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1.
A little history:
Connect with previous talks.
Geneva was in disarray.
It was a notoriously pleasure-loving city.
It had rejected Catholicism, but now it was torn by dangerous factions.
A young preacher named William Farel knew the city needed a leader.
So when a young John Calvin visited Geneva, Farel made it a point to call on him.
He urged the young scholar to stay in the city and help establish the work there.
Calvin protested that he wanted to pursue his studies.
But Farel responded, "You are only following your own wishes!
If you do not help us in this work of the Lord, the Lord will punish you for seeking your own interest rather than His."
Calvin was terror-stricken.
The last thing he wanted was to offend Almighty God!
So Calvin agreed to stay and immediately took up the reforming cause in Geneva.
Calvin's leadership shaped a reformation tradition we call Reformed Christianity.
What is the unique feature of Reformed Christianity?
- God has a plan.
Calvin was convinced of it.
He called it God's sovereign will.
Just as Luther's central doctrine was justification by faith, Calvin's was the Biblical doctrine of the sovereignty of God.
2. Ephesians 1 – God's sovereignty
Few passages highlight this teaching, as well as Ephesians 1.
However, the key thought that ruins this chapter is that believers have wonderful blessings because they are chosen in Christ.
In (1-2)/
Paul uses two words to describe the Christians in Ephesus: saints and faithful.
Every Christian is both.
The word "saint" means holy ones.
We are saints because of what Christ did for us.
He made us clean and makes us holy.
In verse 1, the word "faithful" does not mean "dependable" as much as "full of faith in Jesus Christ."
A Christian is a person made holy by God (a saint) and a person who trusts in Christ (faithful).
Eph.
1:3, we have one of the most glorious sentences inthe Bible.
Paul uses three prepositions to describe our great blessing.
First, God has blessed us 'in' the heavenly places 'with' every spiritual blessing 'in' Christ.
Because we belong to Christ, we live where he lives (heaven) and receive what he deserves (unending blessing).
All this is possible because of our union with Christ.
This is God's sovereign plan for us.
So in verse 4, Paul tells us that those who believe and enjoy these blessings were chosen by God before the world was even formed.
This is the wonderful doctrine of election.
God chose us in Christ by grace so we might be blessed with every spiritual blessing.
God elects us to be saints (set-apart ones) and then predestines that specific purposes in our lives shall come to pass.
In verse 5/
we are told that God has adopted us.
Our entire blessedness - our victory, our happiness, our hope - is bound up in God's plan for us that is to be found in Christ.
Moreover, God has accepted us.
We are not acceptable to God in ourselves, but in Christ, we are "made accepted."
This is the key to Reformed theology.
Though we have sinned, Christ says to the Father, "Receive this saint as you would receive Me," because I have redeemed them by giving His life on the cross.
Jesus purchased us from the slavery ofsin and has forgiven us.
Christians were elected for this privilege/
before the foundation of the world.
So we can be confident of finally receiving this blessing because the God who planned it accomplishes whatever he purposes.
We can also be confident because of the sealing of the Holy Spirit .
Just like our signature on the dotted line seals the deal, the seal of the Spirit (which comes when we believe the Gospel of Jesus) authenticates us as truly included in Christ.
His seal secures our eternal safety and marks us as God's possession.
Apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, we would neither believe in Christ nor have the eyes of our hearts opened to the realities and promises of his word.
This means that we should give thanks,and Paul makes three requests.
First, we should pray to know God better.
Second, we should pray to know God's riches.
Third, we should pray to know God's power.
This is the sovereign God's plan for us.
For Calvin, this aspect of the Gospel thrilled him the most.
3. God's sovereignty is at the core of our faith.
But Calvin hadn't always valued the Gospel.
He entered the University of Paris at fourteen and left with a Master of Arts degree.
After uni, his Father wanted him to study law, but Calvin returned to Paris to study the classics.
His studies brought Calvin into touch with Luther's ideas.
So after Calvin had what he called an "unexpected conversion."
We can't be sure about the date, but Calvin surrendered his will to God's will for him in the Gospel.
He gave up his career as a classical scholar and identified with the Protestant cause in France.
In the autumn of 1533, one of Calvin's close friends, Nicholas Cop, gave a strongly Protestant sermon.
The vigorous sermon threw the uni into an uproar, and Calvin was forced to flee from Paris.
This is why he travelled through Geneva when William Farel enlisted him.
The Genevan city councils offered Calvin a position, "Professor of Sacred Scriptures," and he began his work with vigour.
He prepared a confession of faith to be accepted by everyone who wished to be a citizen; he planned an educational program.
It was the most strenuous program of discipleship yet seen, a bit more than the city fathers had bargained for.
After a year of struggle, Calvin and Farel were ordered to leave Geneva.
(Explain)
Three years later, the city officials urged him to return and resume his reform efforts.
Naturally, opposition continued.
Many times Calvin was on the brink of banishment.
But he fought his way through courageously.
Two years later, Calvin's position in Geneva was secure, and until his death, he had no serious opposition in the city.
For Calvin, however, Geneva was never an end in itself.
He considered the city a refuge for persecuted Protestants, an example of a disciplined Christian community, and a centre for ministerial training.
Enthusiastic students from all over Europe came to Geneva to see what John Knox called "the most perfect school of Christ that ever was on earth since the days of the Apostles."
The theology the students received flowed from Calvin's central belief in the absolute sovereignty of God.
"God asserts his possession of omnipotence," he wrote, "and claims our acknowledgement of this attribute."
God is the "Governor of all things."
In his own wisdom, from the remotest eternity, he decreed what he would do, and by his own power, he executes what he has decreed.
Reformed theology teaches that God particularly directs our lives.
We read that sparrows won't fall to the ground without the Father's knowledge.
We read too that he has given babies to some mothers and withheld them from others.
What this recognizes is the personal involvement of Almighty God in our lives.
If Luther's ultimate text was "the just shall live by faith," Calvin's was, "Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."
Calvin saw the doctrine of predestination - as a source of great praise and worship.
More than a problem of the mind, Calvin considered divine election to eternal life the most profound source of confidence, humility and moral power.
Reformed theology's emphasis on God's sovereignty led to a unique view of the state.
Luther tended to consider the state supreme.
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