So Great a Grace
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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 before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
The Puritan preacher John Elias, in a sermon titled: On God Choosing and Calling Men, opened by saying this:
The scheme of salvation in its entirety has been designed to remove pride and boasting from man; this is the reason why there is so much hostility on the part of man against the plan of salvation and God’s way of saving man. Salvation is entirely and completely of God and exclusively of God’s grace without anything contributed by man. It is not because of godliness or merit or the ability of man or any kind of goodness on his part. The sum and substance of the Gospel is this: “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, that you should go and bring forth fruit.”
John Elias - “God Choosing and Calling Men”
Good morning - continuing in our series preaching through the statement of faith that the elders have adopted
Today, we are on statement number 6:
6. We believe that God, before the foundation of the world, and for his own glory, elected a great host of men and women to eternal life as an act of free and sovereign grace. This election was in no way dependent upon his foresight of human faith, decision, works, or merit.
Pray again
This statement may be the most difficult of the whole statement of faith. Even the word “election” can carry some baggage for many Christians that immediately turns them off to the concept it communicates.
So I am going to begin by defining what it means.
And John Elias, in the quote I read, puts very eloquently what I am about to say very ineloquently: you don’t choose God, God chooses you.
If you are a Christian, that wasn’t by your choice. It was by God’s choice.
And I have found - much like John Elias did - that this Biblical truth tends to evoke more hostility than most other doctrinal truths. Especially today, living in a day of very non-doctrinal evangelicalism that teaches as basic truths, ideas that are found nowhere in the Bible.
And so evangelicalism today talks about how you need to “ask Jesus into your heart.”
It tells us to witness to unbelievers so they, “make a decision to follow Christ” or even worse “give their life to Christ.”
It assures people that if they would pray the sinners prayer they would be saved.
I’ll tell you a story, so we can all see how these things become non-negotiables of the faith for so many Christians. So many say that doing these things is how someone is saved.
You have all likely heard my testimony of how Christ called me, so I won’t get into the details. But I knew very early that God had called me to serve Him and that I was called to be a pastor.
So there I am, a Christian for well over a year, serving in my first church. I had already been leading worship. I was the youth pastor. I had even led a Bible study for the whole church.
Then one night, almost in passing, my pastor asked me about the day I asked Jesus into my heart.
And I told him about my conversion, which I had before, and he asked at what point I asked Jesus into my heart.
I told him that I had never asked Jesus into my heart. The shock on his face was instant. It was like he just saw his dog get run over. He was absolutely floored, because in his words, I couldn’t be sure I was going to heaven.
So right there, he made me bow my head, and say the sinners prayer. And when we were done, he said now I can know for sure I’m going to heaven.
An extreme case? Maybe.
But I can’t tell you how many Christians I have heard talk about conversations they had with unbelievers - maybe while door-knocking - maybe while on a short-term mission - maybe during a chance encounter on an airplane - where they were so excited that the conversation ended with the other person “giving their life to Christ” or “asking Jesus into their heart.”
The truth of the matter is - someone becoming a Christian - that is not their decision to make, ultimately.
It’s God’s.
And yes, I know that may sound off. It did to me for a long time, because of what I was taught when I first became a Christian.
But it’s what the Bible teaches. It’s what the Bible teaches from start to finish.
God is sovereign over salvation.
And that, brothers and sisters, is what makes His grace so amazing.
And what this really comes down to, is what we believe about God, and what we believe about ourselves.
Who do we believe is sovereign? Who do we really believe is in control?
And this is why an explicit statement of faith is so valuable. It not just explains what the eldership believes the Bible teaches, it teaches what the Bible does very systematically.
Because each statement builds on the previous statements.
We start with Who God is - everything starts with Who God is! And we went over a host of attributes of God that describe not what God does, but Who He is. And we spoke about His sovereignty, and how He has all the power. These explain not things about God, but they explain God Himself.
We then talk about how we know what to believe about God. God graciously revealed Himself as He wanted to, in the pages of the Bible.
We then looked to what man was created to be and what he is because of sin. We talked about Adam’s original righteousness and how that was corrupted through sin. And now, every person is born with original sin. We all stand condemned before God because of who we are.
Last week, we saw the result of that. Because sin has affected every aspect of our fallen nature, we are people who are completely unable to do what’s right in our own power.
It is utterly beyond the power of fallen man to love God, to keep His laws, to understand the Gospel, to repent of sin, or to trust in Christ.
⬇️Now, if we stopped there, we would have no hope. We would be stuck where we are: dead in sin, and unable to do anything about it. No more than a physically dead man can do anything about his deadness.
Put that all together, and we have a very evident and very big problem. Because if God is sovereign and has all the power, and all we can do is sin and can’t want to choose God, what can we do to be saved? What can we do to be restored to righteousness? What can we do to be brought from death to life?
And the answer is we can’t!
Only God can.
And that’s what the doctrine of election is.
And that why the doctrine of election is - to me - one of the greatest of all God has revealed about His plan of redemption.
When I understood what it means, and then I realized it was literally everywhere in the Bible - God’s grace became so overwhelming - It became more real than anything else - I finally understood grace - I finally understood and was so grateful that my salvation had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with God’s purposes in Christ
And this doctrine is perhaps the most basic difference between Reformed theology and every other theology. I would say it is the most basic difference between Biblical theology and system theologies - or God-centered theology and man-centered theology - when it comes down to it: grace theology and works theology...
Because if you lose the doctrine of election, you lose the fullness of God’s grace, you misunderstand the weight of human sin, and you confuse who is really sovereign.
If you think you have anything to do with your salvation - even if only to choose faith or to choose to receive Christ - then you are taking part in your salvation. You’re doing something to be justified.
Salvation becomes your decision.
But our redemption is 100% of God.
And without understanding what election is, we won’t understand God’s plan of redemption. Election is key to God’s eternal plan, and will be all the way through the consummation when Christ returns.
And without understanding election, we can have no reasonable assurance of faith.
Without understanding election, we will not understand Who God is and who we are, even as those saved by grace.
And the major problem people run into is that it sounds as if the doctrine of election means men have no free will. But that isn’t at all true. Even as fallen, unregenerate people, we have free will.
We are always free to choose whatever we want.
But in our natural state, we are not free to want just anything.
We saw this last week. We can’t want to love God or to keep His laws. We can’t want to repent of sin or to trust in Christ.
We could do it if we wanted to, but without God first changing who we are, we can’t want to do those things.
So this isn’t about freedom. It’s about natural desire. It’s about who we are in our natural state. And we’ve seen, the Bible is very clear on that.
It isn’t until the Spirit makes us new - until we are born again - that we want any of those things. We are unable to understand the Gospel as truth. We are unable to understand the glories of God’s salvation in Christ. We are unable to want what God freely offers through the Gospel.
So who can want these things?
The elect of God. Those God knew from before we were, and before we ever know it, that we were His.
Those God chose to save.
That’s all the word “elect” means. It means “chosen.” We are chosen by God.
And as we saw two weeks ago, this is not unjust of God. God would be perfectly just to let every person who ever was - starting with Adam after his sin - to be separated from Him forever and go into eternal punishment.
But God is both just and the justifier of those He saves through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
Or, as we read this morning:
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 before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
God’s electing purposes span from before there was anything but God, all the way to the New Heavens and the New Earth.
God works His plan of redemption through His sovereign election.
And God starts to reveal this right from the moment we sinned in Adam and His redemption began.
⬇️We took a quick walk through Genesis 1-3 two weeks ago to see how the Fall affected the creation. And God’s grace worked right after Adam sinned. God makes promises of ultimate victory through Christ, He covers the shame of Adam and Eve.
And then what happens?
Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.
Man, if I have heard one explanation for why Abel was accepted and Cain was not, I’ve heard a hundred. And they all place the difference in Cain and Abel. Like this is up to them.
Cain brought crops and Abel brought animals. God didn’t want crops, He wanted animal sacrifices. Interesting take, since God commands both in the Law.
It says Abel brought the first born of the flock, but is says Cain just brought any old offering, so it wasn’t firstfruits so God was angry. The passage doesn’t actually say that, though.
It was Abel’s heart - he wanted to give to God, but Cain was kind of a jerk so he was doing it reluctantly. OK, but it doesn’t actually say that, either. In fact, it talks about Cain’s offering as if it happened first.
What does it actually say?
All it says, is that God accepted one of them, and not the other.
This reveals God’s choice.
Like how later, Seth is chosen by God.
And then Noah is chosen by God.
And them Shem is chosen by God.
And then, after the rejection of the world at Babel, God chooses one man out of all the world to be accepted. God calls Abram, Abram didn’t go seeking Him.
And then the Bible takes great pains to show that it isn’t about what man does, but who God chooses.
Because it isn’t Ishmael, the firstborn. It’s Isaac.
Then it isn’t Esau, the first born. It’s Jacob.
Then it isn’t the first, second, or third born. It’s Judah, the fourth born.
And then it’s Moses who is chosen. A murderer on the run from his own people.
Then it’s one whole tribe out of Israel chosen to serve God.
Then it’s one man out of that tribe chosen as priest.
Then it’s one man - the youngest of all his brothers - chosen by God as king rather than the son of the first king.
Then it’s men chosen as prophets to call the failing nation back. Men who often resisted because they didn’t want to do it. They didn’t go looking for the job. But God chose them, so they got it.
The entire Old Testament is a history of people hand chosen by God for His own glory and His own purposes.
And that continues into the New Testament.
Jesus chose His followers, not the other way around.
He even chose Paul, who was doing anything but seeking to follow Christ.
This is why Paul praises God, as we saw in our passage this morning:
even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
Before the creation was, God chose in Christ all who would believe to be holy and blameless before Him.
And Paul continues:
In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will
God determined before it happened that we would be His children. All according to His will, not our will.
⬇️We walked very quickly through the first six chapters of Romans a few weeks ago to see how Paul explains in great detail how we are all sinners who stand condemned before God, no matter who we are. Pastor Eric talked about this again last week.
He took us further into Romans to show us how even as Christians, we lack the power in ourselves to please God, even sometimes when we have the “want to.”
And Paul goes on in chapter 8 - as he does elsewhere - to say that without the Spirit, we don’t have the want to, and we don’t have the power to do what we want to.
And in our natural state, until we have the Spirit, we have neither:
For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
And then Paul continues the chapter with a beautiful exposition of the Person and work of the Holy Spirit Who does all of this in us. Who makes us new and empowers us to live like the new creatures He made us.
Who God promises will carry us through to the very end.
And after that, Paul returns to the idea that we all - Jews and non-Jews - we all start in the same place. Condemned. Separated from God. Dead in sin. And he laments that so many of his fellow countrymen are separated from God and still dead in sin.
And he then says that there is only one thing that can change that. The election of God. And he uses two of those Old Testament examples we already talked about:
But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, 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— she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
God’s election is necessary for His purposes and His promises. How can God make promises if they aren’t 100% up to Him to keep?
And make no mistake, Paul is saying God keeps them. Because it is God Who chooses Who become His children. He chooses who receives the promise of redemption.
And while grammatical acrobatics have been done since the fourth century to try and argue that isn't what Paul is saying here, what Paul says next is proof of what he means:
What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills. You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?
Who would object if Paul was saying it is up to each of us whether or not we are saved?
But how may object when they’re told it isn’t up to them.
Again, it’s about Who we believe God is and who we believe we are.
And don’t worry - we are going to preach through the book of Romans beginning next fall, so we will get very detailed then.
But for now, just notice. Paul says God chooses whom He will to receive His promises. That man has no control over it.
And he counters the very objection John Elias had to 1900 years later, and that we still hear today.
If this is true, then God is unjust.
God is unjust to elect some and not others.
How can God blame the unsaved for being unsaved if He chooses who’s saved?
In short, it’s the same argument leveled against election today: “That’s not fair!”
Isn’t it????
If that’s not fair, then what do you really believe about sin? Or about God?
If that’s not fair, who do you really think is in control?
If that’s not fair, then Christ’s perfect life, and atoning death to conquer sin, and resurrection to conquer death, and current reign as King of all - then what was it all for?
It was to make it “fair.” It was to make it fair that God could save anyone.
It was to make God just and the justifier of the one who believes in Christ.
All of a sudden, we want to say that’s not fair because we have no control over who Christ did that for? We want to say it’s unfair to leave it in God’s perfect, sovereign hands to save who He will, after the price He paid?
We want to say it’s unfair because we don’t get to choose who inherits eternal life?
⬇️I always find it amazing that Christians are so open to add a “God willing” to anything they plan to do, or anything that might happen - especially things we want to happen.
We are so fine with saying that God is in control of all things - from the best things that can happen to the worst - we like to “let go and let God” - we like to say that “God is in control.”
But then suggest that God is in control of salvation? That our redemption truly is “God willing.” That all we can do is “let God” because we can’t.
All of a sudden, we consider what God did to accomplish salvation, and so many think that leaving “my salvation” in His hands is not fair.
Too often, we don’t want grace. We want control.
Again:
We believe that God, before the foundation of the world, and for his own glory, elected a great host of men and women to eternal life as an act of free and sovereign grace. This election was in no way dependent upon his foresight of human faith, decision, works, or merit.
Our election unto life is in no way dependent on us.
And thank God for that, because we have no desire or power to be saved on our own.
Until we have already been born again through the sovereign work of God, we can’t have faith. We can’t make any decision for God. We can’t do any good works. Nothing we are or do has any merit before God.
So thank God for His electing grace.
Thank God He makes the decision we can’t make:
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
Is that not fair?
But, Lee, you might say, that just means God elects those who He knows will have faith. He chooses those who choose Him.
Really. Then does He have a choice in that? Are there some that choose Him that He rejects? Of course not. Then who do you really believe is sovereign.
But Lee, the Bible says it’s because of God’s foreknowledge that He saves Who He does.
Like here in 1 Peter:
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 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.
It sure seems election is according to foreknowledge.
And I agree.
But what is foreknowledge?
Is it just knowing what someone will freely choose to do?
Or is it a sovereign act of God, whereby He has intimate knowledge - what we might call a “relationship” in modern evangelical terms - with those He has chosen?
Well, this is why we covered how we know what we know about God. We know what we do because He has revealed it in the Scriptures.
What does God say about His foreknowledge in His Word?
Let’s see which option fits best with Peter’s very next use of the word:
As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
Was Jesus the Christ because God saw ahead of time this man from Nazareth would freely choose to do all this?
Or is Peter saying it was God’s choice to do this from eternity past?
And this is what Paul says right before he explains election in the book of Romans:
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.
This explains foreknowledge - what is foreknown of God is made manifest by God - He makes it happen by His sovereign choice and His power and His grace.
Again, as we saw, God is merciful and gracious. It’s Who He is.
That means He was merciful and gracious from before creation - to whom was He merciful and gracious before creation? God doesn’t change, so He was already gracious before there were people. Who was He gracious to?
Those He knew before we were. Those He chose to be His children through Christ.
Thank God for His grace. Thank God that what Eric closed with last week and I started with today is true: “God saves people who can’t save themselves.”
In other words, election is what makes salvation possible.
As Jesus said:
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
Election working the entire plan of redemption until the end, all initiated by God.
And that means election is what makes us who we are right now.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
This is why it’s important to understand the doctrine of election. Because we need to grasp the depth and the power of the grace of our God.
And we need to understand how to respond to that grace.
How do we respond to so great a grace? Because that’s all we can do. God did it all. And once He works that grace in us, all we can do to respond to Him is, as we saw, to live holy and blameless before Him.
So that means, if you walked in here not knowing Christ as Savior, you need to.
And this is what makes election so gracious.
God made a way.
And if you hear the call, and you but place your faith in Christ, than you will be saved. Because God has called you.
Don’t misunderstand election. It doesn’t keep people from coming to Christ. It draws them to Christ. Because if not for God’s gracious and sovereign election, salvation simply wouldn’t be possible.
Without God’s grace in election, no one would ever want to come to Him or to place their faith in Him.
So are you among the elect?
If you come to Him, and repent and believe in Him Who died to make you righteous, you are.
Because God exercising this grace from eternity past, and then coming to die for those He chose, do you know what that means?
It means that God is so much more willing to save all who come to Him, than we ever were to be saved.
God chooses it because He wants to save.
Don’t turn your back on so great a grace - turn to Christ.
And if you are in Christ, don’t turn your back on so great a grace. We can’t.
Now that God has made us new and has granted us faith to believe… we can want Him, we can please Him - and we can now make a decision for Christ.
We can decide how to live out the faith we have been granted.
And what is that faith?
⬇️Near the end of His life, the disciples made a request to Jesus. Note His response.
The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’ ”
Faith is about what those who have been made new, do with the grace they have been given.
Once we have experienced the grace of God through His sovereign election, which is not based on anything in us and on nothing we do - once the Spirit is given to us, we can finally do.
We can walk in those good works that were prepared for us beforehand - when God chose us in Christ from eternity past - when He sovereignly chose us to do the works He calls us to.
As Paul says in Colossians:
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.
God grants us the faith, and now we respond by continuing in the faith by being faithful to Christ.
This is what we’re called to:
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
In short, we were once unable to love God, to keep His laws, to understand the Gospel, to repent of sin, or to trust in Christ.
But God, before the foundation of the world, and for his own glory, elected a great host of men and women to eternal life as an act of free and sovereign grace. This election was in no way dependent upon his foresight of human faith, decision, works, or merit.
And now - because of God’s electing purposes - we are able.
We are able to love God.
We are able to keep His laws.
We are able to understand the Gospel.
We are able to repent of sin.
We are able to trust in Christ.
Will we? Or will we neglect such a great grace?
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
God has richly provided for us.
Let us thank Him for so great a grace by doing what we couldn’t, and for what we can finally do, because God chose to make us who we are.
If God has chosen you - yet your choice be Christ.
