We kind of send a text back and
forth. I was already out on the run today and we talked about
sunset or sunrise and that is of the Lord. It was absolutely
gorgeous. If you come into Jackson and
you get close to the courthouse, you're at the second highest
point in Cape County. When you come up there you can
see the ice in the sky this morning. It was absolutely gorgeous. I was running with Catholics.
It was quite the conversation this morning. Needless to say,
that's not my job is to run today. My job is to show you who Christ
is. I have several verses. There
was 12 I had outlined for this message. And my message came
about when I was mowing at the church not too long ago. And
it's simply called Sovereign Grace. I hope these verses are blessed
to you as they have to me. I'm not going through all 12,
I'm going through four of them. These verses have arrested me
in the lowest of the low and again my purpose is just to show
you who Christ is and that's simply it. So I will open here
with saying that sovereign grace itself refers to the thought
or the idea that God's grace is freely given. And not only
is it freely given, it's unearned by our condition and totally
under God's control. We have no control over true
sovereign grace. The word in every verse decrees
God's sovereign grace, every verse, even the ones that we
don't understand. If you were to take me through
Proverbs, I'd probably stumble multiple times because I don't
know what that means to begat, begat, begat. But regardless,
no matter what's written in the Bible, that is God's grace. It's here for a purpose. His
free and unmerited favor towards humanity, but only a certain
select few of humanity. That can sound offensive to multiple
people who don't understand that concept of free grace through
election, particularly in salvation. One day a verse can show you
His grace in one way and the next your heart is open to the
same exact verse. That's what a believer will experience,
that you read a verse and one moment And then the next time
we're blessed again to see the same exact verse, but in a different
light. The Lord has blessed us with that. We can see his grace in another
light. Either way, in his time, in his time, not ours, you are
granted sovereign grace when he deems it. Once you are provided the heart
to see the true gospel and the true God, A believer is granted
other moments, clarity of spirit. When you're a believer, I've
found they don't come fast enough. We find ourselves in lows and
highs and most time lows that we would like more clarity of
spirit. So sovereign grace will be shown again and again at his
appointed time. He opens your heart to read a
verse. read a commentary or listen to a message and then the grace
of God is found. You can be at your highest and
lowest either way and you'll be arrested by the mercy provided
in his name. Now, my dad just read Isaiah
43 and it is exactly in line with what we are going to read
today. Isaiah 43, I have called me by I have called them by my name,
thou art mine." Permanent. Sovereign grace. No fire will
affect thee. Sovereign grace. All are saved
no matter where they come from. He spoke on the Gentiles and
people that are considered lost by the Jewish Bible. I, God, have made them. So if
you're one of the elect, the Lord has made you. Therefore,
he will keep you. And then the blessed one, they
will know me. That's out of Isaiah 43. And
then on top of that, the Lord says, none will escape. And as a believer, that's ultimate
bliss. That's the ultimate candor in
which you find true salvation. So my first verse I direct you
to is Ephesians 2. verses 8 and 9. Drew and I talk on the phone
once in a while. We always talk about hitting the hits and this
is definitely one of them. You know, as far as the most
clear verses that can be. I don't think I'm reinventing
the wheel today. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. Another thing I found about with researching
or in the Bible of sovereign graces, boy, you're redundant.
And what's the metaphor? One string guitar, just keep
stringing the same note. So you're going to hear the same
verbiage over and over again. I hope it blesses you. Ephesians
2, 8 and 9, for by grace are ye saved through faith and not
of yourselves. And that verse right there is
offensive to people that do not understand the gospel, and not
of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. You can't will yourself into
heaven. It is a gift of grace from God
and not something that can be earned by human works. It underscores
the sovereignty of God, this verse, in choosing to give grace
to individuals for salvation, individuals who do not have the
power to save. When I was younger, I sat into
a grace church, and we have several of you in here that can say the
same things. We sat under grace preachers. And as a youthful mind came about,
you could find ways to fit yourself into the Bible and make yourself
feel really good. That was within a grace church.
I can't imagine what it would be like outside of a grace church.
You could find the pigeonholes to say, I can do this and do
that, and I'm a good person. I'm a good person, so therefore
I'm saved. Pretty simple. And it makes me
feel good. And then Monday comes around,
because it's not Sunday, so therefore it's not holy. It's just Monday. And then my parents are going
to take me back to church on Wednesday, and I'll feel good
about it. And then Thursday, Then Friday, Friday's fun, Friday's
a lot of fun. Then Saturday, now I'm talking
to myself at junior high and high school and college and so
forth, so I'm a young man, and these things that came about,
I could pigeonhole, and man, it made me feel good, it was
a band-aid is what it was. It was fake in reality because
it was of me, of me only. Ephesians 2, 8 says, in the middle
of the verse, Start over, for by grace are you saved through
faith and not of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works. So what I was experiencing at
the time felt really good, and I also had confidence in it,
and it was my own works, but it was fake. The Lord saves by faith. Where
does that come from? Well, first of all, it comes
from Him, holy, but also it comes from preaching under a gospel,
under the true gospel. You can pick up a pamphlet. Drew
always talks about a book that he read that said, offended him,
and he threw it across the room. Okay? I remember sitting in a
storefront, listening to the gospel, and thinking, something
just was said, and that doesn't make sense. I don't understand.
I felt good Wednesday. I felt good Sunday. Why is this
making me feel bad on a Sunday and a Wednesday? What was actually
happening was it was showing me my own condition. A blessed
pastor who knew the gospel was preaching the truth and arresting
someone who was hearing it for the first time. But it was offensive
by human nature. No, I can go to God when I want
to. I can find my own path at that certain point in time. It's
easy that way because I'm too busy right now. I don't want
to deal with that right now. It's Thursday. Regardless of
the days, the Lord doesn't care about what day it is. The Lord
saves souls of his elected people. We do not have the power to save
ourselves, but faith, faith instilled by the Lord is so powerful. Mercy
instilled by the Lord is so powerful. His believers cannot touch or
see our Lord. We can't touch him. But I guarantee
if you're saved, you know he's there. You know he's already
sacrificed and he's already saved his people. Faith can only be
provided through God. We can only believe that Christ
died for our sins and took away every single blemish through
his own sacrifice because of him. We can only believe that
salvation is full and satisfied by him. We can only understand
mercy and sovereign grace because of him. He has provided that. That. I don't have a better word that
knowledge that understanding that he is the true salvation.
We can only believe this in our lowest state. That we perceive
that he satisfies all our conditions every one of us, no matter where
you come from in the past, no matter what amount of sin. Years ago, we had a gentleman,
for lack of a better word, infiltrate our church. And we were having
a social at my house with the gentleman. And he asked me, he
said, is there more sin now than there
ever was. He was kind of treating it like
the old school science weight scale, as if there's more sin
now than there was in, say, the 1700s or the 1800s. That was
kind of what he was amounting to, was that this time was more
poisonous than other. And I was young. I answered, but I don't think
I answered properly. Basically, sin is always. It
always is. It's consistent. There we go. But you know what's
more consistent? The Lord's absolute salvation.
It doesn't matter what level of sin there is. He will provide
for His people. He'll outweigh that amount of
sin. Absolute salvation. Sovereign
grace. Romans 9, 15-16. The heading in my Bible says,
God shows mercy as he wills. Verse 15 of Romans 9, for he
saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and
I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then,
it is not of him that willeth, talking about a human, talking
about us. We don't willeth, nor of him
that runneth or worketh. but of God that showeth mercy."
Pretty one-way street. Here, Paul explains God's absolute
sovereignty in dispensing mercy and grace. He writes that it is not based
on human will or effort, but purely on God's sovereign choice.
We have an aisle in this church. Why don't you walk it? That'll
bring you solace for about 20 minutes. It's a work. Go talk to a, there's a priest
probably less than a half a mile from here. Sit in a booth. Tell
him all you did bad. That's a work. You sit at home and you can get
into a spot where you can validate yourself. Validation under human,
under our humanistic standards is dangerous because we can validate
anything we do. to make us look good. If you
sit long enough, no matter what we do, we can say, I did good
by me, I did good by my family, you can sell yourself. The validation
under the Lord doesn't exist, period. The only validation comes
from Christ's sacrifice, purely on God's sovereign choice, sovereign
grace. We cannot will salvation or choose
to be saved And I thought this part of the verse actually caught
me the other day. I'd read it multiple times. Nor
him that runneth. No one is saved when you try
to work harder or harder or harder to be saved. You can provide
all the testimony you want, any overture to be religious. Go
ahead and put $100,000 on the plate. That doesn't make you
saved. What makes you saved is the Lord
Jesus Christ dying for your sins. Well, that's not fair. Fair? God shows mercy on whom
he will. He created everything you see.
I look out the window right here, and I can't even count within
10 feet how many blades of grass. Have you ever seen the wind?
Because I've never seen the wind. I felt it, but He created it. I look up in the sky, there's
a moon, there's stars. I don't have control over that.
And some scientist will tell you, well there's X amount of
blades of grass, the wind is this and that. They don't know. Everything is under the control
of God and His sovereign choice and His sovereign grace and mercy.
God shows mercy on whom he will. He will salvation because salvation
is his. It's his. He'll give it where
he wants to, to his blessed people. Now, that sounds rude, but in
reality, if you are an elected believer, that's love, the absolute
function of love. There's no effort by us, We're
the dirtiest and lowest of low, and yet you're saved for eternity. You're kept free sovereign grace. I ask also when you walk by that
sign, you understand what that word actually means, but how
absolute and how blessed sovereign grace really is. It means your soul is kept forever
by the ultimate keeper. There's nobody getting out once
he's kept you. The most sure thing that is.
Romans 11, 5 through 6. Romans 11, 5 through 6. Even so then, at this present
time, there is also a remnant according to the election of
grace. According to the election of
grace. And if by grace there is no more works, otherwise grace
is no more. You put yourself into it, there's
no mercy, there's no grace. But if it be of works, then is
it no more grace? Otherwise, work is no more work. Sounds to me that it has nothing
to do with us, outside of the fact that he loved us. The salvation
of God's people is according to God's sovereign choice and
grace, not by works. Grace is pure and unmerited. We don't deserve it because of
our condition. Not mixed with human effort.
By grace, no more works. Adam fell committing works. The
Lord made a new covenant. the covenant. Works could never
satisfy because our efforts could never satisfy. What would you
even offer to receive salvation now? If by works, which is sin,
in sin because of our unpure nature, there can be no grace.
Only the Lord can provide mercy to save a working people. If
you want to work and try to find your way, again, I sat and validated
everything that I did, my actions, my thoughts, timeliness of everything. People who strive by their own
measures to better our situation, faulty on every level. Sovereign
grace, though, is absolute and satisfies every sin, past, present,
and future. And lastly, 2 Timothy 1.9, Drew and I have talked about
this one time. It's funny to look back at how you would think
about the gospel before you heard it. And again, Nathan, Sarah,
you know, we've shared the same experiences growing up in an
actual grace church with people who spoke very eloquently, and
they would probably share the same sentiment as myself. There
are some days you just didn't really want to go because, man,
Sunday night, there's a good football game on, you know, and
we would go to the church and so forth. But when you were there,
you were holy. You felt it. And then again,
you replaced it with, okay, what's going on tomorrow? Immediately
as you left the door. Granted, I'm guilty of that still
sometimes. But what does sovereign grace
afford us? Second Timothy 1.9, who has saved us and called us
with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. You know, I've read that verse
a million times. Timothy has been Second Timothy
has been so blessed. The verse that's got me this
time, if you look in the middle of the verse, but according to
his own purpose, he wanted to save. Out of love, he wanted
to save. Oh yeah, and it's his grace as
well. Sovereign grace, absolute grace.
God's grace and calling are not based on human effort or merit,
but on His, the Lord's eternal purpose and sovereign will. Salvation
is from a calling by God. He has designated your time to
hear the word. You remember that time? How fast was it? Do you remember,
were you angry? Were you blessed? Were you overwhelmed to the point
where you realized what you were and what he actually is and not
what a preacher tried to make him be? Outside of here, I should
say. Little God before, and you worked
with him on your own time. When that moment took place,
you were blessed beyond blessed, humbled, thankful, beyond thankful. Oh Lord, please save me. And he did, because you were
one of his elect. Sovereign grace. Sovereign in
Merriam-Webster's actually means absolute. The second definition
is absolute and unmerited. Absolute and unmerited. That
means we didn't earn it. It was just given freely. Now
that's not free will. That's free grace. It will affect
you in the most blessed way. It can make you mad, sad, or
glad. You hear the word, and it changes your heart. It may take a while to change
your behavior, but either way, it changes your heart. Not by
your choice, not by your works. John 6, 44 reads, no one can
come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him. So by our nature, we cannot be
saved. We would not ever approach him,
but yet he'd pull us in. and there's no escape from his
mercy. Then the Lord promises, I will
raise him up in the last day. There's no capital H on that
verse. That's you. I will raise you
up in the last day. That's your last day. When you
pass away, a believer is saved. You cannot and you will not make
Christ your choice, but He makes you His choice. He provides you
with sovereign grace. Do you understand how much is
granted and how powerful Christ's sacrifice is? How much you are
loved. How much He loves you. God's
choice of individuals for salvation by sovereign grace sets apart
believers to be saved. Salvation is entirely the work
of God from beginning to end and is not based on human merit
or effort. The grace of God offers is freely given and determined
by his will, not by human action. Salvation is wholly the work
of God. Mercy, grace. I told you I was redundant today.
because the Lord's mercy is redundant, because it's so constant. It is a gift from start to finish. God's love is unchangeable, immeasurable. God's grace is sovereignly dispensed
to the humble. He resists the proud. Every quote-unquote
Gentile that is of him will be saved. What a mercy. The mercy. It is a gift from start to finish.
All glory then goes to God. We pray.