Sovereignty of God

Introduction

As I begin talking about one of the most challenging passages in the New Testament, I want to lay out 8 presuppositions about salvation and election:

God lets us choose to reject him or receive him. Forced love isn’t love, it’s obligation.

God initiates salvation and we respond to the offer.

Being responsible is being response-able.

Being spiritually “dead” is taken too far by Calvinists. Unbelievers are spiritually dead the way Paul was dead to the world in Galatians 2:20.

Birth is mysterious and new birth is even more mysterious. We will not understand all the details regarding regeneration, but we can understand the essentials of salvation.

Deuteronomy 29:29 / The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

God wants everyone to be saved, so he invites everyone, but only few people accept his invitation (Matthew 22:1-14).

God picks certain people and families, but as salvation’s narrative evolves into a bigger and better covenant under the blood of Jesus, God elects the world but only some respond.

Election is both final and today. Just like we keep asking God for forgiveness even though he has already forgiven us for every sin we will ever do, it is possible that election is decided once by God as it unfolds for humanity in various times.

I. Sovereignty: God Chooses To Save Some

Paul Cannot Choose To Save Israel, Though He Would (Romans 9:1-13)

Israel is God’s chosen people and they are not saved. Either being chosen isn’t the same as being saved, or it is. If it is the same, that means Israel isn’t saved because they refused God, not because God didn’t pick them. But Paul’s point is that God did pick them. If anybody should be saved its them. They were set to succeed and that’s what makes eternal damnation so awful. They were so close!

SOVEREIGNTY: If Israel wasn’t saved by God choosing them, has God failed to save them?

No, because God didn’t make a promise to all of Israel. Dispensationalism cannot be true because God is not going to bless every physical descendant of Abraham, only those under the promise. God makes his promise to a select son, not the others. Later descendants of that select son will reject God and it is their fault for doing that.

Isaiah 59:1-2 / “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.”

2. Our Response to Not Being In Control (Romans 9:14-29)

What can’t we choose? For God to show mercy, or to accept his mercy? We definitely cannot force God to show mercy and Paul will plead with us later to accept God’s mercy.

God chooses who he will save. It is not based on good or bad things we do. There are no scales. Instead, God chooses people to adopt into his family. God is God and nobody can tell him what to do, accuse him of being evil, or make him save anyone. But God is merciful, so he saves some. Nobody has any merit because everyone has sinned and its kind for God to save anyone. Here’s the twist: God doesn’t choose all of Israel, but he chooses to save some people from every ethnicity.

Paul then mentions Esau. Esau was chosen, but he despised his birthright (Hebrews 12:14-17). Then God picked Jacob, while Esau despised his own birthright. Jacob didn’t deserve it because he was malicious to his brother. At some point, they were both chosen. But the Bible chooses emphasize God picking Jacob.

Salvation includes us but it depends on God. God is in charge of his work from start to finish and he initiates salvation and perfects us.

Since God elects people, would God be unjust to condemn people who were not picked? No, because the fact that God shows mercy to anyone is proof that God is just. God can save anyone he wants.

3. When God’s Decisions Don’t Make Sense (Romans 9:30-10:4)

II. Responsibility: Call On The Lord To Be Saved

We Are Able to Respond to to God’s Invitation (Romans 10:5-10)

Promise: God Will Not Reject You If You Call Out Him (Romans 10:11-21)

III. Sovereignty Revisited

God Picks People Who Reject Him (Romans 11:1-10)

Predestination Has A Hopeful Purpose (Romans 11:11-24)

Salvation is Mysterious (Romans 11:25-36)