Sovereign Election: God’s Loving Choice

Before any sinner ever came to Christ.

God had already given those to the sun and the reason God had given them to the sun is because God had already chosen them by himself and for himself the people say that if God chooses who soon must be uncaring and cruel goes about all those people who aren't soon, but that assumes that man deserves God's favor today are Renewing Your Mind, Dr. Steven Lawson, Texas to the gospel John to show that election isn't simply the arbitrary choice of an unfeeling God. In reality, expresses the fullness of God's love for a sinful unrepentant well I want to welcome us back to our next session. We have spent the last time together looking at radical depravity is been a very sobering look I think will all have to admit because we have seen the state of the human race is not a pretty picture because of Adam Sand in the amputation of his sand to the entire human race.

And in the impartation of his sin nature to every subsequent conception and delivery the entire human race is spiritually blind, enslaved, down to San Banta, Satan, spiritually dead left in ignorance marked by spiritual inability. So here's the question.

So how can anyone be saved if no one can see the truth, nor hear the truth. Who needs the truth if no one can come to Christ even when the gospel is clearly presented, then the question on the table for all of us is then how was I said how how can anyone then come to Christ and the answer is, but God Martin Lloyd Jones is said praise God for the bots in the Bible, but God by divine grace has intervened in our lives.

In an extraordinary way, something that he has planned and orchestrated from all eternity past and what we want to look at in this section is the doctrine of election sovereign election that before time began before eternity past from the foundation of the world God chose those whom he would say, and you may say will why did God choose everyone will. Here's the question why God choose anyone and even more personal. Why would God choose me because God is choosing out from among those who are unworthy and who are undeserving and who are under his wrath justly so. It is amazing Grace that God would choose any is unfathomable grace that God has chosen a vast number whom no one can count, and such is the grace of God. The Bible teaches this truth of the doctrine of sovereign election and that's what we want to cover in this session, for reasons known only to God for nothing that was in us nothing foreseen of any good enough because the only thing that God would foresee is that we were spiritually blind in spiritual death, and spiritually dead. There was nothing attractive nor winsome when we were decaying spiritual corpses in our sin know the choice originated within God himself for his own glory for the presenting of his grace that there would be a vast number who would praise his son forever and ever and ever God has made this distinguishing choice and so we want to talk about this in this next session and we want to go through the gospel of John, once again, but to this point we have made one pass through the gospel of John and we have marked those verses that speak to radical depravity, radical corruption.

Now we want to press on to the subject of sovereign election with look at the bad news. Now it's time for the good news and it all begins with God. So if you have your Bibles and I want to just give you some headings as we go through this I would begin in John one verses 12 and 13, and I want to call this heading divine choice because salvation is rooted and grounded in the sovereign choice of God in eternity past and in John one verses 12 and 13 we read, but as many as received him, referring to Christ, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name. Now that is man's side. Man's perspective that is the free offer of the gospel, but verse 13 is the other side of the coin. This is God's side.

This is how it is that anyone receives the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 13 is an extraordinary statement of the sovereign will of God in salvation and I would also tell you it's frontloaded on the front porch of this book is not hidden towards the back and we work our way into this subject. And so this presupposes that even in the first century, this truth of the sovereign will of God in salvation was a very commonly understood doctrine.

It was Christianity 101 so look at verse 13 who were born and when he says morning. Talk about a spiritual birth being born again, who were born, not of blood, meaning not of physical dissent, not just because your parents were believers in no way does that usher you into the kingdom of heaven, nor of the will of the flesh, meaning not by man's own efforts. Man's own attempts at righteousness, nor by the will of man that's that's a lot to swallow right there. That is say that our salvation and our believing upon Christ are receiving Christ.

The tipping point the trigger point is not our own will.

We didn't wake up one day and just decided to anonymously within ourselves that you know I think I'm in a believe upon Christ. He says it is not of the will of man, but of God. The new birth is of God, and it is rooted in the will of God. The sovereign determinative choice of God. It preceded our choice to believe upon Christ. In fact, it is God's choice that caused our choice to be activated. God's choice is the root. Our choice is the fruit God's choice is the because our choice is the effect that is all rooted and grounded in the eternal choice of God couple other verses make this abundantly clear Ephesians 1 verse four says he chose us notice it doesn't say we chose him. He chose us before the foundation of the world. Spurgeon said God would've had to have chosen us in eternity past, because he would have never chosen me once he saw me within time Romans nine verse 16 is another reference so that it does not depend upon the man who wills nor upon the man who runs but upon God who has mercy. Did you hear that it does not depend upon the man who wills.

Why is that because man's will is dead and bound in sin so the truth of sovereign election is a glorious truth God has exercised his will toward us when our will was dead towards him when we could have never chosen him. God chose to act towards us and he did so by choosing us to be saved and to be in Christ.

Now I want to turn with me secondly to John six verse 37 in verse 39 and I want you to see that not only is it a divine choice, but that it is also a loving choice that this choice by which God has selected those who will be born again.

It is rooted in God's great love, and specifically not only his love towards those whom he would choose, but also his love for his son. These lines intersect far above our head. At this point. Yes, God chose us in love and he predestined us in love, but there is also the love that he had for his son and God determined that there would be a worshiping community of people throughout all of the ages to come.

Who would declare the glory of his son and who would be conformed into the very image of his son and so that's what John 637 teaches us that these same God shows he gave as a gift to his son in eternity past and this is a marvelous thought that we would have been entrusted to the sun long before the sun ever came into this world and for the sun then to receive the father's requirements that I must Co. into this world and to lay down my life for these chosen ones will talk about that later about the nature of a particular redemption, but here in John 637 all that the father gives me will come to me that word all is a collective word for all the elect. What this is saying is before any center ever came to Christ before any center is drawn by the father to Christ. God had already given those to the sun and the reason God had given them to the sun is because God had already chosen them by himself and for himself. That choice was made before the foundation of the world.

And when God chose us, God the father gave us to God the son to become his bride and to become his chosen flock and the son. As we said would come and lay down his life for these chosen ones, but notices says all that the father gives me will come to me, the giving to the son precedes these coming to the sun. We say that again the giving of all of these to the sun precedes their ever coming to the sun and we can trace this all the way back to eternity past James Montgomery Boyce writes, who are these who have been given by the father to Jesus Christ as they are those about whom Paul writes in Ephesians 4 he chose us in him before the foundation of the world. These are the elect of God, so it's impossible to read this verse without recognizing that long ago in ages past. We were given by the father to the son ages before we ever came to the sun to look at verse 39 and this is the sovereign eternal will of God. Jesus said in verse 39.

This is the will of him who sent me meeting the father had made a determinative choice. According to his sovereign will and Jesus references this in verse 39. This is the will of him who sent me that of all that he has given me. I lose nothing but raise it up on the last day of course, the sun does because all of these are the love gift from the father to the sun and the sun cherishes these who have been given to him. The sun also sets his heart of love and unconditional compassion on these who have been given to them by the father and he says all of these I will raise up on the last day and lose. Not a one of them standing behind these verses, is this doctrine of sovereign election that there is a vast number who have been chosen by God and singled out by his grace to be the recipients of the sons love met many other verses me just give you a few cross-references. Jeremiah 1 verse five before I formed you in the womb, God said, I knew you. That's for knowledge before I formed you in the womb I knew you meaning I chose you. I set my heart upon you, and before you were born I consecrated you meaning long before you came out of your mother's womb. I had already set you apart to myself. I've appointed your profit to the nations.

Romans nine verse 11. The apostle Paul writes for though the twins were not yet born 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.

So before the twins came forth from the mother's womb, God had already made a determining choice to choose one and pass over the other, that all the glory would go to God first Thessalonians, 14 knowing brethren beloved by God.

His choice of you, I would remind us to.

This is the fourth verse of first Thessalonians. Again, it just presupposes how this was such a commonly held truth in the early church that virtually the second verse of the book. Once you are past the opening salutation. He's immediately talking about the doctrine of sovereign election. Second Thessalonians 213 God's chosen you from the beginning Titus one verse one Paul, a bondservant of God and apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of those chosen of God. First Peter one verse one Peter and apostle of Jesus Christ to those who reside as aliens who are chosen in second Peter one verse 10 brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about is calling and choosing you know all of these verses speak with one voice. All of these verses testify to this glorious truth of sovereign election.

All that the father has given me shall come to me. Let's wait out a little bit deeper into the gospel of John, and I want to take us to John chapter 10 now we been in John chapter 6. These given ones listed in John chapter 10 I would call this heading. His previous choice as long before anyone comes to faith in Christ.

These who believe are represented as already belonging to Jesus and Jesus speaks of them as his own sheet before the sheep come to him. They are already his possession. They are already his flock that had been put into his hands long before they hear his voice and long before they come to him.

John 10 verse one truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep climbs up some other way, is a thief and a Robert Jesus talking about the false religious leaders of Israel. They did not come by way of messianic qualifications verse two but he who enters by the door as a shepherd of the sheep.

Jesus alone has met the requirements of the coming Messiah by his lineage and genealogy and by the miracles he was performing in all of the fulfillment of prophetic Scripture verse three to him the doorkeeper opens, perhaps a reference to John the Baptist and his forerunner ministry, behold the Lamb of God. He takes away the sin of the world. Verse three. The doorkeeper opens in the sheep here is voice that you need understand this is the community sheepfold in which there are many different flocks that have been put into the community sheepfold and the shepherd then spends the night in the in in town early the next morning the shepherd comes back to the large community sheepfold in the doorkeeper must give him passage to come into the sheepfold and he raises his voice and he begins to call out for his own sheet. All the sheep had their heads down in the sheep are all grazing and eating away and when the sheep that belong to the shepherd here his shepherd's voice that had pops and then that sheet begins to follow and to go to the voice of his own shepherd, but the other sheep. Just continue to have their head down and continued to eat know there is something that has already transpired. There is a relationship that has already been established by God between the shepherd and these chosen sheep and within time when they hear the voice of their shepherd. They begin to separate from the other flocks and separate from the other sheet that's my shepherd is calling me and I know his voice, and they began to go to the shepherd and the shepherd takes than this says, and now leads them out into green pastures and out into the beautiful countryside standing behind John chapter 10 in this glorious truth is the doctrine of sovereign election that God had already chosen these sheep to belong to this shepherd his son such that when the sun would come and lift up his voice and call his sheep would recognize his voice.

James McGinley voice to quote him again and what a great Bible teacher, Dr. Boyce has been to this generation. He writes concerning John 10 this is the doctrine of election which we've already seen many times in John's Gospel, in which we shall see again. It is not liked. It is not often preached but it is in Scripture and must be preached.

Above all, by anyone who is serious about expounding the gospel for what is the central point of Christ's parable. What is the central point of John chapter 10 voice answers within! Election! That is the point.

He says it is that God has given some. She to the Lord Jesus, and Jesus comes to the door. The sheepfold and knowing his sheep in advance calls them and leads them out. Jesus says that this shepherd calls his own sheep by name, not whosoever, but by name being called by name.

Boyce writes they follow him want to tell you that your testimony and that is your story. If you are in Christ that you were in that community. Sheepfold just with all of the other religious people who are religious, but lost having not a saving relationship with Christ until that day.

Until that time when he called you by name when he said Zacchaeus come down.

I shall dine with you tonight when he said Lazarus come forth the Edna said Lazarus the entire graveyard would've come forth.

No Jesus calls his own sheep by name, he said to Levi, follow me standing behind all of this is this truth that there had been a choice made by God in eternity past and these who were chosen, given to the son to be his sheep so that within time when Christ is coming to the world and through the preaching of the gospel and through the call of the Holy Spirit. These chosen ones would come to faith in Christ. This is the teaching of grace is like Romans 1136 for from him and threw him into him are all things and so is our election and are salvation now all of this to bring the session to a conclusion. This is very humbling. Is it not this does not cause us to be arrogant or it should not. Admittedly some of us who have believe this. At times, do strut. Obviously, we struggle with pride. Romans seven but this is the great pride pressure. Why me God, why did you draw a circle around my name in eternity past, you could just as easily passed over me as chosen me, but for reasons known only to God according to his own inscrutable purposes.

God chose to set his heart of love upon us his elect to be a chosen bride for his son and we were given to the sun long before we ever came to the sun, and to believe upon him. There is truly a sense of destiny about our lives that we have been marked out by God eternity past and the beginning of all of this is God's sovereign election, freeing life-giving doctrine those of mankind that are predestined unto life God before the foundation of the world was lead according to his eternal and immutable purpose of chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, all to the praise of his glorious grace Dr. Steven Lawson is better teacher today on Renewing Your Mind as we continue his series. The doctrines of grace. In John we realize that the doctrine of election can be a point of contention for some believers.

Dr. Lawson series is a helpful resource for the 12 lessons you will be able to study the doctrines of grace in depth would be happy to send you the two DVD set for your donation of any about you can fight us on lined up Renewing Your Mind.org or you can call us with your gift at 800-435-4343. Your donation support the many outreaches avoid bitter ministries including rough net that's her 24 hour Internet radio station when you two did kill your curated Christian content from a reformed perspective. Dr. Sinclair Ferguson Alastair big Dr. John MacArthur, and of course our founder Dr. RC Sproul are among many of the teachers you'll hear listen anytime@roughnet.fm or on the free rough net app tomorrow will continue or look at the documents agrees to deduct or scroll series.

What is reformed theology did Christ died for everyone or only for the elect Dr. Strobel to address the question message on limited atonement tomorrow here on your mind. I hope you'll join us