faith we hold to God's declaring
purpose and promise in our lives, that everything we deal with
is out for our good, everything we experience is for our good.
By faith we know that He has called us and we are His. We
place our faith in Christ because His gift is in us, the Spirit
of God. And verse 30, the latter part,
and those who be justified, he also glorified. We know what
that means. The ultimate end of turning those whom he calls
into the image of his son. He transforms us from one degree
of glory to another by grace. So in that we know that we one
day will look like Christ. Those who are not called will
not look like Christ. Because in the end, Christ will.
Judge the nations. He will judge all those who do
not believe he would judge all those who said, Lord, Lord. He
would judge all those who were goats and chaff. Tears. Into everlasting destruction. But what shall we say to these,
if God is with us, who can be against us? He who did not spare
his own son, but gave him up for all, how will he not also
with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge
against God's elect? It is God who justifies. So then,
who is it to condemn? Jesus Christ is the one who died.
More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God,
who indeed is interceding for us. So who shall separate us
from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress?
or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger of the sword. For as
it is written, you for your sake, we are all being killed all day
long. We regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, and all these
things were more than conquerors through him who loved us. For
I'm sure that neither death nor life. Nor angels, nor rulers,
nor things present or things to come, nor powers, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other thing in creation will be able to separate
us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Let's pray. Thank you for that love, Father. For that immeasurable, undying,
eternal love. Thank you for the call. Thank you for calling us out
of darkness when we were dead and blind. For giving us new
birth. And Father, help us not to be
like those who don't want to receive this. Help us not to
be like those who don't want to believe difficult things. But, Lord, save us from our own
unbelief that we're not able, Lord, to come to these
realizations effectually unto eternal life, no matter what
we know is true in our heads. Father, if You do not create
us anew, we will not be Yours. Lord, help us to test ourselves,
to see if we are in the faith, and then walk together humbly
as recipients of grace, so that we might walk before Your face
and before each other, displaying Your wisdom and power, being
transformed into the image of Your Son. We pray these things
in the name of Christ, our Savior and our King. Amen.