Outline:

The Salvific Work of the Father: Decreeing Redemption – Part II

• Election is  part of God’s sovereign decree (Eph. 1:11 |Is. 46:9-11 | Matt. 10:29 | Prov. 16:33 | Ps. 139:16 | Dan. 4:34-35)
• We were predestined to be God’s own children [adoption] (Eph. 1:5)
• What is this adoption that we are predestined to?
• Israel was adopted as a nation as God’s first-born son (Ex. 4:22 | Hos. 11:1 | Rom. 9:4)
• We are all individually God’s children (2 Cor. 6:18)
• This wasn’t always our condition, we were born a child of wrath (Eph. 2:2-3)
• The privileges of adoption:
• We can call God our father (Rom. 8:15 | Matt. 6:9 | Mark 14:36)
• God, our father, will take care of our needs (Matt. 6:32-33)
• Gives us assurance of salvation (Rom. 8:15-16)
• We have an inheritance from our Father (Rom. 8:17)
• Responsibilities of adoption:
• Personal holiness (Phil. 2:15 | Eph. 5:8 | 2 Cor. 6:18-7:1)
• The mean of our adoption is through Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:5)
• Our election was according to the pleasure of God (Eph. 1:5 | Matt 11:25-27 | Luke 12:32)
• Election magnifies the grace of God (Eph. 1:6 | Luke 1:28)
• Dealing with objections to election (1 Tim. 2:4)

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Outline:

The Purpose of Parables:

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Related Sermons:

Trinitarian Salvation – The Father: Decreeing Salvation

This past Friday (May 18, 2012) Pastor Jay announced that it would be our last Friday night service. Listen to the announcement he gave and what we have planned for the future (the audio messes up for a couple seconds but is fine after that):

Download audio file (52112736564.mp3)

Men,

Our church is catechizing our children (in Sunday School). Many of you have expressed a desire to be catechized as well. After all, if we are going to be leading our children through a catechism, isn’t it only right that we have been through the same process? Well, you’ve asked for it, so here it is.

This Friday (April 13, 2012), Sovereign Joy will begin hosting a new study for the men of the church. Robert Cardona and Billy Leonhart will be leading the men through a study of the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689) and the Baptist Catechism (1695). (Note: Though the leaders of the study hold to the teachings of these documents, we do not desire to force anyone to become confessional.) The purpose of the study is to familiarize you with these historic documents and demonstrate how to lead others through confessions and catechisms. Heads of households, husbands, and / or anyone discipling or hoping to disciple others someday should derive great benefit from the study.

The hour-long, weekly study will begin at 6pm sharp. The first week Robert will be covering the history and the philosophy behind the 1689 LBCF. The reading for the first week is optional. We are encouraging all who have the text prior to the first meeting to read the prefaces to both the Confession and the Catechism and to read the original “Letter to the Reader” of the Confession. We hope you are able to make it. May God bless you.

Required text for the study:

The Baptist Confession of Faith & The Baptist Catechism, Ed. James Renihan

Recommended texts for the study:

1689 Baptist Confession of Faith: A Modern Exposition, Sam Waldron

A Scriptural Exposition of the Baptist Catechism, Benjamin Beddome

Outline:

The Salvific Work of the Father: Decreeing Redemption

• The Sovereign Divine Election of God:
• God has always worked like this:
• God choose Noah, Abram, Issac over Ismael, Jacob over Esau, Israel over any other nation (Deut. 7:7-8)
• 6 Elements of Divine Election (first 3 this week)
• 1) We are Chosen in Christ (Eph. 1:4 | 2 Thes. 2:14)
• “Choose“: to select out of a mass of people
• Covenant of Redemption (John 6:37-39)
• 2) Chosen in Eternity Past (Eph. 1:4 | John 17:24)
• God’s Salvation cannot be Thwarted (Rom. 8:28-30)
• “Foreknew“: God setting His love on His people in eternity past (Jer. 1:5 | Amos 3:2 | Matt. 7:22-23)
• It is not based on anything in us (faith, good works, etc.) (Rom. 9:11-16 | Titus 3:5 | 2 Tim. 1:9)
• 3) Chosen to be Holy and Without Blameless Before Him in Love (Eph. 1:4)
• The ethical implications that election should lead us to (1 Thes. 1:3-4 | Col. 3:12-13)

… continued next week.

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Outline:

The Parable of the Soils:

• The Setting (Mark 4:1-2)
• by the sea with a large crowd (Mark 4:1:45, 3:9)
• the boat was his pulpit
• The Parable (Mark 4:3-9)
•  He is asking for the crowd to discern (Mark 4:3,9)
•  4 different kinds of soil:
• hard soil (Mark 4:4)
• rocky ground (Mark 4:5-6)
• thorny soil (Mark 4:7)
• good ground (Mark 4:8)
• The Interpretation (Mark 4:13-20)
• this is a key parable to understanding all parables (Mark 4:13)
• the seed is the gospel (Mark 4:14 | 1 Peter 1:23 | James 1:21)
• 4 different hearts which give 4 different responses to the gospel
• the hard heart (Mark 4:15 | Acts 24:25)
• Satan steals away the word (2 Cor. 4:4 | Eph. 2:2)
• the non-committed heart (Mark 4:16-17 | 1 John 2:19)
• we are to be rooted and grounded in Christ (Col 2:6-7 | John 15)
• affliction/tribulation should be expected and should not sway us (1 Thes 1:6-7)
• the worldly heart (Mark 4:18-19 | 1 Tim 6:5-11)
• we are to seek first the kingdom of God (Matt. 6:33)
• seek the things above (Col. 3:1
• the responsive heart (Mark 4:20)
• regeneration produces change (John 15, Psalm 1:3, Eze 36:27, 1 John 3:9-10)
• sanctification is progressive and it appears there are different degrees of it

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Related Sermons:

Faith, Works, & Justification: An Exegesis of James 2:14-26

Outline:

• Because we are in Christ, we have… (Eph. 1:3)
• A renewed ability to please and serve God (Eze. 36:26-27)
• A love and a hope in God (Rom. 8:18-20 | 2 Cor. 4:17-18)
• Forgiveness of all our sins (Rom. 5:1 | Ps. 130:3-4, 32:1-2)
• Been adopted into God’s family ( 1 John 3:1)
• The Holy Spirit and communion with God (1 John 1:3-4 | Eph. 4:30 | 1 Cor. 6:19, 3:16-17)
• Preservation by God (Phil. 1:6 | John 10:27-29 | 1 Peter 1:5)

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Related Sermons:

3 Aspects of Resurrection Life

Union with Christ & Future Resurrection

Outline:

• 3 Elements of the Salutation
• The Writer (Eph. 1:1)
• The Readers (Eph. 1:1)
• The Greating (Eph. 1:2)

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Related Sermons:

The Multifaceted Grace of God

Here is a collection of the sermons and an article by Pastor Jay on the fourth commandment that he mentioned yesterday [April 29, 2012]:

• The Abiding of the 10 Commandments:
• The Law of God & the Believer [A Reformed Perspective] article from Dec. 30, 2011
• Out With the Old, In With the New (Mark 2:18-22) sermon from Jan. 13,2012
• The 4th Commandment, Sabbath, Lord’s Day:
• The Sabbath Question – Part 1 (Mark 2:23-28) sermon from Jan. 20, 2012
• The Sabbath Question – Part 2 (Mark 3:1-6) sermon from Jan. 27, 2012
• (If you only have time to listen to one sermon then this is a comprehensive overview):
  The First Day of the Week (1 Cor. 16:1-2) sermon from Feb. 5, 2012 

This past Sunday [May 31, 2012], we learned about our role in sanctification… that is, we are called to “…just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;” (Phil. 2:13) Our role is NOT passive (2 minute clip below):

Download audio file (531111233449.mp3)

Here is a helpful article from Kevin DeYoung on obedience in the Christian life:

I believe with all my heart that we can do nothing to merit eternal life. We are justified by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. God accepts and declares us righteous not because of our good deeds, but because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We cannot earn God’s favor. We depend entirely on his gospel grace.

Full stop. Period. New paragraph.

We can also be obedient.

Not flawlessly. Not without continuing repentance. Not without facing temptation. Not without needing forgiveness. But we can be obedient.

Obedience is not a dirty word for the gospel-centered Christian. We are saved from the wrath of God by sovereign grace, and that sovereign grace saves us unto holiness. Our great God and Savior Jesus Christ has redeemed us from all lawlessness to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works (Titus 2:14).

More Spiritual than the Bible

Sometimes in a genuine effort to be honest about our persistent imperfections we make it sound like holiness, of any sort, is out of reach for the Christian. But this doesn’t do justice to the way the Bible speaks about people like Zechariah and Elizabeth who “were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord” (Luke 1:6). Likewise, Jesus teaches that the wise person hears his words and does them (Matt. 7:24). There’s no hint that this was only a hypothetical category. Quite the contrary, we are told to disciple the nations that they might obey everything Jesus commanded (Matt. 28:19-20).

God expects the Christian to be marked by virtues like love, joy, and peace (Gal. 5:22-23) instead of being known for sexual immorality, idolatry, theft, and greed (1 Cor. 6:9-11). No Christian will ever be free from indwelling sin, but we should no longer be trapped in habitual lawlessness (1 John 3:4). “By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother” (1 John 3:10).

Filthy Rags?

That’s true, you may say, but in the end all our righteous deeds are nothing but filthy rags. There’s nothing we work we can do that truly pleases God or can be considered righteous in his sight. I’ve probably explained Isaiah 64:6 with similar words, but I don’t think it’s quite right. The “righteous deeds” Isaiah has in mind are most likely perfunctory rituals offered by Israel without sincere faith and without wholehearted obedience. In Isaiah 65:1-7 the Lord rejects Israel’s sinful sacrifices. There is nothing really righteous about these deeds. They are an insult to the Lord, smoke in his nostrils, just like the ritual “obedience” of Isaiah 58 that did not impress the Lord because his people were oppressing the poor. All that to say, we should not think every kind of “righteous deed” is like a filthy rag before God. In fact, Isaiah 64:5 says “You meet him who joyfully works righteousness, those who remember you in your ways.” It is not impossible for God’s people to commit righteous acts that please God.

John Piper explains:

A Double Danger and a Triple Testimony

It is a dangerous thing to ignore the Bible’s presumption, and expectation, that (a certain kind of ) righteousness is possible. On the one hand, some professing Christians may be deceived, thinking that personal holiness isn’t really necessary and therefore it doesn’t matter how they (or anyone else) lives. On the other hand, some Christians may be too reticent to recognize that they actually do good things. We can think it’s a mark of spiritual sensitivity to consider everything we do as morally suspect. But this is not the way the Bible thinks about righteousness. As Piper puts is, “our Father in heaven is not impossible to please. In fact, like every person with a very big heart and very high standards, he is easy to please and hard to satisfy” (152)

There is no righteousness that makes us right with God except for the righteousness of Christ. But for those who have been made right with God through faith alone, many of our righteous deeds are not only not filthy in God’s eyes, they are exceedingly sweet.

Obedience is possible, prescribed, and precious.