It is not that I did choose thee,
Lord, Todd's Road Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Todd
Niver. We are located at 4137 Todd's
Road, two miles outside of Manowar Boulevard. Sunday services are
at 10.30 a.m. and 6 p.m. Bible study is at
9.45 a.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m. Nursery is provided for all services.
For more information, visit our website at toddsroadgracechurch.com. I'm going to be preaching this
morning from the 32nd chapter of the book of Jeremiah. I've
entitled the message I want to bring to you this morning, Why
I Love Sovereign Grace. Now, obviously what is meant
by sovereign grace. You know, the word sovereign
is not found in the Bible, but neither is the word trinity.
The trinity is certainly taught in the Bible. While that word
is not used, it's still taught that God is one God in three
distinct persons. God the Father, God the Son,
God the Holy Spirit. That's not something you can
understand. It's something you just believe. It's a mystery
that is made known in the Bible. Now, sovereign is not The word
sovereign is not found in the Bible, but the doctrine of God's
sovereignty is found on every page of scripture. Now, what
is meant by this term sovereign grace when I say why I love sovereign
grace? Sovereign means uninfluenced
by outside forces. Nations claim to be sovereign
nations, uninfluenced by the laws and rules of other people. Now, I understand why we want
to be independent nations and we don't want other nations determining
our fate and so on. But really, it would be impossible
to be sovereign if you have any influence from any other people
or country. In reality, there can only be
one sovereign, and that is God. He's absolutely sovereign. He's uninfluenced by outside
sources. His will is the rule of His action. He never responds. He never reacts. He never puts out fires. His
will is the rule of His action. He worketh all things after the
counsel of His own will. People talk of man having a free
will. That's a philosophical absurdity.
Man can't have a free will because that would make his will over
God's will, his will sovereign over God's. No, God's will is
always done. God is the Supreme Being. He's eternal. he's omnipotent,
he's omniscient, he's omnipresent, he's immutable, and he's sovereign. That means he has a will He has
the power to make His will come to pass, and He always does make
His will come to pass. The scripture says, He doeth
according to His will in the armies of heaven and among the
inhabitants of the earth, and there's none that can stay His
hand or say unto Him, What doest thou? Sovereignty is God's independence. He is uninfluenced by outside
sources. He never responds to anything.
He never reacts to anything. He never puts out fires. He's
sovereign. Now, the word grace is God's
favor. God's favor. God's unmerited
favor. God's grace is God's action. It's not His intention. It's
not His offer. It's His action. You see, God's
grace does something. He doesn't just throw it out
there for somebody to take it. If God gives you grace, God's
grace chooses you. Grace elects you. Grace redeems
you. Grace justifies you. It doesn't
offer these things. It does it. It doesn't try to
redeem or make redemption available. It redeems. Grace calls you. Grace gives you life. Grace preserves
you. Grace glorifies you. God's grace
is God's action. It's His unmerited action. Thank God for sovereign grace. That means God doesn't have to
find a reason in me to save me. That's good news. Because if
he had to find a reason in me to save me, he would find none. But here's my hope. I have the
same hope that the leper had. The leper came to him full of
leprosy and fell at his feet and said, Lord, if you will,
You can make me clean. He understood the supremacy of
God's will. He understood this thing of sovereign
grace. He knew his salvation was totally
up to the will of Christ. He said, Lord, if you will, you
can make me clean. Now, perhaps an easier way to
describe sovereign grace is to simply call it this, saving grace. You see, sovereign grace is saving
grace. If it's not sovereign, it's not
grace in the first place. The sovereign, saving grace of
God. Now let me give you four reasons
why I love the sovereign grace of God. And then we're gonna
go into Jeremiah chapter 32. Here's my first reason. I love sovereign grace because
it's the truth. It's what the Bible teaches. Now, we go to the Bible to find
out. Who to believe, what to believe,
because the Bible is the inspired word of God. God has given us
this book that's a revelation of himself. We can't know who
he is apart from this book, and this is the God this book declares,
the sovereign God. I love the God who is sovereign. I wouldn't want him to be any
other way, and I love his sovereign grace. It's what the Bible teaches. And here's the second reason
I love the sovereign grace of God, because it glorifies God.
It exalts Him. It gives Him all the glory, and
it gives no glory to man. Now, it saves men, but it gives
all the glory to God. And it's a gospel worthy of God,
who He is. You see, sovereign grace is who
God is. We can't know who He is apart
from His sovereign grace. And here's the third reason I
love the sovereign grace of God. It's only by the sovereign grace
of God that a sinner like me can be saved. I'm giving you
my only hope. The only hope I have is that
He would will my salvation, not looking for a reason for me to
do it, but simply because He decided to do it. He's God. He
doeth according to His will. Whatsoever the Lord please, that
did He in earth and sea and in all deep places. And here's the
fourth reason why I love the sovereign grace of God, because
that gives me hope that God will save you. You see, grace saves. By grace are you saved, through
faith, and that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. Now, I was reading in Jeremiah
chapter 32, and this is what inspired this message. And Jeremiah
was in prison at this time, and the Lord was speaking to him.
And we read in verse 23 where the Lord made this accusation
against the children of Israel. And they came in and possessed
it, but they obeyed not thy voice, neither walked in thy law. They
have done nothing. of all that thou hast commanded
them to do. Therefore thou hast caused all
this evil to come upon them." Now, when I read that description,
particularly these words, nothing and all. They've done nothing
of all that I've commanded them to do. You know what that means?
That means they never kept one commandment one time. That means
all they've ever done is sin. And I asked myself this question,
does that describe me? Yes, it does. What I am by nature. It certainly does. Genesis chapter
6 says, God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth
and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil continually. Non-stop. A sinful man. A man who's never
kept one of God's laws one time. I've broken every one of the
Ten Commandments Not just once, but I haven't kept them once. And neither have you. And if
you think you have, it's because you don't know who God is and
you don't know what sin is. Because if you knew who God was,
you would know something about your own sinfulness. It's a sight
of who God is that causes somebody to see who they are. Down reading
in verse 26, then came the word of the Lord unto Jeremiah saying,
behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything
too hard for me? No, there's not. He's God. Therefore
thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will give this city into the
hand of the Chaldeans and into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king
of Babylon, and he shall take it. And the Chaldeans that fight
against this city shall come and set fire on this city and
burn it with the houses upon whose roofs they have offered
incense unto Baal and poured out drink offerings unto other
gods to provoke me to anger. That's what the children of Israel
are guilty of, idolatry, compromise. For the children of Israel and
the children of Judah have only done evil before me from their
youth. That's all they have done. Now, because of the great guilt
they had incurred upon themselves, we read in verse 36 of Jeremiah
chapter 32, and now therefore, thus saith the Lord, the God
of Israel concerning this city, wherever you say it should be
delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword
and by the famine and by the pestilent. This is gonna happen,
but here's what else is gonna happen, and this is because there's
such a thing as sovereign grace. This is what else is gonna happen.
I'm going to let them be carried off into captivity. Behold, I
will gather them out of all countries, whether I've driven them in mine
anger and in my fury and in my great wrath, and I will bring
them again into this place and I will cause them to dwell safely. Now God talks about what he will
do. I will gather them, I will bring
them, I will cause them to dwell safely. And there's not one thing
in them that made God respond to them where they said, I'm
sorry, I'm going to straighten up, I'm going to try to get,
no, he did it simply because he is sovereign. He said, I will
and they shall. I love sovereign grace because
the only hope any sinner has is that God has sovereign grace. He doesn't have to find a reason
in you to save you. He does it simply because that's
who He is. He's gracious. He says, I will
be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. Go on reading, verse 38. It says
regarding these people that were so bad that only did evil from
their youth, that did not keep one commandment of everything
that he had called upon them to do. He said, they, these people
he'd been describing, they shall be my people and I will be their
God. These sinful people, they're
going to be my people. I'm going to be their God. I
love sovereign grace. Sovereign grace makes God my
God. It makes me His people. And if God be for us, who can
be against us? I love sovereign grace because
it makes sinful people the people of God. Now go on reading verse
39. God says, and I will give them
one heart and one way. that they may fear me forever
for the good of them and of their children after them. I will give
them one heart. Not I'll offer them a heart. Not I'll come into their heart.
I will give them one heart. Now this is talking about the
heart given in regeneration. A new heart also will I give
thee. One that was not there before.
It's not the old heart changed. It's not the old heart improved.
It's a brand new heart. A heart that loves God. A heart
that believes the gospel. Do you know all believers believe
the same thing? There's no differences in what
true believers believe because they have the same heart, the
new heart. They have the same God. They have the same gospel.
They have the same Savior. And they all believe the precise same thing because
they believe with that heart that God has given them, the
new heart. And notice what else he says
in verse 39. I will give them one heart and one way. Not multiple choices. He's not
giving us things to choose from. There's one way. False religion is multiple choice.
You can choose this, this, this, or this. But in the gospel, there's
no choice to be made. There's one way. Christ said,
I am the way. Not a way, the way. The only way. There's not a fork
in the road. We need to choose which direction
we're going to turn. No, he is the way. I remember when Thomas said to
Christ, Lord, we know not whether thou goest. How can we know the
way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way. Now in the New Testament,
this way is called the narrow way. This is a very narrow way. The gospel is narrow. I've been
accused of making the gospel too narrow, saying you've got
to believe just what you say. Well, no, you've got to believe
what God says. You do. I don't care whether you believe
what I say or not, but you better believe what God says. And Christ said narrow
is the way. And he talked about the broad
way that leads to death and the straight gate that leads to life. So this is a way that excludes
all other ways, hence the narrow way. And it's also called the
way of righteousness. The only way that you or I will
be righteous before God is if we are in the way, the narrow
way, and have His righteousness. David said, I've made mention
of thy righteousness, even thine only. And the reason he said
that is there's only one righteousness, the righteousness of Jesus Christ. He is the way of righteousness. And he's called in Acts 16, 17,
the way of salvation. If I'm going to be saved, saved
from my sins, I shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save
his people from their sins. The only way I'm going to be
saved is if I'm in the way of salvation. There's only one way
of salvation, Christ himself. And he's called in Luke 179,
the way of peace. The only way I have peace is
if Christ Himself is my peace, and He made my peace with God,
and made it to where God is at absolute, complete peace with
me, because I'm in His Son, and there's nothing to be mad at.
He is the way of peace, and He's called in II Peter 2.21, the
way of truth. Any other way is a lie. It's not the truth. He
Himself is the way of truth, and He's called in Hebrews 10,
verse 20, the new and the living way. The word new means freshly
slaughtered. living as opposed to dead. You
know, the blood of Christ is always powerful, always poignant. Oh, it never gets old to God,
it never gets old to the believer. Oh, the precious blood of Christ,
it's so precious because He is so precious, new and living as
opposed to the dead way of salvation by works. He's called in 1 Corinthians
12, 31, the more excellent way. He's called in 1 Corinthians
10, 13, the way of escape. Looking to Christ is the way
of escape. In Acts 24, verse 14, I love
the way Paul said, they can't convict me of the things they're
convicting me of, they never happened, but this I'll confess
to thee. I'll confess to this, after the way which they call
heresy. So worship I, the God of my fathers,
believing all things which are written in the law and the prophets. How I love sovereign grace that
gives this new heart and this one way. Now let's go on reading.
And here's what happens when he gives this new heart in this
one way. We'll fear him forever for the good of them and for
their children after them. When he does something for us,
he puts his fear within our hearts. That awe and that reverence and
that respect for God that makes you afraid of sin and it makes
you afraid to look anywhere but Christ alone. And then he says
in verse 40, this is why I love Sovereign Grace. He says, and
I will make an everlasting covenant with them. Now this is a unilateral
covenant. Now we deal with covenants all
the time. We go into the grocery store
and a particular item says $2 and if we pay that $2, they'll
give us that item. That's the way the covenant works.
If you do this, I'll do that. But this covenant is not like
that at all. It's not I will if you will. It's I will and
you shall. That's the covenant God makes.
He says, I'll make an everlasting covenant with them. Now, this
is the same covenant that David was speaking of in 2 Samuel 23,
verse 5, when he was dying. These are David's dying words.
He said, although my house be not so with God. Now, his family
was a mess. He could have been talking about
his own body, his sinful body. Although my house be not so with
God, yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant, a covenant
that never had a beginning and will never have an end. He said
to Jeremiah, before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee. So before I was ever born, this
covenant was made with me, an everlasting covenant. And David says it's ordered in
all things. And sure, now every aspect of
my salvation was ordered by God. He chose me. He came for me. He kept the law
for me. He redeemed me. He justified
me. He sanctified me. He gave me
life. He preserves me. All of this
comes by divine fiat, divine order. Every aspect of my salvation
is ordered and sure. And that's why David said, and
this is all my salvation. and all my desire, though he
make it not to grow. And you know, this is all my
salvation, the everlasting covenant ordered in all things. And sure,
this is all my salvation, and it's all my desire, though he
make it not to grow. Oh, how I love sovereign grace
that gives has God making with me an eternal everlasting covenant. And here's what's going to happen
as a result of that covenant he made with me. He says that
this is that covenant that I will not turn away from them to do
them good. But I'll put my fear in their
hearts that they shall not depart from me. Now, if the Lord turned
away from me, There'd be no hope for me. If he left me to myself,
if he left you to yourself, there'd be no hope for either of us.
But in this covenant, he said, I will not turn away from them. But what if they fall like David
did? I will not turn away from them. Or what if they deny like Peter
did? I will not turn away from them."
That's the promise of grace. Now, that's not going to lead
any child of God to, well, I can send him because he won't turn
away from me. No, you say, love's so amazing, so divine, demands
my soul, my life, my all. He says, I will not turn away
to do them good. I will put my fear in their hearts
that they shall not depart from me." Because God's fear is in
my heart. I don't want to depart. I'm afraid
to depart, and I don't want to depart. I think of what the Lord
said to the disciples after the 5,000 left. He said, will you
also go away? And when he's saying that, he's
saying, I'm not going to have any unwilling disciples. The door is open.
If you want to leave with him, you can leave too. And Peter
answered, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of
eternal life, and we believe and are sure that Thou art that
Christ, the Son of the living God. We don't want to go anywhere,
and we don't have anywhere to go. We're going to stay right
here. We don't want to depart from You. In this glorious covenant,
he puts his fear in our hearts that we will not depart from
him. How I love sovereign grace. Then he says in verse 41, yea,
I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them
in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole
soul. Now this is what sovereign grace
does. It makes the Lord rejoice in us. to where we're beautiful
to Him. We read in the book of Zephaniah,
verse 17, the Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty.
He will save, He will rejoice over thee with joy, He will rest
in His love, He will joy over thee with singing. That's why
I love Sovereign Grace. It makes me, it makes everybody
Christ died for, it makes everybody He made this everlasting covenant
with so beautiful that God Himself rejoices in them. This is not
an unconditional love. This is a love where we're just
like Christ and God rejoices over us. And he says, I'll plant
in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole
soul. You know, the Lord doesn't do
anything half-hearted. He can't do more. He can't do
less. He can't love more. He can't
love less. That's why I love sovereign grace. He couldn't give more. He couldn't
give less. For thus saith the Lord, like
as I brought all this great evil upon this people, and he did
it, and it was their fault, but so will I bring upon them all
the good that I promised them. How I love sovereign grace. Let me quote a hymn to you. Hail
sovereign love that first began the scheme to rescue fallen man.
hailed matchless, free, eternal grace that gave my soul a hiding
place. Against the God who ruled the
sky, I fought with hand uplifted high, despised the mention of
His grace, too proud to seek a hiding place. But thus the
eternal counsel ran, almighty love arrest that man. I felt
the arrows of distress and found I had no hiding place. Indignant justice stood in view,
to Sinai's fiery mount I flew, but justice cried with frowning
face, this mountain is no hiding place. Ere long A heavenly voice
I heard in mercy's angel form appeared, which led me on with
gentle pace to Jesus Christ, my hiding place. On Him eternal
vengeance fell that must have sunk a world to hell. He bore
it for a chosen race, and thus became their hiding place. A
few more rolling storms at most shall land me safe on Canaan's
coast. There I shall sing of sovereign
grace. I love to sing of sovereign grace
to Jesus Christ, my hiding place. I love sovereign grace. We have this message on DVD,
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