Well, let's turn to Ephesians chapter 1 this morning. In between two worlds at this time, I like and dislike these seasons when I finished a book of the Bible in exposition, and I'm not settled on a new one yet. You could pray with me on that, but it does give us a time to look at some basic foundational things that I like to look at every few years. And this installment will take two weeks, maybe three weeks.
Probably two. And it's a very, very important foundational thing, our doctrine I should say, that I want us to cast our hearts and minds on. I want to charge you early on now this morning to do the work of some hard thinking. Worshipping God through the preaching of the Word is not just sitting back and hoping you can be entertained. Abraham Lincoln used to say he wanted to hear his preacher preach like he was fighting a swarm of bees. Well, I agree with that in some ways. Preachers should not be dull or boring if he can help it. But nevertheless, there are many times when we must expound things that we need to think on because they're glorious and God's worthy of our best mental efforts.
And I would say this kind of tends toward that. If you're in my class in the Pastor's Training Institute, this may indeed be one of our sessions. So listen well. Take good notes. All right.
It ought to be one of the sessions. Charles Haddon Spurgeon was called the Prince of Preachers. And to this day, he's the most published author in history. His sermons sold so many copies worldwide while he was preaching that he set all kind of records. And Spurgeon was one of those just naturally gifted men. He was a genius.
He didn't go to college, but he could speak and debate with anyone on practically any subject. But his heart for God was almost unparalleled. He loved Christ. He loved the great doctrines of Scripture. And his family were very devout. His mom was a godly woman, but she was not a Baptist. And she would lecture and exhort Charles when he was a boy. And she would press upon him that you need to come to faith in Christ. She even told him one day, if you stand at the judgment bar of God to receive judgment, I will testify against you because you know Christ and you should look to him and trust in him.
That's a good mom right there. Charles was going home in a snowstorm one time. I think it was a midweek service. And he stumbled into a Methodist chapel in downtown London. And the preacher couldn't get there for the snowstorm. And a deacon got up and just gave a simple exhortation.
I think it was just look and believe or something very simple. And Spurgeon was gloriously converted. And in studying the options about his church affiliation, he chose to become a Baptist. And he tells the story of his mom saying, I long for you to get converted, but why did you have to become a Baptist?
To which Spurgeon replied, I just thought I should be thoroughly biblical now that I'm a Christian. What sets Baptist apart? By the way, I didn't grow up Baptist.
I became a Baptist because I heard the Bible preached in the Baptist churches I visited after my conversion. And I'm a very proud and thankful Baptist. I believe strongly in what Baptists historically have stood for and believed. That's why very proudly on our marquees out front, we have the phrase, a church committed to historic Baptist doctrine. Now I do have a lot of problem with a lot of modern Baptists and what they preach and teach and a whole lot of what they leave out in their preaching and teaching.
They veered from our our moorings far too much, far too often. But historically speaking, I'm a Baptist. That's what I am.
That's what I'll be till I die. And there's one key doctrine, if you will, that I think more than anything else marks us out, that displays our distinction. And I call that doctrine grace, life, glory. The early Baptists believed it was all of grace and through grace there's imparted new life and God does all of that for his own glory.
So let's dissect this together. Let's look at Ephesians and we'll quickly get a foundation here and then we will go further this morning. In Ephesians chapter 1, first of all in verses 5 and 6, notice what Paul writes, he predestined us to adoption as sons through Christ Jesus to himself according to the kind intention or purpose of his will.
Let me just stop right there. He predestined us, marked out us particularly, uniquely us, to adoptions as son, that is through the merits of Christ to himself. How or why did God do this?
According to the kind intention of his will, simply because he wanted to do it. And then verse 6, to the end of the end of that was to the praise of the glory of his grace which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved. Now go down to verses 11 through 14.
Also we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to his purpose who works all things after the counsel of his will. Verse 12, to the end, for this reason if you will, that we who were the first to hope in Christ, here it is, would be to the praise of his glory. Verse 13, in him you also after listening to the message of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed you were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise who is given as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession. Here it is again, to the praise of his glory. So three times, to the praise of the glory of his grace, to the praise of his glory, to the praise of his glory. Now Ephesians chapter 3 verse 21, which has become sort of a theme verse for us as a local church. Ephesians 3, well let's just do 20 and 21. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us, to him be, here it is, glory in the church then on a continual horizontal plane and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.
Amen. So God is radically passionate about his own glory, grace, life, and glory. Now some years ago we changed our church name and I do bump into people every now and then that says, you know I remember you guys used to be First Baptist Church of Muscle Shoals and then you changed your name to Grace Life Church.
Did you do that to be more intimate more interesting or to be more relational or to be more relative or culturally relative would be a word again there or culturally adapt or something? I said no absolutely not. We did that because that statement, that name exemplifies what Baptists have always believed that makes us radically distinctive from others, grace, life, and glory. Matter of fact the early Baptists during what has been called the Protestant Reformation about 500 years ago in Europe, they were viciously persecuted by both the Roman Catholic state churches of Europe and the Protestant Reformed state churches of Europe.
Matter of fact one church historian says that there were far more Baptists martyred during that period than by any other persecutions of the church age in the modern era. Baptists were people who decided hundreds and hundreds of years ago we will not just theorize and write about and speak about our faith, we're going to apply and build churches based on it. We're going to literally change the church to fit our doctrine and not just have it to be something we have rhetoric about or just speak about. Now as we talk about this doctrine we're going to unpack it as we go along and hopefully think hard together and glorify God more because of the glorious things he has done for us. But five quick thoughts as we begin about this doctrine of grace, life, and glory. First of all, it is unchangeable.
It's God's Word. It cannot change. If you try to alter it you do irreparable damage to it.
In other words, to change part of it is to discard all of it. It's unchangeable. Secondly, it's essential. That is, if you lose the truth of grace and life for the glory of God, you lose Christianity. It is so central and foundational.
It's unchangeable. It's essential. Thirdly, it's historical. To discard this doctrine is to forsake our spiritual forefathers and our rich biblical heritage.
Again, the early Baptists died rather than deny these truths. Fourthly, not only is it unchangeable and essential and historical, it is defining. Again, this doctrine defines us as badness more than any other doctrine defines us. And then number five, not only is it unchangeable and essential and historical and defining, it is hated. The doctrine of God's sovereign grace that brings his elect to spiritual life, which makes them then the candidates for church membership and baptism, and which brings him great glory is hated by the world, the flesh, and the devil, and the great harlot church that is working in the world today. It's hated.
You know why it's hated? It's out of man's control. It's not a system. It's not a structure. It's not an organization.
It's not a method. It puts everything in God's control, because you can't give yourself grace. You can't birth in yourself new spiritual life, and you cannot by yourself bring God glory. It's all of God. Now, continuing by way of introduction, let's define, if you will, grace. And grace, of course, is the word charis. In the original Greek, it has the idea of favor. I like to amplify that and say that God in his purposes has chosen to cast a goodness toward or a favoring of some people.
Matter of fact, he does that for all in one sense, and we'll unpack that as we go along. So we call that general favor, that general goodness, the love of God for all of us, goodness, the love of God for all of mankind, common grace, that God in common and in like manner has shed a goodness, a favoring to all mankind, common grace. That's why the Bible says he sends the rain on the just and on the unjust. It's just in God's favor and goodness and love for all mankind.
All the things that men can enjoy from physical sustenance to earthly pleasures. I mean, I mean the the most ardent of atheists can enjoy a sunset. That's a gift of grace from God.
And then the most devoted believer in Christ can enjoy a sunset. It's common grace. God cast it on all of us. And then of course there's what we call saving grace or redeeming grace. That's a special goodness and favor that God gives to those whom he purposes to save. This is an eternal and absolute free favor God bestows. It's spiritual and it's eternal. It brings blessings on us for time and eternity. It takes the guilty and unworthy and makes us God's own people. It includes those biblical words like God choosing and God electing and God predestinating and God calling and God sealing and God justifying and God sanctifying and God glorifying.
All that. And we could preach many, many sermons on each one of those. That's all a part of saving or redeeming grace. God casting a special goodness and favor on those he purposes to save.
Now let me just go ahead and throw this out. From the human perspective, we can't understand God. We can't understand sovereignty. We can't understand all the dimensions of election and predestination and choosing and calling, etc., etc. So from the human perspective, those who truly are repentant and believed, they will be saved. Every single one. But from the biblical divine perspective, only those whom he's chosen to bestow the grace on come to that conviction.
All right. There's a phrase that the theologians use here sometimes called prevenient grace. Prevenient grace means that God acts in grace toward us. God acts in this bestowing of goodness or favor toward us before humans do anything at all to deserve it or strive for it or look for it in any way shape or fashion. Ephesians 1 says, We are chosen in him before the foundation of the world. So how could you do anything for God before the foundation of the world?
Chosen to him before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless before him in love, the text says. Grace is a favor toward those who have no merit in themselves and no compensation is demanded from them. It is a divine favor to those who are thoroughly undeserving and even hell-deserving. Grace comes to us completely unsolved. It is what you might call a pure charity.
At the first it is unasked for and it is even undesired. The moment you desire in the slightest way to turn to Christ, to find God, it's because grace has already acted toward you. Prevenient grace. Grace is extended to objects who have no attractiveness in ourselves that caused it to be extended to us. Banished the thought, blasphemous the thought that there was something special in you and therefore God predestined you.
Some unique virtue in you and so God elected or chose you. Unscriptural and very false. Grace cannot be bought, it cannot be earned, it cannot be won by the creature otherwise it would not be grace. Romans 11 6 reminds us, but if it is by grace it is no longer on the basis of works otherwise grace is no longer grace.
Well that's clear isn't it? If it is by grace it is no longer on the basis of works otherwise grace is no longer grace. Now we continue with our introductory thoughts here and now let's talk particularly about saving or redeeming grace. First of all, when God casts that special favor on one that He's going to make His own child, it is a favor that is eternal.
It's not just set apart for time. Now common grace only exists in time. The years you have on this earth you're under an abundance of God's goodness and favor you do not deserve but that ends at the death. But saving or redeeming grace continues on from all or continues on through all eternity. 2 Timothy 1 9 reminds us, but 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 granted us in Christ from all eternity. So it's an eternal thing from eternity past through eternity future. You've got to remind yourselves again folks that though there's anthropomorphic expressions about God because we can't understand an infinite omnipresent omniscient omnipotent holy God.
So sometimes to help us understand there's phrases and statements made about God as if He were like us and thought like us but He's not like us and He doesn't think like us. He exists in eternity not in time. So it's no stretch for God to see you as His saved one in eternity past all the way through time and into eternity future. That's no stretch for God. That's for God.
That's who He is. He's eternal so your salvation is an eternal salvation. But redeeming or saving grace not only is it eternal it's free.
It's free. Romans 3 24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. Now brothers and sisters there are some dear and good sweet people that I think know the Lord who want to view our salvation as something that we had something to do with. It's just it's as common and natural to the fallen man as breathing to believe that we do something and then God does something and if God did something then we do something then we get into heaven. But that's not biblical. It's abhorrent thought in one sense for how can you a depraved sinner who is by nature a child of wrath do anything to cause a holy God to think I'll be partners with you and I'll help you get yourself saved.
So untrue. It's completely free or it's not at all. Well not only is it eternal and free this redeeming or saving grace is sovereign.
It is sovereign. Matter of fact keep your bible ribbon there. Well I'll tell you what don't keep your bible ribbon there because we're not going back there and go to Romans right quick. Would you go to Romans chapter 9. Romans chapter 9 and let's look at verse 11. You see for four weeks we didn't look we didn't turn in our bibles did we?
You've got rusty on me. Now we've got to turn this morning. Romans 9 look at verse 11 if you will. For though the twins, this is Jacob and Esau, for though the twins were not yet born, you can't do anything before you're born by the way, and had not done anything good or bad so that God's purpose according to his choice would stand not because of works but because of him who calls.
Now that's sovereignty right there. Before they're born, before it was even possible to do good or bad, but in God's choice. Yes, Jacob I loved, Esau I hated, and who are you old man who talks back to God?
And then let's go to 11 5. Of course we're we're heating on topics that have numerous sermons preached on them. Romans chapter 11 verse 5. In the same way then there's also come to be at the present time a remnant, that's the church, that's the saved ones. Ekklesia church means his called out ones. He's called out a remnant from this world.
If it's present time a remnant according to God's gracious grace choice, a choice that came out of his grace to give favor and goodness on a particular group. If you will. And then you can just listen to this one Hebrews 4 16. Let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Church I want to tell you something. I go boldly to the throne of grace. To the throne of grace. Where else you gonna go?
Where else you gonna go? You gonna go to the throne of judgment? You gonna go to the throne of justice? Are you gonna go to the throne of righteousness? You are a sinner already condemned before holy God. But if the throne is a throne of grace you can go boldly with all of your weakness, with all of your foulness, with all the pollution and corruption and wickedness and depravity of your sinful condition. You can march boldly to Jesus as he sits on a throne of grace. Come you sinners. Seek his grace whose wrath you cannot bear.
Flee to the shelter of the cross and find salvation there. Oh, you can come boldly to this throne. But here's what I want to point out. Notice the word throne. If it's a throne then it's a sovereign. Those always go together in the ancient world. And this is of course written in the ancient world. The throne that they had in those days was always a sovereign. The king on the throne had the power of life and death. He just speaks the word. You're going to live.
You're going to die. Well so it is with our God even much more so. You could say in this text not only is it a throne of grace, it's a throne that is marked by grace. The characteristic, the attributes of his throne is that it is a throne of grace. And if grace reigns on the throne then grace is sovereign as the one who sits on the throne is sovereign. Sovereign means it is his perfect, righteous and proper.
Let me say it again. It is purpose, righteous and proper that he acts on his own will without any influence from any outside party. Nothing deters him. Nothing sways him. Nothing changes his mind. He is sovereign. He acts independently, absolutely.
Whoo, that's good news. I'm glad somebody didn't slip up and whisper in Jesus' ear, you sure you want to save Jeff Knoplett? I mean think of all the choices you've got.
He's not a real good choice. You don't know the junk he's going to have to dig out of. The unpacking he's going to have to do. And those poor people in Muscle Shoals are going to have to live with the poor people in Muscle Shoals. You don't know the junk he's going to have to dig out of. And those poor people in Muscle Shoals are going to have to let him grow up as their pastor.
What you're going to put those people through? And Jesus says, I'm sovereign. Nothing else, no other opinion, no other ideas, no committees, no groups, no potentate, no authority, no assemblies, nobody influences me at all. And I've chosen my throne. It's the throne of grace. The throne of grace. Grace is on the throne, and if grace is on the throne, grace is sovereign. Therefore, grace is dispensed by sovereign decree. You say, pastor, I still can't wrap my mind around that before the foundation of the world, God sovereignly chose to cast this special favor and goodness on some, and not cast this special favor and goodness on others, to which I can only respond is, He's sovereign. It's for His own purposes. And as Paul points out in redundancy, it is for His own glory.
His own glory. You see, grace is not on the Walmart shopping shelf. Grace is not an item we can examine, we can handle, we can look at it and then choose it if it suits us.
No. Grace is on the throne of the universe, and it is bestowed when and on whom the perfect, powerful, beautiful, sovereign one chooses to bestow it. Now, all men are born as unrepentant and unbelieving rebels against God.
All of us are. Unrepentant and unbelieving rebels against God. Matter of fact, go to Romans chapter 3, since you're already there. Go back to Romans chapter 3, and we'll look at verse 10.
Now, we're going to tile this a bit together about the unique distinctiveness in church history of Baptists, but you need to get all this first. Romans 3, 10. Paul writes to the Gentile Romans and says, you know what? As it is written, there is none righteous, not even one.
Romans 3, 11. There's none who understands. There is none who seeks for God. They have turned aside. Together they become useless. There is no one who does good.
There is not even one. Man, their throat's an open grave. Out of their throat and their tongue, they keep deceiving.
Last phrase, verse 13. The poison of asp, a deadly viper, if you will, is under their lips. His point is, it comes out of their mouth because it's the content of their heart. Their throat is an open grave. With their tongues, they keep deceiving. The poison of asp is under their lips, verse 14, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.
Generally speaking, verse 15, their feet are swift to shed blood. Pastor, we don't have all that much bloodshed. Yeah, we slaughter unborn babies by the millions.
Just because they're inconvenient. And a woman being pregnant is the most blessed honor and glory God's given womanhood. We've listened to the lies of hell to say that somehow this precious unborn baby is in my way and is expendable. Not singling the ladies out, but that just shows you how depraved mankind is. That we can do that with sophistication and honor. We've fallen so deep in our depravity, we now even have women marching in the streets celebrating the slaughter of their unborn babies.
Their feet are swift to shed blood. Verse 16, destruction and misery are in their paths, and the path of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Verse 19, we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God. So all are fully and absolutely accountable and deserving of eternal condemnation.
And the sovereign one who sits on the throne has such love and goodness that he dumps out in a continual fashion this common grace of goodness and favor on all of mankind through all the ages. And by the way, if anyone ever, listen to your pastor, if anyone ever under this common grace will confess their sins and turn in faith and embrace Jesus Christ, they will be saved. Under common grace, the universal call goes out to every single one who has ever lived. If you will confess your sins and believe on the provision and the promise of my son, you will be saved. I believe in a universal call to salvation. But since Adam walked the earth up until this morning at 11 23 a.m, not one under common grace has done that. Not one.
Not one has done that. Not one person under common grace has confessed and repented of sin and come to Christ. So God exercises his divine right as sovereign to extend a special grace, a special goodness toward some among all of those equally undeserving, unrepentant, unbelieving rebels.
And he bestows on those some the spiritual and eternal blessings of salvation that express his love and goodness for all time and all eternity. No wonder Paul writes to the Ephesians in Ephesians 2 10. And this is something in the flow of the Greek language.
It's something of a crescendo point. It's an exclamation building on all the glorious things he said already. And that's in Ephesians 2 10 when he says, For we are his workmanship. Those of us who are truly saved, who are the ones he chose to put this special favor and goodness on, we are God's workmanship. Literally in the Greek it says, His workmanship we are. What a work God did that you're sitting in here this morning wanting to hear this kind of preaching.
Do you understand? That's not normal. That's not natural.
That's not what you would naturally want or desire. But God's done something in goodness and favor to cause you to begin to have an appetite for what's true and eternal and right, and not just for the base and fallen and temporal things of this world. They're not all bad, but thank God when he saves you he gives you a growing desire for higher and eternal things. His workmanship we are, Ephesians 2 10, created when he cast his favor toward us in time. There's a time when he recreates us.
Created in Christ Jesus for good works, we join local churches, we serve God together, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Let me throw this out at this point. In the balance of biblical truth, the best way to saddle up on this thing of God desiring to have a people, now listen to me, it's not that God looked down from heaven and said, oh my goodness, every one of them has sinned and disqualified themselves. Oh my goodness, I've got to come to the rescue. So I'm going to send my son to rescue some of them.
No! The best balance of biblical truth, here's what happened. Before the foundation of the world, I knew what they were.
I knew what they would do. I knew they all were wrath-deserving sinners. And before the foundation of the world, I have marked out for myself a people, an ecclesia, some called out ones. And so since they're already mine, but they can't be with me because they're too rotten to dwell with me, I'm going to send my son that I foreordained to do this to redeem them and make them become qualified because they've been mine already.
They're just not worthy of being with me until I get them cleaned up and fixed. You see, the cross is not an ambulance sent to the scene of an accident. The cross was foreordained that God the Son, Jesus, would come rescue the children God has known in His heart before He ever made them. You remember my phrase that I love to tell you? One of the reasons we know that God will never stop loving us is because God never started loving us. He's always loved us with a saving, redeeming love. Now, you go outside of this church and people hear about your pastor's preaching, and they're troubled by it. I mean, God forbid somebody try to preach to you the whole counsel of God. Preach safe stuff.
Stuff fallen men are comfortable with. I hope my preaching makes you uncomfortable, but puts you in awe of God. And when you run into these people and they want to make it a simple contract, God did this through Jesus, I do this, I know I'm saved.
That's not totally wrong, it's just terribly incomplete. Then you need to tell them what I tell the Jehovah's Witness when they come to my house. All the Mormons, I'll let them give me some spill and I'll add them on a little bit. Now, where's that temple? Now, where do I need to go? And if my wife and I go out there and get married, we're better safe than if we don't go out there and get married.
And if we don't go out there and get married in that temple. And now, what are the works I got to do? Okay, caffeine. Are you sure I like caffeine? I don't know about... And they give me the things and then I'll just finally say, look, you need to stop.
You don't understand. I am so unrighteous. I am so deeply stained and corrupted and polluted by sin.
If you put one work on me, I'm doomed. I can't do it. I can't keep it.
I can't keep it. Do you understand that? And it leaves them totally baffled. They don't know how to respond to that. Totally baffled. I can't do that.
I can't keep those works. If it's not the sovereign decree of God through a chosen sovereign grace, I'm completely shipwrecked. And I think from time to time, I've gained a serious ear, a hearing. Have you understood something, folks, when you share your faith? Everybody wants to know how bad you are.
They really do. They want to know what a rotten scounder you are. And by the way, you are. You are. Romans, just give them Romans 3 10 and say, that's me. That's me. And if it's not a free gift of grace, I'm sunk. So all you've done is come to my house and depress me with all of these works.
Then I'll smile and say, but somehow in the great goodness of God, I've cast all of my hope on Jesus and His work on my behalf, and that's my hope. Would you like to hear more about that? Well, let's see how close I am to that spot in my notes where it says, end here. Okay, I'm pretty close, all right? Let's do this and then we'll be done, all right? That was our introduction.
Roman numeral one. I want you to know that I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. What's funny about that? Don't you love God? There's nobody like Him.
You know what I love about God? He's nothing like you and me. He's just radically different than us. Don't ever sit under a preacher who makes God look like a superior person to what you really are. Like God's our buddy. He's just better. No, He's not. He's holy.
He ain't your buddy. He's infinitely superior to us in every way He made us like Himself, and He's radically unlike us in ways innumerable to even consciously grasp. Roman numeral one. Grace existed eternally in the heart and mind of God. Grace existed eternally in the heart and mind of God. That is, it's a quality or an attribute of God. As I was just saying, let's remind ourselves that God is like God. He's not like anything or anyone else. Anytime we say God is like, that's okay sometimes as a fear of speech, but it's never accurate. There's nothing He's like that we can comprehend. You should leave sometimes saying, I can't get my head around all that He told me about God.
Then good! I've been faithful to you that morning in preaching. God is God. He's not what we think Him to be.
He is not what we feel He should be. He is who He is. That's why when they ask Him about Himself, He said, well I am that I am. And once again, brothers and sisters, that's why when you get to heaven you will not have an infinite mind because that would make you like God, but you'll have a perfect mind and you will spend all eternity learning more and more and more about God.
And so for all eternity you'll have more and more and more pleasure learning more and more and more about this wonderful God. His attributes are not separate from His essential being. In other words, He's a God of grace because that's who He is. He didn't just say, I'm going to turn on grace. I'm going to have to learn how to do this grace thing. No, He's a God of grace and special divine goodness and favor because that's who He is.
It's in His very DNA as a figure of speech. Grace existed in the heart and mind of the Godhead before it was displayed in the world through the work of His Son. Grace is an aspect of His essence, the essence of His very holiness. Grace is a part of His essential power and His wisdom and His beauty. Grace is a part of His desire.
He desires to rescue His children who are unworthy sinners because it's a part of who He is. Grace is a part of His wisdom. Grace is wrapped around in wisdom because in wisdom grace prepared, our grace was prepared to have a plan to reach us lost sinners. Grace is a part of His will and in grace He willed to do what was right and righteous through His Son Jesus Christ to save us.
And grace has power. It's intermingled with His power to execute the plan through the Son Jesus Christ that the children might be saved. So it existed eternally in the heart and mind of the Godhead. A, it's an attribute of God and B, grace in the counsel of the Godhead. Now again, we have to do this in an anthropomorphic image, if you will, of God the Father communicating with God the Son about what they were going to do because we can't think of it.
We're not capable of grasping the communion and the communication of God the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. But Ephesians 1, 3, and 4 said, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. So it's the Father and the Son just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless before Him in love. God's sovereign choice was that He would bring all to eternal salvation who He loved and knew before the world began. Now, 50 texts that I identified that if you're going to deny God's saving redeeming grace, that is, God was in the pattern of dumping common grace, common goodness, and favor over all of mankind for all of the ages, but He also decided, I will have a special goodness and a special favor on my children that I've known before the foundation of the world that they might be eternally saved.
If you have a problem with that, I've got 50 texts you've got explained to me. He chose us, John 15, Ephesians 1, Matthew 22, John 13, Acts 10, 1st Corinthians 1, 2nd Thessalonians 2, Titus 1, 1st Peter 1, 1st Peter 2, 1st Peter 5, 2nd Peter 1, John 1, John 1, 13, and Revelation 17. That's just choosing, and there's more. He foreknew us, 1st Peter 1, Romans 8, Romans 11. He elected us, Matthew 24, Luke 18, Romans 8, Romans 11. He predestined us, Romans 8, 1st Corinthians 2, Ephesians 1. In grace He called us, Romans 1, Romans 8, Romans 9, 1st Corinthians 1, 1st Corinthians 1, 1st Corinthians 7, Galatians 1, Galatians 5, Ephesians 4, Colossians 3, 1st Thessalonians 4, 2nd Thessalonians 2, 1st Timothy 6, 2nd Timothy 1, Hebrews 5, 1st Peter 1, 1st Peter 2, 1st Peter 3, 1st Peter 5, 10, 2nd Peter 1, John 1, 1. In grace He justified us, Romans 8, 30. In grace He sanctified us, 1st Corinthians 1, Hebrews 10, and in grace He glorified us, 1st Romans 8, 30. In grace He chose us, in grace He foreknew us, in grace He elected us, in grace He predestined us, in grace He called us, in grace He justified us, in grace He sanctified us, in grace He glorified us.
As the eternal one, He already views you as His glorified one, because He put on you, cast on you, a special goodness and divine favor. And if you would go to John 6 right quick and we're done. John chapter 6. John chapter 6. Look at verse 37. John 6 37.
This is this is one of those times when I would like to run out the door and then run back in, but I'd probably run into the scaffold and break my neck. John 6 37. All that the Father gives me.
You know what that means in the Greek? All that the Father gives Him. Will come to me. Not have an offer to come. Will come to me. And the one who comes to me, I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. Jesus is, in effect, saying, I can't even come save who I want to save. I've come to save all that the Father gives me. Verse 39.
This is the will of Him who sent me, that of all He has given me, I lose nothing. No one knows how dark the night, or how deep the waters crossed, ere he found his sheep that was lost. They were already sheep.
They just weren't in the fold. So he sent Jesus and said, gather them up. I've marked them out. You go get them. And Jesus said, well, if you've marked them out, I'm going to get every single one of them. I'm not losing one of them. Verse 39. I lose nothing but raise it up on the last day.
