John chapter number six, John chapter number six, is where we'll be at this morning. We'll be looking at just a few verses here in John six. John chapter number six. We come to our text this morning in the context of the crowd's rejection of Jesus. We saw last week that the crowd was carnally minded and only focused on their earthly needs and desires. Now Jesus explains the nature of genuine salvation and in doing so, shows us that God is sovereign over our salvation. So consider as we read our text this morning, what Christ is saying about our salvation and also how we should respond as his followers. I'll be reading verses 37 through 40. The word of the Lord says, all that the father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. And this is the father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of Him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting life. And I will raise Him up at the last day. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we come to your word this morning, I pray that my words would reflect the truths of your word, that I would not speak my own opinions, my own thoughts, even my own delusions, but that we would hear from you, from your word, and that we would apply it correctly in our lives. Father, this is a difficult passage. It deals with doctrines that have been debated in church history, but Lord, it is given to your saints for your purpose. So I pray that that is what we will see this morning. May you be glorified in all that is said and done. In your name we pray, amen. When I was young, our family often went to Dollywood in Tennessee for family vacation. A lot of times this would happen as dad had to be down at Bob Jones recruiting staff. We would stop there a couple days on the way there or the way back, whatever the case might be. So it was about a yearly trip for a while. And one of the rides that I loved as a kid was the car ride. You know, and you get to pretend as a five, six, seven year old that you're driving the car, right? The ride featured classic cars that would travel down a track through a mock little town from, I don't know, the 60s, 70s, whatever. I could press the pedals and turn the steering wheel, and as a young child, it really felt like I was driving the car. And as we consider our text this morning, we will see the doctrine of God's election clearly articulated. As we do so, we must recognize that both our flesh and our finite nature make it difficult to approach this issue correctly. As human beings, our desire to control our lives often inhibits our gratitude and worship toward the God of our salvation. You know, God's sovereignty and election is often at the center of much debate among Christians. Some believe that the car ride illustrates the nature of human free will. in the universe of a sovereign and omnipotent creator. Though I controlled the steering wheel and the pedals, I could not change my course or the final destination. These things were already predetermined by those who had designed the ride. Others, The other side of the argument claim that such analogies make free will nothing more than an illusion. They suggest that God's election must be based upon what he knew his creatures would choose. Some even claim that an embrace of the Reformed view of God's sovereignty eliminates the need and motivation for evangelism. To those who would ask, why should we bother to evangelize if the Father has chosen and guaranteed all who would be saved? Well, I will offer two rebuttals to that notion. First of all, we would not take such a view of the doctrine of election because God tells us to evangelize. It is idiotic at best, wicked at worst to say, God has told me he will do his will and therefore I don't have to do the other stuff that he's told me. No. Second, our text this morning, which reveals the sovereign grace of God, comes in the context of Jesus proclaiming the gospel to people who were rejecting him. If Jesus, knowing who would and wouldn't embrace his message, preached to all, we must follow the same example and preach to all. God, knowing the crowd was rejecting him and about to reject him, preached the gospel anyway. So I don't care where you fall on the doctrine of election, if you are going to use it as an excuse not to evangelize, you are far without orthodoxy. You have left the Christian faith on this issue. If anyone is proclaiming that or teaching that, you should not listen to them. If they have erred on such a strong point as preaching the gospel, they are not worth your time and are a threat, in fact, to your spiritual growth, not a benefit towards it. Now, Lord willing, we will glean some insights concerning God's sovereignty and the doctrine of election from our wonderful text this morning. Grant Osborne in his commentary of this passage states, this is one of the great passages of scripture on the sovereignty of God and salvation. The reality that the majority of Jesus countrymen rejected God's plan of salvation and turned their backs on Jesus did not discourage him for God was still in charge. And that I do believe is the purpose, at least one main purpose, why God explains these doctrines to us, so that we will not be discouraged in evangelism. While many Christians struggle with the doctrines of election and God's sovereignty, others are too quick to condemn their brothers in Christ who differ with them as if they are spreading heresies. The debate inevitably comes down to how we view God, how we view ourselves, and how we view our respective relationship. I pray that regardless of the beliefs that you may have on this issue this morning, that the truth of this passage will clearly be seen. Namely, that you must worship the triune God because he alone saves you. We have two points this morning. First of all, worship God, both in the imperative. Worship God because your salvation is the plan of the omniscient God. And worship God because your salvation is the will of the almighty God. So we begin, worship God because your salvation is the plan of the omniscient. God is all knowing. He knows everything. There is no limit to his knowledge, his understanding, or his wisdom. Let us read again, verses 37 and 38. All that the father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. Jesus speaks here as if he knows the future. because he knows the future. All who the Father giveth will come. Everyone that God the Father draws to himself will come to him. I have stated that God is omniscient. I don't imagine that I would receive any pushback, but we will List the evidence of scripture, a portion of it. In any case, Psalm 147 verse five says this, great is our Lord and of great power. His understanding is infinite. John tells us in his first epistle that God knows all things. And in Romans 11, 33 through 36, we read this. Oh, the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, or who hath been his counselor, or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again. For him and through him and to him are all things. to whom be glory forever, amen. This is but a sampling of the many passages in scripture that tell us God knows all things. His wisdom is infinite. In this, it is this all knowing God who ordained from the beginning a perfect plan for all of his creation. And it is this God who in doing so, chose us to be his children. Ephesians 1, verses three through five say this, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself. according to the good pleasure of His will. As we begin our discussion here this morning, it is very important that you recognize this. The Father initiates salvation. Salvation does not start with us. It does not start with Christ on the cross. It starts before the creation of the world in the loving grace of God the Father. Verse 36 says, I said unto you, sorry, 37, all that the Father giveth me shall come. The Father must give. We will not worship God the Father properly until we recognize his intimate and foundational role in our salvation. Your salvation doesn't just require the Father's undeserved love and favor. Your salvation starts with the Father's unconditional love toward you. God chooses the elect. We rightly make a big deal about Romans 5, verse 8. But God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Yes, that's a great gospel passage. As you begin to understand the nature of humanity, as it is taught in the scriptures, you'll come to the doctrine of original sin. And you'll realize that this verse was no truer of Paul when he wrote it than it is of you and me today. Say, what do you mean by that? Too often we think that we're born with a clean slate. Paul was born before Christ had risen from the dead. So Christ died when Paul was a sinner. But let me tell you that Christ died while you and I were sinners as well, though we hadn't been born. Lots of people have this idea in their head that on judgment day, God will weigh their good works and their bad works. And if their good works outweigh their bad works, they'll make it to heaven. Well, friends, that is not how it works. Because even one sin against the Holy God is inexcusable and carries the eternal death sentence. It's been used by way of illustration. You don't care how many old ladies someone has helped cross the street if he's murdered your wife. One crime makes us guilty. One sin makes us deserving of hell. So it is not this weight of good and bad. But even if it did work like that, you would be utterly hopeless anyway to make up for all the great measure of sin that you've inherited. You see, you don't start out with a blank slate. You are guilty both of your own sin and the sins of your ancestors. In Exodus 20 verses one through five, we read this. beginning of the Ten Commandments. God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which hath brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness, or anything that is in heaven above, or that is in earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them, for I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God. Knowing no one, nothing comes before God, but listen to what he says at the end of verse five. Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children under the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. So you bear the sins, not only of yourself, your father, your grandfather, your great-grandfather, your mother, and her parents, and their parents, and you want to claim that there is no unrighteousness to be found in your family tree? That's not a more ridiculous claim than the claim that there is no unrighteousness in you. But perhaps that's why God makes the sins of our family members so clear to us, while our own sins are often lesser in our minds. Romans 5 verses 18 through 19 say this, therefore as by the offense of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. He's talking about Adam. You and I, some 6,000 years later, bear the guilt brought on this human race by Adam in his sin. We stand guilty before God before we even have the opportunity to take our first breath. The sinful nature that we are all born with, the wicked tendencies that course through our veins were present long before we were born physically. Despite our utter unworthiness, however, God chose to love us unconditionally and predestine us for salvation. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, but even before Adam and sin ever existed, the Father chose to save us. Again, Ephesians 1, three through five. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself. according to the good pleasure of his will. God initiates salvation. See as well that God draws us to salvation. God chooses the elect and God draws the elect to himself. Ephesians one, a few verses later, beginning in verse eight, wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he hath purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ. both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." God not only ordained your salvation in eternity past, but he sovereignly draws you to himself. The father sent the son to make your salvation possible. All the Father shall give, or all the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out, for I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. If your view is that Jesus is your advocate to help save you from the angry father who couldn't care less about you, you don't know God. Jesus came to do what his father sent him to do, and that was saving you from hell. He is the consenting son doing the will of the father by his own willingness, but he is not in disagreement with the father on this issue. Both the father and the son pour out everything to save you. The Father sent the Son to make your salvation possible. We will tackle this in the coming weeks. But for right now, as we've read verses 37 through 40, look down briefly to verse 44. No man can come to me except the Father which has sent me. Draw him and I will raise him up at the last day. The Father sent the Son. The Father chose the elect. And the only hope for your salvation rests in that perfect plan of God. Your salvation was initiated by the Father, and it is completed by Jesus Christ. We see that the son accomplishes salvation. Jesus turned none of God's elect away. Verse 37, all that the father giveth me shall come to me. And him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. Jesus will turn no one away. Jesus fulfills the will of the Father. Ephesians 2 verses 4 through 6 say this, but God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ. By grace you are saved and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We see that the father initiates salvation, the son accomplishes salvation, and the father ordained salvation. Again, in verse 38, I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me. All that Jesus accomplished on this earth was God's will. the Father's will from the beginning. God sovereignly planned your destiny. In Jeremiah, we see all sorts of, or excuse me, in scripture, we see all sorts of verification of this. Jeremiah 1, verses four through five says this, then the word of the Lord came unto me saying, before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee, and before thou came as forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. Jeremiah didn't become a prophet because of the decisions that he made in his life. Jeremiah was a prophet. Jeremiah did everything that he did because God had ordained it. You say, did he not make choices? Yes, he made choices. But our choices, human will comes under the sovereignty of God. It is not co-equal. How can God's will and man's will be equal? when God and man are not equal. You say, perhaps you might be persuaded or perhaps you might be persuaded that God sovereignly ordained the life of Jeremiah based on that verse. Again, Jeremiah one verses four and five. But does God's sovereignty extend to every human being? Surely, pastor, you would make some exceptions for those men of God who wrote the scriptures, the prophets. Surely they have some special significance in God's plan. This can't be applied universally, can it? Isaiah 46. Verses nine and 10 say this, remember the former things of old, for I am God, there is none else. There is none else. I am God, there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, the things that are not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure. Or Psalm 139, O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down sitting and mine uprising. Thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compass my path and my lying down and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it all together. Thou hast beset me behind and before and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain unto it. God is intimately aware of the hidden thoughts of every human mind. Is there any reason to think our salvation would be an exception to his knowledge? Do you really believe God knows what you'll eat for breakfast on December 17th, but didn't know when and how you would come to know him as savior? God ordained salvation and God sovereignly sent his son, One of the greatest stumbling blocks to accepting the full extent and ramifications of God's sovereignty is the problem of evil. After all, if God sovereignly ordains all things, he must have ordained those things which are evil and even those decisions which were wicked. And we could spend many sermons exploring the difficulties and the implications surrounding these various theodicies that have been offered. Theodicy of course, when theologians try to get God off the hook, we say, yeah, it looks like God ordains evil, but here's how it actually works. It's an apologetic for God's existence and evil's coexistence. Most, if not all, still seem to fall short to some degree or another. Theologians have proposed many. We recently spent several weeks tackling this endeavor during Sunday school, but ultimately the limitations of our understanding will prevent us from arriving at an answer that's completely satisfactory, apart from faith. By the way, if you were looking at this book to never offend you or never stretch your mind or never contain anything you can't fully grasp, it wouldn't have been written by God. It's a shock to think we are ever so arrogant to assume we could understand all that God would ever tell us. For the sake of brevity, we must simply acknowledge that God has ordained all things. I will point you to Acts chapter two. You'll turn there briefly with me. We'll be back to John shortly, but Acts chapter number two. Because the hardest point here is when God is perceived to be ordaining wicked acts. How can God sin and yet not be the author of sin? Excuse me, how can God ordain sin and yet not be the author of sin, yet not sin himself? Acts chapter two, verses 22 through 24. Peter is preaching at the day of Pentecost, and he says, ye men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know, him being delivered by the determinant counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain. If you would suggest that God does not foreordain wicked acts, both Adam's disobedience and the murder of the holy God incarnate, do you also deny that God ordained to glorify his son by the next verse? Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should behold another. You would deny that God could sovereignly ordain any wicked act? Then how would he sovereignly ordain the resurrection of his son? How could it be possible for Jesus to die without the wickedness of men? And how could that be God's plan if wickedness could never take any part in it? The consistent teaching of scripture is that God has ordained both ends and means by which all has and will come to pass. Even Satan serves God's purposes. Where sin and sovereignty converge in the scriptures, God takes full credit for the plan and the purpose, but he lays full responsibility for the sin on humans and demonic beings. Again, verse 23, him being delivered by the determinant counsel and the foreknowledge of God, you have taken by wicked hands and slain. God's hands are not wicked in delivering his son, but your hands, human hands are wicked in shedding his blood. God has not sinned in determining all that will come to pass, but your sin in the midst of that is wickedness. We bear full responsibility. We cannot say, God made me sin. No. We bear full responsibility when we would choose to act wickedly. In our flesh, we hate the fact that human autonomy is a fragile myth. God is sovereign and we are not. Embracing this truth will lead us, however, to glorifying the God without whom we could do nothing. That's the point here. You must reject the temptation to question God's word or question his character. Romans 9, verses 19 through 20. Romans 9, of course, a famous passage we don't have time to go into today, but that spells this out. the sovereignty of God and salvation. Verses 19 and 20 say this. Thou will say then unto me, why did he yet find fault, speaking of God, for who hath resisted his will? Nay, but O man, who art thou that replyest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? You don't get to be the judge of your creator. to those who would ask sincerely, how can this be? Because there are two approaches here that both struggle. There is the approach that in seeing God's sovereignty says, that's not fair, go to hell. How dare you stand up and say, God is not righteous. By the way, that is the destination that all who do not repent of such stance face. But there is a second response where this sits on the heart and it is difficult. How is this possible? God, I don't understand. The answer is that you must trust that God is as he describes himself and has done all he says he has done. Scripture exhorts you to humbly recognize that while apparent contradictions between God's actions and his character may be unreconcilable in human understanding, no such tension exists in the mind of God and his divine understanding. Isaiah 55 verses eight through 11 say this. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts. He gives the gospel to us. and says, preach that whosoever will may come. But yet his word goes forth with a specific purpose to specific people that he has already chosen. The difference between these two approaches is that one makes enemies with God. God, it's not fair for you to do X, Y, or Z. The other makes an enemy of my pride, of my sin nature, and even my finite thinking. And it is thus an appropriate response because when God and I are at an impasse, it is most certainly I who has the problem. Worship God because your salvation is the plan of the omniscient and worship God because your salvation is the will of the Almighty. Verses 39 and 40, back in John chapter six. Second portion of our text this morning says this, and this is the Father's will, which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of Him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on Him may have everlasting life, and I will raise Him up at the last day." God's sovereignty is not only dependent upon His omniscience, but also His omnipotence. If God simply knew all things, but lacked the power to accomplish them, He would not be sovereign. If God were all powerful but lacked the perfect knowledge that he possesses, he would be much more similar to us. In seeking to accomplish his intentions, he would cause all kinds of unintended consequences. How often do we have good intentions and what we believe is a great plan and it blows up in our face. That is not what happens with God. He knows all things. He has a perfect plan and he is perfectly capable and knowledgeable to accomplish it. That's what he's doing. That's why you're here. On this earth, on this planet, in this stage of life and sitting in this room. Both the small and the great. Nothing escapes God's sovereign plan. Our God is not lacking in wisdom or in strength. He has all wisdom to know what to do and all power to accomplish it. We see here that Christ secures our salvation. Verse 39, this is the Father's will which has sent me, that of all which he has given me, I should lose nothing. None of the elect will be lost. There is no person who God has chosen who will not make it to heaven. Again, what arrogance to think that a human being could thwart the plan of God from all eternity. Colin Cruz states this in his commentary of our text. The all, the word all, whom the father has given are once again depicted as a collective entity. Their eternal security is tied to the son's obedience to the father on the one hand and to the will of the father on the other. For any of those whom the father has given to his son to be lost would mean that Jesus failed to carry out both of these things. Sorry, failed to carry out the father's will. And it would also point to the Father's will ultimately being left undone. If anyone who God the Father chose fails to be saved, then Christ is not all-powerful, He fails, and the Father's will remains undone. That is not the God we serve. all the elect will be saved. Osborne states this, Jesus brings people to God, but they already belong to God and are God's gift to Jesus. The doctrine behind this is called predestination. The view that God has chosen believers from before the foundation of the world, and they will come to Jesus. The point is that God is very aware of those who refuse to believe, and it does not damage his plan at all. You see, sometimes we as Christians, we have this idea that God is up in heaven, throwing out a fishing net, hoping to collect a lot of saints. No, God knows exactly every human being that will come to him. And he knows exactly every human being that will reject him. And John chapter 17, we see a glimpse of why. The Father has not come. Excuse me, why the Son has not returned? Because there are others that have not yet turned to Christ, who God has chosen. When the last sinner has come to Christ, eternity will ensue. That is why Christ is in heaven and has not returned now. It's not, you know, God's building me a mansion and his construction takes a while. No, that isn't why there's 2000 years plus between Christ and his first and second coming. No, he has a plan. He has a plan and no one, no peace, no cog, no human being in that plan will fail to be saved. as the father has chosen. Osborne continues, the elect will come and God's purpose will be shown. So Christ secures our salvation. Christ also ensures our salvation, not insurance in case something goes wrong. No, he ensures that we will be saved. You see, we have to remember salvation is not just justification. All the elect believe. Verse 40, this is the will of him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the son and believeth on him may have everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day. All the elect will believe. You see, I think a lot of times, it doesn't make sense if you think about it for a little bit, but sometimes our emotions get involved before we've thought about it. Sometimes the objection to God's sovereignty and salvation is because we think there's somebody out there who would believe in Jesus Christ who God hasn't chosen. No, if you're going to believe that God knows all things and God says all things and what God says is true, you have to recognize every single person who would believe in Christ has already been chosen by Christ. Not because he looked down before eternity passed and saw that they would choose him. You wanna call it happenstance? I think that's foolish, call it sovereignty instead. But the point is, this group is the same. People who would will to come to Christ and people who do come to Christ are people who were chosen by God before. There is no one who, it's only true for part of them. There is no one who would hear and heal and heed the gospel who is not part of the elect. And there is no one who is part of the elect who will not hear and heed the gospel. This is one group. There is no human being that falls through the cracks. There is no third category. There are those who accept Christ and those who reject Christ. There are those who are chosen by the Father and those who are not. And both groups are exactly identical, no matter which label you say. There's nobody that, okay, if you label it this way, a couple of people cross over. That doesn't happen. Say, pastor, how do you know that? Because God says it. You say, but logically, how could there not be? I don't know. But I trust God's word more than I trust my own logic. Christ will glorify us in heaven. Christ ensures our salvation. He makes every step of our salvation, not just possible, but makes it happen. In Romans 8, verses 28 through 30, we read this. And I tack verse 28 on here just because it's so often used in a different context in which it appears in Scripture. But verse 28 says, and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose. Good, God's going to give me a raise. Well, hold on, because everything he's about to say is about your eternal destiny. not your earthly possessions. Verse 29, for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, then he also called, and whom he called, then he also justified, and whom he justified, then he also glorified. The past tense is used here because in the mind of God, this is a done deal. The child who has not yet been born, has not yet trusted Christ from our perspective, has been glorified by Christ in God's perspective. Because God has declared that it will pass and nothing that God ordains fails to be accomplished. That's the point that's being made here. Theologians refer to this as the golden chain of salvation. The point here is that there is no disparity between these groups mentioned. Those who are foreknown are exactly those, not one lost, who are predestined, not one lost, who are called, not one lost, who are justified, not one lost, who are glorified forever in heaven at the throne of Jesus Christ to praise him for eternity. Not one is lost. No one who God sovereignly ordains to be saved will ever go to hell because Jesus did not and will not fail to accomplish all that the Father decreed. Amen? Do you serve a failure or do you serve a sovereign Christ? Those are the only two options. Every individual that God chose before the foundations of the world will believe, be justified by Christ and glorified in heaven to praise his name forever. Not one of God's elect will ever be lost. If you're a Christian this morning, the humbling truth of our text is this, you did nothing to save yourself. No prayer you prayed, no thoughts you had, no works you've done, no heritage you came from, nothing but the grace of God saves you. It started with the Father, it was accomplished by Christ. That's why Jonathan Edwards, famed 18th century preacher proclaimed to the masses, you contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary. You wanna take credit for part of your salvation? All you can do is take credit for the sin. The sin of your life. Because all we have contributed to our own state before God is guilt, wickedness. Our righteous works are as filthy rags before we're saved. Including a prayer. Including a decision. It's no surprise then that Paul in the book of Romans, in reference to our great salvation, says, where is boasting then? It is excluded. The only proper response to biblical truth, to the biblical truth of God's sovereignty, is to praise Him for His sovereign grace. It's ridiculous. Really. when we get angry or when we get upset or that this even becomes controversial in the church. Because what is it saying? It's saying, hey, guess what? No one deserves to go to heaven. Everyone deserves help. Scripture clearly presents that, right? Why do good things or why do bad things happen to good people? That happened once on a cross in order that good things could happen to bad people. for all else, right? We all deserve hell. And yet somehow we stand here thinking, well, because God saves some, he's not righteous to not save all. What? Only the fool demands justice from God. God is just and he does act justly, but only the fool would demand justice, because God's justice sends us to hell. The whole point of the cross was that God could be just and still offer grace. Israel saying to Yahweh, it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves. And I tell you this morning, we as God's children should shout to the heavens, and it is he that hath saved us and not we ourselves. The doctrine of election, the doctrine of God's sovereignty is only rightly applied, not in anger, not in angst, in worship for the God who saved his people. like us to look, by way of summary, at two considerations. First, let me return to the illustration that I gave of the amusement park car ride during our introduction. The ride was designed to follow a specific path. It went from a specific starting point to a specific destination. Turning the steering wheel the right way or at the right times might make the ride a little bit smoother as it followed the track. but the driver had no real ability to change his course or his destination. I was driving, but I was going where the engineer planned for me to go. And I was gonna get there at the speed he planned for me to go. The brake didn't do anything, the gas pedal I don't even think moved. So I couldn't change my destination. I would argue this is a good illustration of how our free will works within the sovereign will of God. To suggest that we can thwart what God ordained is both foolish and arrogant on our part. Scripture clearly explains that God knows all, planned all, and is accomplishing all things according to his will. We must humbly recognize our limitations and sinful inclination. We must conform our thoughts and feelings to the scriptures rather than seeking to conform the scriptures to our liking. Secondly, to those who feel the doctrine of God's sovereignty and salvation disincentivizes evangelism, remember that God sovereignly applies not only the ends of his redemptive plan, but the means of his plan as well. God not only ordained that I should be saved, But he ordained that I would attend a faithful church from a very young age, hear the gospel through a flannel graph presentation on Matthew 7, given by Mrs. Joan Silver on a summer Sunday morning. He ordained that my thoughts would hang on her words about a wide path, which leads to destruction. He ordained that I would ask my father about it that night. And God ordained that I would understand, repent of my sin and trust in Jesus Christ. At that moment, All of this was ordained by the Father before the creation of the universe, and accomplished by Christ nearly 2,000 years ago. It's really not that difficult to understand. When I was a kid, I liked to go fishing with my dad. Before you can go fishing, however, you need worms. And you can buy them, but that's expensive. Why would you pay for worms, right? Especially when you have an 11-year-old that can go outside and find some. So I would go out to the yard and look for worms underneath the rocks around the garden or wherever. And I could have gotten all theological. And I could have proclaimed that my omniscient God knew exactly which rocks had worms underneath and exactly how many fish we would catch that afternoon. By the way, such assertions would have been completely accurate. But did I allow my knowledge and confidence in God's omniscience and omnipotence to keep me from picking up rocks? No. Because I realized that I couldn't know which rocks were concealing, I couldn't know which rocks were concealing worms until I lifted them up and checked. My need for fishing worms led me to check each rock and sought and led me to gather as many worms as I could. Our approach to preaching the gospel should be similarly aimed. Every human we meet, every face we see is connected to a soul that will spend eternity in one of two places. God knows exactly which bodies contain souls of the elect, but we don't. Spurgeon famously said, if God had marked people on the back of their neck, I'd start pulling down collars, but he didn't. So I'm going to preach to everyone. Our obligation to obey Christ must lead us to preach the gospel to all because we desire to see God's elect repent of their sins and trust alone in Jesus Christ for salvation. Now, lest you think the comparison between fishing for men and digging for worms seems a bit dirty, consider the words of Bildad the Shuite. You say, where are the words of Bildad the Shuite? They're in scripture, Job 25. He says in verses four through six, how then can man be justified with God? For how can he be clean that is born of a woman? Behold, even to the moon and it shineth not. Yea, the stars are not pure in his sight. How much less man that is a worm and the son of man, which is a worm. Perhaps we would turn as well to the words of Isaac Watts. Alas, and did my savior bleed? And did my sovereign die? Would he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I? You see, we struggle with the sovereignty of God because we think far too highly of ourselves. We resent God's sovereignty when we crave our own autonomy. We don't want God to be sovereign over us because we want to be sovereign over ourselves. We don't want God because we want to be gods. Pastor, are you saying that anyone who struggles with this is not a believer? No, I'm not saying that. But I am saying that the struggle against the teaching of God's word, always, 100% of the time, this is no exception, is a result of continued sin. It's in nature. That is, it's within our hearts. We will not struggle with God's sovereignty when we are in heaven because we will no longer have us in nature. But God demands humility of his people. He's God, you're not. You want proof? Look all around you at creation and read this book. Scripture is dripping with descriptions of God's sovereignty and with descriptions of our frailty and depravity. The only response to God's sovereignty and salvation that a Christian should have is humble and total gratitude to the God who ordained and accomplished our salvation because we couldn't do it ourselves. Don't get into fights about God's sovereignty, about election. That's not the purpose. Don't come to the ridiculous conclusion that, oh, we don't need to go evangelize. That's not the purpose. What's the purpose? Praise the God that saved you. Because guess what? Your salvation was 100% today, not 99. God saved you. The Father initiates salvation. The Son accomplished salvation. The father ordained your salvation. Christ secures your salvation and inserts your glorification as well. What does he say at the end of verses 39 and 40? I will raise him up at the last day. God doesn't just save you. Christ doesn't just save you. He glorifies you. He gives you a sinless nature. He restores you to this creation before the fall. Only a fool would choose to fight with that God, to claim that that God was not loving.