PART TWO： Romans 8_30 - The Golden Chain of Salvation with Dale Partridge
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Summary
In this sermon, we continue our series on the "Gold Chain of Salvation" and look at the last three links in the chain: Calling, justifying, and glorifying. This week, we look at Romans 8:30, where it says, "And these whom he predestined, he also called."
Transcript
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What a blessing it is to be in Romans 8 still. Today marks my 75th sermon. As you
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guys know, we have planted this church originally in Cottonwood. We moved up
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here with a handful of families and continued and planted here in January.
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But this is my 75th sermon to the book of Romans. Some of you have actually been
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here for all of them. So that was just a wonderful reflection for me this last
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week. I hope to complete Romans in 150 sermons. That was the original intention. And Romans 830
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is the exact verse in the middle of the book of Romans. There's 433 verses in the book of Romans,
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and we are at the dead center at sermon number 75. So I thought that was kind of cool
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that Providence is already working through here in the sermon delivery. So I'm going to be
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presenting the second part of a series, what I have called the golden chain of salvation.
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We have already done part one. This week we are going to be doing part two. Last week was on
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verse 29. This week is going to be on verse 30. So last week I broke down the first two links of
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this chain. This week we're going to go for the last three links of that chain. The first two
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links were foreknowledge and predestination. This week, we are going to be going through
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calling, justifying, and glorifying. Before we begin, I just want to remind you about the context
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of the passage that we are going to be discussing. We have to understand where this passage sits
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within Romans chapter 8. In chapter 8, we learned that there is no condemnation for those who are
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christ that's verse one we still face suffering and even bodily death that's verses 10 through 11.
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both trials and suffering are not worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed in
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us that's verse 18. but in this suffering we learned a few things what we learned
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that god does not leave us without divine support we're not left without a divine support so we have
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the promises of god again that's verses 8 1 bodily resurrection that's 8 11 living hope that's verse
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verse 824, and support in our deepest prayers through the intercession of the Holy Spirit.
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But the greatest support, the greatest support that we've been given is His benevolent providence
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that works all things together for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose,
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which is 828, which we talked about a couple weeks ago.
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Now, this also includes the working together of our very salvation.
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This actually includes the entire process of your redemption, which is what we're in
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And this occurs in five distinct but progressive phases.
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So last week we talked about foreknowledge, which is, we defined last week as a relational
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It's not just God knowing information before the foundation of the world.
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Predestination we defined as God determining the destiny
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the remaining three links of this golden chain,
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which is again calling justification and glorification.
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And so we're going to start in verse 830, and I'm going to talk about sections A and B.
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It says, and these whom he predestined, he also called.
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Do not miss the grammar that's being communicated here.
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Verse 28 to 29, Paul uses the demonstrative pronoun, those.
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but here in verses 30 he uses the same demonstrative pronoun but he shifts it to the the near version
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to these if you guys have homeschooling kids you know the song you know this that these those right
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you have to learn your demonstrative pronouns because you understand that there's this is close
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um you know these is close those is far uh that is far and so the text continues to affirm
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that the apostle is speaking out about a particular group of people those whom he
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has predestined or these whom he has predestined depending on the
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translation that you're looking at and from that phrase alone just look down
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your Bible just look at this from that phrase alone you can deduce two things
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number one God does predestined people that's easy number one number two his
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predestining is limited to a certain group of individuals these it's not everyone it's these
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so if you're wrestling with the idea that god only predestines some to heaven if you're
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struggling with that you have two options that you get to deal with option number one
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deny and twist this passage of scripture many do go to any calvary chapel and you'll find it there
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submit to the fact that God is an electing God.
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He's an electing God through the Old Testament.
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He certainly didn't elect the Philistines.
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Why are we shocked that God is an electing God?
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The reason it shocks us is because we are in this weird,
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everybody's equal egalitarian culture that can't grasp privilege, blessing, honor.
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Paul's main point is to continue demonstrating that there's a chain of events that occur
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There's a chain of events that happens as a result of foreknowledge and election.
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It's, you know, before you were born, I knew you.
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Lord, Lord, I did all these things in your name.
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If you were known before the foundation of the world,
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God has decided to, for some reason unknown to us,
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If you were relationally foreknown, you will be predestined.
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And if you're predestined, you must logically, theologically be called.
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I tried to think, you know, we can maybe move on.
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this whole sermon is gonna be about calling again.
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In regard to salvation, what does it mean to be called?
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I feel like today and every generation is like,
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According to scripture, what does it mean to be called?
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Does it mean that you are called by the Holy Spirit?
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But I'm gonna argue that the term called in our passage
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Making that foreknown person, that predestined person now alive.
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People often call making someone alive in scripture regeneration,
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But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
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that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness
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So there's something with calling that has to do with taking you out of darkness
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And if that person was predestined, can the calling of God fail?
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Can the calling of God fail because of man's, quote, free will to reject the call of God?
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This is an important question because it's the entire basis for the next chapter in chapter 9.
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Romans 9, 1 through 5, Paul assumes that the Romans might think that because not all of
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Israel has come to the Messiah, that the word of God has failed, that the calling of God
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To which he responds in Romans 9, 6, but it is not as though the word of God has failed
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for they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel.
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Not all the people that are in ethnic Israel are actually Israel, the true invisible church.
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Not everybody in the visible church is part of the invisible church.
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How many Americans have come to church but never came to Christ?
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For the rest of chapter 9, he explains why only some of Israel heard and were saved by God's call through Christ
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and why others did not hear the call and were left to justice.
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My word that goes out from my mouth, it shall not return to me empty,
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and shall succeed in the thing which I sent it.
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Romans 11 29 says for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable
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like there should be no other passage of scripture I need to offer to you
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to conform your mind to that truth it's there the calling of God is irrevocable
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God's word will accomplish that which it set out to do
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God called everything into existence by the use of His Word.
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He called Noah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
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Through the prophets, He called the kings and the rulers.
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Through his angels, he called Mary and Zechariah.
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Jesus personally called the apostles and many of the disciples.
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Jesus calls Lazarus and Talitha from the grave.
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John 10, 3, speaking of himself, Jesus says, the sheep hear my voice.
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And he calls his own sheep by name and he leads them out.
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Listen to me, O Jacob and Israel, whom I called.
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My hand laid the foundation of the earth and my right hand spread out the heavens.
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When I call to them, they stand forth together.
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That's just a small sample of the countless verses that have to do with calling in the Bible.
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Think about the absolute absurdity that God created a being,
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that we are created beings that can resist the call of their creator
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Every single possible historical event that God says that he called into existence
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But then we're going to deny the fact that God calls us,
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Because God can't overcome our free will, right?
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Consider the irrationality in the face of the scriptures
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clashes directly with this concept of the effectual call of God.
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Logically, no matter what you do, you will logically deduce it into a conflict.
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Think about the heinousness of Paul, who in one moment hated Christians and willed to
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murder them, and in the next moment became one.
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And then in a second, all of a sudden, I want to be one.
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He didn't say, oh, Paul, accept me into your heart.
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And if Paul says, oh, no, sorry, I can't do that, Jesus.
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All right, I'm going to go find another guy.
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that's an answer from Steve Lawson by the way
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but they can stink. They can't hear. They can't see. They can't act. The word in the Greek in
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every essence that's being used is nekros, and it actually means corpse. It doesn't mean like
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kind of dead or like coma. No, it's dead, corpse. And you were dead. You were a corpse is what it's
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saying in Ephesians 2. Romans 8, 7 and Colossians 121 says, your flesh is hostile to God. Ephesians
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4, 18 says, in the flesh, a person's understanding of the gospel is darkened and alienated from the
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life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardness of their heart. Romans
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5, 10 says that our flesh, we are enemies of God. First Corinthians 2, 14 says, in our flesh, we
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believe the Gospel is foolishness. 2 Corinthians 4.4 and John 12.40 says that
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we are spiritually blind. Romans 3.10 through 11 says that our flesh that we
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don't understand or we don't seek God. In fact, no one does. Ephesians 2 says that
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we are in our flesh spiritually dead and that we follow the world and the devil
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and we are by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.
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John 3, 3-5 says that in our flesh that we cannot see or enter the kingdom.
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the anthropological description of man in the Bible,
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He set his saving love on you and foreknows you.
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God isn't looking down the corridors of time and seeing that I'm going to do good things
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and therefore has set his love upon me because I'm such a good person.
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In fact, if he looks down the corridors of time and sees me, he's going to, one,
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see how terrible I am and how terrible you are.
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And two, that's a heresy because God doesn't learn.
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but because he foreknows you he predestines you to be saved and because he predestines you
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he calls you he calls you just think about this particular question
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let's just put our brains on for a second how can predestination work
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predestination means that the God is controlling the end or the destiny
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prior to this creature being made he's controlling the end but if you put
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calling in there and you say that man controls the outcome then you have a
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conundrum with God just saying that he controlled the outcome it doesn't make
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any sense. It cannot work. Second, if you're dead, hostile, darkened, deaf, and blind to
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the need for salvation, to the need for the gospel, how cruel would it be for God to call
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you without also giving you the ability to hear, see, and believe? Let me give you an
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example. Imagine a father who intends to save his child who can't swim and is
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unconscious at the bottom of a swimming pool. And he's yelling from the back
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deck, get up, come out of the water, start swimming. Imagine a God who intends to
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save but his efforts fail to overcome the very thing you need saving from what do you need saving
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from deadness you need saving from blindness you need saving from deafness you need saving from
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darkness you need saving from slavery imagine god calling you but not giving you the means
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by overcoming those resistance to those realities
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We have to realize that we need saving from ourselves,
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We actually need saving from our state of being.
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Yes, we need saving from God's wrath, that's primary,
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but we need saving, we need to actually be resurrected,
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we need to be made alive we need to be brought to light we need eyes to see and
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ears to hear and again as I said last week this is the whole purpose of Jesus
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is miracles he's trying to show you that you're blind and without divine
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intervention you will not see and you are dead without divine intervention you
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will not live and you are deaf and without divine intervention you will
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not hear all of these things are images of what we see in salvation you need
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divine intervention you cannot just choose God without God first acting upon
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you and that's exactly what God does he not only calls but causes us to hear the
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call. It causes us to hear the call. Well, we can't hear the call unless we've been made alive.
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And when that person hears the call, they only hear it because they have been spiritually
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resurrected first. So God first comes in, spiritually resurrects us, and now we can hear.
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Now we can spiritually hear. Now we can spiritually see.
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We often think that salvation works like this. I'm spiritually dead, but all of a sudden I'm
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going to start repenting, and I'm going to start having faith in Christ, and then I'm going to
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born myself again. That's American Christianity. That is not biblical. In fact, it is exactly the
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opposite. Biblical is God comes by the Holy Spirit and resurrects you without permission. This is why
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he calls it the new birth, because your natural birth you have no involvement in. How much
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involvement did you have in your natural birth? Did you choose it? None. How much involvement
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should you expect to have in your spiritual birth none god comes and he brings you to new life
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all of a sudden you're awake you're alive you start to see things and hear things the gospel
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being preached to you all of a sudden you're you're torn over sin you recognize your own
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depravity you see your need for righteousness god grants you repentance god gifts you faith
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and all of a sudden you're casting yourself on Christ kind of sounds like
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Paul's conversion all of a sudden you're blind and then you see and then in
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Paul's case God blinds him again but what a beautiful reality to understand
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that God calls us and actually gives us the ability to hear that call by
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resurrecting us to new life letting us hear and letting us see now Westminster
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confession chapter 10 verses 1 through 2 this is our confession of faith here
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summarizes this entire process right here I love it it says quote all those
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whom God has predestined to life and those only he is pleased and is
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appointed and accepted time effectually to call by his word and spirit out of
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state of sin and death and which they are by nature to grace and salvation by
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Jesus Christ enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand
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the things of God taking away their heart of stone and giving to them a heart
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of flesh renewing their wills and by his almighty power determining them to that
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which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ, yet so as they come
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most freely, being made willing by His grace." So do we respond to God's call?
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Yeah, we do respond to God's call. In fact, we respond freely and willingly. So if
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fighting for free will well there's a sense of it right there is that when god renews your will to
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his will because your will is either enslaved to satan and sin or it's enslaved to christ
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and righteousness you don't have a free will you have a will but it's never free right and so now
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all of a sudden your will your highest desire for things is for the things of god you now will
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for righteousness and faith and trust in the Savior, but we only do this because God changed
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our nature. We are no longer in the flesh and dead. We are now alive and in the spirit.
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This makes sense, right? You're not expecting to do spiritual actions before you're spiritually
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alive. That's illogical. No, we are performing spiritual actions after we've been spiritually
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resurrected. That makes sense. So what was once dead is now alive. What was once darkened is now
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light. What was once impossible to see and hear is now visible and audible. That's why Jesus would
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say, hey, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. He who has eyes to see, let him see. And for that
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reason, you do not resist the grace of God's call, but freely and willingly obey and submit
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to the gospel. That's what happened to you. Every person that comes to faith starts out
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believing that they were the catalyst or decisive action point for their own salvation.
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Charles Spurgeon says everybody starts their faith as an Arminian.
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everybody does because it's one dimensional all i see is that the preaching happened and
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i responded i made a decision right so it's one dimensional what the scriptures do is it
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gives you god's perspective of what happened it lets you see oh that calling
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of the proclamation of the gospel that happened to you when you were 17
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You know, you were dead in your trespasses and sins
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It lets you see, oh, I was way worse than I thought.
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The word righteousness in the Greek is dikaiosune.
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And so you can see the relationship there is that dikao and dikaiosune,
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When you're justified, it means you're found righteous.
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where we can now see our sinfulness and our need for righteousness,
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because again, man's greatest need is what? To be found righteous.
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Because if you're not found righteous, you're under God's wrath.
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And the only righteousness available to us is an alien righteousness that we can have in Christ.
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And that alien righteousness can only be applied to us by faith.
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And so, righteousness is our central need as human beings.
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This is why the gospel must be preached that you are not righteous.
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You need his robes of righteousness applied to your soul.
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It's funny, I don't want you guys to turn there,
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shows that God is the one who grants repentance.
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I'm sorry. No, God is the one that actually grants repentance for you to even feel that way.
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And he gives us faith in Ephesians 2, 8 through 9. But because of that faith, he will justify us,
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not because of works done on our behalf that we become intrinsically righteous somehow,
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but because of the perfect work of Christ, his perfect obedience to the law. Jesus didn't just
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died for us he also lived for us keeping the law perfectly the righteous
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requirement of the law that is applied to us by faith so in Christ our sins are
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justly paid for on the cross we see that point number one the atonement we have
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an imputation of our sin to Christ and his sinlessness becomes our robes of
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righteousness by faith that's the double imputation that you just sung about in
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and rock of ages the double cure the fact that your sin has been imputed to christ and christ's
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righteousness has been imputed to you second corinthians 5 21 he made him who knew no sin
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to be sin imputation number one so that we might become the righteousness of god in him
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John Murray makes an important distinction between calling and justification.
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In calling, he heals us by working in us a spiritual resurrection,
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giving us a new heart, granting us repentance, giving us faith.
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according to what his people have become as a result of his calling.
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Okay, they're two different distinct realities.
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So calling is the action, justification is the result.
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we're still logical here, right? Foreknown, predestined, calling, justification. That
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makes sense. Logical reality. It remains one final link to fulfill this sovereign work
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of redemption. Romans 8, 30, the very end, and these whom he justified, he also glorified.
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Now, the word glorified is in the Greek, it's doxadzo, it's the root word is doxa, it's
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where we get the name for the doxology that we sing, where we bring glory to God.
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to be glorious is to be perfectly what your creator made you to be. So you want to be a
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glorious husband? Be exactly what Christ calls you to be as a husband. That makes you a glorious
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husband. You want to be a glorious daughter or son? Be exactly what the scriptures call you to
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be as a glorious son or daughter. Do you want to see a glorious table? Well, it better hold up
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your dinner because that's what it was designed to do. And so glory is being conformed to the
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perfectness of its intended design. So to be glorified as a person is to be perfectly conformed
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in a sense if we could be glorified if everybody could be glorified we would be back
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into a state where god intended humanity to be from the first part of creation
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adam and eve were in a sense glorious prior to the fall
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all. In a fallen state, we are not glorious, but we are in a sense redeemed partially as
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we are saved. If you look back to verse 29 for a second, you can see that conformity
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to Christ was actually the purpose of God's foreknowing and predestined. Just look down
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at your Bibles and says, quote, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become
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conformed to the image of His Son. The purpose of the predestined, predestining, is glory.
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And glory is the end. And so it makes complete logical sense that the whole purpose that He
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predestined the end is that He predestined you to glory. Now, in order to get you to glory,
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He needed to call you and justify you in between there.
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so we are predestined to be restored to what we ought to be what we were originally intended
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to be to have glorious souls and eventually glorious resurrected bodies and to live
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Now, interestingly, the word glorified, while it speaks to this future reality, it's actually
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Man, the commentaries are thick on that particular point.
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Every claim, if you actually notice, is all written in the past tense.
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Robert Haldane comments on this verse, and he says, quote,
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Quote, glorification is spoken of as having already had taken place because what God has
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determined to do may be said to be already done, end quote.
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Isaiah 46, 9 through 10, I am God and there is none like me declaring the end from the
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beginning and from ancient times, things which have not yet been done.
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That's what God does. God declares things that have not been done as if
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they've already been done. In other words, for God's elect, redemption is as
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certain as if it were past tense because God accomplishes all of his will. You
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want to know the certainty of your glorification? It's as certain as past
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tense. That's basically what Paul is trying to do in that passage of
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scripture. This is how Jesus can make statements of certainty like, quote, John 10, I give eternal
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life to them. First, just for a second, think about this. Can Jesus make a promise about eternal
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life if you can lose it? No, that doesn't make any sense. He says, I give them eternal life
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you have a massive problem with this passage of scripture
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because Jesus says that I give them eternal life
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So either that person who, quote, left the faith
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I'm going to go with Jesus is telling the truth.
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It says, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
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And you're going to see this in the next couple of weeks
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He can make these statements because our salvation
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is not dependent upon us, but dependent upon God.
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I'm wearing my shepherd's conference tie right now.
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He says, if you could lose your salvation, you would.
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If you could lose your salvation, you would lose your salvation.
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Any person in scripture or in his own life who has, quote,
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left the faith because they were never, it was because they were never saved in the first place.
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This is again, Paul's talking about this in chapter nine. They're not all of Israel who are
0.98
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of Israel. I could say the same thing. Not everybody who's in the church is of the church.
0.99
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It's the same reality. They may have been a part of the covenant people of God. They may have had
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the sign of the covenant applied to their body. They may have attended church on Sunday. They may
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have worshiped and raised their hands. They may have prayed and done many works in the name of
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Christ. But if they were not truly born into the family of God, they are not part of the elect.
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This didn't shock Paul, who watched many of his, quote, kinsmen perish,
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that he wished that he could save, but he couldn't.
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1 John 2, 19, speaking specifically to the matter of what we call church apostates,
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people who were a part of the church, but then left the church, the visible church,
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not the invisible church, but the visible church,
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They went out from us, but they were not of us.
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For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us.
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How should you be thinking differently as a result of having a comprehension of this passage of Scripture?
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First, it teaches us that our salvation rests completely in the hands of God.
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Just as you were not involved in the act of being made,
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You also were not involved in the act of being made new.
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That should really just sit on your brain for a few weeks.
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The effect of this truth in your real everyday life should be assurance.
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I remember a few years ago worrying about my losing of my own faith.
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I was incredibly sick, maybe on the verge of dying.
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And I remember thinking that maybe my faith would fail.
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I remember coming to the knowledge of the doctrines of grace, the perseverance of the saints, and realizing that I could finally rest.
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I could finally rest knowing that my faith is not sustained by me and that my relationship with God is not sustained by my acts of obedience, but that Christ in me through the Holy Spirit sustains me.
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It permitted me to obey with a motive not of fear or duty even, but a motive of gratitude and love.
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I obeyed to please God, not as some sense to maintain or sustain my own salvation.
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that I could actually rest, knowing that whatever happens,
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whatever trial comes before me, that my faith would not fail.
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Maybe one day again, we'll start singing the song,
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It should offer you peace, this passage of scripture,
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1 Peter 1.5 says of the elect who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
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John 6.39 says, and this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.
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Philippians 1.6 says, and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
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There should be some greater degree of devotion
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The only reason in the Old Testament given to Israel of why God chose Israel,
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he says, it's not because you were one of the greatest of the nations,
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Therefore, we're called, as Christ commands us to, is to preach the gospel.
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and teaching them to obey all that Christ commanded.
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We are to be faithful in the proclamation of the gospel.
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But it should change your life, this passage of scripture.
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It should give you a sense of peace, assurance, and praise.
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We thank you, Lord, for the masterful orchestration of our own redemption.
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Lord, that the decisions we've made were not isolated events,
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but a chain of events that you have caused all things to work together for our good.
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Lord, I pray for this congregation that these truths would sink deep into their hearts and minds,
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that they would see the beauty and the depth of the gospel.
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Lord, that they would be so enamored by the truths of redemption
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that it would ignite a passion in their marriage
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and that we would see some degree of revival in this town.
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We thank you, Father, for the gospel in Jesus' name.