Understanding God's Grace: Election and Human Responsibility

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I would say God has done it this way so that we might live and be for the praise of the glory of his grace, which is simply amazing. The ultimate aim of creation history, Redemption, everything God does is our praising of his glory, and that Glory reaches its apex in Grace. [00:02:01]

I have kept for myself 7,000 men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. You're not alone. I have seen to it. I have a Remnant. I keep a Remnant for myself. So too at the present time, so in Paul's day, and I would say today, in the present time, there's a Remnant according to the election of Grace. [00:03:34]

Election is Grace. It's all of Grace. Nobody deserves to be elect, completely gracious, which is another way of saying unconditional. Election is unconditional. But if it is by Grace, it is no longer on the basis of Works. Nothing that you do or will do or have done brought about your election. [00:04:31]

Consider your calling, Brothers. You should do that, all of you. Consider your calling. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful. Not many of you were Noble birth. God chose what is foolish. Why? To shame the wise. God chose what is weak. Why? To shame the strong. [00:07:38]

God's goal in history is to strip human beings of all boasting, period. He's going to take every boaster down, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. Isaiah chapter 2: every tree of Lebanon, every High work lifted up against the Lord, every arrogant atheist, every cynic, every agnostic. [00:08:57]

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building as fits the occasion, that it may give Grace to those who hear. Do not grieve the holy spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. There are 41 imperatives in Ephesians. [00:12:38]

God in his sovereignty in choosing you for himself and then in bringing you to himself can be grieved by you if you do things that contradict his will of command. The holy spirit of God can be grieved, which means we have remarkable moral agency. We are human beings with wills and emotions. [00:13:36]

We're not puppets. We're not robots. A lot of people go there with predestination and election, and they say, oh, then we're just robots. We're just puppets. Well, in order to say that, you have to depend on your logic, not biblical truth. And a lot of people do that methodologically. [00:14:20]

When you come to the last day and all your sins are taken away and you are praising the glory of God's grace, you will be a beautiful, praiseworthy moral agent forever, and all the embattled soul that you've had to deal with here will be gone. [00:16:31]

Real blameworthiness, real accountability, real responsibility, and real Sovereign Divine election and predestination. That's the Paradox we live with. You can devote your life to figuring that out. Edwards did. Jonathan Edwards did. Came close probably in his book Freedom of the will. [00:19:49]

Defer to God's word and hold them in tension. Some days they'll look like they perfectly fit. Others day they look like they won't fit. But you get your convictions from the Bible, not from your extrapolations that you with your head, you say it cannot be. [00:20:23]

I have a lot of, I hope, patience for people in process on this issue. It may take you years, and you may come out on the other side. I've talked to hundreds of people who, through tears and Agony and difficulty in their lives, have come out on the other side of restfulness and activity with boldness. [00:23:22]

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