The Doctrine Of Election - Part 1

Let's pray together. Lord, I want to do your people good tonight in speaking pastorally concerning the doctrine of election. And so, I know that you want this a thousand times more than I do, since you love this people. And therefore, I submit myself to your Spirit and ask that He would fill me for the good of this people. Guard me from error, or pride, or anger, or resentment, or self-pity, or presumption, or any sin I don't even think to mention right now, or any wrong attitude. Keep me close, I pray, to your Word. And grant that we would get our minds into conformity with yours, that we would be able to think the apostles' thoughts after them, and then live them in wisdom, and in humility, and compassion, and tenderness, and meekness, and forgiveness, and forbearance, and boldness, and courage for Christ's sake. So come now, I pray, and help me and all of us that we would hear your Word. You be our teacher, I pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. As I've pondered the pastoral implications of preaching through heavy-duty doctrinal passages like Romans 11, it occurred to me, and I hope this is of the Lord, I believe it is, that it would be good every now and then, maybe every three or four weeks, to pause in our relentless progress of exposition, to pause, step back, ask some wider pastoral questions about what we've been learning, and just talk application for one whole sermon. So that's one of these. The doctrine that presses us to do this is the doctrine of unconditional election. We saw it in Romans 8. We saw it in Romans 9. We are now seeing it starkly in Romans 11, 1 to 10. Let me state the doctrine, and then back up, and just ask some pastorally relevant questions, I think. I have a lift in my head that I'm not going to touch on tonight, so if yours doesn't get asked, we'll come back to this, because we will be hitting this again and again for weeks to come. And so we'll do this again in a few weeks, and I'll try not to be impractical on the other weeks. The doctrine of election is the doctrine, the teaching of the Bible, that God chooses before the foundation of the world. I get that little phrase from Ephesians 1, 4. Before the foundation of the world, who will be rescued from sin through faith, and thus undeservingly be saved, and who will not be rescued from continuing in their rebellion, and therefore who will deservingly perish. All those words are chosen very carefully, and I should stop and preach a whole sermon on it, because I know some of that went right over your head. But I will say it again, just in case. It's the doctrine that before the foundation of the world, God chooses who will come to faith, and thus be rescued out of sin, and thus undeservingly be saved, and who will not be rescued out of their ongoing rebellion against God, and thus will deservingly perish. I don't want to play any games here. I believe God is absolutely sovereign. That is, the ultimate explanation for everything that happens in the world is the wise, just, gracious will of God. I don't want to say it any more clear than that, because I can't say it any more clear than that. We are not God. I take that to mean, my will never is the final, ultimate, decisive explanation of anything that happens in the world. God is God. I am not. I don't control Him. I don't manipulate Him. I don't provide the final, decisive explanation for anything in the world. Dear Bethlehem, the leaders have thought long and hard about this, and I'll try to say it in a way that all of them would get their hands around it and say, Amen, we hold fast here at Bethlehem, I'm talking about the leaders, you can be very much in process on all these things as a member, and that's really good, and we're happy about that, but eldership are not to be in process on these things. That's how you get to be an elder. You get over the process, and you settle on some truths together, and you live them, and you love people with them. The elders hold fast to a paradox. Not a contradiction, we believe, but a paradox. God is sovereign, absolutely, and all human beings are accountable for their universal guilt, and therefore only are punished deservingly if they are punished at all. Which means for those of us who trust Christ, that our salvation is owing to nothing, nothing in us as far as our election is concerned. We must believe, but we were elect long before we did that. Okay, that's the doctrine, and now four or five pastoral thoughts. Number one, not all things are good for us to know, and some things are good for us to know, even when we can't answer all the questions they raise. I get the first one from Deuteronomy 29:29, where Moses says, The secret things belong to the Lord, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever. So there are some things that are not good for us to know, and they are concealed, and they are God's. And then I said, Other things are good for us to know, and therefore are revealed to us, but we must be content to know in part. Sound familiar? Sound like a biblical text anywhere? I'll read it to you. 1 Corinthians 13:12 Now we see in a mirror dimly, then face to face. Now I know in part. Then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. Now I think this is especially true of the doctrine of election. The doctrine of election, probably more than any other doctrine, raises more questions than the Bible gives answers for. And I welcome humble questions, and so does the Bible, and so does God as we seek to be learners, humble, submissive learners. But oh, the danger that our questions ease over into accusations. That's the danger. And I would warn you against it. One of the implications for this is that here at Bethlehem, or anywhere else, we cannot know how knowing the doctrine of election is good for us totally. We can't know fully how it's good for us to know this truth.