I'm excited. I'll tell you why I'm excited. Nick prayed for a supercharged client. I can't wait to see what that looks like.
I can't imagine what it looks like. The last thing you would ever call me is supercharged. If you know me, I'm usually pretty even tempered in a mild manner. But I'm looking forward to supercharged.
I'm super-sized. I mean, I can understand that, but supercharged. That's great. This is great to be with you this morning.
This is a monumental weekend yesterday. Many of you probably turned the news on. You saw a big celebration, if you call it that, for the funeral of millions of people's pope, their papa, their father. And that was a big deal.
And I won't make little of it for millions of people. This is a big deal. And tomorrow, as Nick mentioned, the election, here is general election in Canada, where someone will be proclaimed or retained as prime minister. That's a big thing.
But you know something? That's not the biggest thing that happened this weekend. You know the biggest thing that happened this weekend? I had an audience with a king of kings and Lord of lords right here, right here in this place.
And it's still going on. Because the Lord Jesus said, we're two or three together together in my name. Guess what? He's here.
He's here. He's here in the audience with a king of kings and Lord of lords. And today I just want to spend a little time with you, talking to you about Axios. And if you can remember a long way back, the last time I spoke in this series on the book of Ephesians was back in September.
I don't know whether this qualifies as a series when it's that long ago, seven months ago. But it is a series in my heart in mind, at least Axios. And it means the word Axios is a Greek word, which means worthy. And that's why we have a double-pan balance up there.
Worthy, it's balanced. If you imagine on one side of the balance, God's blessings on the other side of the balance is my life, right? my life worthy of the blessings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now it's not worthy of his blessings initially.
All right, we're not worthy of any of his blessings in ourselves, but after we are saved, we live lives that are worthy of our calling. That's the question of the book of Ephesians. I think it's probably the main issue here. And click, click, nothing's happening.
I did turn it on my friend just as you showed me how. Okay, all right, here comes my technician. We're looking at Ephesians, the book of Ephesians, it's divided into two parts. Thank you.
Now if you text that in that works, I'll be really disappointed. Was I aiming at the wrong person? I was, I was, same name name, but okay. So I have to point it at what?
You're changing it? Let me tell you a story. This is me and technology wrapped up in a bundle. But fortunately, the Lord doesn't say people because they're good with technology.
He saves them because they need to save you. And if you're here this morning, you don't have to be good with technology. You don't even have to know the word of God in its entirety because none of us do. All you need to know is that God loves you and that Jesus died for your sins on the cross of Calvary.
And if you will trust me as your savior, you can be saved. Now I can cue my friends in the back. I'm so glad this isn't working for you either. I can cue my friends in the back that comes down to that for these slides.
Supercharged Clyde is getting new batteries. All right, we're looking at Ephesians. So if you want to get your Bibles open, the book of Ephesians has two parts. The first part of Ephesians, the first three chapters are all about who we are in Jesus Christ.
The second part of Ephesians versus four, chapters four to six is not gonna work. I touched it, that's the problem. All right, so I'll just show. Can we go to the second slide?
There we are, we're in the second slide. We're gonna talk about this is part three, the glory of his grace. Ephesians chapter one versus four to six. In the first two editions of this, I got all the way through verses one, two, and three.
So I'm really stretching it when I think I'm gonna get four, five, and six in one meeting. But in the next two hours of this session, we'll try and get through that. Okay, Ephesians chapter four, verse number one, I don't have that as a slide. But Ephesians chapter four, verse one says, Therefore, either for the prisoner of the Lord, employer to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called.
Walk in a manner worthy, walking worthy of your calling. That's the heart of the book of Ephesians. Ephesians is a letter written to believers. And as we talked in the first session, we talked about the fact that even though it says to the Ephesians in the original or the oldest manuscripts, it doesn't say that, it just says to the believers.
So that could be believers anywhere. That could be us, to the folks at Northbrook Bible Chapel, calling upon them to walk in a way that conforms to who they are in Jesus Christ. Because God has called us to something amazing. What he has called us to is to walk or to live for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's not called us to small insignificant things like wealth or fame or power or prestige. Those are small and fading insignificant things. He has called us to life. A life lived worthy of the one who has called us.
His grace displayed in Jesus Christ is the motivation for that calling. If we could have a next slide. So part one of Ephesians is what our calling is. It is why we should live a life worthy, chapters one to three.
And part two of Ephesians is how to walk worthy, chapters four to six. So we've got the why we should walk worthy. And that's the first three chapters. And then how to walk worthy.
That's where the rubber meets the road. That's where we'll get practical instruction. But why should we walk worthy of the Lord? Why should we do that?
Well, slide four. Our motivation for a worthy walk. First of all, we have the Father's Plan versus one to six in chapter one. The Father's Plan.
We have the Son's Provision later on in this chapter. And the Spirit's Pledge as well. In the first 14 verses of this first chapter. We look at the Father's Plan.
And it is to bless us. We saw this in verse number three. To bless us. And I call this the extensiveness of his blessings.
It says in verse number three, blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. He is the praise worthy God. The word blessed there is the word from which we get the English word, eulogy. He is worthy of our praise.
He is the personal God. He is the God and the Father. Not only of our Lord Jesus Christ, but also of us. He's our God and Father as well.
And then he's the prodigal God. The extravagant God who blesses us with every spiritual blessing. Next slide. Not a spiritual blessing.
Not some spiritual blessings. Not many spiritual blessings. But what kind of, how many? Every spiritual blessing.
Every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus is ours through the grace of our Lord and Savior. Next slide. Now we're gonna look at the Father's Plan. Continue to look at it.
Now we're gonna go with verse number four. It says there, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him. I wanna call this the enigma of his choosing. The enigma of it.
You know what an enigma is? It is a puzzlement. It is a curious thing. It is hard to understand.
The enigma of his blessing, excuse me, of his choosing. Why would he choose you and I, if you're a believer? Why would he choose you? I wanna look first of all at the reasonableness of his blessing.
Not his choosing, but the reasonableness of his blessing. Just as, those two words, just as he chose us in him, he has blessed us with every spiritual blessing and having places in Christ, just as, even as, and like man or as, in conformity with, is a good translation of that, he has chosen us in Christ. That's why he's blessed us, because he's chosen us in Christ. It is logical, it is reasonable, that he would bless us with every spiritual blessing because he has chosen us in Christ.
He has chosen us. Now we talked about this sometimes in the men's group that we are chosen people, that God has chosen us. And as I look upon this group of people, besides the glassy-eyed people, the people who are thinking right now, you're wondering, how does that work? How does God choose us?
How does he do that? Or why would he do that? And I want to explore that with you today as we go through this passage, because I think it's a very important question. Chris Christofferson in 1972, anybody know Chris Christofferson?
Never heard of him? Yeah, yeah. The well-seasoned people in the group. Chris Christofferson was a country singer, and also became an actor later on in life.
And Chris Christofferson wrote a song after going to a Christian service where he had a religious experience. And I'm not going to question Chris's experience, but he wrote the song, Why Me Lord? Ever heard that song? Maybe not.
Why me Lord? What have I ever done to deserve even one of the pleasures I've known? And so on. That song was probably Chris Christofferson's first sort of Christian song, and it went to the top of the country charts, all right?
Because of Chris Christofferson, who he was, and his gravelly voice and so on. I was in a group back in the 70s called The Kingsway. And that was one of my songs that I sang solo. And no wonder it went to the top of the charts.
I mean, after all, right? So it has a part in my heart. Why me Lord? Why would God choose me?
What was his purpose in choosing me? And as Cliff Campbell would say, now Cliff Campbell is a preacher, a friend of mine. And now again, when he's preaching Cliff will say, hang on, we got a pullover in park here. So I want to pullover in park with you for a few moments on this idea of God choosing us.
I want to talk to you a little bit about the sovereignty of God and the free will of man. It's one of theology's great debates, isn't it? So which is it? Is God absolutely sovereign?
Or do we have an absolute free will? Slide seven, please. Does God choose us or do we choose him? Now when writing to the believers at Thessalonica, Paul wrote, I'm going to give you some verses here.
And I want you to think about them, all right? Keep your mind engaged. Look at what he said, writing to these believers. But we should always give thanks to God for you brethren, be loved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation, through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth.
That's pretty clear, isn't it? He has chosen you from the beginning, for salvation. God has chosen you. And yet, think with me to Acts chapter 16, Paul and Silas are in Philippi.
They've been arrested and thrown into the recesses of the jail, into the dungeon. They're singing phrases to God and earthquake happens. You know the story. And the jailer cries out to Paul and Silas and says, chapter 16 verse 30, sirs, what did he say?
What must I do to be saved? What must I do to be saved? Oh, I love it when people say that to me, not too many have. But it is just joy to hear somebody say, what do I have to do to be saved?
And you have the chance to tell them what Paul and Silas told that jailer. What did they tell them? Wait a minute, here's what he told them, right? No, this is what they told them.
Do to be saved, you can't do anything to be saved. Either God chose you or he didn't choose you. Somebody said, Paul and Silas didn't say that. The main cries out, what must I do to be saved?
And Paul and Silas cried out? I said, oh my next slide. Yes, next slide. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.
You know that, you know that verse. I put in for emphasis, you must, because it is an imperative sentence. So I inserted that there. You must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved.
And say, it's up to God, whether you get saved or not, they said, you need to believe. You need to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ if you're going to be saved. Sounds like the jailer had to choose to believe in the Lord Jesus to be saved. So let's go back to that Thessalonians passage again and take a little closer look.
Now in this portion in Second Thessalonians in the second chapter, Paul is drawing a contrast between unbelievers and believers, concerning the effects of the day of the Lord on those people, Jesus Second Coming. We notice already that he told the believers that God had chosen them from the beginning. Now if we back up a bit in that chapter, let's see what he says about the unsaved. Next slide.
Whom Paul calls those who perish. Then that lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will slay with the breath of his mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of his coming. That is the one who's coming, is an accord with the activity of Satan with all power and signs and false wonders. That's the Antichrist.
And with all deception and wickedness for those who perish. He's not talking about believers here. He's talking about people who are going to perish. He's not talking about people who are going to heaven.
He's talking about people who are going to perish. Why will they perish? Because they did not receive the love of the truth, so as to be saved. Okay, who's the onus on here?
It's on those people. They did not believe. They did not receive the love of the truth. That is the love of God in Jesus Christ, so as to be saved.
We might maintain it. It was because God had not chosen them. In other words, they are perishing because, for some reason, unknown to us, God chose not to choose them for salvation. But the text says, because they did not receive the love of the truth, so as to be saved.
So from the plain reading of this text, the issue was not that God had rejected them, but they had rejected God. Now let's look at some other verses. Are you confused yet? No, I hope you are.
I hope you are because I've been confused about this for a long time. And I feel like I'm coming today with the answers for you guys. So I want you confused first, so you'll see how wonderful it is when I explain it all to you. Okay?
So if you're not confused yet, I'll work on you. Let's go to the next slide. Look at this. Now this is a passage that you can quote, right?
For God so loved the world. He gave his only begotten son. And whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. Have you heard that verse before?
Oh, unsafe person, have you heard that verse before? He so loved you that he gave his one and only son for you to die in the cross, for you, for your sin. So you could be saved. For God did not send his son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him verse 18.
He who believes in him is not judged. He who does not believe has been judged already. Well, why has he been judged? Because he is not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God.
Why is he to be judged? Why would he be judged? Why would a person be judged? Believe you've not trusted in the name of the only begotten son of God.
Next slide. Look at this. Acts 1739, Paul is preaching in Athens. And he sits at the people there that God has overlooked the times of ignorance.
But God is now declaring to all to man that all people everywhere should repent. God is telling all people everywhere they must repent when we must be able to repent. If God is telling us to, we must be able to do it. God's not going to tell us to do something that we can't do.
And he's saying, you must repent. And later on, Paul also said to the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20. I did not shrink back from declaring anything to you that was profitable and teaching you publicly from house to house. So I only testified to both Jews and Greeks.
There's repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. You must repent and you must have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Repent of the way you were going. Turn around.
Repent means to turn around. It's a 180. Turn around from the way you were going. Realize you're going the wrong way.
You're going away from God. Repent toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for your salvation. This formula of repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul calls in verse 24 of the gospel of the grace of God.
So from these texts, it seems clear that it is incumbent upon all sinners to repent, to turn from their previous attitudes and ways, and receive the truth of God's gracious salvation, in that it is to be obtained by believing and or trusting the Lord Jesus Christ, to save your Savior from sin. So this all seems to lead towards the idea that salvation is a choice that we make to trust Christ. And it is. Next slide, please.
We are saved by freely trusting Christ as our Savior. But then there's this. Next slide, please. Told you I'm going to get you confused.
Harold Smith, I used to travel with Harold Smith. And when he was, he was preacher of the gospel. And Harold used to say, sometimes you have to make folks mad before you can make them glad. Sometimes you have to bring the message that their sinners to them.
And that makes them mad before you can make them glad with a message of salvation. I'm going to make you confused, OK, so that you can be enlightened in a minute. OK, just a minute. Hang with me.
Look at these verses. We've just said that a person needs to trust Christ as their Savior to be saved. But look at this. John 637, all that the Father gives me will come to me.
And the one who comes to me, I'll certainly not cast out. John 644, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent him, sent me, excuse me, draws him. And I will raise him up in the last day. John 665.
But there are some of you who do not believe. OK, there's some unbelievers. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe and who it was who would betray him. And he was saying, for this reason I've said to you, that no one can come to me unless it has been granted to him from the Father.
You see what those verses are saying? Just when we thought it was settled. Just when we thought it was a matter of us believing in the Lord Jesus Christ by our own wills, these verses indicate that only those who believe are ones who the Father has given to Christ, the Father has drawn to Christ, and the Father has granted to come to Christ and believe. So which is it?
Is it that God does the choosing, the giving, the drawing, the calling for people to be saved? Or is it people of their own free choice, place their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ? Which is it? Go out down there.
Which is it? Which is it? Next slide, please. Is it the sovereignty of God at work?
Or is it the free will of man? There's our question. I love it when I have the answer. The answer is, next slide.
Yeah. Diana, you had it. You knew what it was in you. Now that was an either or situation, right?
You're not allowed to do yes with an either or. Is it that we trust Christ? Is there a savior? Or is it that God chooses us?
It's an either or. You can't have a yes with that, can you? Yes, you can. If it's God, it's telling you that it's both.
Now I know that there's probably somebody here, maybe more than one who's saying, you don't know what you're talking about, because you haven't obviously studied this enough. All right? I will be happy for you to talk to me about this afterwards. But I'm telling you, I've studied this for over 50 years.
All right, and that's only the most of you. Longer than most of you've been around. I have looked at this from every angle. And I'm not the sharpest pencil in the drawer.
I know that. But I've looked at this from so many angles. I have, if you want to argue one side, I will argue the other side vehemently. I've done that for years.
I'm all done. I'm not going to argue anymore. I'm not going to do that. Because I've come to a conclusion that they're both right.
They're both correct. These things are clearly taught in the Bible. God's word. So the next question is, well, then, if it's true, that God is sovereign and that we have free will, that God chooses and that we choose God.
God chooses us and we choose how does that work? How does that work? Well, this is when you get a glimpse of my scholarly genius. Right here.
Next slide. It's the IH and I postulate. All right? Oh goody, it's math.
And what is, in fact, the IH and I postulate? Next slide. That's right, that's what it is. I have no idea.
How does this work? I have no idea. I have no idea. But it's my postulate.
And maybe you're saying what, Brother Clyde? This hurts my head. It seems that it has to be one or the other. It can't be both.
God chooses me or I choose him. It just can't be both. I don't understand. Neither do I.
Next slide. And so we're going to talk for a little bit about perplexing things in the Bible. These are things that are received by faith. We don't understand them intellectually.
We understand them by faith because they are taught in the Bible. First, the hypostatic union of Christ. Now you've got to have a good memory to remember what we talked about when we talked about the hypostatic union of Christ. Hypostasis, personally, is the substance or essential nature of an individual.
So when we're talking about the substance or essential nature of the Lord Jesus Christ, we're talking about the unity of his two natures, that the Lord Jesus Christ is fully God and that the Lord Jesus Christ is fully man. Two natures in one person. Do you understand that? God is eternal.
God is spirit. God is unfathomable. Man, he's flying at it. Man is flesh.
Man is far less than incredible. He's a mess. How can the Lord Jesus be God and man all in one? Don't understand it.
I have to chalk it up to these by faith understanding things because the word of God says so. God, man, together in one person, the Lord Jesus. Let's look at another slide. Here's another thing that is by faith understanding, the Trinity of God.
Tell your story. It was after a meeting like this. I was minding my own business, standing in the back of the room, just trying not to be seen because that's my temperament. Just shaking a hand here, saying how you do there.
You know how it is. When somebody came up to me, I'm not going to name that person. That person's not here today, but I'm not going to embarrass him. This person came up to me and she said, this person was a sister and this is someone.
And she said, I'm better Clyde. I have someone here that I want you to talk to. She has a question. She's a part of our ESL Bible study.
Some people got it. Anyway, she has a question. She does not understand the Trinity. And so I brought her to you to explain the Trinity.
And I look at this dear Asian girl. And she looks at me. And I turn to look at that lady. And she had vanished.
She was making her way through the crowd as quickly as she could to get out from underneath my glare. The Trinity. So I said to this young lady, what do you understand about the Trinity? She said, well, the Bible says there is only one God.
But the Bible says that God the Father is God, Jesus Christ is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. She said, that sounds like three gods to me. But there's one God. And I looked at her and I said, young lady, you know as much about this as I do.
One God, three persons, I have no idea how that works. But what you said was that the Bible said it was true. God said it. That settles it.
Right? That's a settle it for you? God is a Trinity person. Do I understand that?
Not in the least. You say you got to study her brother. You go right for it. You feel your boots.
You're not going to understand it because it's God. We're talking about God here. And we're not with what we're equipped with. We're not going to understand this.
But we can believe it because God said it is true. Next slide. How many of you had Mr. McKinnon as a geometry teacher in grade 10?
None of you, right? I did. Mr. McKinnon.
He was such a great guy. He was a great guy. One of my favorite teachers of all time. He taught me geometry.
In grade 10, we learned about simple proofs. Did any of you ever study this in school? Simple proofs? Thank you.
Yes, thank you. Simple proofs. Now and again, there's something I get. Simple proofs is one of those things.
I love doing simple proofs with Mr. McKinnon. It's just simple. You have some facts.
Given lines, lines, A, B, and A, B, it's congruent to lines, A, B, and B, it's congruent to angle C. And then you do it by the simple proof. You have a statement and then you have a reason. We know that A, B is congruent A, C because that's given to us.
And then you go from there all the way down to the very bottom and you use that wonderful CPCTC. I love that. It rolls off the tons so nicely. Corresponding parts of congruent triangles are congruent.
So Mr. McKinnon used to teach these things. Now and again, when I got too more complicated proof than this, I would just know that it was true, but I wouldn't know how. I wouldn't know how to put a reason in there.
So I would put I, S, S as my reason. Do you know what that means? I say so. And Mr.
McKinnon used to say, well, that's really amusing, but it doesn't work. Sorry. I say so doesn't work. My reasoning, what I come up with doesn't work.
But I can use the simple proof technology to show you how the sovereignty of God and the free will of man works. Next slide, please. The simple proof for the sovereignty and free will in salvation statement, God sovereignly shows us to be saved. Reasons Ephesians 1, verse 4.
First Thessalonians 2, 13 and many other verses that I've shown you. And yet, statement, centers must trust Christ as their Savior, Acts 1631, John 3 16, etc. Right? The statement, God sovereignly chooses us and we freely trust him.
Reason, God says so. Not I say so, but God says so. Our salvation is God's choice and it's ours as well. How does that work?
I, H and I postulate. I have no idea how that works. And you say, but I can't reconcile these two seemingly opposite ideas. And I say, who told you you had to reconcile those?
Is it your responsibility to reconcile those things? No. Can't reconcile the Trinity. Can't reconcile the hypostatic union of Christ.
Can't reconcile these either. But God has. God has reconciled them in his mind. Next slide, what you need to do is put these in your IH and I file along with the hypostatic union of the Trinity.
And now you've got the sovereignty of God and the free will of man and salvation all in this file. And you say, but this is going to bug me for the rest of my life. And it can if you want it to, but I can give you an option or two where it won't have to bug you anymore. Next slide, I call these the bugbusters.
Number one, you can choose a side. You can choose the sovereignty of God and go gung ho with that. Or you can choose the free will of man and go gung ho with that. But you will divide churches.
You will separate company. Believers will be at odds with you or you can choose to submit. You can choose to submit to the word of God and say, and humbly say, I don't understand. But I believe, I believe those two things work together somehow for the salvation of souls.
Now speaking of trains, I wasn't speaking of trains, but I'd like to speak about trains right now. My grandfather, whose name was Ivan Roberts, worked his whole life on the railroad. That was what he did. He wasn't on the train.
I don't know that he ever rode a train. He worked on the railroad. The railroad was his job. The rails being what they should be.
The ties being as they should be. The gravel all around. He did the manual labor of keeping the railroad in good shape in the Aragal section of the CNR. My grandmother, whose name was Margaret Roberts.
She was the post lady in the shopkeeper at Aragal Corner. Perhaps her greatest asset was her musical ability. She loved to play the piano. She had a beautiful, supernave voice.
She used to sing to her grandkids, me being one of those. She sang these old ditties from long ago. Next slide. This was one of the ditties that she sang to us.
Does this railroad lead to heaven? Can you say, how corny is that? Hang on, I'm a little kid. I was a little kid at one time.
We were all gathered around the piano and grandma was singing. This is a song about a little girl. We a little girl, probably six or seven years old. The mom and dad had died.
They had gone to heaven. The mom used to sing her songs about the train taking people to heaven. Jesus had paid the fare. And so it had a little bit of theological truth to it.
And so this little girl who's now in orphan wanders into the train station. She climbs aboard a train because her mom used to sing about a train taking people to heaven. And the train starts. And the conductor comes down the aisle and he's looking for tickets, right?
Tickets please, tickets please. And he comes to the little girl and she said, I don't have a ticket. It's already paid. Jesus paid.
And the song goes on and on about this, right? But she's in a conversation with this, this dear old conductor. She's talking about, I'm going to read you the course. The little girl says to the conductor, does this railroad lead to heaven?
Conductor tell me do. I wish to see my mom and dearest Papa too. For they both have gone up beyond the sky bright and blue. I'm so glad that I'm on this train, sir, going to heaven with you.
A few more verses. And the train crashes. Yeah. The train crashes.
No, my grandmother had three or four different songs about trains. And they all ended badly. All right. What was she thinking?
I love my grandmother. I'd love to hear her sing. But those trains all crashed. So the person who's telling the story of this song, she says that after the crash they went searching through the train and they found the little girl in the conductor holding hands, of course, the conductor was deceased.
And the little girl was bleeding out. It didn't say it quite in those words, but that's what was happening. And in the last breath of this little girl, she said, yes, this railroad leads to heaven. Their voices I can hear.
I'm going to see my mama and see my pepadir. I can see them both up beyond or above the sky bright and blue. I'm so glad I rode your train, sir, going to heaven with you. I was just a little kid.
I was just a little kid. And these songs were impactful. There were two takeaways from these songs. One, my grandfather must not have been doing a very good job on the railroad for the trains to be crashing all the time.
Right? And secondly, if ever there came a time that I had to get out of Glenwood, I was not going by train. Right? I don't know why she sang those songs to us, but let me tell you, the legendary dangers of train travel notwithstanding, I want to use the train as an analogy.
When was the last time you ever saw a train going down highway 103? When was the last time you ever saw a train sailing into Halifax Harbor? You haven't had you. In order to function properly, trains have to have tracks.
And have you noticed that those tracks run parallel to each other? They must be parallel. They cannot converge or diverge without catastrophic results. And I'm submitting to you that the teaching, the truths of God's sovereignty and our free will are like the tracks, the rails for the train.
They run parallel. They never converge for us. And do in the mind of God, he understands how that can be. He understands monorails.
We don't. We understand though, the two rails of the track. And we can't have them converging. We can't have them diverging without a train wreck.
They are two sides of the same coin. They are two rails in the same railway. Next slide, please. God's railway to heaven runs on two tracks.
His sovereignty and our free will, these things are parallel and they're perfectly set in the mind of God, if not in ours. If we emphasize one or the other, if we eliminate one or the other, we have a train wreck. Now, I have a lot more to say. I said two hours and I can't keep you here that long.
I want you to see that he chose us. Next slide. From the foundation of the world, that's what he did. He chose us.
This is that side, this rail of the railway. He chose us. And it's a wonderful thing to know that you're chosen. He chose us when, before the foundation of the world, before the world was even created, before you and I were ever created, ever created.
Before we'd ever done good or bad, before we'd trusted Christ, before we'd even drawn a breath, God had chosen us. Think of that. Think of that. Chosen by God before the foundation of the world.
Charles Spurgeon said, God certainly must have chosen me before I came into this world, or he never would have done so afterwards. Isn't that true? If you and me too, for what purpose? That we would be holy and blameless before him.
That's why he chose us. To be holy and blameless before him. Just I can't say everything that I wanted to say today, but I want you to think about this. Maybe your idea of God is of some, like Andrei Crotcherode, a God who doesn't care who lives away up there.
Maybe that's how you see God. He's a tyrant really. He's a despot. No.
He chose you, Christian, before the foundation of the world that you should be holy and blameless before him. You know what that term before him means? It means in his presence. In his presence.
He wants you in his presence. He wants to know you and he wants you to know him. He wants to fellowship. If you can pardon me and not take it the right way, God wants to hang out with you for all eternity.
That's what he wants. I don't understand it. I don't want to hang out. No, no, wait a minute.
I want to hang out with you for all eternity. And I want to hang out with him. Do you want to hang out with him? You say, I don't know.
I just don't understand him. This is a God who loves you. If we had the time, I would take you into the next few verses here. But obviously I'm stuck on verse four.
God loves you. He cares for you. He's kind to you. And he wants to save you.
He wants to save you so badly that he sent his son into the world to die for you on the cross. If you're not a safe person here today, none of what I've told you about applies to you until you trust Christ as your savior. If you're a Christian, this is a word of security for you. You've been chosen.
It's chosen by God. You are secure in him forever and ever and ever. Try to hold onto these ideas. If you'd like to know more about the Lord Jesus Christ, I'd be happy to talk to you.
There are many, many people here who know the Lord Jesus who have been more than happy to talk to you about him and how to be saved. We're going to sing a song and we're going to pray. And then I promise you it's going to be over. I wonder who the musicians could come now.
Musicians. I'm going to sing a song. I intended to go on to verses 5 and 6. This song would apply better for 5 and 6, but we're going to sing it anyway because that's the one they knew I was going to request.
And I want you to hear the words of the song because it talks about the grace of our God being greater than all our sin. And that is an absolute truth. Marvelous grace of our loving Lord, grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt. You might be saying, well, I know God doesn't want me.
I'm such a sinner. Aren't we all? Aren't we all really? And but his grace exceeds our sin and our guilt.
And beyond or on Calvary's Mount Up Fort, dear with the blood of the land was built. Let's sing a song and after we've sung a song, we're going to pray. Could you stand and sing with me? Can we turn this mic off, please?
Dark as the stain that we cannot hide, what can avail? What ever could avail to wash it away? Only the blood of Christ, the crimson tide that flows from Calvary's mountain for us. I pray that someone today might trust him.
And those of us who have trusted him would walk in the security of knowing that we have been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. Thank you for your wonderful salvation and your marvelous grace. And Jesus precious name. Amen.
Thank you.