NCC Question 27
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NCC Question 27
NCC Question 27
We are officially half-way done with the New City Catechism. To start we are going to take 5 minutes and review the first half of the questions and then we are going to move on from them and focus on the second half.
Break into 4 groups (pick teams with captains)
Q1: What is our only hope in life and death?
Q2: What is God?
Q3: How many persons are there in God?
Q4: How and why did God create us?
Q5: What else did God create?
Q6: How can we glorify God?
Q7: What does the law of God require?
Q8: What is the law of God stated in the Ten Commandments?
Q9: What does God require in the first, second, and third commandments?
Q10: What doe God require in the fourth and fifth commandments?
Q11: What does God require in the sixth, seventh, and eighth commandments?
Q12: What does God require in the ninth and tenth commandments?
Q13: Can anyone keep the law of God perfectly?
Q14: Did God create us unable to keep his law?
Q15: Since no on can keep the law, what is its purpose?
Q16: What is sin?
Q17: What is idolatry?
Q18: Will God allow our disobedience and idolatry to go unpunished?
Q19: Is there any way to escape punishment and be brought back into God’s favor?
Q20: Who is the Redeemer?
Q21: What sort of Redeemer is needed to bring us back to God?
Q22: Why must the Redeemer be truly human?
Q23: What must the Redeemer be truly God?
Q24: Why was it necessary for Christ, the Redeemer, to die?
Q25: Does Christ’s death mean all our sins can be forgiven?
Q26: What else does Christ’s death redeem?
We have covered a lot of ground and many very important truths. As we enter the second half we continue along this same line of thinking about salvation and how we are made right before God.
Just as a look ahead, we will spend the next 8 classes (skipping Easter) covering 9 more questions having to do with salvation, what happens after death, what is faith, what do we believe by faith, justification & sanctification and works. Lots of good, important topics to cover.
After that we will get into part three of the the New City Catechism and over the summer we will cover the Holy Spirit, prayer, God’s word, sacraments or ordinances, baptism, communion, the church, where Christ is now and what is the hope of everlasting life.
This morning we are going to look at question 27:
Q27: Are all people, just as they were lost through Adam, saved through Christ?
What do you think?
But...
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
I bring this up because you will hear this verse being used to defend that all people will be saved “the world”. The answer is in the same verse by the way, yes he loved the world, but those who believe in him shall not perish.
The idea of univeralism is the belief that all people, everyone, will be determined to be righteous on the day of judgement and will be allowed into heaven. This has an emotional appeal and we want to believe it, but its not what the bible communicates.
The goal this morning is to affirm our belief in election but I hope that we walk away thinking election is a beautiful thing and that we can rejoice in it. I also hope to point out as a continued thought from last week there are some things here on earth that are redeemed through Christ—these are known as common grace.
So are all people saved through Christ? No
A27: No, only those who are elected by God and united to Christ by faith. Nevertheless, God in His mercy, demonstrates common grace even to those who are not elect, by restraining the effects of sin and enabling works of culture for human well-being.
A27: No, only those who are elected by God and united to Christ by faith.
When we picked teams, who got to choose the teams? Were you able to convince the captains to pick you over the person next to you? Do you know why one person was chosen over another?
We will come back to that.
Turn with me to Romans 3:10-20
10 as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” 13 “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” 14 “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are ruin and misery, 17 and the way of peace they have not known.” 18 “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” 19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
Paul writing to the church in Rome—this is the condition or state that we are in.
Who is right with God? (v.10) None—no one
Who understands God? (v.11) No one
Who seeks God? (v.11) No one
Who has turned aside from God? (v.12) All
Who does good? (v.12) No one
What human will be justified, made right in God’s sight? (v.20) No one
I think it is always helpful to remember our condition and state coming into this equation. By that I mean, we were dead, unable to do anything, meaning we couldn’t convince God to put us on his team.
Who in here is currently on a sports team? Who has ever played on a team?
Have you ever played a pick up game in practice or just for fun? Basketball or soccer or baseball or volleyball or something? How did you choose teams?
When you had captains, who do they usually pick first? The best of the best, the most athletic or most coordinated or the best players.
Be honest, who likes being picked first? It feels good on your soul, on your pride, right?
They are picking the best people they can to give them to best shot to win.
So with that in mind, knowing that both this morning and in the example of sports teams they picked the best people for the job, the ones they thought would make the best team based on ability or chemistry or knowledge.
Who is qualified to be on God’s team? Is anyone good enough to be not only making the decisions on the roster but to even be on the team? NO
So who chooses those who get to be on the team? God is.
16 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.
Why didn’t choose God, he chose us.
So why did God do this for His family?
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
He loved us, and he gave us his son, why? So that we could have eternal life.
We are going to work through another passage and I want you to be mindful and note each time we hear Jesus, Christ or a reference (He, Him, Himself or His).
3 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, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, 8 which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight 9 making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.
I counted 26 times.
Who has blessed us? (v.3) God and Father in Christ
Who has chosen us? (v.4) Jesus
When did He choose us? (v.4) before the foundation of the world
Who were we adopted to? (v.5) to Himself
Whose will was adoption done by? (v.5) to the purpose of his will
Who gets all the praise? (v.6) his glorious grace (Him)
Who blessed us? (v.6) He
Whose blood were we redeemed by? (v.7) His
Whose grace were we forgiven by? (v.7) His
Who lavished His grace on us? (v.8) He
Who purposed/made all of this happen? (v.9) His
How did this begin? (v.9) in Christ
What is our inheritance in? (v.11) In Him
Whose will is this happening by? (v.11) His
Who gets all the glory? (v.12) His
He chose us, selected us, adopted us. We see this throughout the bible.
6 “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
4 For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me.
44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
48 And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.
29 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.
11 though they were not yet born and had done 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—
3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you,
13 But we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers beloved by the Lord, because God chose you as the firstfruits to be saved, through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.
10 Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.
2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.
The evidence is there that those that are saved have been chosen.
Does anyone know who this is? (Picture of John Calvin)
He was born in France in 1509, was a lawyer and became a theologian, pastor and Reformer. What is he most famous for? He is widely considered the central reformer for his work in redefining the views of the church on how we are saved.
What if I told you that concept was well before John Calvin
Who is this? (Picture of Augustine of Hippo)
He is not a hippo nor were his parents, but he was from Hippo, a region of North Africa.
Born in 354. He came to saving faith in his 30’s and became a pastor and wrote many books. He taught that God elects those he will save.
But even before that, who might this be? (Picture of Paul)
I don’t know what he looks like, but he lived well before both Calvin & Augustine, but he definitely taught that Jesus chose us.
Was Paul the first person to believe this?
Turn to Genesis 12:1-2
1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
All the way back in Genesis, God chose Abram soon to be Abraham to be the leader of this nation and to bless his name and make his name great.
Was Abram the best choice from the world perspective? Why not? He was going to be the father of multitudes—how many kids did he have at this point? 0. He was 86 when he had his first kid out of wedlock but him & Sarah were married some 70 years before Isaac.
God chose Abram and nothing would stop them from fulfilling God’s plan.
This idea is threaded throughout scripture and is true still today.
Does anyone know anybody that was adopted?
Does the child get to choose who picks them? Many times do they even know they are being chosen? They simply wait for someone to come and in take them home. From their perspective they are waiting there for someone to come in, choose them because they love them, in many cases pay for them and then take them home and make them a part of their family.
Its amazing, it makes you want to cry tears of joy.
God has chosen us, adopted us, even without us knowing.
Why is this encouraging to us? It is not because of anything we have done. God chooses us even before the foundation of the world. If it were up to me I would surely mess it up. But its not—God did it all. We didn’t make this happen in any way and so we can’t mess it up in anyway.
Another point of note is that I have no idea who is chosen. You have no idea, the pastors have no idea. And so our job doesn’t change—we are to tell others about Jesus and call them to repentance. Our responsibility is still to believe in our heart and confess Jesus as Lord. Yes in the background Jesus is doing all the work but those that are dead don’t know that and we don’t know who is included and so our goal shouldn’t be any different.
Spread the love of Jesus to others around us and call people to Christ.