God's Perfect Salvation

Q: What does the Bible say about calling on the name of the Lord?

The Bible teaches that calling on the Lord must come from genuine faith and belief in Him. According to Romans 10:13-14, calling on the name of the Lord is synonymous with belief in Him. You cannot truly call upon God without having faith in who He is and what He represents. Many misuse the name of the Lord, thinking of Him merely as a good luck charm for their desires. Authentic calls for divine assistance, as illustrated in Scripture, stem from a deep understanding of God as the invincible savior of sinners, not as a mere tool for earthly gain.

Q: How do we know that God's salvation is effective?

God's salvation is effective because it is based on His eternal electing grace and the finished work of Christ. God's perfect salvation, rooted in His eternal electing grace, demonstrates its effectiveness through Scripture. The assurance of salvation is not reliant on human will but on God’s sovereign choice and the redemptive work of Christ. Ephesians 6 reminds us that we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against spiritual wickedness, which reinforces that our salvation is secure because it is not contingent upon our fluctuating faith but anchored in God’s immutable purpose. His mercies and truths guarantee that His chosen people will persevere.

Q: Why is the concept of election important for Christians?

The concept of election is critical because it underscores the sovereign grace of God in our salvation. The doctrine of election plays a fundamental role in Reformed theology, emphasizing that salvation is entirely a work of God. Romans 8:29-30 describes how those whom God foreknew are predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son. This alleviates any anxiety about our worthiness and places the focus solely on God’s grace and mercy. Understanding that our salvation is not of our own doing but rather a gift from God instills deep gratitude and calls us to magnify Him continuously for His loving kindness towards us.

Q: How can Christians cope with suffering while trusting God's plan?

Christians cope with suffering by trusting in God’s sovereignty and rejoicing in His eternal purpose. Facing suffering is an integral part of the Christian life. Romans 8:28 reminds us that God works all things for the good of those who love Him. This assurance allows believers to view trials and tribulations as part of God’s perfect plan. It prompts us to focus not on the immediate circumstances but on His unwavering presence and promises. Thus, even in our struggles, we are encouraged to rejoice in Him, recognizing that our ultimate hope and purpose are secure in Christ.

Make haste, O God, to deliver me. Make haste to help me, O Lord. This is a cry of desperation, clearly. These are not words that you say lackadaisically. The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 10, 13, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And that's what that is. Oh God, make haste, oh God, to deliver me. Hurry up and save me. You don't call on the Lord by saying, I have decided to follow Jesus. That's not how you call on the name of the Lord.

People have used God's name as a good luck charm, and they call on God to satisfy their desires. earthly prosperity or to get them out of consequences, to get them out of trouble that they're in in this life. But Paul said there in Romans 10 that in order to call upon God, in the sense that he's talking about, you have to believe on God. Romans 10 14, let me read the next verse. How then shall they call on him in whom they've not believed? You see, people call on him that have not believed, but how are you going to call rightly? How are you going to do it like that, like David did? How is it not just going to...

You see, that's taking the Lord's name in vain. And remember, unbelief is obstinate. It's willful. It's knowing something about who God is and glorifying Him not as God, Romans 1, when they knew. You know God's not waiting on you. And yet you want him to be waiting on you, and that's what you're just determined to believe. And how are you going to call on him the way David just did? Oh, God, make haste to deliver me. Desperately, how are you going to call on him from your soul and not believe on him, and not know who he is, not know what he did for sinners, not know that he's the invincible safe? How can you truly be calling on Him if you think of Him as just a good luck charm?

You know, somebody recently said that somebody's very sick in the hospital, and this person is doing better, and they said that they believe that all of your prayers are helping. That's a good luck charm? Your prayers are helping? God's either going to save you or he's not going to save you. The effectual prayer of a fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much because that's the means whereby God will do what he's going to do anyway. But helping, it's like it's some kind of like there's this force of good and this force of evil and the more you pray, you kind of push back the force. And by the way, dying is not an evil thing. That's the wages of our sin. But they think of it like it's a struggle between good and evil, and the more we pray, the more we're kind of pushing. It's like some fantasy story of some kind.

But Paul said there, if you're going to call on Him, you're going to have to know who He is. How are you going to call on Him in whom you do not believe? And how are you going to believe in him of whom you've not heard? Religion hasn't heard of the Savior.

They know even by conscience and nature. That's what Romans 1 is all about. They know even by conscience and nature more, enough to make it less of a matter of intellectual ignorance than of just prideful obstinance. But still, you're going to have to hear of the sovereign Christ, the champion of salvation, the invincible savior of sinners.

You're going to have to hear about Him to know who He is and believe on Him. And how are they going to hear without a preacher? And how is somebody going to preach unless God sends somebody to preach the gospel? The cry of faith is born of great need, and it's a cry to the one who alone is able to meet that need.

The woman with the issue of blood didn't get desperate. She didn't call upon the name of the Lord. She didn't say, I've got to somehow through this throng, I've got to get through this throng somehow and just touch him. I've got to. And she got to that place, because everything else had failed.

We're going to go through every possible scenario that we can think to go through to save ourselves until God shows us the helplessness and hopelessness of that. So we're going to have to hear, we're going to have to hear of him. Somebody is going to have to preach Christ and we're going to have to hear, we're going to have to believe, and then you can cry like David did.

When you're, think about it, when you're bold enough to tell God to hurry up, you might just be getting close. That's pretty brash, isn't it? God, hurry up. Save me quick. Now you're taking the gates of heaven by storm, like he said you would, because you got no choice. Not in a presumptuous way, not in a prideful way, not in a haughty way, but in a desperate way, a desperate way. You remember what he told Jacob, the Lord said, you let me go, and he said, I will not. I will not let you go except you bless me.

That's calling on the name of the Lord. Everything else is using his name in vain. And the woman of Canaan, spoken of in Matthew 15, was told by the Lord Jesus that it would not be right for him to show mercy to a dog like her. You remember what she did? She didn't quit. She just kept on begging. In Mark 10, when Bartimaeus cried to the Lord for mercy, and many were telling him to shut up, you're bothering the master, what did he do? He cried louder.

That's calling on the name of the Lord. When you've got to have mercy from the Lord, He'll give it to you. He'll give it to you. When you just say, well, it's time to try Jesus, I guess, that's not, you're not there. The Lord hasn't brought you to the place where you're gonna call upon Him now. It sounds like to me, David was to that place. He was there. It's called being shut up to Christ. And that's a good place that only the Lord can bring you there. Verse two in our text, let them be ashamed and confounded that seek after my soul. Let them be turned backward and put to confusion that desire my hurt.

Now we know that David, he woke up in the morning every morning and strapped on his sword. And he went to bed at night, took his sword off. He was involved in, when it wasn't an organized war of some kind that he was involved in, it was a war of treachery, like his son Absalom waged upon him. It was some kind of danger from within, from his family or from other politicians.

And the spiritual lesson here, though, is what's important. We have enemies, and the worst one of those is right in here. And I tell you what, I heard a message not long, well, I say not long ago, it's been years now, I guess, that helped me with this. And turn with me, if you would, to Ephesians 6. This is the verse that was being quoted, the passage that was being quoted. And I want us to see this in a little bit different light, maybe, than we had before.

Ephesians 6.10.

Ephesians 6.10.

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Now think with me about this. Clearly there's application to this that's on the surface evident to whatever extent the Lord reveals it to us. But this is part of it too. When we have a conflict with someone, whether it's someone in this world, whether it's one of our brothers or sisters in Christ, whether it's in our close family or whoever, it's not so much that person that you have a conflict with. When you think about this verse where you're wrestling and not against flesh and blood, you're not wrestling against that person so much as you are the rulers of the darkness of this world.

And you know where they fight you? Right here. The battle is going on right here. The battle is not whether you're going to win victory in your conflict with that person or that situation. The question is whether you're going to win the victory over yourself. Because what does Satan do? Just like in the garden. Well, that's not right. You ought to do that. You ought to do that. I know that this is the, you know, what God says, but here's what you ought to do.

That's what's going on in here. That's how the principalities and powers and rulers of darkness of this world will battle you. Satan's not going to come down and stand in front. He's not going to meet you at the crossroads and play a banjo. He's going to do it right here. So when we have a problem with somebody, We have a problem in this world. There's a situation that's got to be overcome.

We're not wrestling against flesh and blood. I can't even remember who said that now, and it doesn't matter. But that's just the truth of it. We die daily, Paul said. We lift up our cross daily. And what happens with the cross is I die on that cross, not somebody that I don't like or somebody that's causing me harm. It's me dying to self.

And Satan wrestles against us in that way, not by trying to give us cancer from smoking, But by making us puffed up and saying, yeah, you know, we're right. You're wrong. I deserve my rights. I've been mistreated. And your pride, that's what happened in the garden, and that's still happening in our hearts every day.

That's who we're wrestling against, not your brother or sister. It says it there in black and white. We don't wrestle against flesh and blood. The fights going on in our hearts. Are we going to submit to Christ in his way? How many times do we forgive? 70 times seven. Our enemies are not our brothers and sisters. They may disappoint us. They may betray us. I pray that God would remind us often. Of who it is we're fighting. and what a victory looks like.

With that passage in mind right there, Ephesians 6, 10 through 12. Verse three of our text, let them be turned back for a reward of their shame that say, aha, aha. Now this expression, aha, aha, is an expression of scornful pride. It's saying, lookie there, look how big I am and how small you are. That's what our enemies are saying. And that's what we say as our enemy, as our own worst enemy. We have this scornful pride, like the Pharisee. Look at that publican. I'm so glad I'm not like that publican over there. Aha, aha. That's what that expression means right there.

And when we start thinking, we start doubting God or unbelief begins to creep in. That's not, we're not wrestling with flesh and blood. We're wrestling with ourselves, with Satan doing what he did in the garden, encouraging us to defy God with a scornful pride in self, making much of ourselves and little of God. and his word.

It's the exaltation of an enemy saying, aha, aha. Look how I have defeated you. Look how much better I am than you. Look how much bigger I am than you. And this is the very enemy that haunts our hearts now. This is who we fight against more often than not, the pride within us.

There's nothing wrong with desiring God's judgment against Satan. and those who work for him. But remember, remember the one time when David said, whoever you're describing to me deserves to die. He's going to be punished. Let him be punished. He found out it was him.

You reckon that's true of us too? We can never forget that. Verse four in our text, let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee. We're in such a miserable case. We're our own worst enemy. It's the pride of our hearts. It's not the flesh and blood.

It's Satan and all of his minions, everybody that would encourage us to defy the simple truth of God. You know, the truth of God is not complicated. When it starts getting confusing to us, it's when we try to justify ourselves and still hold on to that truth. You cannot hold fast the gospel of the Son of God that puts us in the dust and still be proud. Not all the time. It's going to rise up. But God is real good at putting it down, isn't he? He's real good at knocking the stuffing out of us. And we'll pray that he does if he's revealed himself to us.

Things that just don't sit right with the gospel of Christ, let them go. Let them go. I don't care what your personality is. I don't care what your politics are. What rules the hearts of God's sheep is the gospel. The gospel. The truth that Christ is all that we need. It's when we start thinking that we need this world that we start fighting fights that we shouldn't be fighting. We just need him, so let go of him.

If somebody does you wrong, cheats you, just completely just, just, you know, we're not, we're not, we're not going to let people walk all. I don't have to tell you not to let people walk all over you, you know, uh, on your part, as far as you just letting that happen, if you can avoid it, because you're not going to let that your price, not going to let that happen. I don't need to teach you that. But what we do need to learn is this, let it go when there's nothing you can do about it. And even if there was something you could do about it and it would lead to it taking up so much of your heart that you'd be distracted from what matters, let it go.

Let it go. This world will pull you in all different directions now. We need Christ. That's it. That's it. He's on the throne. He works everything for our good. If we could somehow determine to just be self-destructive as believers and just say, come cheat me, come rip me off, come defraud me, come fire me because of who I am, talk trash about me and everything else, we'd still be fine. Christ ain't gonna let anything bad happen to you. But we're not gonna do that, are we? But you know what else we're not gonna do? We're not gonna just let it go and look to Him unless He gives us the grace to do that. We got too much to say about other people, man. We're gonna have to get past it.

Let all those that seek Thee rejoice and be glad in you. Not because everything's smooth sailing. Not because everybody acts like you want them to. Not because we're not sinners anymore, you know, and we, so we don't do any bad stuff, but be glad in you. Your happiness depends upon and is a person, not a set of conditions. Can we learn that? It's not a set of conditions. It's not, okay, everything's falling into place, I'm happy. When everything falls out of place, we're gonna be glad in Him. That way, your happiness is enduring. It's impossible to destroy. And let such as love thy salvation. say continually, God be magnified. What does religion say? It's all about you. It's all up to you.

Let's hand out some trophies. Let's give out some ribbons. Let's put a gold star by your name. People that love God's salvation, the effectual electing grace of God, Eternal salvation in Christ, victorious salvation on Calvary. You know what they say? Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake. If it's up to us willing or running, we're lost. Because God's salvation is just God saying, I will have mercy.

That's what we're going to say. And we're going to say it continually. We're not ever going to say it's up to you. We're not ever going to compromise with the gospel of man. We're going to say it. I love that word continually. Let's just do it over and over again.

I'm saved because God chose me. I'm saved because God loved me from eternity. I'm saved because He loved me before I ever was a me. on this earth. Let God be magnified. I'm saved because Christ came down here to save me and he saved me. I'm saved because the Holy Spirit came where I was. The one who blows like the wind where he pleases came to me and birthed me again in Christ. That's my testimony. Let God be magnified. It's gonna be that all the time. May it be that all the time. God, give us grace continually to magnify God.

If you love his salvation. I love the fact that I'm saved, but that's different. I love his salvation. I love his eternal electing grace, don't you? I love the fact that it was up to God and not me. I love that. By God's grace, I love that. I love the word election. I love predestinating love, whom he did foreknow. whom he did know and love and embrace and cherish from eternity, he also did predestinate. Of course he did. He's God.

Wouldn't you do that for your children? Wouldn't you make their path perfect if you possibly could? Well, he can, and he does. with the perfect end result, what's the best thing that God could predestinate us to? What is perfection? What's the be all end all? To be like Him. Because He's everything. Just be just like Him. That's what we're predestinated to. And all these bumps along the way are part of that.

He exercises our faith. He increases our faith. We say, Lord, increase our faith, and we think that's just going to happen while we're asleep. He's going to infuse a little more faith. No, no. We're going to have to actually believe Him. We're going to have to actually trust Him. When we don't know which way to turn and we don't know which end is up, we're going to have to actually trust the Lord if that's going to increase. We've got to learn to look at this stuff that way. It's something we just can't... It's just tearing us up and it's wracking our brains and it's confusing us.

It's not complicated. I wish I could remember the Psalm. I'm gonna remember it, I'm gonna write it down, and I'm gonna tell you what it is on Sunday, because I can't remember it right now, and I don't wanna take the time to find it. But you know what I'm talking about, where God says, I sent them trouble, they cried unto me in their trouble, and I delivered them out of their trouble, and they looked to me. And then they forgot me, and I sent them trouble. And they cried to me in their trouble, and I heard their cry. And they look to me and it's over and over in that song. It says it more and more.

And that's our life. That's our life. You want more faith? Well, buckle your seatbelt. But also say this. I'm gonna be glad in Him. I'm gonna rejoice and be glad in Him. Nothing else. We rejoice in a lot of things. Don't get me wrong, but that's in Him. He's given us a family here to enjoy His blessings with, a church family, an earthly family. But whatever comes, we're glad in Him. And we say all the time, let him be magnified. He's worthy of it. And you can, I heard, you know, this too from somebody else.

You know, the Lord has put us on the ship of predestinating grace together, fellowship. We have fellowship. And on that ship, you can pace the decks You can look over the side, you can worry about the storms, you can fret and fear and be anxious. Or, you know, you can sit in the ballroom and listen to the music and maybe dance, have dinner with the captain, enjoy the ride.

Either way, you're going to end up where God has appointed as his child. In His presence, you're going to be with Him and you're going to be like Him. Either way, I say we dance. What do you think? We love God's way of salvation. We love God's purpose of salvation. We love the experience of His salvation, new creatures in Christ. We love the salvation of God by His grace.

And then David said, I'm poor and needy. Make haste unto me, O God. Make haste. Don't let me wallow in my own self-pity and my own foolish pride and my own stupid ideas about how to solve things, which is anything but just looking to him and saying, you're my help. You see that there? You're my help. Help is not the conditions of your life changing. Help is the Lord Jesus. Regardless of the conditions, regardless of where you are, how you are, what's happening to you and by you and in you, Thou art my help and my savior.

Make no tarrying. That's our request. And he may tarry. You know, he may tarry for a while. Whatever we need, that's what he'll do. That's what he'll do. But I suspect all of you, like me, are going to say, Lord, don't tarry. Even even when it comes to the final. Resolution of everything, what's our prayer, Lord? Even so, come quickly, come quickly. Because he is all that we need. But don't forget that right now, he's all that we need, right now. All right, let's pray.

God's Perfect Salvation

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about calling on the name of the Lord?

How do we know that God's salvation is effective?

Why is the concept of election important for Christians?

How can Christians cope with suffering while trusting God's plan?

Sermon Transcript

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God's Perfect Salvation

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about calling on the name of the Lord?

How do we know that God's salvation is effective?

Why is the concept of election important for Christians?

How can Christians cope with suffering while trusting God's plan?

Sermon Transcript

About Chris Cunningham

Comments

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