God Has Chosen Some to Save

Transcript

GR 2309
03/21/2021
God Has Chosen Some to Save
Ephesians 1:4
Gil Rugh

It is amazing to consider that the God who created all things, the God who rules over all has provided salvation for us and we are privileged to come into His presence. To have His presence with us as the Holy Spirit is present to minister the word of God to our hearts. How amazing that the eternal God should choose to speak to us and speak to us in a way that we can understand, to communicate with us. That’s exactly what He has done in the Bible which is the word of God. That’s why we gather around it to study it together, to find out what God has to say to us.

We are in Ephesians chapter 1. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, the church at Ephesus. We’ve looked at the background of Paul’s visits there, the impact he had had in that church. it’s not that old of a church but it’s been in existence for a number of years. Paul writes a letter to encourage them and challenge them and remind them. We constantly need reminded of the wonder of what God has done for us in making it possible for us to be cleansed from our sin, forgiven, to be viewed as clean in His sight. Then beyond it all to be placed in His family, called His children; He becomes our heavenly Father and we are His for time and eternity. That’s what the first chapter of Ephesians is about. God’s sovereignly working in such a way to take sinners which all of us are -- for there is none righteous, no not one, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God -- but by the intervention of God He has made possible cleansing and forgiveness for us who were on our way to an eternal hell separated from God for time and eternity.

So after the introductory comments Paul says in verse 3… Verse 3 is the beginning, as Paul wrote this in Greek, of one long sentence that goes down through verse 14. We have it broken up in our English Bible, that makes it a little more readable, it doesn’t change the meaning. He began in verse 3 where we have already looked, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The word ‘blessed,’ we give Him praises, what perfect way to begin, give praises to God. He is the God who is to be praised, given honor, given glory, given all the credits, if I could express it that way, for the marvel and wonder of the salvation that could cleanse sinners from their defilement, from their penalty. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us.” We bless Him by giving Him praise and honor because He has blessed us by showering us with His good gifts. The greatest of all gifts, the greatest of all blessings, the salvation He provided in Jesus Christ which involves the involvement and work of all three persons of the triune God. There is one God eternally existing in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not separate Gods but separate persons. You say, well, that’s a little hard to understand. That’s not surprising. If God could be understood by our puny minds He wouldn’t be much of a God so there is a wonder in it. But down through verse 14 from verse 4 he talks about each person of the triune God, the Father in verses 4-6, the Son in verses 7-12, and the Spirit in verses 13-14. All showing how they were involved in a unified, coordinated way to bring about our salvation, to cleanse us from sin, to make us new, to cause us to be born into God’s family and to prepare us for an eternity in God’s presence.

“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.” Spiritual blessings are blessings that come from the Holy Spirit. He’ll talk specifically about the Holy Spirit when we get down to verses 13 and 14. These are blessings in heavenly places, in the heavenlies, literally. We looked at the various uses of that expression, even in the book of Ephesians here particularly. We went through a list of those blessings. They come from the heavenlies where God is seated on His throne, where Christ is seated at His right hand. So what we get through faith in Christ are blessings that come from heaven itself. Amazing! Blessings that will last through eternity when the things of this life have passed away, when all the things of this world have been burned up we have blessings that are eternal. So he begins in verse 4 to unfold what the Father has done for us in Christ. We are reminded that’s a key expression, “in Christ.” At the end of verse 1, he writes about the faithful “in Christ Jesus;” the end of verse 3, “spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ;” verse 4 will be “just as He chose us in Him,” referring to Christ. All that we are talking about comes only when you are in Christ Jesus. We looked at what that expression means in the scripture, it means you have come into a personal relationship with Christ, He abides in you, you abide in Him. He said I’ll never leave you or forsake you so that talks about the relationship we have which establishes a relationship with the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You have to be in Christ, have placed your faith in Him, and the blessings that God provided in the salvation that’s found only in Christ then become ours without limit, every spiritual blessing as he said in verse 3.

So let’s explain this. Verse 4 begins with that expression “just as” as we have it. “Kathos,” this the Greek word that can mean ‘just as’ or it can mean ‘because’. He’s telling us now why our hearts are filled to give praise to God for all these spiritual blessings, we praise God because of what He has done for us in Christ, “just as He,” referring to God the Father from the beginning of verse 3, “chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ.” What marvelous truths are unfolded in that concise way. “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.” Not before one another, there’s a place for that, but to be holy and blameless before God? He looks at me and says holy, you’re blameless before Him. He did all this for me before the world was created and He predestined me that I would be placed as His son, that you would be placed as His child through adoption. We’ll talk about what that involves.

Sometimes we get a little twisted in our thinking. We’re going to talk about what is called the doctrine of election this morning. Some people all of a sudden think I’m not going to be comfortable with this but you know we come to the word of God to find out what He is like, what He does. Some people will say, well, my God wouldn’t do that. Well, that may be the case but ‘my god’ is god small ‘g’ if he’s not the God of the Bible. Only God capital ‘G,’ the one true and living God, can tell me what He is like and what He does. Where else would I go to learn about Him? Well, we just create it in our finite minds that we think this is what God is like, this is what God would do, I don’t think God would do that, I think God would do… which is all meaningless when we can come to the Bible and He tells us.

The first thing He says is we bless Him because He has blessed us because “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.” “He chose us,” that’s a compound word, expression, it has a word ‘ek’ on the front, we would bring it over into English with ‘ek’ and it means ‘out, out of,’ it means you ‘select or chose someone out of a larger group.’ Well, that’s not hard to understand, He chose us. He chose us, he’s writing to believers remember, verse 1, these are saints, these are those who believe, these are those who are “in Christ Jesus” so they have responded in faith and experienced that cleansing and that salvation. He says He selected us out. Where we are going to begin when we talk about salvation, we talk about how you can be right with God, how you can have your sins forgiven, what God has done for us.

If we lose perspective on this we begin to turned inward to ourselves and even our life as a child of God becomes self-centered, self-absorbed. Even our church services become oriented to us; people come and say I’m looking for help to improve my life, I’m looking for some information that will make me more effective in my job. We come to learn about God; now that has an impact upon our lives in every way when we understand it and believe it but it starts with His sovereignty. He chose us. How did we get saved? Well, we believed in Christ, but the foundation for it all was His action. I may have to do some adjustment in my thinking, I may never come to the place I can put it all together, but I want to understand the best I can, as much as I can of what God has said. I’m not here to decide what He should do, I’m here to learn what He has done and what He will do.

‘He chose us,” this is not a new expression, it’s not a new doctrine. It’s used in the Old Testament when He chose the nation Israel for Himself. We’re going to go back there in a moment. Out of all the nations on the earth God has chosen one, selected them out from among all the rest to belong to Him in a special way. That does not mean everyone in that nation has experienced God’s salvation but that is the only nation as a nation that has that special place in the plan of God.

Let’s go back and look at some verses. I’ve just selected three from the book of Deuteronomy to keep it simple and short. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Old Testament and we’re going to chapter 4. We could have spent the whole service just looking at verses like this but I’ve selected from three different sections in the Old Testament. Deuteronomy 4:37, verse 35 in the context, “To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord, He is God; there is no other beside Him.” You hear people and you are hearing on the news when a man in a political position says, well, my god made me this way. What he was saying was totally contrary to what God said how He made us. Who is right, the man who has created a god in his mind or the God who has created all things and revealed Himself? There is no other God, you can only find out about Him in His word. Come down to verse 37, talking about Israel, “Because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their descendants after them. And He personally brought you from Egypt by His great power.” He’s going to drive out the nations in the land of Canaan. You’ll note that He loved your fathers; the fathers of Israel are Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. To be part of the special promises God gave to Abraham, to the nation Israel, you had to be in the line of Abraham, through his son Isaac. He had other sons but they would father other nations and they did, but that’s not included, God was very selective. Abraham, Isaac, and then Jacob. Remember it was Jacob’s name who was changed to Israel and we continue to use that as the name for that nation to this day. Then he had twelve sons who comprised the twelve tribes. Why? Because He loved your fathers, He chose them and their descendants. Their descendants would make the nation because when they started out we just have Abraham.

Come over to chapter 7. Look at verse 6 and He’s telling Israel when you go into the land and Israel’s come out of four hundred years of slavery in Egypt. They are about to go into the land of Canaan, the land that God promised them, the land we know of as Israel today. God said it would be their land. You have to get rid of the people in that land and all their gods that they worship, you are not to be corrupted by that. Then He’s going to tell them, come down to verse 6, “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God.” Remember we talked about that word ‘holy’ and the word ‘saints,’ Paul said he’s writing to the saints at Ephesus when we looked at the opening verses of Ephesians. It comes from the same Greek word that means ‘to be set apart,’ a saint is someone set apart, God is holy because He is set apart from all sin, when you place your faith in Christ you are holy, a holy one, because God has set you apart from sin for Himself. So “you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you,” there’s our expression.

A couple hundred years before Christ the Old Testament was translated into Greek by certain Jewish scholars, called the Septuagint, the Seventy, because there was a tradition that said seventy Jewish scholars sat down and translated the Old Testament into Greek because that had become the uniform language. Many people didn’t know Hebrew anymore. Just like we have an English translation because we don’t know Hebrew and don’t read it in Hebrew but we read it in the translation. So they made the translation into Greek and much of the New Testament writers used the Greek translation of the Old Testament when they quoted it. The Greek translation here is our same word in verse 6, “the Lord your God has chosen you.” That’s the same word translated in Greek in Ephesians 1:4 where “He chose us.” He chose Israel “to be a people for His own possession,” note this, “out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.” In the prophet Amos 3:2, God said you’re the only nation on the whole earth that I have known (chosen). That word ‘known’ denotes that intimacy, I have placed My love on you in a way I did not on any other nation. “Out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth,” note verse 7, “the Lord did not set His love on you nor chose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples for you were the fewest of all the peoples, but because the Lord loved you.” You see we keep coming back, why did God choose Israel? Because He put His love on them. But why did He love them? You can’t go back any further, it is important to keep this in mind. But why did He love them? There wasn’t any good physical reason.

When God placed His love on Israel and then revealed He had done this there was only one man with a wife and she was barren and they had no kids and I’m going to choose you and your descendants to be a great nation. Even Abram, as he was known then, said to God, we have a problem, Lord. Isn’t it interesting? We worship God, we talk about His greatness, we talk about His omnipotence, but we think we have to inform Him as though I think maybe You were busy, You didn’t know this. I don’t have any kids, my wife and I are getting old, too old to have kids. He’s going to be a hundred before he has his first child, his wife is only ten years younger than him. God says I chose you when you were the fewest and then the selection process went on. Be reminded this. We hear from the Middle East, Muslims and Jews alike are children of Abraham. But there is only one line that had been selected by God. The line of Abraham through Isaac through Jacob. Muslims say the Jews changed the Bible, the line really comes through Esau. No, the Bible is right, it comes through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, so that’s going to come down. You will end up then Jacob will have twelve sons; that family grows to be about 70 people when they go down into slavery in Egypt. That’s a big family for a family gathering but still it doesn’t make much of a nation. But when they come out of Egypt after four hundred years they number about two million, well, that’s getting to be sizable now, particularly in that day.

Alright, God just put His love on them. One more passage in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy chapter 14, verse 2, “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord,” and here’s our word again, “has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.” So, you see, God chose Israel as the people that would belong to Him. That’s what this word ‘chosen’ means, selecting out of a larger group, out of all the nations God says I chose Israel. Why would You choose Israel? Because I put My love on them. Yeah, but I need a better reason. There is no better reason, sometimes we are back as far as we can go, that’s where we realize there is no good physical reason.

That’s going to be true of us. Why would God choose you? I’m looking out on a pretty miserable group of people and you’re miserable as you are all looking at one miserable guy because God says that as He looks at us He sees a heart and our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked above all things. Why would He choose us? Come over to the New Testament, God repeats the same thing. We’re going to Romans chapter 9, Romans chapter 9, go through Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, then you have the history book of Acts, then you will be in Romans where we are studying on Sunday evenings together. Chapter 9 where we spent some time because it talks about God’s work of choosing in chapter 9. We can just pick up a verse here. In Romans 9 he’s going to talk about the children of Isaac. Remember we go Abraham, Isaac, Jacob… but Jacob had a twin, Esau was his name, the twin was born just before, even when you have twins one gets out before the other. You know the Old Testament account if you’ve studied there and read there, that Esau made his way out to be born just before Jacob. But you know what? God chose Jacob. He’s showing, look at verse 10, “not only this, but there was Rebecca also, when she had conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac, for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to,” here we go, “His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, ‘The older will serve the younger.’ Just as it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’ ” The first thing that comes to our mind is that’s not fair. What does Paul say in verse 14? “What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be!” The Greek expression is ‘me genoito,’ we can give it a colloquial thing, ‘such a thought is impossible.’ Whatever the answer to this is, it can’t be that God would be unjust, His very character and nature as God, He can only do what is right. So I may not understand and be clear on everything but there’s no injustice with God.

The point of this, verse 15, we want to note this, it is key to the whole discussion, “says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.’ ” Now right away when you talk about mercy you are talking about something undeserved, by very definition mercy is something undeserved. So we are told here we are dealing with people who have done wrong, they have all sinned, this was covered in the first three chapters of Romans, you remember, they are not righteous. You can’t deserve mercy so God chooses those to whom He will give His mercy. Well, that’s not fair, He should give it to everyone. Then it wouldn’t be mercy if He has to do it. If it’s something deserved by everyone then it wouldn’t be mercy. If you have a hundred billion dollars and you go through all the debtors in Lincoln and pick out ten you will pay their debts, the rest can’t say that’s not fair. They might say it, if I wasn’t one of the ten I might say it. But you say, well, it’s his right, I don’t deserve it. We want to be careful here, verse 16, “It does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who shows mercy.” Verse 18 repeated in case we didn’t get it, “So then He has mercy on whom He desires and He hardens whom He desires,” then he goes on with that analogy. Why would He find fault? Bbecause He’s dealing with sinners who are in rebellion against Him, who do not want anything to do with Him, who when given the opportunity say no. That’s where we are going, don’t leave me yet.

Come over to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, just after Romans, go to the next book. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 26 “Consider your calling, brethren,” he’s writing to believers “that there were not many wise according to the flesh” if you would look at it from the physical standpoint. Not many of those who had trusted Christ and made up the church at Corinth were what you would call the intelligentsia. “Not many mighty, not many noble,” but note this expression, it will be repeated three times in the next two verses, “but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame those which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen.” Why? Verse 29 “So that no man may boast before God,” no flesh, no human being. “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus.” We learned there the wisdom of God in providing salvation in that unique way, having His Son be born into the human race. Without ceasing to be God He became fully man. He was the God-Man so that He could go to the cross and pay the penalty for humanity’s sin, that’s the foundation.

Alright, God is doing the choosing. Come back to Ephesians chapter 1, it even gets a little bit more, not complicated, but shocking, if you will. Verse 4, “Just as He chose us in Him,” in Christ because that’s where the salvation is provided and found, “before the foundation of the world.” We know what that expression is, we use it today in expressing that was the foundation of all that follows. He started a business in his garage and now that was foundation for what it became. The foundation of the world goes back to Genesis chapter 1, verse 1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Before that, God chose, selected out, those who would come to Him through Christ.

Come over to 2 Timothy chapter 1. I’ve just selected a sampling of verses. 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 9, read verse 8 for the sentence, “Do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me His prisoner, but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God.” The gospel is the message of Jesus Christ the Son of God dying on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin and being raised from the dead because the penalty had been paid in full. Alright, pick up verse 9 “Who has saved us,” God’s power, He’s the one who has saved us, “and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works.” We’ll get to this in Ephesians chapter 2. We are saved by grace through faith, not of works, “not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.” We are back before the foundation of the world, we are into the realm of eternity before God brought creation into existence. He called us, settled that we would be the ones, we who believe would be the ones who would be drawn to salvation through faith in Christ.

Two more passages in the book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible, Revelation chapter 13, look at verse 8. We are in the middle of a seven-year period, some of you have been part of our study of Revelation in past days, seven-year period leading up to the return of Christ to earth to establish His kingdom. A time of great disaster when billions of people literally will die in the judgments, the disasters of that period of time, something like the world has never seen. We think we’ve had disaster with recent COVID, we’re not talking millions, we are talking billions of people dying in the judgment God pours out on the earth. Verse 8 of chapter 13 “All who dwell on the earth will worship him.” You know, the devil is bringing the world together in a one-world system. We talk about they don’t want divisions in the world anymore, nations should come together and be one, have one world, that’s where we are going. We might resist it, we might fight against it, you can’t defeat it. That’s where it’s going under the oversight of the devil and it will have a central worship system because that’s what the devil always wants, worship. He’s not against religion, he’s not against worship, he’s against the God who created all things and the worship of Him. All the unbelievers “on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world,” there’s that expression, “in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain.” If your name is not recorded as one whose faith is in Jesus Christ and those names were recorded before the foundation of the world… I’m getting a little more uneasy. Don’t let your mind wander off so that you don’t hear the rest of what I say because it may help comfort you or it may help disturb you, whatever God chooses to do.

Come over to chapter 17. There’s an individual called “the beast,” verse 8, he’s the anti-christ, he will be the political world ruler and the one who is worshiped as God in the flesh. That’s why we call him the anti-christ, he will be Satan’s counterfeit Christ. “The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss and go to destruction.” Note this, “those who dwell on the earth, whose name has not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will wonder when they see the beast, that he was and is not and will come.” Again that emphasis, these things took place before the creation. Then we think what are we doing, what are we doing here? God settled it, He decided it, if He chose you you’ll be saved, if He didn’t you won’t be. Let’s get on with life, can’t do anything about it, but then again God tells us that’s not the way it is.

Come back to Ephesians chapter 1. Maybe I should take a moment here and walk you through some verses. I was going to save these until the end but I might run out of time, that never happens, but I want to understand, we’re talking about God making a choice. We are all sinners. If God did not provide salvation at all and sentenced us all to hell we could have no complaint, we would say that’s fair, the wages of sin is death. Death in the Bible includes physical death when your spirit leaves your body; spiritual death, your condition as you live on this earth when you have not placed your faith in Christ, you are separated from God, you do not belong to Him, you are an enemy, He calls you that in Ephesians chapter 2; and it includes eternal death, separation from God for eternity in the fires of hell. That’s the wages of sin. Angels rebelled against God and there was not a savior provided for those who rebelled. God doesn’t have to provide a savior. The angels sinned against God and that settled their destiny. Hell was made for the devil and his angels. That’s why when we get to chapter 3 of Ephesians we will find out the angels who have not sinned, they are angels of all kinds, are looking at people being saved today in wonder and awe that God saves those who rebelled against Him, rejected Him. Yet He provided a Savior for human beings so they could be rescued from their lostness.

Come over to John 3:16, that’s the most familiar verse in the Bible, I’ll quote it if you don’t want to turn there. “For God so loved the world,” John 3:16, “that He gave His only begotten Son,” in order “that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. “That was what He said in verse 15 leading into that verse, “Whoever believes will in Him have eternal life,” not whoever has faith. I hear people say, we are people of faith, all the people of faith ought to join together. What in the world does that mean? Some of you have faith that Ford is a better automobile manufacturer than Chevy, you have faith, great. What’s that got to do with being saved? We have all kind of religions in the world. Well, we all have faith. Of course, we do, but saving faith only comes when it is placed in the Savior that God provided, “whoever believes in Him,” in Christ “shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Look at verse 18 “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” We are already lost, we are already sinners, I can’t fix it, I’ve already incurred the penalty which is death. You might say I don’t agree with that but you’re not the judge. Isn’t God gracious and merciful to tell us already our condition and the penalty that will be meted out for our condition? But most people aren’t concerned. Why? Because they are busy about life.

Verse 36 of John 3, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son,” by believing in Him, “will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him,” it remains on him, He continues. That’s where we’ve got to understand this is our state, our condition. It’s not, well, you know, I haven’t done anything bad, I think God will put my works on the scale, my good outweigh the bad, and besides I went to Indian Hills, listened to Gil preach so many sermons, I ought to get some credit for that, then I got baptized and took communion. What more do you want from me? None of that will get you to heaven because only faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ enables God to declare your penalty paid because Christ’s death is credited to your account as paying your penalty when you placed your faith in Him.

Come over to 1 Timothy chapter 2. You note, God loved the world, there’s no restriction there, “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.” Come over to 1 Timothy chapter 2, if you can’t find Timothy, like I can’t find Timothy, get someone to help you. Anybody going to come up and help me? I’ve found it. 1 Timothy 2, Paul starts and says we need to pray for all men. “Entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of,” note the word ‘all’ here, “first of all” that petitions “be made on behalf of” the end of verse 1 of chapter 2, “all men, for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God.” Note this, what God desires, what does God desire for you, He “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” How gracious is God? Me, a sinner in rebellion against Him, me, busy about my life not particularly that interested in what God says and sometimes more openly defiant of Him. And He desires that all and the ‘all men’ there is all inclusive, all mankind, “to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God,” how simple and clear God is, “one God, and one Mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Now note this next statement, “who gave Himself as a ransom for all,” Christ died and in Christ dying on the cross He made provision for all, every man, woman, and child who ever was born or ever will be, the provision of Christ was made for them.

Does it get any better than that? Think about it. Everybody. You know what God did for you? He had His Son leave heaven, be born into the human race so that the penalty for sin could be paid so that God could offer salvation to lost, sinful people as a free gift. You don’t earn it by going to church, you don’t earn it by getting baptized, you don’t earn it by taking sacraments, you don’t earn it by living the best life you can. You earn it by realizing I can do nothing, I am lost and without hope. I will place my faith in Jesus Christ and Him alone as the one who loved me and died for me. At that moment God declares your account paid in full, causes you to be born again. Remember Jesus said you must be born again or you’ll never see the kingdom of God, you’ll be in the alternative place, hell. You must be born again, that’s what happens, that’s what he’s talking about. There is one mediator, there’s only one God, and there’s only one way to connect with that one God. Preachers can tell you something different, but it will be a lie. It’s not true because I say it, that’s why I have you turn in your Bible, God said it and God cannot lie. So He was a ransom, He paid the penalty for us all.

Come over 2 Peter, now we are all the way back almost to the end of your Bible, just a little bit before the book of Revelation, you have some small letters of John, then you’ll come to 2 Peter. 2 Peter chapter 3 and the discussion here is why have we been talking about Jesus Christ coming back to earth, establishing a kingdom, God judging this sinful world, we have been talking about this for millenniums. Some people just say I’m not interested in it, I just think it’s pie in the sky. You know what they don’t realize? God is showing how loving, how kind, how patient He is. This world, verse 7 of 2 Peter 3, “by His word,” God’s word is final, it’s authoritative, “the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.” “Destruction of ungodly men” does not mean their annihilation, it means they are cast into an eternal hell, eternally separated from God. “But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that one day with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.”

Now such an important verse, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” Think about that. Why are you here today hearing this message about what God has done for you? I take it God brought you here, there are no accidents in the plan of God. Well, I don’t know that God chose me. I don’t know that God chose you either, if it was up to me I wouldn’t have chose you. You might not have chose me. But He brought you where you would hear the truth that you must hear so you could respond. Who’s going to be responsible if you say no? You stand before God and say it’s not fair. Why? God will say I provided a Savior for you, I presented Him and I told you He was the only way to me, I told you He was the only way you could be forgiven, I told you I would give you it for free if you would place your faith in Him. And you kept saying no. What am I to do with you?

You see, it’s God’s grace. If you say, well, He chose, I don’t really have a choice. You do. God’s choice is made among those who keep saying no. He sovereignly works in such a way they way yes. Maybe that’s why you are hearing this in the auditorium, in your home. Maybe you grew up in this church. Of course, I now all of this. It’s not enough to know all this. Did you ever realize how sinfully lost you were, that you were without hope and without a Savior? Do you realize Christ loved you and died for you? And said, God, I’m a sinner, I’m leaving go of everything I thought I could trust in and I’m trusting You alone. Sad to come to church every week, hear the word of God, and go away and go into an eternal hell. There have been people who sat here for years and got to the end of their life and I talked to them. No, I will not trust Christ. They sat and heard it, whose fault is it? They said no. The amazing thing is God still intervened in the lives of some and overruled, one evidence God is working. I had conversation with a man when I was away, I sat down and he said I’ve heard that before; I said, yes, and maybe that’s why God brought me into your life today so you could hear it again and have another opportunity to believe it. What else do you say? If he says no I can’t make his decision. Your parents can’t make your decisions, your kids can’t make your decision, it is your decision. You say no and then you say it’s not fair, God didn’t chose me. Well, He brought you to hear it, maybe this is the day.

Come over to 1 John, just after 2 Peter, 1 John chapter 2 verse 1 “My little children,” he’s writing to believers, all the scripture is writing to those who have believed but it reaches out to those who haven’t, “I’m writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” It keeps coming back, He’s the one who is our representative, our advocate, the one who represents us, acts on our behalf. Jesus Christ, the righteous, He’s the one who was without sin, the God-Man who took our place on the cross so when I place my faith in Him, as we have studied in Romans, God looks at me as having died when Christ died, buried when Christ was buried and raised up with a new life. Been made new, if any man be in Christ He is a new creation, old things pass away, new things come. Look what he says, “He Himself is the propitiation for our sins.” Propitiation, you have in the margin means ‘satisfaction,’ it means ‘to satisfy the demands of justice, turning away the wrath of God from us.’ It carries in it the concept that it is satisfied because the wrath of God has been turned away. It is turning away the wrath, someone else paid your penalty, you are free, it’s done! We stamp it ‘paid in full.’ The penalty for sin is death and, yes, your penalty was paid in full. The wrath of God no longer abides on you, now you are His child.

One more passage and then we go back and wrap up, 1 John chapter 5 verse 11, Just go to the last chapter, 1 John. “The testimony is this,” here is this, I’m bearing testimony, this is the witness God brings to you as you sit in here, “that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” The life has been provided. It has been provided in only one place and in one person. “There’s one God and one mediator between God and man,” “this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life,” spiritual life, eternal life. The only option is death, an eternal death, called the second death, in the book of Revelation the lake of fire where the smoke of their torment ascends forever into the ages of the ages. That’s the choices that are here, heaven or hell.

So we’re talking about God selecting out of such a lost group of people some that will be come to Him. It says nothing about those that He does not choose. You know why? They are where they chose to be and want to be. If you sit and hear that testimony of God… “the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life,” he who doesn’t, doesn’t; God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him…” If you turn and walk away who is responsible, who is accountable? It is your choice. God even brought you here, He is patient; you may have grown up here, He is patient; you may have spent the last thirty years here, He is patient. You are here, you are here today to hear the testimony. So don’t say, oh, God didn’t choose me, I guess I’ll go to hell. No, no, no. God gave you in His patience, in His kindness, in His love. He didn’t desire you to go to hell. He wouldn’t have had His Son die for all. And then Jesus says come unto Me all you who are weary and burdened down and I will give you rest, I will give you rest for your souls. He will bring you peace within, peace with God and the peace of God.

We don’t have time but Ephesians will go on, we’ll pick up there. With that, He predestined us to adoption as His sons. What an amazing thing, in that plan, before the foundation of the world, He predestined us who come to believe in Him and enter into a relationship with God the Father through God the Son by the work of God the Spirit. We are adopted as His sons, we become fully His sons. We’ll see down in verse 11 of chapter one, we become heirs and have treasures stored up in heaven. What a change from a lost enemy of God to a spiritually blessed son of God, from one on his way to an eternal hell to one on his way to eternal life in the presence of the living God. And God gets all of the praise because He did it all. None of us would be saved if it weren’t for His intervention. You wouldn’t be sitting here hearing the gospel today if it wasn’t for the grace of God who brought you. Why are you privileged to be here? I don’t know. Maybe because God has chosen to pull you out from among the lost in your rebellion. I would say, don’t continue in your rebellion, realize that this is the opportunity, respond and believe, and you’ll know the joy of being placed as a son of God.

Let’s pray together. Thank you, Father, for the riches of Your word. You’re a patient God, a loving God, a kind God. You’ve given us Your word, you spoke in a language that we can understand, it is simple, it is clear. But it is not easy, it goes against our pride, our stubbornness. The devil works to keep our eyes blinded so that we might not believe the glorious truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank you for the presence of Your Spirit. You brought us together today that we as Your children might praise You and give You honor for the salvation we have in Christ. For those who do not know You, to have the privilege of hearing and believing in this Savior and knowing the wonder of having been chosen by You in grace. Pray You’ll bless this day. In Christ’s name, amen.