Sermon Transcript
Today’s reading will be from Romans 8 through 10, select verses. 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. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.
There are instances in this world where 2 things that appear to be contradictory or even mutually exclusive are somehow both true. Well, one well-known example of that is light. Our engineers could explain this better than I could. Physics 2 was quite some time ago for me, but physics probably hasn’t changed. Light, if you didn’t know, travels as both particles and as a wave, which are very different.
As a particle, light is comparable to like a grain of sand or a bullet. It has a specific location at a given time and it moves along a trajectory. Point A, it’s here. At point B, it’s there. If it impacts something at point B, it transfers energy in little packets like a billiard ball hitting something.
That’s if it’s a particle. But light is also a wave, which is not the same. First, as a wave, it doesn’t travel like a bullet. It has an oscillation to it. It’s a wavelength and a frequency, and bullets don’t travel like this, right?
And it’s not just in one place. A wave is spread out. Waves can interfere with one another. You can think about how waves interact with each other in the ocean when they collide with something. It’s not the same as when a billiard ball hits something.
Waves and particles are very different. We’d assume it It can’t be both. And yet light is both. It’s demonstrated over and over again through many experiments, and it’s not as if sometimes light is a wave and sometimes it’s a particle. It’s always a wave and it’s always a particle.
Measure it this way, it looks like that. Measure it that way, it looks a different way. Both are true, perplexingly. There are even experiments where a single photon can create an interference pattern like a wave does. And then the scientists argue about that.
They can’t really decide what that means, which shows that there’s more to the story than they currently realize. In fact, anytime when 2 seemingly contradictory things are both true but we don’t see how they could both be true, it means there’s more to the story than we currently realize. And so it is with our topic today. Our topic is one that has divided Christians for quite some time. People can get heated, upset, leave churches.
Oftentimes, like, you know, in other disagreements we have, the, the argument can escalate because people talk past each other, they overemphasize their side, they don’t take into account what the other person is saying. This, uh, this topic is wrought with peril. So we will try to be helpful this morning, not divisive. I am, I am aware that we have people in our congregation who are staunchly on different sides, and to say up front, wherever you are, you are welcome here. Odds are, whatever your position is, other people have something to learn from you.
And you have something to learn from other people. So, what’s the topic? As promised from last week, if you were here, today we’re taking a deeper dive on the questions of God’s sovereignty and our responsibility, specifically how they relate to whether we are included or excluded from the promises of God. The questions are, does God choose us or do we choose him? Or is it somehow both?
Do we have free will or does God decide everything? Is Christianity fatalism? You know, we’re on a set path, we don’t really have a will of our own. Or if it’s not fatalism, is it like the end of Back to the Future 3? You know, your future isn’t written yet, it’s up to you.
This is a big topic. You see why people argue about it. Now here’s the interesting thing, at least for me. The Bible acts like this isn’t a problem. On the one hand, it makes very clear God is in charge.
He will accomplish his purposes. He predestines all things, really, even every roll of the dice. That’s on one side. On the other hand, the Bible says we are responsible for our choices. It says both, sometimes in the same verse.
Proverbs 16:9 says it like this: The heart of a man plans his way, but the Lord establishes the steps. So, uh, who determines where the man will go? Is it the man or is it the Lord? The Bible’s answer is yes.
Oh great, well that’s super helpful. I’m glad we cleared that up. It’s like light, right? It’s both a particle and a wave. Now to dive deeper into this, we’re looking at mostly the same section of Romans that we studied last week.
If you haven’t been with us the past several months, we’ve been studying the book of Romans, which is really all about the gospel, what Jesus has done for us. That he has removed our shame and guilt. He’s given us an immense status and worth. He’s secured our future. Over and over again, we’ve heard just incredible benefit package that God has provided through Christ’s work on our behalf.
We give thanks for it. It’s our hope. It’s our security. It’s our meaning in life. It changes everything, at least for some of us.
You know, obviously not everyone receives what Jesus offers. Not so— not everyone— not everybody’s on board with Jesus. So not everyone has their shame and guilt removed. Not everyone has this brilliantly bright future. Not everyone’s saved, right?
And the question people argue about is why.
On the one hand, if God is really in charge of everything then isn’t he in charge of people’s salvation? Wouldn’t it be up to him? And we certainly act like he at least has something to do with it. Even the most people— even the people most staunchly on the, you know, free will side of the equation, they still act like God can intervene in people’s hearts because they pray for the lost to find the Lord and receive his goodness. And so we must think God can do something to draw people to himself.
I mean, if we believed God was totally hands-off and just let people do whatever their own wills determined, then praying for people’s salvation would be meaningless because God would say, well, I don’t have anything to do with that. But we do pray, and we find those prayers in Scripture. Even in our chapters here of Romans, Paul prays, Romans 10:1, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them, meaning Israel, is that they may be saved. Paul prays for his fellow countrymen to embrace Jesus, thinking God could do something to make it happen. Similarly, Jesus prayed for people’s salvation on the cross.
Luke 23, you know, famous— famously, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do, which means Jesus is asking God to forgive people who have decided to go the total opposite way because they’re crucifying him. Jesus asked God to save people who aren’t interested in being saved whatsoever. Jesus asked God to override their wills. Forgive them, they know not what they do. That’s how he prays.
So we might think, oh, okay, so God just decides then. That’s simple. People have nothing to do with it. Well, not so fast. Because on the other hand, the Bible instructs people to believe, repent.
Deuteronomy 30, I’ve set before you today life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life. Joshua 24, choose this day whom you will serve. 2 Peter and Acts 2, Repent, Peter says, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. People are told, choose, take action, indicating they must have agency.
And we’re back to the same contradiction. God really is in charge, and people really are responsible for their decisions. The heart of the man plans his way, but the Lord establishes the steps. So today we’re looking at a few consecutive chapters from the book of Romans where Paul highlights both God’s sovereignty in salvation and our responsibility to receive it. Paul stresses both, and just like in other places in the Bible, he acts like it’s not a problem.
So we’re going to look at sovereignty first And we will make the case as strongly as Paul does.
And if you are someone who is more inclined to argue for free will, you may squirm a little. But then after that, we will make the case for human responsibility as strongly as Paul does. And if you are someone who is more inclined to, you know, let go and let God, Jesus take the wheel, I’m a leaf floating in the river, whatever God wants to happen will happen, If that’s you, when we talk about responsibility, you may squirm a little. And then lastly, we’ll discuss what all of this looks like if it’s together. So sovereignty, responsibility, and then how they come together.
So first, God’s sovereignty. God chooses us apart from any desire or effort of our own. I warned you we would make the case as strongly as Paul does. The first person who ever really taught me anything significantly or significant about the Bible beyond like believe in Jesus and do the right thing, you know, the first guy who taught me anything more than that was the guy who discipled me when I was in college. And still to this day, he taught me more about the Bible than any other singular person ever has.
He forced Scripture into my head. I love him. I owe him much. He’s in heaven now. And he taught me, okay, yes, God chooses us.
You really can’t get around that concept in Scripture. You know, Ephesians 1, God chose us in him before the foundation of the world. He predestined us for adoption to himself. So this guy said, oh, yes, God chooses us, but, but, but, God chooses us because he knows that we would choose him. He even had an illustration.
He said it’s like, uh, it’s like if you have a bunch of different kind of metals laying on a table and you’re going to pass a magnet over the table. You know before you pass the magnet over the table which metals will respond to the magnet. So you choose those, right? You choose iron, you don’t choose aluminum. You know, your choice of which metal is based on what you know the metal will do.
And he said that’s how God chooses us, which he taught from places like in our verses, Romans 8:29, those whom God foreknew, he also predestined, chose to be conformed to the image of his Son. So this guy said it starts with foreknowledge. You know, God foreknows that we will choose him and then he chooses us just like we foreknow that iron will respond to the magnet and then we choose iron. That’s what I was taught. No one had ever explained it to me differently so that’s what I believed for many years.
But as much as I love that guy, that can’t be how it works. Can’t be. For at least 2 categories of reasons. First, we have a problem with omniscience. Because if we say God knew something before he knew something else, you know, he knew our choice and then he decided to choose us.
He made his choice based on our choice. Our choice him preceded his choice of us in his mind. Okay, that creates a problem with omniscience because being omniscient, God has always known everything. God has never had a new thought. He’s never learned anything because he’s always known everything.
So he can’t know something before he knows something else. If he did, It would mean that He has learned something and therefore He would cease to be omniscient. So, us choosing Him or Him choosing us, both of those have existed in His mind since eternity past. One can’t precede the other in His mind. That is one problem.
More importantly, there are scriptural problems. Paul makes very clear that it is not our desire or choice of God that makes God choose us. First, from, from our text, Romans 9:16 says, it does not therefore depend on human desire or effort but on God’s mercy. It does not depend on human desire or effort. It does depend on God’s mercy.
So Paul is specifically preventing us from the trap of thinking, oh, God knew that we would desire him, then he chose us. You know, he knew how iron reacts to the magnet, so he chose iron. It can’t be that, because that would mean it does depend on human desire. It’s something about us, something about what we want that triggers God’s choice. It’s something about the iron that gets the iron chosen.
And Paul says it’s not that. It does not depend on human desire or effort. It depends on God’s mercy. The reason we’re in is not us. The reason we are in is God.
If it were something about us, that’s a subtle type of works-based salvation rather than mercy. Think of it like this: one day, you know, you’ll be in heaven talking to other people, and maybe you’ll ask each other, how’d you get in?
Why did God forgive you, bring you home? I mean, what’s the answer to that question? Why were you included? More specifically, we’ll say, like, why are you in and someone else is out? What are you going to say?
Will you say, well, I prayed the right prayer. I guess the other guy didn’t. I realized I needed God and I sought him out. The other guy must not have. I was humble enough to know that I needed salvation.
So I ask for it. The other guy must not have asked for it. Do you hear that? You’re saying it was your desire, your effort, your decisions. You made a better choice than the other guy.
It’s you, and that’s the wrong answer. That’s a subtle type of earning your way in. The right answer, the only answer for why we can be in heaven is that God brought us there. It’s His mercy. It is not our desire or effort.
Just God had mercy. We’re saved by grace and grace alone. It’s what Jesus did for us. That’s why we’re in.
Scripture actually describes the sequence of our salvation, not as we choose God and God chooses us. It describes it the other way around. It says God chooses us, therefore we choose him. Jesus said it like this in John 6: No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. Jesus says the only reason we would come to God is because God has done something in us that draws us to him.
So in our experience, you know, like we live in time, we’re not outside of time like God, in the sequence of events in our lives, okay, God first acts upon us before we make any decision to him or for him. And we do make a decision, we’ll talk about that shortly, but we wouldn’t choose him unless he had first chosen us. So when we ask, even when we ask for forgiveness and we need to, or even when we believe in Jesus and we need to, why do we do that? It’s not because we’re smarter or more humble than other people who don’t. It’s because God has worked in us in a way to make it possible.
Even our repentance and belief, those are gifts that God gives us. Our salvation is of him. It’s nothing that we can take credit for. No one comes to the Father unless the Father who sent me draws him. So back to foreknowledge.
If foreknowledge doesn’t mean that God would choose us because He knew that we would choose Him because Scripture specifically describes it the other way around. If that’s not what foreknowledge means, what does it mean? Those God foreknew, He predestined. What did He know that was then followed by the choosing? Well, in Scripture, to know someone, that indicates a depth of intimacy.
From the first pages of the Bible, Adam knew Eve and they had a child. That means more than Adam knew about Eve. It means he had committed himself in love to her at least, right? So for God to foreknow us, it means that he has set his affection on us. He has bound his heart to us.
Foreknowing, some people explain, it’s more like foreloving. Those God— those who God loved, He chose, He predestined, and at some point in time they are justified, He will glorify. Foreknowledge is meant to be an immense comfort to us because it means God has set His heart on us since pre-existent eternity. And if you feel drawn to Him, it means He is already working in you He has chosen you. He isn’t going to let you go, even though there’s steps we need to take along the way, and we’ll talk about those.
If you feel attracted to him, then he’s going to get you home.
So let me ask you, when we talk about Jesus in here every week— we talk about Jesus— when that happens, does your heart lift? Do you feel drawn to him? Let me describe Jesus right now and you pay attention to your heart.
Jesus is the faithful prince who comes to rescue his unfaithful bride from the clutches of darkness that she chose. Jesus is the judge who loves the guilty so much that he pays the penalty the guilty owe so that the guilty go free.
Jesus is the King who is exiled in place of the people so that the people can return.
Jesus is the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep who keep wandering away. Jesus is the Physician who heals us by taking the sickness into himself. Jesus is the Bread of Heaven, the true manna, who satisfies us by being broken Jesus is the inextinguishable light that overcomes all darkness by entering into it. Jesus is the final victor who wins by surrendering. Jesus is the leader who rules the entire universe by kneeling.
Jesus is the strong lion who overpowers every enemy by being a lamb.
Jesus is the richest one who embraced the lowest poverty so that the poor can inherit everything. Jesus is the door that opens for us because he was shut out. Jesus is the high priest who offers himself as the sacrifice for the sins of the people. Jesus is the friend who stays close when everyone else leaves, and he loves those even who betray him. Jesus is the resurrection that defeats death by dying.
Does your heart lift when you hear of him?
It wouldn’t do that unless God was already drawing you to himself. It means from preexistent eternity, God has set his affection on you. He chose you. He will justify you. He will remove your shame and guilt.
And one day He will glorify you. He will bring you along with the renewal of the entire earth into an incorruptible future. You’re His. You’re safe.
You don’t come to Him because of you. You come to Him because God has already extended His mercy to you and is drawing you to Himself.
So our next question is, if it is God who chooses us apart from anything in us choosing him, then, well, then there’s nothing for us to do, right? If God just does all of it, then I don’t have any part to play, right? I’m like a robot. God programmed me however he wanted without me having any say in the matter, right? Wrong.
Totally wrong. We 100% have a real responsibility. Our responsibility is believe Jesus, confess Jesus, preach Jesus. So, yes, God first woos us, but we absolutely must respond. We must accept what He has done for us by faith.
We must willingly embrace Him. So, when we hear of Jesus and our hearts lift and we feel drawn to Him, that’s more of a beginning than an end. We must, as Paul says, this is Romans 10:9, if you declare with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. So, if you’ve never responded to the sense that you are drawn to God, if you’ve never confessed Jesus is Lord, if you’ve never said, I want him, I need him, I believe he is who he says he is, If you’ve never done that, you must do it, and it is your choice to do it.
Like we said at the beginning of our time today, Peter tells the crowds in Acts, repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. You must respond to God’s drawing of you, and the moment you respond, that is the moment, you know, you confess that you believe that you’re saved, that you’re justified, that’s the moment that your guilt is taken away. Even though you are loved, chosen, called from the foundation of the world, all of that has always been true, but in the sequence of your life, you still carry the penalty for your sins that you owe until you believe that Jesus removed that penalty through his work on the cross. Receiving Jesus is a little like falling in love. You know, you met someone, there’s fireworks, You feel drawn to this person.
The whole thing feels more like it’s happening to you than you creating it in yourself. Okay. But also, you must choose to participate in it. You know, you must tell the other person, I’m in. I want to be with you, or something more romantic.
And at some point, if you want to seal the deal in lifelong commitment, Right, you gotta walk the aisle. Those, those decisions, those are decisions that you must make. It’s, you know, being with someone is more than, oh, I have warm feelings, I feel compelled to this person. If you want to be with them, at some point you have to step into the thing that is happening. Same with Jesus.
If, I mean, if you’re captivated by Jesus if your heart lifts when you hear of him, you must step into that. So if you have never publicly declared that Jesus is Lord, if you’ve never told others that you’re giving your life to him, if you’ve never said you believe his work on the cross was enough to erase your guilt and give you a future, if you’ve never professed that, it’s time for you to do it. Tell God, tell others, tell us. If you’ve never been baptized, we’ll baptize you. Those things are our responsibility, our choice, we need to do them.
And Paul actually doesn’t stop there, he gives us another responsibility, he brings up evangelism. He says for other people to receive Jesus, they must be told about him. It’s Romans 10 beginning in verse 14, how can they believe in the one whom whom they have not heard? How can they hear without someone preaching to them? How can they preach unless they are sent?
If we don’t tell them, they won’t know, and the rhetorical point is they won’t be saved. We might make the error, you know, if it’s up to God who saves people, then it’s up to God to tell them about Jesus. We don’t need to evangelize. We don’t need to send missionaries. God will take care of all of that.
That is an error. There are actually periods of church history where people made that mistake. They overskewed to God’s sovereignty and they didn’t send missionaries because they thought, oh, God will just save whoever He wants. And you kind of have to wonder, were they reading the same Bible as we read? Because Jesus— I mean, Paul makes it really clear.
If people aren’t told, they won’t know. They won’t call on the name of the Lord because they’ve never heard of Him. So they must be told. For Paul, there is no contradiction between God is in charge of people’s salvation and if we don’t tell them, they won’t be saved. He does not see a contradiction.
It’s in the same letter that he wrote. It’s in chapters that are right next to each other. So Paul is saying God not only chooses whom he will rescue, he also chooses the means by which they will be rescued. He has ordained who will have salvation, and he has ordained how they will come to salvation, which is through us telling them. So we must tell them.
We must believe ourselves, and we must tell others. Those are our responsibilities. Okay, now lastly, how this comes together. Um, trust God deeply and act boldly. Admittedly, there are intellectual difficulties trying to understand how sovereignty and responsibility can both be true.
It’s difficult, just like there are intellectual difficulties understanding how light can be both particles and a wave. It is a problem in our brains, but it is not a problem in our experience. Because we need both. In regard to light, we need light to be a wave because it’s the wave properties that allow us to see different colors. Sunsets are beautiful because light is a wave.
On the other hand, we need light to be particles. That’s how solar panels and digital cameras work. They rely on detecting photons or absorbing photons. We need light to be both, whether we can make complete sense out of it or not. Similarly, we need God’s sovereignty and our responsibility, because if God is sovereign, then we can rest.
It means the pressure is off. We don’t have to carry the weight of saving ourselves. We don’t have to carry the weight of trying to fix anyone else. The pressure’s off. God is at work even in the most impossible situations that seem like they would overwhelm us.
You know, we know who’s in charge. In the storms of life, we know the Lord of the storm. Nothing will thwart his plans. He’s gonna pull all of this mess that we see all around it, he’s gonna pull all of it together into something good. We need that stability in order to live.
Life would be crushing if no one was in charge. If there was no captain of the ship and it was just tossing about in the waves and who knows what’s gonna happen. That would be crushing. We need God to be sovereign. At the same time though, we need responsibility so that we don’t fall into the, you know, numbness or apathy of fatalists.
We don’t say, well, nothing I do matters because it’s all predetermined anyway. Why try? I’m just a robot. Love isn’t even real because I was just programmed to do it. No, that’s crushing in its own way.
Our souls need purpose and mission. We need to contribute in a way that really matters. So we need both. We can’t drop sovereignty. We can’t drop responsibility.
If we do, then we lose something. Augustine said long ago, pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you. Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.
If you hold those together, then we live with confidence because God’s got it. At the same time, we live with urgency because what we do matters. We can live boldly, we can take huge risks, but at the same time, we don’t stress about if we’re going to ruin anything. Sovereignty and responsibility together, it’s so centering, grounding, freeing all at once. We’re released from the weight of life.
But we’re motivated to live one. We’re energized without being burdened. Functionally, it’s what we need, whether our brains can comprehend it or not. So let me just ask you just 3 simple questions as we close. One, have you believed?
Not just felt something, have you actually decided Jesus is Lord, I’m giving my life to him. Have you decided that? If not, do that today. 2, have you publicly professed him? Have you made it known to others through your words, through your baptism, that you belong to him?
Have you done that? If not, it’s time. And 3, are you going? Are you telling people what you found in Jesus? If you don’t know what to say, it can be as simple as saying, I get— something’s happening in my heart.
I don’t really know exactly what, but I think you should come to church with me. Just say that if you don’t know what else to say. Believe Jesus, confess Jesus, preach Jesus, step into that, and then watch what he does. Let’s pray.
Father, there are many things about you that are perplexing, but everything about you is something that we need. So, I pray that we would lean into who you are and how you run the world, Lord. Help us lean in both to your sovereignty and our responsibility. May both be functional in our lives. May we not drop one for the other.
May we rest in your good plan and also be motivated to work toward it ourselves. Hold those together as we seek to follow Jesus. It’s in his name we pray. Amen.
