The Election of Grace

Idaho City, Idaho (RLR 2022)

Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace (Romans 11:5).

In religion, man does something to get something from God. It’s the standard belief of every religious idea outside Christianity. Biblical Christianity (there is no other kind or type without it being a different religion), understands God as the Giver, and we the receivers.

In Romans 11, Paul explained how national Israel fit into God’s plan of salvation in the past (chapter 9), the present (chapter 10), and in the future (chapter 11). He writes that God cannot abandon national Israel, and He’s always had a remnant, a small group of spiritually believing and faithful servants even among the Jewish people. Even in his day, God’s Jewish remnant was according to the election of grace, not chosen because they were faithful, but God is faithful. Not chosen because they were holy, but God is holy. Not chosen because they loved God, but because He loved first. Chosen by grace alone – apart from any worth, works, or warrant in them. There is nothing so good in you as to warrant God’s love, and nothing so wicked as to bring Him to ever stop loving you. 

In verse 7 Paul added that for millennia Israel had sought after God’s salvation from sin but didn’t obtain or receive it. Israel believed God’s favor could be bought by their religious works. But prayer, sacrifices, fasting, religious symbols and rituals, and the like cannot earn God’s favor.

God’s grace and man’s works are not the same. God’s grace comes before man’s works. Since salvation is by God’s grace alone from eternity, our works don’t cause God to save us. Our works can’t add to God’s work of saving sinners. Our works will never keep us in God’s good grace. The only work God the Father cares about in you is the work of Jesus at Calvary! Jesus finished the work of salvation and sat down at the right hand of the Father in glory and majesty. If your sins are forever forgiven and you today bound for Heaven, it’s only because of what Paul wrote in Colossians 3:3: You died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Christ’s work for you is the only one that matters from here to eternity!

Click here to listen to this sermon, The Comfort of Grace.

Serve the Lord with Fear

Generals kissing the hand of Morocco’s King Mohammed VI

Now therefore, be wise, O kings; be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him (Psalm 2:10-12).

The leaders of the world today are in rebellion against God. If you doubt this, consider if Jesus should walk into the presidential palace, chambers of parliament or congress, governor’s or mayor’s office where you live. Would the leaders of your nation, state, province, or city surrender to Him? Of course not! We are perfectly satisfied to rule without Him.

God instructs leaders to both be wise and instructed. The wise and learned will respond to God’s King by serving Him with fear of His majesty and rejoicing with trembling at His holiness and greatness. In the ancient world, a man showed this grateful, loving, respectful, submission by kissing his king’s hand. This symbol is called obeisance, and practiced still.

Today, the rulers of the world refuse to recognize the sovereignty of God. It’s why He promises them utter and final destruction. But kings, and presidents, and governors are not the only ones in danger of His wrath. You may also be among them. Our leaders resist His lordship; do you?

The hand of the King which is extended to you, was once pierced by nails that pinned Him upon a Roman cross. He was affixed there for sinners, sinners like you, my readers. One day this King is going to come back literally and physically to the earth to claim what He created and rightly belongs to Him. When King Jesus comes, He will judge everyone according to their deeds and intentions and motive and words, even the secret ones only you know about. It will be a day of great weeping and gnashing of teeth as people receive His justice and wrath against them and their sins. Will you be one of these?

But today is the day of God’s grace. The Saviour Jesus promises to forgive, reconcile, and redeem all those who come to Him; these He will never cast out. Those who find refuge in Him by grace alone, through faith alone, will be blessed.

The Parable of Gratitude

While walking through the forest, a man marveled for the first time at the beauty of nature and became overwhelmed by the power, majesty, and existence of God. He carved a cross, a memorial to the moment from a perfect branch he found on the wooded floor.

Lost in the wonder of his Creator, the man was unaware of the darkness and chill of night crowding in. He hacked off the end of the thick branch to use as firewood. As the night wore on and the frigid air crept closer, the man chopped off more and more of the branch to fuel his fire. When dawn pierced the morning freeze, he discovered there was very little left of his carved tribute.

Openly troubled by his situation, he took the final chunk of wood and cooked a meager breakfast.

After throwing the last bit of wood into the fire, the man remembered his failed vow to honor the Lord. Ashamed, he pulled from the fire the remainder of the wood, scraped off the charred spots, and carved a miniature cross. He laid the tiny marker in a grassy field, but it was too small to see through the brush.

It’s easy to say God is first, but often the reality of our choices shouts otherwise. When we give God the leftovers after we’ve taken care of our needs, there is usually nothing left for Him. Instead of an offering, we leave Him little more than a tip.

All we own and are, comes from Him and belongs to Him because He made and sustains us. He has the right to everything He created.

So what does He ask of us in return? That we acknowledge Him, His goodness and graciousness, and return to Him the thanks and honor He deserves.

The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein. For He founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the waters (Psalm 24:1-2).

Lifting the Veil on Sanctification

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Exodus 32-34 details Moses’ response to Israel’s worship of the golden calf. In their false worship, Israel broke the Ten Commandments they’d twice previously agreed to obey. In his anger at their sin, Moses slammed the two tablets of stone to the ground, illustrating Israel’s disobedience.

One result of Israel’s sin was God’s refusal to dwell in the midst of His people. Instead He’d remain far off (Exodus 33:7). Sin separated God and man.

From outside the camp, Moses would enter the tabernacle of meeting to hear from God and then bring God’s message to the people. Moses became the mediator between God and man.

Whenever Moses met with God, his face shone like a lamp, reflecting the majesty and glory of God. The glow terrified the people because it revealed God’s perfect holiness and the darkness of their sin-corrupted hearts. After delivering God’s word, Moses would veil his face – not to hide the glory of God – but to hide the fact that the glory quickly faded from his own face (Exodus 34:30; 2 Corinthians 3:13). Moses’ veil protected the people from God’s judgment but also kept them from being transformed by God’s glory.

In Second Corinthians 3, Paul uses the shining face of Moses as an illustration. Many people only see the Bible as a series of stories, God’s wrath, commandments impossible to comprehend or comply with, and difficult sayings. Sin veils the heart from seeing Jesus in Scripture, the primary reason Scripture exists!

But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away (2 Corinthians 3:16). When we follow where the Scripture leads – which is always to Jesus – we see Him in all His glory and can’t but help to love, adore, obey, and worship Him alone.

Now we all, we who trust in Jesus by faith, have the veil of separation removed and we find ourselves looking in a mirror. The shadows are replaced by a crystal clear revelation of Jesus. As we lovingly gaze at His image revealed in Scripture, something remarkable happens to us: the Bible becomes ever clearer and we find our own image being transformed bit by bit, from glory to glory, into Christ’s moral likeness and character. This is sanctification!

Jesus the Nazarene

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14).

The more we ponder it, the more mysterious and marvelous the Incarnation becomes; the fact that the eternal Second Person of the Godhead became fully human and yet remained fully God.

The Son of God took on mortal human flesh and became subject to all the same things you and I are subject to. He sneezed and coughed. He got hungry and had to relieve Himself. He got tired and slept and then cried when death touched a friend. He got headaches and an upset stomach. Every morning He got up, washed His face, combed His hair, then put His hand to the hammer in Joseph’s carpentry shop.

As a Man, Jesus got sick and was subject to death. The eternal Son of God could die – and He did! Three days later, what was mortal was swallowed up by immortality in the resurrection.

Today that same resurrected Jesus sits at the right hand of God the Father in Heaven. As you read these words, the incarnate God is praying in the flesh for you (Romans 8:34).

How could God become Man? How can He, right now, be in the flesh? Yet this is exactly what the Bible says. In all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in the things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted (Hebrews 2:17-18).

We are left to wonder at the mystery of His Majesty and stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene.