God's Purpose of Grace

Introduction

It is hard to think of too many songs more famous than Amazing Grace.

It is the church song that even the pagan world knows and loves.

It has been recorded more than just about any other song, with some estimates saying there are up to 3,000 different recorded versions of the tune.

It is performed around 10 million times annually.

It has been sung by Presidents at funerals.

It was sung at Woodstock.

It’ll be sung somewhere this Sunday morning—guaranteed.

But tucked away within the song there is a line you likely know, but maybe you have missed.

It is a line that gives us a biographical snapshot of the Christian life:

Tis grace has brought me safe thus far

And grace will lead me home.

Amazing Grace

These two lines tells the story of the Christian life.

It begins with grace.

It is sustained by grace.

It is seen to its completion by grace.

Born again by grace.

Living and dying by grace.

And one day resurrecting by grace.

Grace is God’s unmerited love and favor.

If you are spiritually alive—it is because of this grace.

If you are spiritually dead—you need this grace.

And this grace will be our focus tonight.

Tonight we are focusing on how God purposes His grace in our salvation.

The Baptist Faith and Message—Article 5

Election is the gracious purpose of God, according to which He regenerates, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners. It is consistent with the free agency of man, and comprehends all the means in connection with the end. It is the glorious display of God’s sovereign goodness, and is infinitely wise, holy, and unchangeable. It excludes boasting and promotes humility.

All true believers endure to the end. Those whom God has accepted in Christ, and sanctified by His Spirit, will never fall away from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end. Believers may fall into sin through neglect and temptation, whereby they grieve the Spirit, impair their graces and comforts, and bring reproach on the cause of Christ and temporal judgments on themselves; yet they shall be kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.

The Baptist Faith and Message, Article V

At the end of the day, when we are speaking about how God saves us—we are talking about His grace.

We are talking about His purposes being carried for His glory, by His grace, in His people.

What this means is that tonight we will talk about our salvation in the widest possible sense.

We will track along with Article V and go from Gods’ gracious purpose in electing His people to salvation in eternity past to God’s preservation of His people unto death and glory.

In order to do this, tonight we will observe:

1. God’s gracious purpose in electing His people.

2. God’s gracious purpose in electing and man’s free agency.

3. God’s gracious purpose in preserving His people.

Electing His People

1. God’s gracious purpose in electing His people.

Election Defined

Salvation does not begin in the initiative of man, but in the eternal purposes of God.

It is not by our efforts under the sun, but the gracious plan of God who rules over all.

Election is a central doctrine of the Bible.

I’ll give you a few definitions:

Election is the gracious purpose of God, according to which He regenerates, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners.

The Baptist Faith and Message, Article V

In election, God freely and unconditionally chose certain individuals for salvation to the praise of his grace, not because of any merit or faith he saw in them via his foreknowledge.

Joel Beeke

Election indeed is first in order of divine acting—God chooses before we believe.

William Gurnall

For the sake of clarity, let me summarize what these brothers and the Faith and Message are saying:

Election is God’s gracious purpose to choose people to be born again, to be set apart, to be made more holy in life and ultimately to be glorified in death.

And this choice of God to save a people for Himself is one that He made before time.

Ephesians 1:3–4 ESV

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.

Election in the OT

Now this makes many uncomfortable.

They feel like it is strange that God would choose before time to save some and not others.

It unsettles them to think that God would elect some to salvation according to His own purposes.

They may even argue that it seems unfair and unbiblical.

But in reality, election is all over the pages of Scripture, beginning with the Old Testament.

I will give two examples.

Deuteronomy 7

One of them is what convinced me of the doctrine of election when I was in college.

I want to read to you the beginning and the middle of Deuteronomy 7.

Deuteronomy 7:1–2 ESV

“When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction. You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them.

So Israel will go into the land and destroy the people groups inhabiting it.

They are to devote these nations to complete destruction.

God is going to judge these nations through Israel’s sword.

Judgment is coming for the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.

Now we go down a handful of verses and God is explaining why He chose Israel.

Deuteronomy 7:7–8 ESV

It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

God chose Israel for deliverance because of what? His love for them.

So in Deuteronomy 7, God is electing or choosing to love Israel.

And in turn, He is electing or choosing to judge those outside of Israel.

Deliverance for the elected. Judgment for those not elect.

There it is—election in your Old Testament.

Romans 9

The second example comes to us from the New Testament, where Paul is explaining election using another Old Testament example.

Romans 9:9–12 ESV

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.”

What Paul is referring to is the reality that God chose to continue the physical line of Israel through Jacob and not Esau.

He elected to do this.

It was according to His purpose of election.

And so—before Jacob or Esau did anything—God elected to bring about a Redeemer and a redeemed people through Jacob’s line.

Paul uses this example to make the point that spiritual life comes about by the election of God—not by human choice or effort.

God will have mercy on whom He has mercy. God will have compassion on whom He has compassion.

He has made His divine decree before light even existed.

And if you read the text, Paul anticipates how you might respond to such an idea:

Romans 9:14 ESV

What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means!

Romans 9:19–23 ESV

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—

Election in the NT

Romans 9 is not the only place we see election laid out in the New Testament.

John 6:44 ESV

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

You can’t come to Jesus unless the Father draws you.

Just another way to explain election.

Similarly...

John 6:65 ESV

And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”

You can’t come to Christ unless the Father grants it.

The Father must decree it.

You don’t come to Jesus outside of the choice of God.

Acts 13:48 ESV

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.

So who believed? As many as were appointed (PAST TENSE) to eternal life.

No one believed that was not elected to do so.

Titus 1:1 ESV

Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness,

Paul writes for the sake of the faith of those whom God has elected to be saved.

Matthew 24:30–31 ESV

Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Who will be saved at the second coming of the son of Man?

Those that are his elect.

Those who are not elect unto salvation will not be gathered by the Lord’s angels at the trumpet call.

For the sake of time, I have chosen just five cross references for you.

That is a lot. More than I typically give you to show Scriptural proof of a doctrine.

But I wanted to give a lot so that we could see that this is not some abstract doctrine hiding in the caves of Scripture.

This is an obvious, can’t be missed, doctrine that is all over the pages of God’s Word.

Old Testament and New Testament show us God’s electing love for His people.

God’s Humbling Grace

And of course, this is God’s grace to us.

How undeserving we are to have been on God’s mind in eternity past?

How thoroughly scandalous that God not only elected a people for salvation, but elected that His Son would die for them?

How amazing is this grace that sets the sinner apart as one chosen to taste and revel in the love of God?

God’s grace in election should cause us to marvel.

But it doesn’t always.

In fact, this doctrine often results in haughtiness.

Some people say… “Guffaw...you don’t know about election?”

They have wrapped their minds around the doctrine and that has given them a sense of superiority over Christians who have not yet thought this doctrine through or recognized it on the pages of the Bible.

And of course, this haughty arrogance over the doctrine of election actually exposes that they haven’t wrapped their minds around the doctrine at all—otherwise they wouldn’t be proud!

Other people say… “Are you serious? You believe God chose who would be saved? That’s not my God.”

Which is also a very haughty way to respond.

I would kindly ask anyone having that reaction this question— “Are you sure?”

Are you sure that isn’t your God?

Because if God has revealed Himself in the Bible as an electing God—it doesn’t really matter if you like it.

That is who He is.

To proudly stiffen your neck and say, “God won’t be like this on my watch...” is to also get election all wrong.

Instead, the doctrine of election should produce humility in us.

Not haughtiness, but humility.

In fact, I remember the first time I heard about the doctrine of election from my pastor at Old Powhatan Baptist Church in 2006—Jeff Beard.

When Jeff first explained the doctrine to me, I was upset. I had the second reaction. I looked at Jeff and said, “That’s not my God.”

I remember one of the questions I asked Jeff was, “Why did God choose you and not someone else?”

Jeff looked at me and said, “I can’t figure that out either. So I just keep falling down on my face and thanking God for His grace.”

The doctrine of election should leave us all face down before God, thanking Him over and over for what He has provided for us in the grace of His electing, loving purposes.

Man’s Free Agency

But all that stated—I recognize that many will still have questions.

And many of those questions are revolving around the issue of— “If God makes the choice of who will be saved, are we really choosing to follow Christ?”

In essence, it is the question of — “Do humans really have free agency?” or free will?

2. God’s gracious purpose in electing and man’s free agency.

Free Agency and Man’s Fallen Nature

The Baptist Faith and Message affirms election, but it also affirms that God’s purpose of grace in election is “consistent with the free agency of man.”

This is no different than our original Baptist framers in the 17th century.

God has endued the will of man with that natural liberty and power of acting upon choice, that it is neither forced, nor by any necessity of nature determined to do good or evil.

The 1689 Second London Baptist Confession, Chapter 9, Paragraph 1

Human beings have free agency.

They have a will that has a natural, divinely-given freedom.

They make real choices.

But here is the rub—The will of man is tied to the nature of man.

This is the way it is with all species, right?

Why does the lion tear apart the hyena?

Because it is his nature.

So the lion’s will is tied to the lion’s nature.

The problem with our nature is that it is fallen and depraved.

Here is how Jesus speaks of the human heart in its natural state, apart from a work of God:

Matthew 15:19 ESV

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

So the nature of man is not to be good, but to think evil things, to take life, to transgress the holiest institutions, to seek pleasure in the body regardless of morality, to steal, to lie and to say things that are damaging, but not true.

That is Jesus’ diagnosis of the fallen, dead nature of humanity.

Ephesians 2:1–3 ESV

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

By nature—children of wrath.

There it is.

So then, let me ask you—what is a human who is a child of wrath going to do with their will?

Will they choose to repent of sin and believe God?

Of course not!

That is not their spiritual instinct.

Instead, the spiritual instinct is to follow the course of the world, follow Satan and to carry out the desires of the body and the mind.

In other words—a depraved soul will never choose Christ of their own free will.

They will also use their agency for the satisfaction of their own flesh.

This will even be their end game in good deeds and the pursuit of morality.

Therefore, if a human will freely love God with their will, their nature must be changed.

And this is what God chooses to do in election.

He chooses the soul in eternity past.

He gives spiritual life to the soul, opening their eyes to see the glory of who Christ is.

He justifies the soul.

He sanctifies the soul.

He glorifies the soul.

And it is all by His grace from beginning to end.

So then, there are many who may say that those who believe in election deny humanity free will.

Absolutely not.

Instead, the belief in election is simply the admission that the human will freely will choose a godless life and a godless eternity unless God changes their nature with the principle of His grace.

Sovereignty and Agency

Now, that being said, it can still be hard to understand the relationship between God’s electing decree and the will of man.

I am not sure that in heaven we shall be able to know where the free agency of man and the sovereignty of God meet, but both are great truths.

Charles Spurgeon

To understand how every choice of God and every choice of every person who has ever lived work together will still melt our little gobstopper-sized brains.

Maybe even on the other side of eternity we still won’t understand all of the brilliant planning within the secret heart of God.

But what we can do is cry out in praise to the Lord, nonetheless.

This is what Paul does at the end of his most pronounced section of writing on the doctrine of election.

He cries out:

Romans 11:33 ESV

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

Truly this is the case.

None of what we have spoken of is hard for God.

It may stretch our minds, but it doesn’t stretch His at all.

But at the end of the day, it isn’t our job to understand every thread of the fabric of His plan.

We don’t have to be able to explain all the ways that God’s choice and man’s choice work together.

Instead, we just need to understand God’s overall purpose:

It is to display His sovereign goodness.

God is not bound to elect anyone to salvation.

God is not morally obliged to save at all.

But He has chosen to.

And He has chosen to save specific people.

And every time the Lord takes a child of wrath and makes them a child of God according to His choice in eternity past, His sovereign goodness is on display.

It is particularly on display in the love of His Son who has lived, died, resurrected and ascended.

For all that God has elected us to comes to us in Jesus.

For whatever we may grasp or not grasp—we rejoice in God’s purpose to show us His goodness in His grace—from election to glory.

Which brings us to our final observation for the night.

We have seen God’s purpose in election and how election works with man’s free agency.

But we close by looking at the 2nd paragraph of Article 5.

Preserving His People

3. God’s gracious purpose in preserving His people.

The Faith and Message tells us that, “All true believers endure to the end.”

If God has accepted you in Christ...

...Sanctified you by His Spirit...

...you will never fall away from the state of grace God has brought you into.

You will be preserved to the end.

This is wonderful news, but we need to know what it means and what it does not mean.

What It Means

The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints states that God preserves his elect, redeemed and called people. Thus, by the grace of preservation, they will never fully or finally fall away from him but will persevere in faith and obedience.

Joel Beeke

What God begins, God will finish.

If He imparts His grace to you and it takes root and by His hand it starts to grow and transform you, God is not going to give up on the project.

He is unchangeable in His purposes and He will not be forgetful or frustrated in His efforts to bring your salvation to completion on the final day.

Philippians 1:6 ESV

And 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.

If you are truly saved today, you will be truly saved on the day of your death and eventually on the Day of Judgment.

We are sure of this because we are sure of the character and power of God.

This doesn’t mean that believers won’t sin.

Of course we will still sin and we will have to bring our sin to God and confess it.

In fact, we might say that sometimes believers, through a backsliding of the heart, can work themselves into a place where it looks like there is nothing but a little bruised reed of faith.

A little smoldering wick of grace.

Isaiah 42:3 ESV

a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.

God does not despise the small faith or the weak grace that may be in a Christian.

In fact, through His discipline and kindness, He will strength the reed and fan the flame of the wick and bring the Christian back to a place of zeal and spiritual health.

We can be confident for every true believer that nothing will separate them from the love of God.

Romans 8:38–39 ESV

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Not death.

Not life.

Not angels.

Not rulers.

Not things now.

Not things then.

No power.

No height.

No depth.

No created thing.

None of this will separate us from God’s love in God’s Son if we truly believe.

Now sometimes, there are people who leave and they don’t come back.

They abandon faith, the church and seemingly God, altogether.

1 John 2:19 ESV

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.

John is saying that people like that left because they were never truly a part of the church to begin with.

Their lack of care for the church shows they aren’t in it.

Their lack of care for God shows they don’t know Him.

This brings us to what the 2nd paragraph of Article V is not saying.

What It Does Not Mean

Sometimes people will read the 2nd paragraph of our confession and they will think that it is the old doctrine of “once saved, always saved” that they are reading about.

But that is NOT what the confession is teaching.

“Once saved, always saved,” is a Western evangelical doctrine that essentially says, “If you profess to be a Christian—no matter what else happens in life—you are going to heaven.”

The problem with this doctrine is that it is not true and it has instilled false assurances about salvation to many people.

I most often run into this at funerals.

I will get called on to do a funeral for someone I don’t know.

I will ask if they were a person of faith.

Quite often I will get something like this...

“Well Daddy wasn’t much for church. He didn’t like the preaching. But he did get baptized when he was 13 after he went to a youth conference. Never went back after he was a teenager, but the date of his baptism is written in his Bible, so we know he was a Christian.”

So—your dad didn’t like church and didn’t like the preaching of God’s Word and nothing in his life for 60 years said anything about devotion to Jesus. But because he walked an aisle and prayed a prayer and got wet back in 1964...

That is the sort of false assurance that is brought about by the “once saved, always saved,” doctrine.

I agree that those who are once saved will always be saved.

The disagreement comes with what it means to be saved.

To understand that the Baptist Faith and Message is not teaching this harmful doctrine, let me draw our attention to a parable of Christ.

In Matthew 13, Jesus tells about the parable of the soils.

In one case, seed falls on a hard path and birds eat it up before it can take root.

In a second case, seed falls on rocky soil. It takes root immediately, but then burns up when heat comes.

In a third case, seed falls on thorny soil. It grows, but ultimately gets choked out by the thorns.

And in a final, fourth case, the seed falls on good soil and fruit is produced—some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold, some a hundredfold.

Here is how Jesus explains this parable to His disciples:

Matthew 13:18–23 ESV

“Hear then the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while, and when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. As for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty.”

Here is what Jesus’ parable tells us.

Some people will hear God’s Word and due to them being blinded by Satan, it will have no effect.

But there are others who will receive God’s Word in the sense that they have some sort of affection for it and mental assent to its claims.

But their faith doesn’t last.

Either it burns up because they decide they don’t want to suffer for Jesus.

Or it is choked out because they decide they don’t want to deny themselves the world’s pleasure.

Whether it is suffering or sin, the bottom line is that the person walks away, showing they never had faith to begin with.

Only the fourth soil represents the true Christian.

These are those whom God saves and ultimately brings about fruit from their lives.

If we run around teaching, “Once saved, always saved,” in the sense that as long as you had a profession of faith, it doesn’t matter how we live, we are doing great damage to the rocky soil and thorny ground hearer of God’s Word.

We are telling those who have abandoned Christ because of suffering or sin, that they are good to go with God, even though the lack of fruit in their lives says otherwise.

The fact that repentance is bearing no fruit in them would suggest they are not a part of the church, and they never have been—even if they were raised in it.

So the final paragraph of Article V in the BFM is not there to promote some sort of false idea that a profession of faith is a ticket into heaven, no matter what happens after that.

Instead, what we are confessing is that those whom are truly accepted in Christ by faith, will never fall away from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end.

Though they may sin and struggle...

...Though they even may bring reproach on the name of Christ...

...Yet they are kept by the power of God unto salvation.

Consistent with Election

And this doctrine—the perseverance of the saints—is totally consistent with election.

What God began in eternity past, He will see into eternity future.

That which He elected unto salvation in His pre-creation glory, He will make holy for his presence in His New Earth glory.

John 10:27–28 ESV

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

My sheep hear my voice...

The sheep whom He has elected from before the foundation of the world...

No one will snatch them out of my hand...

Those whom are elected and called will be kept.

No one steals from Jesus.

No one steals from God.

His purpose of grace for His children is a golden thread that is woven throughout time and all its events.

And the end goal of it is the display of His goodness for the glory of His name.

This should bring you great encouragement.

Before you even existed, God has His hands on you.

And He doesn’t intend to take them off.

The Potter will hold the the clay He has elected to shape by His grace for ages and ages and ages.

The grace that has brought us safe thus far, will indeed lead us home.