Kennystix's podcast
God's Word Has Not Fallen
The following message is by Pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God is available at www.desiringgod.org. Gracious Father, I thank you for your goodness and your faithfulness and your love. Thank you for that glorious word from the Apostle Paul. He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things? Every blessing, every hill, every green, every blue, every yellow, every relationship, every material gift was bought for us by the blood of Jesus if we are his child. And so I thank you for Christ. And I pray now that what is taught from Romans 9 would be faithful to what you intended. And I pray that it would produce greater hope for ourselves and for the lost that we love. I pray that it would produce greater praise for your glorious grace. I pray that it would produce greater stability and firmness of hope and faith in times of great uncertainty on earth and upheaval and dread and suffering. And so I pray that it would release mercy in our lives to be a kind of people that the world doesn't simply regard as having right-wing views on morality, which we do. But rather would view as people laying down their lives for suffering people at home and in the most pained places in the world. So let Romans 9 to 11 produce a kind of people, Lord, that would cause others to worship you. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. All right, little review here. We can get this on the screen. There we go. Three things out of Romans 9, 1 to 5. The first, Paul says it indirectly, is that his kinsmen are accursed and cut off from Christ in spite of all these privileges. It's just shocking. And it seems to undermine our confidence in Romans 8 because the God who made the promises of Romans 8 is the God who made all the promises to Israel and now Israel as the Messiah comes is accursed and cut off from Christ. Paul wishes he could take their place. And so the second thing we saw was that there's this great sorrow and unceasing anguish in Paul's heart. So whatever else you draw away from the doctrine of unconditional election, which is what we'll see in the next paragraph, it does not take away tears, it doesn't take away anguish, it doesn't take away longing, it doesn't take away evangelism, it doesn't take away prayer. We'll see how instead it puts warrant under those. That's the second thing we saw. And then the third thing we saw is that the greatest benefit the Jews ever had and now that we have is that the Christ, the Messiah who came is God overall blessed forever. So Jesus Christ is God. Now we're into the next paragraph where Paul is going to try his best in these next three chapters to answer the objection of God's Word having fallen. So he begins the main unit, but it is not as though the Word of God has failed. That's what he puts over against the apparent failure of verses one to five. If the Jewish people, God's chosen, God's elect people are perishing and cut off from Christ, then the Word of God has fallen right wrong. But it is not as though the Word of God has failed and then begins an argument and there are three in these three chapters. And the first one is not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel. So if someone perishes and comes to everlasting ruin, they're not part of Israel. So he's got two kinds of Israel going on here. We all know that they are flesh Israel, they're physical Israel, they're ethnic Israel, but they're not this other Israel. Not all who are descended flesh, ethnic Israel are, and you can put in the Word here true or spiritual or something. He's got another Israel in mind and then he says it again, not all who are children of Abraham or not all are children of Abraham just because they are his offspring. So you've got this spiritual reality here, children of Abraham, which is different from just being a physical offspring. So his answer to whether God's Word has fallen in the lostness of many Israelites is his Word hasn't fallen because his Word of covenant promise wasn't theirs. They aren't part of the group within Israel for whom the covenant was valid. So immediately he's bringing up this issue of selectivity or a division or an election in Israel physically. There's something going on here and now he's going to begin to unpack it and defend it with the Isaac Ishmael illustration and then the Jacob Esau illustration. So let's just review that. He quotes Genesis 21.12 here in verse 7, "Through Isaac shall your offspring be named, not Ishmael. You made an attempt by the flesh to get a heir of the covenant. You succeeded. I don't go that way. This child will be my doing, my choice." So verse 9, he quotes Genesis 17.21, "About this time next year I will return. I will return." You won't get a Hagar here. "I will do it with 90-year-old Sarah, 100-year-old Abraham, a barren woman, and against all expectation, against all human possibility, I will create out of stones children to Abraham." Remember what Jesus said or John the Baptist said, "Do not presume to say we are children of Abraham." Remember, when they came to John the Baptist who told you to preach judgment to us, then he said, "Do not presume to say we are the children of Abraham. God can raise up from stones children to Abraham." In fact, he always raises up from the impossible children to Abraham. It's the only way children to Abraham come into being. Those who are born in the flesh are just flesh. Those who are born in the spirit are spirit. What the flesh produces doesn't make one a child of God. So that was the Isaac illustration of the principle of election that's coming here now. We began briefly last night and we stay with it now, the Jacob and Esau illustration. Not only so, but also Rebecca. When Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born, had done nothing either good or bad in order that God's purpose of election. So now it comes explicit what's going on here. Might continue not because of works, but because of his call, or literally because of the one who calls, she was told the older will serve the younger as it is written in Malachi 1, 3, Jacob, I loved Esau, I hated. Now this illustration of Jacob and Esau is intended, like I said last night to remove a loophole that seemed to exist in the argument from Isaac and Ishmael. If the point was God brings about children of Abraham or spiritual Israel, elect without regard to human distinctives, then you've got a problem with the Jacob, I mean the Isaac Ishmael illustration because these two boys had two different mothers and one was a slave woman and a Gentile Hagar and one was Sarah and a Jewish person who wanted to argue that his Jewishness is the ground of his election which say of course Ishmael isn't chosen. His mother was a Gentile and there's this loophole out of which they could have squeezed. So this illustration now is brought in as closing the loophole and it closes it by having one mother and one father, you've got Rebecca, she conceived children, they happen to be in the same woman at the same time, they're twins and it stresses explicitly by one man and that's a contrast to by two women with Isaac and Ishmael, Hagar and Sarah. So here you have one man, one woman, one womb, twins and so that loophole is now closed. If you've ever had two Jewish boys they were Jacob and Esau as far as the flesh is concerned. And then he adds to pile up the absence of distinction, they were not yet born when this word was spoken. That's the next thing he says, they weren't yet born. He didn't wait to see what they'd be like as they lived before he chooses one of them. And then he goes further and he says they hadn't done anything good or bad. So it's not anything they do, it's not any faith that they have. He's explicitly removing every possible distinction between Jacob and Esau. This is where the word unconditional election comes from. This is the way Paul talks. He's removing every possible claim of Jacob to say, you chose me because this is my distinction and superiority over Esau. He's removing every possible claim that Jacob could have to say, I am the child of promise because no, you were in the womb, you were a twin, you hadn't either of you done anything good or evil, and then it was said against all expectation because you expect the younger to serve the older, he reverses that so that it will be increasingly obvious that it wasn't because of getting one little part of his body out of the womb first that he was chosen. Not even that. It was said the older will serve the younger. Now the reason he gives for acting this way in verse 11 is he does it this way in order that is the purpose, God's purpose of election might continue, might stand, might not, might not fail. This is literally fall and this is literally stand. In order that the purpose of election might stand, continue, be unshakable, never be called into question for the beneficiaries of Romans 8, not because of works, but because of him who calls. That's why he did it the way he did it. He aims that his covenant people, his chosen ones, not come into existence by their own distinctives or works, now here's something very interesting at this point in verse 11. If you've been reading with Paul, Romans 1 to 8, and you're coming to this now, anytime you hear the word, not of works, you've got a paradigm in your mind and it's but of faith. You're not justified by works, you're justified by faith. That's kind of the not but that you expect when you hear the word works, but that is not what you get here and it's very intentional that it's not what you get here because those little boys did not have faith to qualify them to be chosen one over the other in the womb. He rivets all attention on God, not because of works and then literally it's not because of His call but because of Him who calls. So the bottom line is the aim of doing it this way is so that your salvation, your perseverance in faith, your inheritance of all the promises, your enduring suffering without losing hope will be rooted not in your faith ultimately and not in your qualifications ultimately and not in your willpower ultimately but in God ultimately. That's the point. He's taking us down to the very bottom of our hope, which is God and God alone underneath faith, underneath human willing, which is what we're going to see clearly in the next paragraph. I'm going to come back in a minute and give you three reasons why the doctrine, four reasons why, the doctrine of unconditional election with all the problems I know that it creates and all the tears it can bring and all the restlings is nevertheless glorious good news. And I do want to maybe pause here and say I know a lot of people come to hear me talk because they agree with these things already and I can tell who you are by kind of the way you laugh and the kind of expectations you have for what I'm going to say. And I know that that's not the case with everybody in this room. And that some of you perhaps are hearing this kind of thing for the first time and it rocks you back on your heels. It's not that it's not the God you got to know in Sunday school. It doesn't feel like John 3 16 and there's a trembling and he really can't be right. If there were another teacher up there, they'd say something very different. That kind of thing and I just want you to know I give the people in my church, there's several thousand folks and I'm pretty plain and open about what I see in the Bible about these things and I know hundreds of them aren't there yet. And I just give a lot of room for process on this because of how long it took me and the pain involved. I'm not going to be disappointed if you leave after these five hours together unsure yet that I've been a faithful teacher on this. You need to read some other folks maybe and you need to take your time because I can remember in the fall of 1968 at Fuller Seminary arriving there with a strong non-reformed orientation and walking up to one of my teachers after he preached on the sovereignty of God over my will and holding my pen in front of his nose. This was Jim Morgan, my systematic theology teacher who died of stomach cancer a year later. So I grieved over this. I loved him and I came to love him but I held this in front of his nose. I held this in front of his nose and I said I dropped it. That's the way I was doing theology in his systematic class. Did not arrive on me easy and as Romans 9 and 8 I really didn't learn my theology out of theology books. I learned it with exegesis classes on Romans and Galatians and the Sermon on the Mount and 1 Corinthians and I would go home. I was emotional anyway because I was hair of my heels in love with Noel and she was back at Wheaton and we were married in three months and I wanted her to be there. And I would go home and I would put my face in my hands and weep afternoon after afternoon because it felt like my world was coming down and it was, it had to be rebuilt. Changes of world view and of mega views of God that are different are not easy to make. If you make them easy you might not understand what you are doing. So that's a parenthesis to free some of you to just relax and say is he going to expect me to just agree with what he's saying right off the bat here and I've got it on an overhead just to be as close to the word as I can. We come back together about eleven o'clock and you have a chance to ask me any question you want and so note it in the margin and we'll have a chance to do some interaction. Where was I? Verse 13 that's the hard one that feels so jarring. He says as it is written. So now he knows that he's saying something that can be very jarring and very different from what they think. He wants to undergird it with scripture and so he quotes Malachi. As it is written, Jacob I loved, Esau I hated. Now how in the world does that help Paul here? Well let's see I've got that on an overhead. Let's go there. You can look at your Bible if you want but here it is on the overhead. How does Malachi one to five help him make his point with these jarring words? Jacob I loved Esau I hated because remember he's saying it in the context of they hadn't been born yet and hadn't done anything good or evil. So here's Malachi one one to five in the ESV. The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. I have loved you says the Lord but you say how have you loved us that they're doubting his love? Now watch carefully how he makes a case for his love for them. It's very much like what we just read in Romans 9, 6 to 13. You say how have you loved us and then God says is not Esau Jacob's brother declares the Lord yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated. What is the point of saying is not Esau Jacob's brother? Do you see why Paul was led to this text? The logic is exactly the same as verses 11 to 13 of Romans 9. They hadn't been born. They hadn't done anything good or evil. Their brothers in the womb their twins. There's no warrant in themselves for choosing the one over the other. Isn't that the point of is not Esau Jacob's brother? Can't Esau have as much claim on my love as you? Yes and I didn't give it to him. I gave it to you. You know one of the reasons that I think we need to know and teach the doctrine of election is because evidently God wants us to know what it means to be loved. That we do not know if we don't understand unconditional election. He's explaining to them what it means to be loved here and he does it by saying Esau had an equal claim on my love with you and I gave it to you, not him, tremble. I freely loved you, it wasn't anything in you, evidence Esau and as long as the doctrine of election is not known in the church, people don't know fully, fully what it is to be loved. In fact, I have the strong suspicion in America that millions of Christians don't know what it is to be loved by God at all who think they are loved by God. Because we live in such a self-esteeming, self-asserting, self-aggrandizing nation that we translate being loved into being made much of and songs are written in and sermons are preached and books are written in order to confirm that view of being loved, being made much of. And I've devoted the last several years of my life trying to clarify and write about what it means to be loved and I want to write a book maybe next year called God is the gospel in which I argue being loved by God is not being made much of by God. It's being enabled by God at great cost to himself to enjoy making much of him. And most people don't feel that's what love is toward them. They translate it immediately into if I'm the end point, if I am being made much of I feel loved. But if I must find my joy in making much of him, I'm not sure that's love. I don't feel that is love and I don't think such a person is a Christian. I don't think they're born again yet. I think their native fallen ego exaltation has been baptized and surrounded with Christian language and justified. We need to preach a God-centeredness so that we can help people discover if they've been born again or not because you can be unbelievably happy in the church and not be born again if the whole church is man centered and confirming all of your unregenerate love of self. But if there has to be this profound, deep change in the heart whereby I don't become the end of God's love but I become drawn into God's love for his glory so that my joy is a joy in him and that's what his love to me is enabling me to joy in him instead of making much of me. He makes much of himself and enables me to see that's my treasure. Then I will know I've been born of God. He really doesn't take very much spiritual power at all to create a big church out of self-loving people. If you just keep telling them how great they are and how God exists to show them how great they are. And it takes some work of God to take the natural fallenness and natural self-exaltation of us sinners and cause us to fall down and render all glory to God and actually begin to find our pleasure in God being made much of, not me being made much of. I think the deepest sinful tendency of the human soul is not sex and not violence but the love of praise is for me anyway. My biggest battle, I'd give up sex in a minute if I could have the whole world praise me if I was an unbeliever. Just be praised, praised, praised everywhere, put on TV, put on radio, put everywhere and just great, great, you're great, you're great man. That's way deeply satisfying, better than the quick thrills of sex. The ego thing is a lot deeper problem for us than these physical things that we're so concerned about. So it looks like the logic of Malachi I is very much like the logic of Romans I is not Esau Jacob's brother declares the Lord yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated. Now what does that mean Esau I have hated and there are two or three important things to see here so we get out of our minds anything that we might bring to this and let the text have it say I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to Jackals. So the first thing hate means is God opposes him and judges him, lays waste his hill country. If Edom says Edom is another name for Esau that's the people that came from him. If Edom says we are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins the Lord of Host says they may rebuild but I will tear down. So God is against him, God is against him that's what hate means and they will be called the wicked country and the people with whom the Lord is angry forever that's what hate means but now here is something really really important they will be called the wicked country. The final destiny of Jacob and Esau is not unconditional. Mark this I'm arguing for unconditional election and I'll continue right on through verses 14 and 18 I am not arguing for unconditional salvation and judgment at the end of the age. What becomes of you whether heaven or hell is contingent upon meeting conditions faith if you would go to heaven and unbelief in wickedness if you would go to hell. No one is judged by God except for his sin in the end which means that is very crucial that we see Esau is being judged for his wickedness. This is remarkable. Our final judgment or acquittal is not unconditional only the unbelieving and the wicked perish in hell and only the believing go to heaven. Now what does that mean about hate and love for Jacob and Esau before they are born? He drives me to this I see the meaning of hate here in both a passive and an active sense. Passively it means that as God in his mind contemplates Jacob and Esau he passes over Esau and gives him up to become wicked. Gives him up to become wicked. I'm trying to find language that doesn't say things the Bible doesn't say like God makes him wicked. I don't think we should talk that way. There is a way by which Esau becomes wicked in which God is not wicked but he gives him up to become wicked and then in response to that wickedness brings judgment ruin upon him such that Jacob is really accountable and really I'm sorry Esau is really accountable really responsible for his wickedness and really blameworthy so that at the judgment day Esau will not be able to look in God's face and say I'm not blameworthy I'm not wicked I don't deserve this you didn't choose me that will not be a possibility and Jacob on the other hand God embraces, chooses, sets his favor upon and thus renders certain that he will come out of his sinfulness into faith and be forgiven and have eternal life. Let me try a couple of statements to you that have helped me get it all together so that you can feel the tension God chooses who will believe and undeservingly be saved from sin and God chooses who will rebel and deservingly be lost because of sin. The second one blows your, blows your circuits I'll say it again God chooses who will rebel and deservingly and there's the, there's the circuit blower deservingly be lost because of sin I can make no sense out of the Bible that is I cannot let all of the Bible have its say all of it not just my favorite reform text and try to ignore all the other texts that you may ask me about in the in the question time God is not willing that any should perish God desires all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth why would you die of Israel Jerusalem Jerusalem killing the prophets how often I've gathered you like a chick I know all these I know all these texts and in order for me to let all of scripture have its say I have to say God in looking at Jacob and Esau is able to render certain that one goes out of his fallenness into faith and one goes into his fallenness and wickedness and deserved judgment deserved judgment and I will now bring in the word mystery and I'll come back to it often because I do not I will not be able to answer all of your questions at eleven o'clock and so I'll say in advance one of the central mysteries of scripture is how God governs who believes and who doesn't in such a way that we are accountable for our hearts desires and our moral choices and say that again to me it might not be exaggerating to say the central mystery but it is one of the central mysteries of the Bible how God it's the how question how God governs who believes and who doesn't while in no way lessening the accountability and the responsibility of all of us to believe responsibility for our hearts desires and for our moral choices I do not know how he does it now Jonathan Edwards labored as hard as anybody to explain how he did it and I do commend Jonathan Edwards book the freedom of the will it's helpful whether it provides a foolproof explanation I'm not sure and my lack of surety is why I'm simply willing here to state mystery rather than take you there to Edwards and explain his solution frankly I think that pastorally we must help people live with mystery even if Edwards is absolutely totally right you have to have such labor of mental exercise to follow him ninety percent of human beings won't follow him they won't go there they have to have something a way to live with these things that's different than that and I think we simply have to say if you read a scripture over here that seems utterly out of sync with one over here you need to live with the tension in the mystery just just in preaching I try to be faithful to the text I'm on when I came to the church twenty four years ago I did a conference in Omaha for the Baptist General Conference and I preached from Hebrews ten and six and when I was done a guy came up to me and he said now you're new here in this conference and you're going to have to be careful with your Arminianism and I felt kind of that was a compliment because I had been faithful enough to what was written there that in his ears it sounded not reformed but Arminian and much of the Bible does sound that way there's no point denying the question is do those texts that sound that way undermine this kind of text what keeps them from being undermining of one another in my mind is that the solution that many people seek for harmony that winds up undermining these kinds of texts is not found in the Bible it's this free will understood as ultimate human self-determination that is the meaning of free will when it's used to deny unconditional election or irresistible grace it is I have the power of ultimate self determination ultimate is the key word there that doesn't exist in the universe except in God no one has ultimate self-determination except God that is no one has ultimate free will except God if that's the definition of free will that you use but almost everyone in America would use that definition of free will against the teachings of Romans 9 and I would ask you to show me one verse in the Bible where it says humans have ultimate self determination that is a presupposition a philosophical presupposition brought to text like whosoever will let him come see free will I said no I don't see it simply says whosoever will and I say whosoever will let him come that's the way I preach that's the way I end my sermons why would you die will to believe come why halt you between two opinions if God is God serve him if bail is bail serve him choose you this day whom you will serve our of decision amen amen that's the way we should preach call people but when they come weeping bow and you ask a born again person why did you come and not your brother if they say I was smarter I was more spiritual I had a better parentage I they don't get it that's not why they came that's not why they chose that's not why they will the Lord opened Lydia's heart to give heed to the gospel no one comes to me unless the father drags him that is the word el cuo means dragged they drug him before the authorities they drug the woman taken in sin it nobody comes unless the father draws him so here's the mystery here's the tension any election before they were born or had done anything good or evil God passes over freely the one and chooses the other and in the passing over he does no injustice he saw he owes him nothing he saw really moves into wickedness really becomes a wicked person and then really is judged and that's called hate I think in its passive passing over and it's later judgment and it throws my election and here it just baffles me how any reform person or anybody criticizing a reform person could ever draw the conclusion that the reform doctrine of election produces a kind of sense of clickishness or aren't we the chosen view something they're probably not even saved if they talk like that because the whole point was to destroy that attitude that was the whole point in fact here my here my my four reasons for why the doctrine of unconditional election that I think is is so clear here in Romans nine is good news in order that God's purpose of election don't want you to hear that as a theological word taken out of a textbook but as a biblical word taken out of Romans nine eleven in order that God's purpose of election might continue not because of anything they did before they were born but because of himself and his own sovereign call why is that good news here's four reasons the first one's going to surprise you and somebody asked me last night to tell the story of my son Abraham's return because you have some of you have have held vigil with me for for five years to rescue my my Abraham and God did my first reason for loving the doctrine of unconditional election is that as I sit in my study or as I deal with somebody who comes the front after the service nobody on planet earth no matter how wicked vile corrupt can look at me and use their moral immoral distinctives to rule themselves out of the possibility of election nobody can dare elevate their immorality to the point of excluding them from election that is possible because I can look them in the eye and say how dare you say to me I've been too evil I can't be included how dare you elevate your distinctives as a an adult or on a philander and a thief and a murderer as though God can't choose that before you were born or had done anything good or able it opens the door of hope to the worst of sinners it does just the opposite of what so many people think it does well I guess I'm not chosen how do you know you may not bring one single argument from any of your experience against your election not one because none of it counts none of it counts God did not take any of that into account when he chose you or not one thing will give evidence of your being elect do you see the cross as sufficient beautiful glorious and cast yourself on it for mercy if you do you're chosen it's a glorious freedom in evangelism to go to the prostitute places to go to gay bars to go to the gangs to the worst of the worst and get in their face with the doctrine of election you think that anything you have done could coerce God not to choose you who do you think you are elevating your sin and lifestyle to the point where it becomes the ultimate determination of where you wind up God will decide where you wind up so when I prayed for my son and saw the four years of sin that he went away into at age 19 I took great heart from the doctrine of the election and especially its partner the doctrine of irresistible grace irresistible grace does not mean you can't resist grace of course you can you do every day Stephen came to the end of his speech you remember and said you stiffneck people you always resist the Holy Spirit Paul says don't quench the Holy Spirit you can resist God you can quench the Holy Spirit as long as he lets you and when he chooses like a father playing with a little eight year old daughter and she's got him pinned on the floor when he chooses he can flip her and if God has suffered you to resist him for 20 or 40 or 80 years if he has suffered you to resist him he can flip you anytime he wants that's what we mean by irresistible grace we don't mean you can't resist we just mean anytime God wants he can overcome your resistance which he did for every person in this room was born again he overcame your resistance he turned a stone into a willing sweet humble accepting broken hearted believer and that's what he did to Abraham in a van in Pensacola, Florida about a year and a half ago he told me came home for a few days and my son always loved me always respected me always said daddy your theology is probably right just I'm just not included I don't I don't feel it I'm just not there and nothing is more scary for dad than here a statement like that from a very intelligent nineteen twenty year old he came home and and some young people at the church got in his face praise God for guts of young people this guy and say so what are you doing with your life and quoted him some verses and he left he got on the plane went back to Pensacola living in a van making rock music and and and he was just riveted in his head some of these verses and he couldn't remember what they were and so he got a Bible and he knew that one of them came from Romans and not knowing where it was he started reading at the beginning of the book and he called me he called me the next day and his first no no it was first an email and then a phone call the email said I am saved he went to a library to get an email and then we talked on the phone the next day and he said by the time I got to chapter 10 it was done just it was done it God broke through he came home he moved home he's he swung the pendulum in his life has swung probably too far the other direction he won't touch rock music with a ten foot pole he doesn't even like any contemporary worship music which I love he only wants to sing hymns it's a very interesting development in his life he he he found a wonderful Christian girl that I married them last September they're going to have a baby in November I think and and I'm I'm just ready to die and go to heaven this really is a sweet season in my life after four years of more tears than I ever shed in 50 years before so anyway a way a wavering away fairing son did not draw me away from my reformed understanding of Scripture but confirmed it because I knew I would sit with him at Pizza Hut every time he came home he would always go out to lunch with me I'd look him right in the eye anything happening spiritually Abraham he would just look at me and say really and I would feel so helpless so helpless you just want to shake him and say you don't you know what you're doing your life if you get involved with a girl and get her pregnant or get married to an unbeliefer your whole life is going to be right come on Abraham don't you see and this absolute blankness of nothing getting through I mean if I believe that free will had the last say how would I pray I mean some people come come to those of us who love the sovereignty of God and say well why pray if God predestines things I say if I didn't believe that God had the right and the authority to break into my son's life and overcome his rebellion what would I ask God to do toy with him I break in overcome his rebellion remove his resistance open his eyes create a new creature that's the way I prayed so God was good and I just encourage those of you all of you to pray that way for your lost loved ones here's that was reason number one for why I love oh I didn't even look what's he oh you said go to 10 40 okay yikes we're not making any progress at I'll do that I'll do that and I'll finish them in four minutes and number two for why we may love as good news the doctrine of unconditional election it gets for God all the praise which is what it's supposed to do here's the text that shows that he chose us in him this is Ephesians 146 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 through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will you see that again that's just verse 11 of chapter 9 according to the purpose of his will and here it is to the praise of the glory of his grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved this is why he did it to the praise of the glory of his grace if God did not choose us before the foundation of the world if he did not predestin us for adoption in Christ Jesus if he didn't do it all according to the purpose of his will not according to the purpose of our will ultimately then he would not be praised for the glory of his grace grace is I was dead and he made me alive or the third reason it removes all human boasting which is just the flip side consider your calling brothers not many of you were wise according to the worldly standards not many were powerful not many of noble birth but God chose what is foolish in other words he he goes against what we expect so often he chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong God chose what is low and despised in the world even things that are not to bring to nothing things that are so that here it is no human being might boast in the presence of God you come to heaven and stand there and God says how did you get here it's right to answer I put my faith in Jesus Christ alone as my only hope and the forgiveness of all my sins and the fulfillment of all your promises that's a right answer and if he asked the next question how did you come to believe in him when so many didn't I hope you do not boast in anything in yourself at that point I hope that you do not retreat to the philosophical self exaltation or self determination motif and say well God you invested me with ultimate self determination and I used mine wisely shrewdly smartly unlike my sister unlike my brother that is not the right answer the right answer to how come you put your faith in me is thank you thank you that's the right answer by the grace of God I am what I am it says in Romans 6 17 thanks be to God that you who are one slaves of sin have become obedient to the example of teaching thanks be to God that you who are one slaves have become obedient from the heart under the the type of teaching that I've given you so removing all boasting therefore as it is written let the one who boast boast in the Lord that's who should get the glory and the last reason is that now this is the main one that Paul's concerned with in chapter 9 now the security of Romans 8 nothing can separate you from the love of God as God's elect that security is rooted not in your distinctives but ultimately at the bottom it's rooted in God alone not on the basis of works but on the basis of the one who calls let's stop there we'll take at least a 20 minute break I'll let Mark decide that and then we'll come back together and we'll we'll do question and answer and then we'll pick it up here and try to make more progress tonight but let me pray as we take the break father give give wisdom and guidance give teachability give humility give a sense of brokenness a sense of patience give a sense of right biblical balance and proportion to these things I know they can seem to be out of balance when we're focusing on one one chapter so Lord you come and bring all the other texts to bear so that we become a fully biblical people doesn't matter whether we use the word reformed or a minion or Calvinistic or whatever what matters is that we're biblically faithful biblically balanced biblically driven people so put yourself at the center now and guide our conversations in these next hours I pray in Jesus name amen thank you for listening to this message by John Piper pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis Minnesota feel free to make copies of this message to give to others but please do not charge for those copies or 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John Piper | God’s unconditional election is a precious doctrine to for all his people. Nothing can override God’s love when he sets his sights on you.