Salvation Biblically Defined..

Welcome to Cornerstone Reformed Baptist Church. Thank you for using and sharing our resources. What you're about to hear is God's Word from one of our teaching elders. We trust that God's Word will inspire, instruct, and bless you. For further teachings or information on our ministry, please visit us on our website at cornerstonerbc.

com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good. For those who are called according to His purpose, for those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed into the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.

And those whom He predestined, He also called. And those whom He called, He also justified. And those whom He justified, He also glorified." Amen. This is the Word of the Lord.

Now, those of us who have spent some time in the book of Romans would know this is a glorious chapter. It's got a special place in my heart, this Romans chapter, a wonderful chapter with glorious truths for the redeemed in Christ. It is a comforting chapter. And if you look at the contents, we're only going to be looking at the three verses, as I said earlier on. But if we look at the body of the chapter, We find in it, it tells us of the incarnation of Christ's redemptive work in fulfilling the law on our behalf.

It speaks of the Spirit of God who is gifted to every single believer, every believer. And it's that Spirit, He is the one who intercedes for us and helps us in our weakness. is the very Spirit who testifies to us that we are indeed sons and daughters of the living God, adopted into the family of God and also heirs with Christ. And it's in this chapter that we read of the indescribable riches and the glories to come before which any suffering that we may, as Christians, deal with in this life, in comparison to that glory to come, that suffering just fades, fades away. All these and many more comforting truths and promises are found in this chapter, nestled in between chapter 1 and the final verses, which are honestly glorious.

And these verses are probably ones that we have committed to memory, or most of us may have at least. Sorry, my apologies, I said chapter, I meant verse one. Verse one reads, There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Praise God. Praise God.

And the last verses tell us that absolutely nothing in this universe can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. These are incredible Spirit-given words that are meant to comfort every true believer in Christ. No condemnation. the Spirit's intercession, eternal life, being recipients of God's love that has no bounds. This is incredible.

This is glorious. These are meant to be appreciated and enjoyed. But you know what comes so natural to people like us? When something so wonderful comes our way, we're inclined to think in our fallen humanity, can it be lost? Can it be taken away?

What if something happens along the line and I fail? Will I lose all these glorious blessings that have been spoken of in this glorious chapter? What if, what if I can't make it to the end? Now if that's you this evening, if this is the way we're thinking this evening, although there is a healthy place for self-examination to make sure that we are not deceived in thinking that we are indeed in union with Christ in the faith when we may not be, there's a healthy place for self-examination. But for the truly redeemed, that is for those who are truly in Christ, who are enjoying the saving grace that He has given us, These are glorious truths that we should always be comforted in, because the teaching in Romans 8 is clear that the rate of failure for those who are truly in Christ sits at zero percent.

Those who don't end, those who begin the race truly united in Christ, they will always, always make it to the end. And beloved, it's not because of who you are or what part you or I play, but it's because of the truths that we find in verses 28 through 30. See, the reason the Apostle Paul, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, can give absolute certainty of these words that give incredible assurance to believers in Christ, their promises that he gives us certainty on in chapter 8, and not be presuming upon the grace of God, is because God himself is the author and the perfecter of our salvation. He is solely responsible to accomplish and apply his plan of salvation from beginning to end. So the hope and assurance that we have is because of what the Prophet Jonah said many, many years ago.

Salvation is of the Lord. You see, the plan of redemption was not something that God did in happenstance or something He did as a reaction, as though He was caught by surprise by what Adam and Eve did in the garden. God's never surprised. He's omniscient. He sees all.

He knows all. Now, in the heart of God, from eternity past, before a single Adam was even brought into existence, God, in His good pleasure, according to His perfect elective purposes, decreed to redeem a people, a bride for His eternal Son, to the praise of His glorious grace, knowing full well the cost to redeem that bride. It's all of His doing. It's not predicated or dependent upon human efforts, but it's on the divine and on the divine only. Sure, there's human responsibility, we'll get to that this evening, but this passage is clear.

Salvation achieved or accomplished, and salvation applied is the work of the triune God from beginning to end. Nothing is left to chance. Nothing. That is why the Apostle Paul is able to write to the Philippians, the Christians there in Philippi, these words. I am sure, he says, of this, I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

So let's listen to those verses again, verse 28 through 30, and let's see how obvious it is that God is in complete control of our salvation. He's in complete control of bringing a redeemed people unto himself. It begins with, and we know. See, in this passage, the Apostle Paul has already told us what we don't know, right? Verse 26.

If we run our eyes back up there, he says, You see, there are mysteries. There are things we don't know, i.e. like what we've just heard here, when we are in our weakness, the Spirit of God, He intercedes for us. We have an intercessor in Christ and we have one also in the Spirit of God.

There are things we don't know. There are mysteries. However, the purposes of God in his plan of salvation and who it is that accomplishes that plan is not one of those mysteries. He has revealed that to us in his word. And those words are before us here this evening.

And we know, he says, that those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose. This is the purpose. Realize that all things work together for good. It doesn't say all things are good, beloved, because bad things happen. And bad things happen to believers, as was, well, we know we probably all have examples of these things in our own life.

We've all been able to, at one point, probably look back and know and see how God's providential hand was upon us in that moment, maybe as time had gone on, or even now, maybe we don't see how it was positive. how we don't see how it could possibly be worked for good, but the Lord says that with the good, He's sovereign over the good and the bad things that come our way, that ultimately, in all things, they work together for good. And a beautiful example of that is Joseph, right? I mean, that wasn't good. His brothers sold him to slavery.

He was imprisoned for several years. How can that be good, humanly speaking? But in Genesis chapter 50, when his father died, his brothers were terrified. You remember what he said? You meant what you meant for evil.

And it was evil. It was evil what those boys did. God meant for good. The evil actions of men are worked. If they come our way, God is sovereign over them.

Those things that come our way, by His grace, He only allows that which works according to His plan and His plans ultimately with the good and bad work towards good for those who love Him. This is glorious, glorious truth. This is glorious truth. As I said earlier, He has determined from the beginning to be in complete control over every facet of our salvation. So listen from verse 29 to see if you can pick how it is that he's in control.

Listen for the he's. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined, He also called. And those whom He called, He also justified. And those whom He justified, He also glorified."

Did you get the he's? Brothers and sisters, what we have in these two verses is commonly referred to as the golden chain of redemption. It is a chain with five unbreakable links, because each one of these links represents a divine action spanning from eternity past. Divine action that we see in our time and space, in our experiences, and the effect of that redemption goes into all eternity. And we find two, two of these chains, two of these links are in eternity past.

They're in the mind of God, which He disclosed to us in these verses. The first two, the foreknowledge of God and the predestination of God. He discloses that to us, but that occurred in the mind of God in eternity past. And then we have the next two, which is the calling. We have the calling and the justification which happens in real time and is experienced by His people in real time, as we consider those two.

Later this evening, we'll have the opportunity to examine our hearts to see that indeed the realities that are spoken of are realities in our lives. And the final of these is glorification. And glorification, beloved, begins with us in our lives in the process of sanctification. But it's not completed or consummated until Christ returns and makes us like Him. So this evening we will consider all of these but we'll spend most of our time on the middle two and we'll only barely touch the last one just for the sake of time.

So verse 29, he foreknew and he predestined. So these are the first two stages in the chain from before time began, as I said earlier. The foreknowing speaks of the people and the predestining speaks of the purpose. Did you see that? It's the purpose of, or for, the people who have been foreknown.

See, foreknowing speaks of the divine election, a choosing by God according to His good pleasure in eternity past, a people to bless with everlasting life, and communion with Him for all eternity. Ephesians 1.3.4 speaks to this. He says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him from the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.

Now the four new in this passage has been, well you can say it's been a topic of contention for many Christians in times past. Because many have sought to think that the foreknowledge spoken of here is more so a foreseeing, that God can foresee all the omniscience, all the events that will take place. And somehow God has been able to look through and see those people who would come to faith in him, those who would come to trust in his son, and then he would elect those people and bring them into his plan of redemption. In other words, he would look through and only choose the good ones, the ones who have faith. But that speaks against the Bible, right?

Speaks against God's word. That's not how the Bible speaks about foreknowledge. For starters, if God predestines people because they believe, then the grounds for their salvation is in them. And they have reason for boasting. And Paul's very clear.

No one can boast of their own salvation. Why? Because it's all of God. It's all of grace. If I can say I believe and my neighbor didn't, then I have something over my neighbor.

Because it was my effort. It was my work. It was my merit. I might have been smarter, I think. I might have been more intelligent.

Maybe I knew how to interpret the Bible better than him. But no, no, no, no. That's not what the Word of God says. Not at all. We're saved by grace and we have no grounds.

Absolutely no grounds to boast. No, God's elected purpose has nothing to do with the potential moral condition of a man or a woman. Because in chapter 9, Paul makes that point really clear when he speaks of Esau, and Jacob. There he says, "...though they were not yet born, and had nothing either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of him who calls, she was told, the older will serve the younger.

As it is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." You see, before they had done anything good or bad, God had made his election before they were born, before they were born. Beloved, this is very important that we understand this, because if you are in Christ, there is absolutely no grounds for boasting. Because if you are elected in the Beloved from before the foundation of the world, it wasn't because God looked through the corridor of time and saw that you have aptitude, you have skill, you have moral abilities. It's not because you had potential that He would be able to use you.

It is none of that. None of that. He simply elected some unto glory because He chose to set His love upon them because of His good pleasure and divine purposes. That's it. It's not because of anything that we carry inherently in ourselves.

He set his love on you, Christian, and that's what it means biblically to know or to be known. It's the intimate love relationship that is spoken of when Adam knew Eve and she conceived, or in Jeremiah chapter 1 when the Lord says, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. before you were born, I consecrate you." Speaking of Israel where Paul says in Romans chapter 11, he writes, God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. And in Deuteronomy chapter 7, We know there Yahweh says that He's set His love upon Israel.

That those He foreknew are the ones He set His love upon them. And if we read through the first five books of the Bible, we will know on countless occasions it's not because of anything in Israel that the Lord chose or elected. Because they weren't the greatest. They weren't the greatest in number or anything. It wasn't anything desirable.

It's simply because God chose to set His affection and His love upon them. And of course, how can we go beyond that scary passage in Matthew chapter 7, when those in the last day will come to the Lord and say, what about us? And the Lord would say to them, depart from me, I never, what? Knew you. You're talking about the Lord of glory, the second member of the Trinity, the God who knows all things who stand before these men.

Are you telling me he did not know who they are? No, he knows them. He knows every crepus of their heart. He knows the internals and the externals. He knows every dark secret they have in their heart, but he never knew them in the sense his heart was not inclined towards them.

He didn't set his love upon them. In that sense, he never knew them. They weren't elected in his love. This, and it is this, it is this or these people who he predestined to be conformed into the image of his son. And in order that they might be the firstborn among many brothers.

You see, as I said earlier, the four known, those he foreknew are the people and the predestination is the things that they've been predestined to do. This is the purpose that is being given to the people from eternity past. These are the things that God has determined to bring about through his election. That purpose is to fashion these people who are the object of his elective love into the wonderful image of Jesus Christ. You saw that in the passage.

This is incredible. This means, brothers and sisters, that from eternity past, God has predestined you and I, if we are in Christ, to Christ-likeness, to be like Jesus. We've heard those words so many times, but we need to sit back and think about how glorious that is. And beloved, in the book of Ephesians and Colossians, we know what it is to be the image of Christ. It says that the restoration of the image of God in man, it speaks of true knowledge, it speaks of righteousness, and it speaks of true holiness.

This is His decree. And He'll accomplish these things through sanctifying His people by the power of His Spirit. And these things ought to also be the greatest desire of the Christian. That they too are to be like Christ. That they desire in their hearts more than anything else to be like the Beloved.

To love like Him. To love the Lord with all their heart like Christ. To love their neighbour. To be patient like His. To be gentle like His.

To be faithful as He is faithful. And that work begins in our everyday lives through the sanctifying work of the Spirit of God, even now. Even now. And the goal is, as we read, that we would do that, that we would be conformed into the image of Christ, into the likeness of Jesus, who is our older brother and who is to be honored and exalted above all things. That's what's meant by firstborn here.

He's not speaking about an actual physical birth, but he speaks of him being the first among, the pre-eminent, the one who has supremacy over all. That we would be adopted into the family of God, to have fellowship with God, with our brother Jesus Christ, who is always to be exalted above all. Think about that. God from eternity past with his full omniscient knowledge would predestine wretched sinners into his household by grace. Here's the beauty.

He commits to clean us up from all unrighteousness into holiness and into the beauty that resembles Jesus. But beloved, He does not do it to us while we're kicking and screaming. We don't want to be thinking that that is the case. Not at all. Our hearts have been inclined towards Him in salvation.

Our hearts desire Christ. There's a deep desire to be like Jesus in the heart of the Christian, that they see their Lord and their Savior, the one who redeemed them from destruction and death and the wrath of God, and they see beauty in Him. They see their hearts want to become like Him in all that He is. It's our heart's desire, is it not? So the question needs to be asked.

Am I actually growing? Am I actually growing in righteousness? If we're growing in the image of Christ, we need to ask ourselves these questions. Am I growing in righteousness? Do I truly desire to spend time in the Word, in the Word of Christ, because I believe I hear the voice and God speaks to me through His Word and I grow in true knowledge?

Am I growing in that area? Am I growing in holiness? Am I growing in holiness? What is my relationship to sin? Does it grieve me?

Do I tolerate it? Do I enjoy sin? Am I concerned with the condition of my heart? What is my attitude towards sin? Because the Lord says that we are new creatures in Christ.

The old is gone, the new has come. We are a new creation and we're not sinless. That's for sure. But we are new and we have been given a new nature with new desires, new desires that resemble that of Christ. So the question is, what is my attitude towards sin?

Now Christian, if you find evidence, if you find evidence of these things in your heart, in your soul, and we're not looking for perfection, none of us are perfect. But if there's growing evidence, is what we're looking for, growing evidence, then praise be to God. The Spirit is at work within us. Now I know that there's a real struggle and there's a real battle. It's an everyday continual battle that we have with sin and unrighteousness, our flesh and the enemy.

And I know that sometimes it feels like we're not making headway. Sometimes it feels like we're taking one step or two step forwards and one step back or five forward and four back. But are we progressing in the faith? Are we being strengthened in the Lord? Are we seeing that the Lord is indeed working in and through us by His power, by the power of the Holy Spirit, who has promised to make us more like the image of Christ?

And that is, we're not talking huge leaps and bounds, but are we growing in our sanctification? Because if we are, then in our struggles we need to be encouraged. Because according to this passage, according to the heart of God, according to his predestinating purposes, it's a done deal for every true believer. Because every true believer will, beloved, become conformed into the image of Jesus Christ. Every last one.

Because he will bring that about. He'll bring it into completion. Now the next two stages of this chain is where we want to spend most of our time, and they're found in verse 30. And they are accomplished in time and space. We know that the foreknowledge and the predestination of God happens according to his good pleasure, according to the counsel of his will in eternity past, but calling and the justification happen in real time.

And those whom he predestined, it says, he also called. Now there are two types of calling. We probably know this and we know them as the outward call or the gospel call and there's the inward call or the effectual call. You see the outward call is the means that God uses to bring about salvation to the elect. It is the preaching of the gospel.

It's essential, according to Paul, and he makes that clear in the first chapter, where he says, And in Romans chapter 10, we read, Essentially, the outward call is the preaching or the proclaiming or the heralding of the gospel of Jesus Christ without distinction to all people. It explains the biblical truths of man's fallen condition. It explains that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It explains that as sinners, as rebels, as enemies of God, we are now under the condemnation of God apart from Christ. And the day will come when we will stand before the righteous judge of all the earth, and you will give an account for every last deed and every last thought.

the inclinations of your heart would be put on trial. Every last one. But there is hope. There is hope. The hope is found in the gospel call that says God in His mercy and in His grace has sent His Son as a substitutionary sacrifice in place of sinners who would come to believe in Him.

The penalty you deserve can be placed on Christ if you believe in Him. If you trust in Him, if you put your faith in the only Saviour of the world, the only one who is able to wipe your sin clean, that's the Gospel call. But here's the thing. The outward call of the Gospel call, for the most part, is rejected. As our Lord said in Matthew 22, listen to what He says, He says, Speaking about the banquet, For many are called, but few are chosen.

Few are chosen. And this is the mystery of man's responsibility in God's sovereignty, isn't it? Because the gospel call is not a suggestion. It's not a suggestion to come and believe in the gospel. Beloved, it is a command.

Because according to Paul, the Apostle Paul, speaking to the Athenians in Acts chapter 17, listen to what he writes. It's what he says to them. He says, the times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to what? To repent. To repent.

Yet we know. Yet we know according to scripture, apart from God's gracious intervention invading the soul of a sinner, no one can obey the call. No one can obey the gospel call. Yet they are responsible. Yet they are responsible for their own sin and their rebellion that renders them unable to obey the gospel call, renders them unable to obey the call to repent and to have faith in Jesus Christ.

It's their sin, beloved. And so they're made culpable. They're made responsible. You remember in John chapter 5, it hasn't been long since we finished, actually we just recently finished John chapter 5, and Jesus was speaking to the Jews. You remember the passage in verse 40 where he says, speaking to the Jews, the religious leaders of the day, he says, you search the scripture because you think that in them you have eternal life, and it's they that bear witness about me.

But then you have verse 40, he says, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. See, Jesus is holding these men responsible. He says, you have the Scriptures, you've learnt the Scriptures, you've memorised them, you know them, they're all up here somewhere, and in them you find that I'm all over, and it's... I'm there. Jesus is there.

We went through the passage, and we took our time. So Jesus is found throughout all the Scripture, and Jesus holds these men responsible, because they reject him. Yet, in the very next chapter, Jesus also tells the Jews what he says there. No one in chapter 6, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him to me. Beloved, we have to be careful that whilst we hold and believe in the complete sovereignty of God over all things, in particular the salvation of the elect, that we don't diminish or reduce human responsibility.

Because the Bible is clear the salvation that we enjoy if we're found is in Christ is by grace and grace alone Through his divine elective purposes. He deserves all the glory. We have no grounds to boast Yet the Bible is clear that those who reject Christ are held responsible for their sin This is why it's ultra important that we continue to preach the gospel because we don't know who the elect are We don't know when that gospel call becomes an internal, inward, effectual call. We don't know. But these truths are spoken of in Scripture.

They're clearly articulated for us in Scripture. That is, the sovereignty of God and human or man's responsibility, they're both there. We may not be able to harmonize the two in our minds, in our human minds, but beloved, they are harmonized in the mind of God and we hold them. and we trust him with them because they're in his word and his word is inerrant and it's infallible. It is truth.

But the reason, beloved, the reason for the inability of man to come and respond in faith to the gospel call is not because of a lack of understanding. It's not a lack of intellect, it's not a lack of being able to interpret the Bible, and it's not a lack of witnesses. John chapter 5, there's plenty of witnesses. No, it's not a lack in those areas. These people who deny and reject the gospel of Jesus Christ, these people who call it foolishness, the message of the cross, foolishness, they're unable to respond in obedience and in faith because they have no heartbeat, spiritually speaking.

Ephesians 2 chapter 2 verse 1 through 3. Listen to what Paul writes to the church in Ephesus. He says, or in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked, following the course of the world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Three, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out our desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Did you hear it?

And you were dead. Speaking about the believers who are now in Christ, but you were dead in your trespasses and in your sins. Apart from Christ, beloved, the scripture is so clear. Apart from Christ, every man is dead spiritually. He cannot fathom the things of the Spirit because he is following the spirit of this world, as we just heard in Ephesians 2.

They may have an intellectual understanding of the Bible. They may be able to articulate the gospel really well. They may even be doing some Christian things. But none of the word of God or none of these things find root in their hearts. None of it find roots in their soul.

It is an intellectual knowledge. That's it. It's artificial. It lacks life. It lacks life.

This is why Jesus tells Nicodemus, unless ye be what? Born again, you cannot see and you cannot enter into the kingdom of God. And so what was Nicodemus, this great theologian of the day, what was his response? How could these things be? He says.

Nicodemus, you've memorized the scripture, you know the Bible. Nicodemus, you should know better. And Jesus did rebuke him for this. But he said, how could these things be? Basically, Jesus, I'm confused.

Of course. Because these things must be spiritually discerned. And Nicodemus, at this point, had still been devoid of spiritual life. Here's the reality, and it's a serious one. Many will hear the Gospel call, the outward call, and for a while seem like they believe.

Even the text of Scripture, you'll read through the Gospel according to John, on several occasions you'll actually read, and the people believed. You hear that word. And they do Christian things. Many of these people may read their Bibles, many may go to church, even evangelize in the streets. But as is so clear in the parables of the soil, or the parable of the soils, if the Word of God does not make root into their soul, they remain lost.

They remain in darkness. They remain under the righteous indignation of God, because they are yet enemies of God. They have no union with Christ, who himself is the fountain of life. So in other words, that life, that spiritual life, the only source is found in the source and the fountain, which is Christ. And if Christ's life doesn't run through their veins, If the spiritual life of Jesus doesn't run through them in their union with Christ, then they remain dead in their transgressions, and anything they do, even though it may look Christian, is devoid of life, and fundamentally, at the heart level, devoid of anything pleasing to God, because they're incapable of loving God.

In fact, the Bible says the opposite is true. You see, we have so many examples in Scripture of a counterfeit faith. So many examples. The countless Jews in Jesus' day that we spoke about before, many of them were following Christ, but we'll soon see in chapter 6, they all disposed, they're all gone. How many do we see?

We see Simon the sorcerer in Acts chapter 8, right? And he believed, we're told, in Acts chapter 8. Yet, he fell away. Hymenaeus and Alexander in 1 Timothy, another example, how can we forget Judas Iscariot? For three plus years he was with the Lord of Glory, he was with our Lord, hearing the gospel, hearing the kingdom, hearing the message, being with grace himself, and listening to the words and sitting at his feet, yet he was lost because he did not have the spiritual life.

The word of God did not find root in his heart, so he was a counterfeit Christian. A counterfeit Christian. And beloved, in time, these people are either redeemed by our Lord or they fade away. But more of that next week. However, the elect God, for the elect, God has decreed in eternity past that he will bring about salvation for those he has predestined.

So the gospel call he changes by the power of his spirit into an effectual call, into an inward call. And this, beloved, is no ordinary call. We must think of this call divine call by God as a summons by the king of the universe who speaks life into a sinner. That's glorious, isn't it? Speaks life into the life of a sinner.

And before, this person may have known the gospel, may have been memorizing scripture, but it all resided in his mind. But when God, by His grace, through the effectual call, quickens that person to life, then that, the gospel which may have been just sitting and residing in their mind, becomes a resident in their heart and in their soul. The cross of Jesus Christ, all of a sudden, to this sinner is no longer an offence, but it's glorious. And He responds with faith and repentance. Beloved, the enabling of a person to respond to the gospel is nothing short of a absolute miracle.

It's 100% supernatural. It's a supernatural work of God, because in that moment, that person is spiritually made alive. He's made born again. And this is what we call regeneration. Now the spiritual word of God is enabled to find root in this person's soul, because now this person has been made alive.

In the Spirit. 1 Peter 1 speaks to this. He says, Since you have been born again, that's your regeneration, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and the abiding Word of God. These are the people who were spoken of in John chapter 1. You remember?

Who were born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. You see, men cannot get credit for that, can they? How can man get credit for that? You can't. There are some who believe that faith is necessary before regeneration, that one needs to have faith in Jesus in order to be made alive in Christ.

But I ask you, how can a dead person respond to the gospel call? How can a dead person have faith? Now think of Lazarus. You and I would have been at the tomb and screaming, come out. He would not listen.

He cannot obey. He's dead. But when Jesus says, come forth, he speaks life into his physical body. Now Lazarus is able to rise and come forth and be obedient. to Christ.

It's Jesus. It is the power of the Holy Spirit. It's God the Father. The three, the triune God is at work in the salvation of his people. And they quicken a man who is dead or a woman who's dead in their transgressions and sin to life through the preaching and the proclaiming of the gospel when it pleases God to give that inward effectual call.

Now, from the experiential point of view, I can understand why these people would think that way. Because they would look back, and all of us would. We can look back and say, look, I believed in Christ. I placed my faith in Him. I thought that's what caused me to believe.

I thought that's what caused me, my apologies, to be made born again. And I can understand that. But once we examine Scripture, we must realize that it doesn't work that way at all. We must realize that Ezekiel 36 speaks to this point, doesn't it? When He says, and I, speaking of God, and I will give you a new heart, I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put in you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

You see, it is God's work. It is God who is doing these things. And if we read through scripture carefully, with this in mind, you'll see there are so many examples of God actually invading the hearts of people and causing them to believe or calling them. Listen to Lydia. You remember Lydia in Acts chapter 16, the seller of purple goods?

It says there, the Lord opened Lydia's heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. Paul was obviously preaching the gospel, proclaiming the good news of salvation found in Jesus Christ. But apart from the Lord opening her heart, she would have been deaf to it. She would have been closed to it. She would have been dead to whatever comes out of Paul's mouth.

However, the Lord opened her heart. And how about 1 Corinthians 1.19 says, God is faithful by whom you were what? Called into the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ our Lord. 1 Peter 2.

9 says, but you are chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellences of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Ephesians 1, called into a living hope. 1 Thessalonians 4, called to holiness. 1 Peter 2, called to endure through suffering. And 1 Timothy 6, called to eternal life.

God's effectual call and regeneration all throughout Scripture is a work of God and not of man. But then he goes on saying, those whom he called he also justified. Now, this spiritually dead person who's being made born again, this spiritually dead person who is now alive spiritually. And remember, when we speak of this, it sounds like big gaps of time, but this is almost happening simultaneously. But this is the logical process of how it works out.

He's now got eyes to see and ears to hear. He's able now to see the wickedness of his heart. It never concerned him before. But now all of a sudden he can see the depravity of the heart. Now all of a sudden he can see that the sin that he's been engaging in is worthy of condemnation, is worthy of the righteous fury of a holy God who lives in unapproachable light, who cannot look upon sin.

The arguments of the Apostle Paul in Romans 1 through 3, the first three chapters, that indicts the whole of humanity, all of it, into sin and unrighteousness and in need of a savior. Those arguments used to be, once upon a time, shrugged off by this person, but now they pierce the heart, because he realizes that he's one of those people. Whereas before, he gave no attention, no concern to these things. Now these truths are piercing to the soul. For the first time, the guilt of this person's sin is not merely an emotional experience, it's not worldly sorrow because of some embarrassment or some other worldly carnal thought or cause, but it's soul-wrenching because he now knows that his sin is an offense, an infinite offense, to a holy God.

to a holy God, and is able to see his sin in light of God's holiness. For the first time, the consequences of his enmity, his rebellion against God, is seen for what it is, and although the gospel may have been so familiar to his ears, It may have been countless times that this person had heard the gospel. Many, many tell you their testimonies who have been raised in Christian families, many who have been in churches for decades. It could be decades that they were apprised and they'd heard the gospel proclaimed and preached. But only now.

Only now is this sinner's experience the devastation of who he is and his spiritual condition and his absolute desperate need for a saviour. In that state he recognises that he has absolutely nothing to bargain with, nothing to bargain with. He or she finds him or herself in such an unworthy state before a merciful God, and the only thing he or she can do is fall on their knees in repentance and faith and believe upon the one who was spoken of in that gospel called Jesus Christ, who is the only Saviour. the finished work of Christ on the cross of Calvary, no longer an impersonal fact about something that happened 2000 years ago. But now, now you believe.

Now that death and that resurrection was for you. That's an incredible experience. That's what it is to be born again, and that's what it is to be justified. Now the final nuances at that point, one may not understand. The intricate, deeper theological meanings and terms and doctrines that we come to learn as we grow in our Christian faith may not be obvious to this person, but he believes.

He believes that Jesus shed his blood on the cross as a substitute for his sins. He believes and he knows And in that moment, in repentance and faith, which go hand in hand by the way, he turns from his evil ways and looks to Christ alone for the forgiveness of his sins. You know, nothing in that moment, nothing physical had changed. Nothing. His outward or her outward circumstances are absolutely no different to what they were maybe five or ten or twenty minutes earlier.

Nothing. But now, but now the sinner is able to apprehend Christ by faith and he's flooded with the peace that surpasses understanding. The peace that tells him that he is now at peace with God. no longer an enemy of God, reconciled to the God of the universe, as Romans 5, 1 tells us. God no longer is angry with me, is what he's thinking.

He's no longer my enemy, as the Apostle Paul will actually go on to say in the next few verses in chapter 8. And beyond this, although he's never seen Jesus, this one who was proclaimed in the gospel, this saviour that he's placed his hope in, although he's never heard him physically, He loves him. He loves him. Your heart is instantly inclined to Christ. Your heart is inclined to His Word, to His people.

You want to spend time with Him in His Word, in communion, in prayer, in fellowship with His people. You want to be like He is. You want to be like your Savior, so you explore and you study and you meditate His Word, because you now want to be like Christ, the very One who saved you. You've never seen Him physically, you've never heard Him physically, but you believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that He has bore your sin in His body. upon that cross 2,000 years ago.

And you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, by the Spirit who dwells within you, that He now testifies that you are a child of the living God, adopted into the family of God and beloved in Him. You find your rest. Because by faith you have been justified. And this is not by anything that you have done, as Paul so clearly says earlier. He says, now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due.

And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness. It may not be clear in a time of conversion, in the time that one places their trust and their faith in Christ, in the time that they are justified. It may not be clear, but as one studies God's Word, and as one seeks to work out their salvation in fear and trembling, they will begin to realize the biblical truths behind their salvation. So by the spiritual illumination, one begins to understand the benefits of union in Christ. What are the benefits of actually sharing in the life of Jesus Christ?

It's His life that's flowing to me. What does justification mean? See, one begins to understand us in studying God's Word that justification by faith doesn't mean that he has somehow become righteous, as though the righteousness of God has been infused into your life. That's not what it means, because even though you are saved, even though you are born again, justification, we are still sinful creatures. Even though the Bible does speak about us being a new creation in Christ, justification in the Bible is a forensic term.

It's a legal term. It's an accounting. It's an accounting. And it's very important that we understand this. Paul's letter to the Philippians make this point really clear.

He says, from his works, from his merits, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends Depends on faith. You know what this means, beloved? This means that if you've placed your trust and your hope in Jesus and in Jesus alone, the judge of all the earth makes a declaration. He makes a legal declaration by virtue of your union in Christ with his son through true and saving faith that he declares you not guilty. 2 Corinthians 5.

21 speaks to this. It says, For our sake he, that is Christ, made him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. You see, Christ's righteousness is imputed to the believer's account, and the guilt of the believer is imputed to Christ. In other words, His righteousness, His perfection of life, His faultless obedience is accounted to me by faith and my filthy, evil, wicked sin was placed on Him so that He would bear on that cross 2,000 years ago what I deserve. He would bear the righteous fury of God on that cross that is deserving of every single sin I have ever committed.

And He absorbed it all. And He brings me in union with Him. So that by faith, through the instrument of faith, before God I am justified. And that gavel comes down once and for all. Not guilty.

And beloved, that decision, that verdict can never change. It's irreversible. Isn't that glorious? That is so glorious because of the substitute of our Lord. And of course, saving faith is not only It's not only unto salvation, but it's all of life.

Because Paul says in the first chapter, the righteous shall live by faith. Romans 1 17. See, the life of a true spirit dwelt Christian ought to be a life lived in penitent faith. Always repenting because now we now know the filthiness of sin. It stinks.

It's dirty. It's disgusting. And although we commit sin, it grieves us. It grieves us before the Lord. We don't want to be in that dirty state.

Not because we're exposed before others, but because we love God. And we know how much it offends Him. And we love Christ. And we want to be like Christ. And although there's temporary joy in sin, temporary likeness in sin, we hate it.

And it grieves us. It grieves us. And so we're always repenting because we want Him to clean us, always and continually through His Spirit and through His Word. And always, always trusting because we know that it is through faith that we are kept until the day of His coming. until our salvation is finally and fully consummated in the Beloved.

And that is our desire, Beloved. Because where we started, we started by saying that it is the purpose of God to predestine those to be conformed into the image of the Beloved Jesus Christ, and that becomes the overarching purpose of our life. To glorify Him, to serve Him, and to become more and more like That ought to be the desire of every Christian's heart. That ought to be the innate, the deep down desire, because beloved, that was never our desire, but it is, it comes inherent with the new heart that God has given us. That heart of flesh that Ezekiel speaks of, if we continue to read that passage, he causes us by his Spirit to obey his laws and his statutes.

What does that mean? What does it mean to obey God's laws and statutes? It means to be righteous. So the desire is to be righteous as Jesus is righteous. To be sanctified, to be set apart for God as Jesus is set apart.

Beloved, that is the desire of His bride, His church. Because the desire of the church is the same as the desire for every individual Christian, isn't it? To be more like Christ and to honour Him as our Lord. Knowing, and I'll end with this, knowing that all these stages of the golden chain of redemption are in fact in the past tense. Did you realize that when we read that?

That every single one of those links is actually in the past tense. And we're okay with the first two. We know that they were way back there. And we're okay with the calling and the justification because we've experienced that in our lives. But the last one, the last one, glorification, how's that in the past tense?

Is that an error by our beloved Paul? Of course not. The Bible is an error. It has no errors. Beloved, glorification, the final glorification is yes, it is still to come, but this is the glory, this is the glory of salvation, of biblical salvation that is rooted and grounded in the eternal purposes of God.

And that is that if you have been foreknown, if you've been predestined, if you've been effectually called, if you've been justified by faith, then you will be glorified. And in the mind of God, it's a done deal. in the mind of God, it's a done deal. You see, this chain cannot be broken if you're found anywhere on that chain. That's why I said if you've begun the journey in Christ by faith, if you are truly in union with Christ, Then beloved, you will enjoy every single facet of the salvation that God has planned for those who love Him.

Because this is a work of God, it's not a work of man. Beloved, if it's up to me, I would lose it. If I got it in the first place, and if it's dependent on me, I will lose my salvation. But it's not dependent on me. Beloved, It's accomplished because of the finished work of Christ.

And it is our God, our triune God who is involved in every facet and he brings all of it to fruition. And we can be guaranteed, absolutely guaranteed of this. Beloved, that glorification, although it begins now, it begins from the time that the person places their faith in Christ. It begins from the time that you are justified, that the sanctification of the Holy Spirit, the conforming into the image of Christ, the Christ-likeness, the desires and the inclination of the heart is turned to be like Christ, to live like Christ, to speak like Christ, to desire the things He desires, to love the things He loves and to hate the things He hates. Those who are this way will one day actually be like Christ in our glorification.

And I'll end with this verse. The Apostle John in his first epistle says, Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared, but we know. There's that word again. Paul said it several times, but here's the Apostle John says, but we know. When He appears, we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He is.

My prayer, my hope, and my plead with the Lord is that everyone in this room believes and that everyone in this room, these words that we just read, would be a description of who we are in Christ Jesus. Let's pray.