Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Sermon Series--Sermon #2

Big Words of the Faith:
The Covenant of Grace
Hebrews 8:10-12

I. Introduction

If you were here last week, you know that this summer we are celebrating the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin. This morning, during our fellowship time after the service, please stay for a little while and join us for some birthday cake in celebration.

Besides cake, we are also celebrating God’s work through John Calvin by taking a look at some of the “Big Words of the Faith.” Last week we looked at predestination. That can be a pretty controversial and heavy topic—I’m glad to see some of you who were here last week came back. This week’s topic is probably not quite as controversial, at least right now.

There are outlines for you once again this morning. If you don’t have one already, raise your hand and someone will make sure you get one.

This week, we are looking at the word “covenant.” This is a pretty commonly used word, especially in Reformed churches like ours.

Many of you probably know of many reformed churches all over North America with the word “Covenant” in their name. I have had the opportunity to preach on numerous occasions at Covenant CRC up in Appleton. I made profession of faith, and Kim and I were married, at Covenant CRC in Sioux Center, Iowa. It is a common name.

Another context in which we see the word covenant is in relation to children. Many churches provide assistance to encourage and help parents to send their children to Christian schools. Those programs are often known as “Covenant Promise” or “Covenant Education” funds.

We also use the word covenant during baptisms and professions of faith. We refer to the babies we present for baptism as covenant children. We proclaim that baptism is a sign that they are a part of the covenant of grace. And when those children reach an age at which they are assured of the promises of the covenant and want to take on its responsibilities, they make profession of faith.

So this morning, let’s look together at this word—“covenant.” What is a covenant? How is the idea of the covenant an important part of what we believe as Christians? And what does the covenant mean to us?

Our text this morning comes from the book of Hebrews, chapter 8, verses 10-12. Hebrews is near the end of the Bible—after 1&2 Timothy, Titus and Philemon, but before James, 1&2 Peter, and 1, 2, &3 John.

This text is actually part of a much larger section of Hebrews dealing with the covenant. In fact, I think the key truth of the book of Hebrews is the unchanging nature of God’s covenant of grace and its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

One other thing to know about our text this morning is that it is actually a quote. Starting with the end of verse 8, and continuing to the end of verse 12, the writer of Hebrews is quoting the prophet Jeremiah. When you get a chance, take a look at Jeremiah 31:31-34. You will see that those verses are quoted exactly here in Hebrews 8.

So hear the word of the Lord from Hebrews chapter 8, verses 10-12:

This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds
and write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,'
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.

Prayer


II. What is a Covenant?

Right at the beginning of our text comes the big word we are studying this morning—“covenant.” Before going further, let’s define exactly what a covenant is.

In its most general sense, a covenant is a solemn promise made by one party to another to engage in or refrain from a certain action.

A covenant is different from a contract. In a contract, two or more parties make promises to each other, and each is bound by the contract. Each side has an obligation to the other. If one or the other doesn’t follow through on the obligation, then the contract is broken, and the penalties written into the contract will be applied against the one who broke the contract.

In a covenant, only one party is bound by the promise. The one making the covenant might declare that promise will only be kept if those benefiting from the covenant do certain things. But if they don’t do those things, they aren’t necessarily violating of the covenant. They’re just choosing not to receive the benefits of the promise made in the covenant. They won’t receive any benefit from the agreement.

This definition of covenant is a key to understanding the covenant of grace. The covenant of grace is a solemn promise made by God to grant salvation and eternal life to mankind—so long as we believe and obey.


III. Covenant History—God’s story

This morning our focus is on the covenant of grace—that solemn promise of God to grant salvation and eternal life to us if we believe and obey.

To fully understand the meaning of the covenant of grace, though, we should understand “covenant history.” “Covenant history” is the story of God’s relationship with his people. “Covenant history” is really “God’s story” as God has revealed it in his Word. And it includes two other covenants of which God is or has been a part. These covenants have a tremendous impact on how we understand the covenant of grace today.

A. The Covenant of Works

The first act in God’s story was creation. As the very first words of the Bible say, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” God created everything from nothing by His powerful word.

The high point of creation was when God created humans. Genesis 1:26 tells us that God created us as the pinnacle of His creation by making us in his own image, “crowned with glory and honor.” Then, Genesis 2 tells us that God made a covenant with Adam, the first human.

That first covenant is usually called the “covenant of works.” Some call it the “covenant of creation” because it was started at creation. Others call it the “covenant of life” because it was intended to give man not only earthly life, but heavenly life. In the covenant of works, God promised life to Adam and his descendants, so long as he obeyed God perfectly

God created us, so we naturally owed God our love and obedience. He didn’t need to enter into a covenant to create that obligation. And He owed us nothing in return for that love and obedience. Yet God willingly entered into the covenant of works. In doing so, he gave us a gift of grace, binding Himself to give life to humans. The only condition in that covenant was the obedience that Adam, and all his descendants, already owed to God. So while we call this first covenant “the covenant of works,” we see God’s grace to us from the very beginning.

In the covenant of works, God arranged it so that Adam would represent the entire human race. If Adam had fulfilled the conditions of the covenant, then all of his descendants would have lived forever with God in eternal blessedness. Remember, though, this was a covenant, not a contract. Adam could not earn salvation by obeying. Rather, his obedience was simply the condition for remaining within the covenant.

Unfortunately, even though he was capable of following God’s will, Adam broke the terms of the covenant of works. As a result, he was no longer under the covenant’s protection and promise. Since he could no longer claim the promise of life with God, he instead had only death—complete spiritual and physical death and separation from God

And since Adam represented us all, every one of us is incapable of receiving life under the covenant of works. Because of Adam’s sin, we all entered into the bondage of sin and death.

At this point, the story would have ended if it were not for God’s grace and mercy. But because of the covenant of grace, the story did not end!

B. The Covenant of Redemption

In Ephesians 2, the apostle reminds us of the misery we have because of being outside of the covenant of works. But then, in verse four, Paul uses two very small but very powerful words—“But God.” “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.”

At the very moment of Adam’s fall, God began to show his infinite mercy by withholding immediate physical death. And then he showed his amazing grace, announcing a new covenant: the covenant of grace. In that new covenant, God promised to send another to redeem fallen humanity from their plight.

Before getting too much further into the covenant of grace, there is one other covenant you should know about—the covenant of redemption. This is an agreement God the Son made with God the Father. In the covenant of redemption, the Son agreed to take on our obligations under the original covenant of works.

I am not going to spend a great deal of time on the covenant of redemption this week. We will talk about it more next week, God willing, when our “big word of the faith” is “justification.” Suffice it to say that the covenant of redemption is a key to the covenant of grace. Had there been no covenant of redemption, there could have been no covenant of grace with sinful humans. The covenant of redemption makes the covenant of grace possible.

C. The Covenant of Grace

We see the covenant of grace first in Genesis 3:15, when God tells the devil in the garden “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” The rest of Scripture, from this point on, is the story of God revealing his covenant of grace.

Since the fall of man into sin, there has only been one covenant, the covenant of grace. True, the way the covenant was administered has changed. The covenant became wider through time, starting out just with small families, like the families of Noah and Abraham. It widened at the time of Moses to include the entire nation of Israel. And it now covers a church that Revelation 5:9 tells us is made up of people “from every tribe and language and people and nation.” In the Old Testament the covenant was administered through types and shadows, such as sacrifices, the priesthood, and the temple. But those types and shadows all pointed to the promise of the covenant of grace, salvation through Jesus Christ.

So what exactly is the covenant of grace? The Westminster Confession describes it this way: “…the Lord was pleased to make a second [covenant], commonly called the covenant of grace; wherein he freely offered unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life, his Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe.”

In other words, the covenant of grace is God’s promise that his chosen people will receive the benefits of the original covenant of works—eternal life with God—despite our sin. We receive those benefits through the work of Jesus Christ, who freely took on and fulfilled our obligations under the original covenant. All we have to do receive these benefits is to have faith that we are saved. And not only that, as part of the covenant of grace, God promises to give those covered by this covenant the desire and the ability to believe.

The covenant of grace is indeed a covenant, not a contract. It is a solemn promise made by God, promising to grant salvation and eternal life to sinful humans. And there is a condition to that promise—the promise of salvation and eternal life covers us only so long as we believe in Christ and obey him as our King. But God also gives his chosen people the means by which we can fulfill that condition.

Under the covenant of works Adam could not earn salvation by obeying. Rather his obedience was required simply as the condition for remaining within the protections of the covenant.

In the same way, we cannot earn the salvation and eternal life won for us by Christ by believing in and obeying Jesus. Rather, our belief and obedience is simply the condition for remaining within the covenant of grace. And, thanks to God, He has given us the means to fulfill that condition through the Holy Spirit.

The most exciting part of the covenant of grace for us will be its consummation. The covenant of grace will reach its fullest expression when Christ returns to give the world second birth, when his people will be transformed into the likeness of Christ, and when all things will be restored to the way they were meant to be. That will be the time of the New Heaven and New Earth, when we will receive in full the blessing of God’s covenant promise to live in eternal blessedness with our Creator God.

The Bible, at its core is “covenant history.” It is the story of God’s relationship with his creation, especially us humans. And the covenant story comes to a head in the saving work of Jesus Christ. Through this covenant story, not only do we learn of how we can live in a glorious relationship with our Father, but we see God’s glory revealed through his work in all of history.

IV. What the Covenant means to us

The covenant of grace is God’s promise that his chosen people will receive the benefits of the original covenant of works—eternal life with God—despite our sin. Let’s take a look, through our text, at what it means for us humans to be within that covenant of grace.

A. God is a sovereign provider

Take a look at the last part of verse 10 of our text. There it says “I will be their God and they will be my people.” If there is one way to sum up the covenant promise of God to us his people, it is just that—he will be our God, and we will be his people.

This little phrase packs a lot of meaning in just a few words. We can sum it up, though, by saying that God is a sovereign provider. He is a sovereign provider.

Listen to what the catechism says in Lord’s Day 9. There the writers say that “the eternal Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who out of nothing created heaven and earth and everything in them, who still upholds and rules them by his eternal counsel and providence is my God and Father because of Christ his Son.” Do you see the covenant there—God promises to be our God, and he does this through Jesus Christ.

The catechism goes on to tell us what it means for us that he is our God. “I do not doubt that he will provide whatever I need for body and soul, and he will turn to my good whatever adversity he sends me in this sad world.” He will provide whatever I need. He will turn to my good every adversity. What a promise!

In two weeks, we are going spend the entire service focusing on God’s providence, so I won’t go much deeper today. But in that covenant promise of God to be our God and that we will be his people, we have a promise that God is a sovereign provider.

B. God demands obedience from us

But not only is God a sovereign provider, he also demands obedience from us. God demands obedience from us. Jump back to the middle of verse 10. Listen to another promise from God’s covenant with us: “I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.”

We have already noted that while we cannot earn salvation, God can withdraw the promises of the covenant from those who do not meet its stipulations. One of those stipulations is obedience. God demands obedience from us—even though we cannot be saved by following the law, God still demands that we obey his law.

Sometimes Christians misunderstand why we obey the law. We see our good deeds as a way of earning God’s favor. Or we point to our empty deeds as proof of our righteousness before God while ignoring the darkness of our hearts. Or we do our good deeds as a way of convince others of our goodness.

The apostle Paul dealt with this tendency when he criticized the Galatians at the beginning of chapter 3 of his letter to them. There he says “You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?” Obviously, we don’t obey to earn God’s favor or the favor of others.

But on the other end, some Christians have a tendency just to forget the law. We’re already saved, after all. Why bother trying to obey the law if it gets us nowhere? We can rely solely on God’s grace.
John responds to that idea in 1 John 3:4-10, where he says “Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.”

Jesus Christ not only took on the punishment for our sin, but he lived a perfect life so that perfection could be imputed to us. And as a result we are grafted into the family of God, becoming one with the Son and he one with us. If we are becoming one with the Son, it follows that we will become more and more like him. And since the Son was perfect, following the law perfectly, it follows that we also will become more and more perfect, following the law of God.

At Mount Sinai, God wrote us his laws. Now, says our text, he writes them on our hearts. He gives us an understanding to know and to believe his law; he gives us the memory to retain it; he gives us the heart to love it and the conscience to recognize it; and he gives us the courage to profess it and the power to put it into practice.

Yes, it is true that we will not be perfectly obedient. Sin does that to us, but the Holy Spirit working in our hearts leads us to be more and more like Christ. And that means we are obedient to God’s law, just as he demands. We can only do this because of Christ’s work on our behalf and the Spirit’s power in our hearts. But God demands obedience from us. And it is through our obedience that we can see that we are members of the covenant, covered by the eternal promise of God.

C. God will judge those outside the covenant

Because God demands obedience, and because not all have been elected by God to receive salvation, there are some who remain outside the covenant of grace. God will judge those outside the covenant.

We talked in depth about this last week. Not everyone is covered by God’s covenant of grace. As humans, we are all subject to death, because our sin means we didn’t keep the stipulations of the original covenant, the covenant of works. But God in his grace provides a new covenant. That covenant doesn’t cover all of humanity—just those who believe and obey. The disobedient and the unbelievers have still received a measure of grace from God—they live on earth for a while, and many of them enjoy temporarily the blessings God bestows upon his creation.

But in the end, those outside of the covenant die. They are judged for their sin and suffer an eternal death, permanently separated from God and his blessings. God will judge those outside the covenant.

D. God will bless those who are faithful

Finally, God will bless those who are faithful. Listen to the last two verses of our text. “No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

When we were outside of the covenant because of our sin, we were subject to death. But because God grants us the faith by which we can take on His covenant promises, God blesses us.

God blesses those who are faithful. We receive the comfort that comes from knowing that we belong to our faithful Savior. We receive the washing away of our sins by Christ’s precious blood. We are set free from slavery to sin. We are assured that the Father is actively caring for us, providing everything we need and ensuring that even the bad things of this world will be worked out for our benefit. We receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We receive the assurance of forgiveness that comes from recognizing the Spirit at work in us. And we receive eternal life in the new heavens and the new earth, where we will praise God together in joy forever. God will bless those who are faithful.

V. Conclusion

God’s story is the story of the covenant of grace—the solemn promise made by God to grant salvation and eternal life to mankind so long as we believe and obey.

Because of the covenant of grace, we can have comfort. We can turn from our fears because we recognize God’s mercy. One writer put it this way: “He has remembered his covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, and he has delivered us through the Redeemer, our Lord Jesus Christ, so that we might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.”

Serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness. If God is for us, who can be against us? When you are filled with fear, remember the promises of God in Christ Jesus.

Sometimes we turn the big words of the faith into abstract doctrines, with little application to our day to day lives. But the covenant of grace is not just an abstract doctrine. It is the guarantee of your relationship with God. It is the reason that you may serve him without fear.

In Jesus Christ, God makes good on his promise that he will be our God and we will be his people. God could not allow his covenant to fail. He even sent his Son to become a man and die rather than break his covenant. The Lord is faithful, his covenant endures forever.

Amen.

How God and Science Mix

This post on First Things is worth a read. The key sentences, I thought were these:

Scientists are atheists in the lab, said Krauss, and so it is only logical that they should be atheists everywhere. This is a logical argument, yes, and also quite popular, but it is based on a conception of God that is alien to Jewish and Christian tradition. For Haldane and Krauss, religion is about miracles, and miracles are about magic and the irrational, and therefore belief in God stands in opposition to the world revealed by science, a world intelligible by reason and governed by law.For Jews and Christians, however, pitting God and the laws of nature against each other in this way is an absurd mistake; for it is the very lawfulness of nature that points to a divine Lawgiver. In the Bible, God gives laws not only to the people of Israel, but to the cosmos itself, as in Jeremiah 33:25, where he declares his fidelity to Israel in these terms: “When I have no covenant with day and night, and have given no laws to heaven and earth, then too will I reject the descendants of Jacob and of my servant David.”

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Sermon Series--Sermon #1

Big Words of the Faith:

Predestination

Ephesians 1:3-14

I. Series Introduction

A. John Calvin

This week people around the world celebrated the life of an important man who influenced the lives of people all over the world. No, I am not talking about Michael Jackson. Friday was the 500th birthday of John Calvin.

Jean Cauvin, as he was known at birth, was born on July 10, 1509 in northern France. Training first to become a priest, he switched to the study of law as a teenager. It was during his law studies that he experienced a sudden religious conversion that caused him to break from the Roman Catholic Church. He spent most of his career leading the church in Geneva, Switzerland.

Calvin is best known for his many writings, the most famous of which is probably Institutes of the Christian Religion. His writing and preaching form the basis of Calvinism, a branch of theology taught in thousands of Reformed and Presbyterian churches around the world, including our own. Most historians agree that Calvin’s importance was not limited just to the church and theology, but that his ideas contributed to the rise of major ideas of modern Western thought.

After our service this morning we will celebrate John Calvin’s 500th birthday with birthday cake in the lobby. Please feel free to stay and join us for cake and fellowship immediately after church.

B. Big Words of the Faith

Birthday cake is nice, but I wanted to do something more to celebrate God’s work through John Calvin. This morning, we are beginning a four-week sermon series on the “Big Words of the Faith.” For the next four weeks, I will be focusing on four different “big words” that we often use in this church and in the Reformed tradition. This week we will look at “predestination.” In the next several weeks we will study “the covenant,” “justification,” and “providence.”

For many of you, these words are a part of the very fiber of your being. Some of your earliest memories of the church involve sermons or Sunday school lessons on these terms, and those sermons and lessons form part of the base upon which the Holy Spirit has built your faith.

For others, those memories may not be quite as positive—perhaps you took these lessons for granted, or never quite understood them. Or, perhaps, some of you associate these words with dry doctrines taught repetitively and with little connection to your day-to-day life.

Others of you may have grown up in other religious traditions, or with no religious traditions, and these words often seem to you like code words that mark the user as an “insider,” but reinforce your feeling of being an “outsider.”

So this morning, and in the next few weeks, my goal is to take a fresh look at these “big words” of the faith. For some of you, I hope these next few weeks will be an enjoyable review of some of your most cherished beliefs. For others, perhaps during the next few weeks you will gain a new or increased appreciation of how these words shape our faith as we work it out every day. And for others, maybe the next few weeks will shed a little light on the beliefs we hold dear and will encourage you to think of yourself as the ultimate insider—one of God’s truly loved children, saved through his glorious plan of salvation.

II. Topic Introduction

Our focus this morning is “predestination.” This doctrine can be very difficult for many Christians to understand and accept. We commonly use the word “predestination” to mean God’s decision, made before the world existed, to save certain people, but not others. Predestination means that God has chosen some people for salvation and eternal life, while others are condemned to judgment.

This morning, I am going to focus mostly on the positive side of predestination—that God chose some to be saved. This positive side of predestination is also called election. The people God chose are the “elect” who become like Christ. There is a negative side to predestination—those who are ultimately condemned to judgment. This side of predestination is called reprobation. Those God does not choose to be saved are the “reprobate.”

Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle says that when a lot of people think of doctrine of predestination, they think of the old children’s game “Duck, Duck, Goose.” But this is not the sweet game our three and four year olds might be playing right now. Instead it becomes a game of “Duck, Duck, Damned,” where God picks some people to be saved and others to fry in hell.

Obviously, God’s decision to choose some, but not others, is far more serious than a children’s game. The Bible’s teaching on the issue is very important, because it affects the way we understand so many other parts of the Bible’s teachings. So this morning, I’d like to make four points about the doctrine of predestination. First, the doctrine of predestination is Biblical. Second, it is a key to God’s plan of salvation. Third, the doctrine of predestination shows God’s glory. And finally, the doctrine of predestination can give us comfort.

Turn with me, if you would, to Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. If you are using a pew Bible, you can find the passage on page 1817. In just a moment, I will be reading from chapter 1 of Ephesians, starting at verse 3, and ending with verse 14.

Paul, the writer of this letter, is known for writing long sentences. His sentences wouldn’t pass muster with the English teachers among us. In the Bible translation in our pews, the translators turned the 12 verses of our text into eight sentences. In a version I often use at home, the English Standard Version, there are only five sentences in those 12 verses. But in the original Greek, Paul wrote the entire passage as one single sentence. I think that as he wrote it, he may have become so caught up in God’s glory that he forgot to divide his thoughts into sentences. As we read the passage, perhaps you can pick up some of Paul’s exuberance and join him in praising God.

Hear the word of God from Ephesians, chapter 1, verses 3 through 14:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory.

III. The Doctrine of Predestination is Biblical

“It’s just not fair!”

My student had a pained look on her face. OK, that’s not so uncommon, but this look wasn’t just put on.

I asked what she thought was so unfair. It turned out that she was upset by my statement that only those people who God chooses are saved. “It’s so random,” she complained.

My student’s complaint is not at all uncommon. I remember one evening last fall, when my son Micah out of the blue informed me that the Bible says that people have free will. I wasn’t sure what he meant by this, or even why he brought it up, so I pressed him on what he meant.

I asked him why he brought up the topic. He thought a few seconds and then said he wanted an explanation of how it works that we have free choice but God already knows what we’re going to do. Micah enjoys playing basketball, so I asked him if he was talking about things like choosing whether to pull up and take a jump shot or drive for the layup, or if he was talking about whether we can choose to follow God. “Both,” he said.

Well, I tried to give an explanation he would understand. I told him that we do have free choice. So we are able to choose between a jumper and a lay-up. But I told him I also wanted him to understand that when it comes to choosing God or being chosen by him, we can’t choose God. In fact, on our own, we can only choose to hate God.

He didn’t like this answer. “How can that be?” he asked. “WE choose.” “No,” I said. “God chooses us. It might feel like we choose, I suppose, since the Holy Spirit is working in our hearts, but we don't choose.”

I told him that when it talks about our salvation, the Bible uses the word “predestined.” This means that God has already decided in advance who is saved and who is not. I explained the history of the Canons of Dort, which I described to him as “a big meeting 400 years ago of lots of Christians in Holland who met to discuss free will and predestination. I told him that these Christians decided that the Bible teaches that we are unable to choose to follow God by ourselves because we are too full of sin to make that decision on our own. I also told him that our church follows that decision from 400 years ago.

I think many of us have had similar experiences. Predestination is a hard teaching to accept. But the doctrine of predestination is Biblical. The word appears twice in our text. In verse 5 it says that “In love [God] predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ.” In verse 11, Paul says that in Christ “we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will.

We also see the word “predestination” in four other New Testament passages. In two passages, Acts 4:28 and 1 Corinthians 2:7, the word refers to God’s determining the events of world history ahead of time. But like the use of the word in our text this morning, the other two uses of the word refer to God’s decision, before the world began, about the destiny of individual people.

Take a look at Romans 8:29-30, where Paul writes “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

While Jesus didn’t use the word predestination in his teachings, we can see the concept in his words. For example, in Matthew 22:14, Jesus says that “…many are called, but few are chosen.” And in John 15:16, Jesus says “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

When we look at Scripture, it is difficult to simply deny that the Bible teaches some form of predestination. The doctrine of predestination is biblical. But there is some difference of opinion over how exactly God predestined some to eternal life and others to eternal death.

Most Christians who say they don’t believe in predestination, but rather on the free will of humans to choose, don’t actually deny the word “predestination.” Rather, they simply take a different view of predestination than most Reformed folks. For example, many churches today teach that predestination is based on God’s “foreknowledge.”

To them, foreknowledge means that God knew before the world began that certain people would freely choose Christ as their Savior once they heard the gospel message. Because God knew that they would choose Christ, God predestined them to salvation.

In this view, “foreknowledge” is just God’s knowing what individuals will choose of their own free will. However, I would argue that those who hold this view misunderstand the meaning of the word “foreknowledge.”

Listen again to Romans 8:29: For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” God’s “foreknowing” didn’t come first, before his making his choice. No, God’s foreknowledge is directly connected to what he does—choosing who will be redeemed.

Every time the Greek word we usually translate as “foreknowledge” appears, it is always directly connected to his active choice to save certain people.

We see this, for example, in Acts 2:23, where Peter teaches the Jews on Pentecost that Jesus “was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.

God’s foreknowledge is always directly connected to his act of predestination. His foreknowledge doesn’t cause him to predestine some to be saved. Rather, his foreknowledge is part of his act of choosing.

Now, I’m not going to condemn those who hold to the other view. But, I am convinced that the better interpretation of what the Bible says is the one that says that God chooses us, we can’t choose him.

The doctrine of predestination is biblical. And as such, it is a key part of God’s plan of salvation. An understanding that God chooses us in love helps us to better understand how God works out his salvation in each of us who he has chosen for eternal life.

IV. The Doctrine of Predestination is a Key to God’s Plan of Redemption

So let’s move on to see how the doctrine of predestination is a key to God’s plan for saving us, his plan of redemption.

A. Our need for redemption

Before we can understand God’s plan to save us, we need to know about our need to be saved. This can be a tough bite to chew, especially nowadays. Do you remember Stuart Smalley? Senator Al Franken, before he went into politics, played Stuart Smalley on Saturday Night Live. Smalley’s catch phrase was “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and dog-gone it, people like me.”

We all laughed when he said this, because we recognized the spirit of our age in this ridiculous character. We all want to believe that we are good enough, we are smart enough, and people like us. But the Bible is clear that this just isn’t the case.

As Genesis 6:5 says, “The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.

B. God’s plan of redemption

Fortunately for us, God already had a plan in place—his glorious plan of redemption, a plan to predestine certain people for salvation from among the ranks of the sinful. It is that plan about which Paul is bursting forth in praise in our text this morning.

That plan starts with God making a choice to save us! Because we have been predestined to be God’s chosen, we can hear Jesus’ gospel call to repent and be saved. And once we hear that call, the Holy Spirit works within us to give us a new heart, a heart that leads us to faith and repentance.

If you look close, you might be able to see an interesting pattern in our text this morning. Verses 3-6 tell us that if we are Christians, it’s because the Father has chosen us. God “has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing,” and “he chose us in him before the creation of the world.” Verses 5 and 6 tell us that “In love [God] predestined us to be adopted as his sons,” and that this is a gift of grace that God has “freely given us.” If we are Christians, it is because the Father has chosen us.

Look next at verses 7-12. They tell us that if we are Christians, it’s because the Son has redeemed us. Paul tells us that “we have redemption in [Christ’s] blood.” Verses 9 and 10 say that God’s will for those he desired to save came to be through Christ’s work. Christ came to earth calling us to faith and repentance, then dying so we could be saved. If we are Christians, it’s because the Son has redeemed us.

Finally, look at verses 13 and 14. If we are Christians, it’s because the Spirit has sealed us. “Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance.” The Holy Spirit’s work in us, giving us a new heart, guarantees us that we are made right before God and are adopted into his family as God’s children. If we are Christians, it’s because the Spirit has sealed us.

Now, while the doctrine of predestination is a key to God’s plan of redemption, we have to admit that we don’t understand fully how this plan works. But what we do know is that the doctrine of predestination is a key to God’s plan of redemption. And not only that, God’s choice is based on His will for His glory.

V. The Doctrine of Predestination Shows God’s Glory

The doctrine of predestination shows God’s glory.

Look again at verses 11 and 12 of our text. “In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.

If we were to sum up the whole point of Paul’s words in our text this morning in two words, those words would be “God’s glory!” Paul’s emphasis throughout is on the glory of God as it is revealed in our salvation. He says in verse 6 that the plan of the Father to save us from sin has as its ultimate goal “the praise of his glorious grace.” In verse 12, the work of Christ in bringing about our salvation ends in “the praise of His glory.” And in verse 14, Paul says that the Holy Spirit is given to us as a guarantee of our salvation “to the praise of His glory.”

If we made any contribution toward our own salvation, we would be gaining praise for ourselves. We would no longer be boasting that we are saved because the Father has chosen us, the Son has redeemed us, and the Spirit has sealed us. Paul spoke directly against this idea in Galatians 6:14, when he said “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

There is no room in God’s plan either for our own work or our own glory. When salvation is complete, the only thing we can say is “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty.” And that is exactly what Paul is saying in our text. The doctrine of predestination shows God’s glory.

VI. The Doctrine of Predestination Can Give Us Comfort

Finally, the doctrine of predestination can give us comfort. Earlier, I mentioned the discussion I had with my son Micah last fall. I thought about why he might be so upset. A friend suggested that Micah’s questions were a response to a growing conviction that he is one of God’s children. And that reminded me of that student from years ago, the one with pained look on her face who fretted that God’s choosing some to be saved and not others seemed so random.

In a way, predestination is random, at least to us humans. Our minds can’t fathom why God would choose some and not others. We know all humans are sinful and deserve punishment and death. We recognize that Jesus Christ’s willingness to bear the punishment and death we deserved is an incomprehensible act of undeserved mercy. We can even say, as I did to my Sunday School student, that God works according to a good and merciful plan, but a plan we do not completely understand. Yet God’s decision to save some and allow others to remain in their sin still bothers us.

Another student in that class made a wise statement: maybe we ought to simply praise God for the salvation He’s given us and not worry about who is elect and who is reprobate. That student was absolutely right—God is God, and He does what He does to bring honor and glory to His name. We bring more glory to God by living lives of gratitude for his merciful acts than by dwelling on figuring out the details of how He decided to whom He would give His greatest gift.

But once we made that point in class, it became apparent that there was more going on in head of the girl with the pained look. She looked directly at me and asked “But what if you believe in God and do good, but it turns out you weren’t one of the ones chosen?” It was then that I realized that this was more than just the standard teenage complaint about “fairness.” This was a crisis of faith. And that’s when it struck me that if we truly understand predestination, then even the cold, dark truth of total depravity, that we are so helplessly lost in sin that without God that we can do nothing righteous, even that can bring us comfort.

If our sin is truly so pervasive that we humans are totally unable to turn to God and do what is right and pleasing in his eyes, then the only way we can be saved is by something superhuman—by God.

If we recognize in ourselves a faith and belief in God, even if that faith seems weak, and regularly challenged, then that faith had to have come from God. If we recognize in ourselves a desire to do what is right in God’s eyes, even if that desire is often accompanied by temptations to do otherwise, then that desire had to have come from God. And if God, as we confess, is almighty and all-powerful, then the very fact that He is working in our lives ought to persuade us that He has extended His mercy to us and we can rely on that mercy. Once we recognize that God has chosen us, we can rest assured that that choosing is for all eternity

The fact that God chooses us, that we belong to him, can be disconcerting to us humans, who like to think that we remain in control. But that choosing, that assurance that we belong to God, gives us comfort that we belong “body and soul, in life and in death, to our faithful Savior Jesus Christ.”

At the end of the class we read Q&A 1 from the Catechism. The pained look didn’t completely disappear from the student’s face. But I am convinced that God had provided a measure of comfort to one of his chosen.

VII. Conclusion

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

Predestination, the teaching that God alone chooses those who are saved in Christ, is hard for us humans to swallow. It rubs against our grain to realize that we are so full of sin that, left to our own devices, we would always choose rebellion and death. But if we understand this teaching, we have the key to a deep understanding of God’s plan of salvation. If we understand this teaching, we can experience true comfort in Christ. And if we understand this teaching, we will understand the immense greatness of God’s glory.

Amen.