All right, good morning church family. It's been a busy week in the Lord. We're going to go ahead and get started with our service this morning. As we get started, let's just take a moment to pray, to prepare our hearts for worship. Ask the Spirit to guide us, to fix our gaze and our attention on Christ.

That even in the midst of distractions, in the midst of the worries and the cares of this world, whatever it is that you are going through, that we would still be able to come and to give God the worship that He truly deserves. So let's take a moment to do that.

Hello, good morning. If you're brand new to Berean Community Church, we want to extend a warm, warm welcome to you. When the service is done, please do visit our welcome booth. As you enter, you saw the blue canopy and our team members there. Please swing by, we'd love to get to know you.

And if you have any questions about the church, we'd gladly answer the questions there. For a couple announcements, for those of you who are newer, we do have a membership class that's going to be taking place starting next Sunday. And that is a class that takes place from 9 a.m.

And it goes over the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith, laying the foundations for what we believe, but also will explain how that translates into the church life and the Christian life, showing forth what is the ministry philosophy so that you can make a decision about becoming a member.

So please sign up for that. It's going to be on both the website, and you can even visit our welcome booth to register for that. For the members of the church, there is going to be a members' meeting on Sunday the 23rd. Please mark your calendar. And if you know that you're going to be absent, we sent an email where you can just quickly fill out a form letting us know.

And then that way you can also update any information, etc., etc. The last announcement is going to be about our inductive Bible study. The next session of the Bible study will begin August 31st, so end of August. And this sign-up is for those of you who will be participating in our main Wednesday study here at church, or anybody new who wants to-- again, the small--sorry, the home groups are reserved for those in process of being a member or a member.

But if you're new and wanted to jump into that, either transitioning from the Wednesday group to a home group, you use that form to sign up, meaning anybody who's already involved in a home group. This sign-up is not for you because you will just confirm with your home group leader, and that way we'll just renew the roster and you'll be set up for that, okay?

So again, please do sign up for the Bible study. We hope to make the groups early on and get that squared away. So we will enter into time of offering. And as a reminder, for those of you who has a physical check, there is an offering box right by the entry.

Otherwise, we can give our offering through the digital form. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you, God, for your grace and your mercies. We thank you, Lord, for your abounding love. And God, it's a unique privilege for us to be able to gather, to join so that we can unite our hearts and our voices to worship you.

And collectively, God, we are so thankful for the salvation you give to us. And God, through your son, Jesus Christ, you make all these things possible. We do pray, Lord, that our hearts of faith would ever grow in appreciation for you and your very presence in our lives. And God, as we gather, the content of our faith, the meditation of our heart, may it be pleasing unto you.

And likewise, we pray for the offering, that that too would be something honoring and pleasing in your sight, as we desire, Lord, to render to you our works of service, our hearts, and more. And we pray that the offering will be used, God, for the furthering of your gospel, the furthering of your kingdom.

We thank you, Lord, it is in Christ's name. Amen. All right, let us all stand together as we continue our worship. In the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name of the Spirit, Lord, be in Christ. We gather together to lift up your name, to call on your Savior, to call on your grace.

In the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name of the Spirit, Lord, be in Christ. We gather together to lift up your name, to call on your Savior, to call on your grace. Hear the joyful sound of our offering, as your sins bow down, as your people sing.

We will rise with you, lifting our glory, and our proudness in the air. Our God's name, our God's name, in His blood, in Your name. In the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name of the Spirit, Lord, be in Christ. We gather together to lift up your name, to call on your Savior, to call on your grace.

Hear the joyful sound of our offering, as your sins bow down, as your people sing. We will rise with you, lifting our glory, and our proudness in the air. Our God's name, our God's name, in His blood, in Your name. For the time to come again, our God's name, our God's name.

Hear the joyful sound of our offering, as your sins bow down, as your people sing. We will rise with you, lifted on your wings, and the world will see that. Yes, the world will see that. Our God's name, our God's name, in His blood, in Your name. For the time to come again, our God's name, our God's name.

Amen. Oh, I love the voice of Jesus on the cross of Calvary. He declares His work is finished. He has spoken this all to me. Though the sun had ceased its shining, though the war appeared as lost, Christ, a triumphant believer, here was finished upon that cross. Though the cursive has been broken, Jesus paid the price for me.

All the pardon He has ever given, the welcome that I've received. Hopefully I approach my final, called in Jesus' righteousness. There is no one guilty here. Here was finished upon that cross. Death was once my great opponent. Fear once had a hold on me. But the Son who died to save us rose that we would be free indeed.

Death was once my great opponent. Fear once had a hold on me. But the Son who died to save us rose that we would be free indeed. Yes, He rose that we would be free indeed. Free from every plan of darkness, free to live and free to love. Death is dead in Christ's name.

Here was finished upon that cross. Onward to eternal glory, to my Savior and my God. I rejoice in Jesus' name. Here was finished upon that cross. Here was finished upon that cross. Here was finished upon that cross. Amen. You may be seated. Okay, amen. Please turn your Bible over to Romans chapter 9.

Take a moment to read a verse from verse 22 down to verse 24. Romans chapter 9. In this passage it says, "What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon the vessels of mercy which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among the Gentiles." Let's bow our heads in prayer.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank You, God, for Your loving kindness, which also includes, Lord, Your holy revelation given to us, that God, in Your grace, You would show to us the things that are truly unattainable by man, the things we cannot perceive with our human eyes, but are things that belong to You.

We thank You, God, for this text in Romans 9. We pray You grant to us conviction of faith. We pray You grant to us receptive hearts and spirits moved, God, that we would be so warmed, so amazed by the salvation You give. We thank You in Christ's name. Amen.

I apologize. As you can tell, my voice is already kind of going away. You'll have to excuse me. I end up taking a good amount of chugs of water. I got sick at the beginning of the week. And so I'm recovering. So after the service, if I don't give my normal hugs or handshakes, please know it's because I'm ceremonially unclean.

But I will give you the head nod, and you know I love you, okay? We're in Romans 9 because I had the privilege of joining our youth group Sunday services, and they were studying through the book of Romans. And when I walked in, I got to preach from the end of Romans 8, as you guys know.

It's a beautiful passage on the securities of salvation. If God is for us, who can be against us, right? And then I preached through Romans 9, which is an incredibly difficult passage to preach through for youth group students because there's a lot of questions. Wait a minute. Is God's Word, like, failing?

Is He just, you know? And simply state, obviously, God's Word is so powerful. God is 100% just, and the topic at hand is God predestines to save. So that reminded me about my salvation and youth group era. I got saved at a, you know, later in high school. I think it was my junior or senior year.

I thanked the Lord I was saved at a really sweet United Methodist church down in San Diego. And if you guys know a little bit about the United Methodist church, they have a Wesleyan background, which they deny predestination, as Calvin would put it, because there is a, you can say, tension between is it all God, where He chooses and predetermines everything?

Or is there an element in which we retain our agency, our free will, and God graciously gives that to us? Okay. Interestingly enough, in a youth group discussion, one of the young girls in youth group asked me, "Hey, Mark, do you believe in election?" And so I started looking around to see what should I say, because I was a baby believer, you know?

But in my head, I was like, "Well, if we're talking about does God sovereignly choose, I just assumed, 'Oh, yeah, 100 percent. I believe,' you know?" And she gave me this like, "But why?" And I realized, number one, "Oh, man, I guess I answered that wrong." And then number two, I obviously as a young believer, I didn't know.

All I could say was, "Ah, I guess you kind of have your choice, but do we really?" You know? And then two, "Because it just makes sense that if God's God, then He's sovereign." Right? And I didn't know what else to say about that. Well, as you guys know, part of the reason why the doctrine of election is difficult for a lot of people is the doctrine of election, does God predestine, simply says it is 100 percent God's choice to save.

And this specifically, apart from you. There is no consideration of what you would do. There is no consideration about your own capacity to choose right from wrong. And no, there is no consideration even of the faith that you will be preveniently, or I guess graciously, allowed to exercise. Let me repeat that.

The doctrine of election is in some sense very, very simple because what it says is God is 100 percent sovereign to choose whom He will save. And that is specifically, apart from you. There are those who have very, very, I guess, difficult time accepting that because yes, although the verbiage sounds right, that doesn't make sense because in our day, we have to surrender.

I have to come to the altar. I have to repent. And what's more, Scripture does say, John chapter 1, verse 12, "To all who receive Him, to those who believe on His name, He gave the right to become children of God." But here's another reason why sometimes the problem of election is difficult to accept or swallow is because if we imagine it, election seems so cold.

It seems too mechanical. We could only imagine some arbitrary fashion in which God looks at a host of mankind and maybe blindly goes, "You, you, you, you, you, you, you." And that can't be because that seems unloving. And so people wonder, not only is it unloving, but does it even uphold our humanity?

Does it uphold our own volition, our own agency? And so they say, "It can't be that God elects in that way." And so there are people who have said, "God, He has foreknowledge, not predestination, but just foreknowledge. He knows that you will exercise faith. And He knows who will be His, but He does not predetermine the fate of our lives." Well, the passage in Romans chapter 8 through 9, and then all of chapter 10, all of chapter 11, it emphatically tells us, "No, stop trying to rationalize election.

Stop trying to rationalize how God saves according to what you think should be, ought to be, or make sense to you." God is revealing something to us that we cannot attain to by our human observation. This is something God says, "Here is something that's mine." Right? The secret thing belongs to the Lord.

"Here is something that I did." And He graciously reveals it to us and says, "I choose sovereignly." All of salvation is so, so God's, it belongs to Him, that yes, as you, as in this specific passage, worry about even the people of Israel, their salvation is so secure. I guarantee it.

It's as though it's done. So what I'd like to do is walk through this kind of lengthy passages of Romans 8 through 9 to think about how God has revealed to us this idea of the sovereign choice of God. And what I want to communicate to you, that the prevailing theme in the way that He communicated it is not, "This is a theological doctrine that you must sign off on." The prevailing way and theme that He has communicated to us is, "You don't understand the glory of my mercy in election." I want to show you just the kindness of my intention, the compassion of my heart goes long before you ever existed.

And in that way, I want us to appreciate our salvation. In that way, I want us to be warmed in our heart, glorify God, and just be amazed at the salvation that God has accomplished. Point number one, then as we look, point number one is just a simple statement that God has given to us this election that is all-inclusive, and we have to appreciate this all-inclusive nature of the election that He gives.

I wish there was a better word than "all-inclusive," because then you start thinking, like, your trip to Cancun is all-inclusive, right? You have meals, you have entertainment, you have drinks, and then you also have your lodging, right? But what I mean by the all-conclusive is, actually, yes, you have everything.

In election, it is an election of what? And our human minds have a hard time comprehending the all-inclusive nature of it because we are limited. To us, we are limited by time. To us, we are limited by sequence. Things to us have to be given in step one, step two, step three.

We can't guarantee step one through 100 because we are limited. And it's hard for me to imagine things out of sequence because we are limited. Remember, yesterday is like today for God. A thousand years is like one moment to God. There is such a difference between us and God.

His election is all-inclusive. What do I mean by that? Well, number one, is there a time feature to election? Yes. Ephesians 1, verse 3-4 tells us that the election is a part of the incredible blessings all in Christ. But take a look. "Blessed be the God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing." It's an all-inclusive blessing, and no part can actually be separated from one another.

We have been given all the blessings in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. When? The time feature is before He laid the foundation of this created universe. Poof! Right? Explain that one. We can't. Our limited, finite human minds cannot explain God choosing in Christ His Son before the foundation of the world.

But that is what's given to us. Okay? And therefore, we cannot deny that election, predestination, is a part of the whole of salvation. And maybe it's better for us to stop using things just simply like "election," but it's a biblical term, so we keep it. But the idea is God chooses.

And then He says, "That we would be holy, blame this before Him." Okay? Just going to keep it right there. But I may knock it over because-- Okay. So then, let's think about this. What am I trying to say to you? I find that one of the subtle flaws of my thinking is because I try to imagine how election plays out, which is a dangerous thing to do as a human, trying to see how did God work this out.

I find that I fall into this trap of thinking of election only sequentially as just the beginning portion. But what's more, here is my flaw. I think about it as an ancient edict. I think about it as a decree that this sovereign creator, right, He foreordained and predestined each one of you, and therefore you have a specific destiny, an allotment in your life.

You know what that is? That's fatalism. There is this ancient--as far as you can think about it, there is this decree, and you can do no none of that. You have no say. It doesn't even matter what you do. Why? Because there is an edict from long ago, and you're but this piece moving along.

You know what that is? It's the false religion of deism. If you look up deism during the time of enlightenment, they said there is this sovereign maker who, like a game master, winds up the top, and he spins it, and it goes. Right? But the false feature of deism is that this sovereign creator is actually uninvolved in your daily life.

That's false. The way God describes His choice is not simply a choice to free you and then now go make your way. And even more, it's not just simply-- it's choice to set you on a route. It's not just simply He elects you, and then now you're going to play out-- He is the script maker.

He is the play maker. And now you just play out the script as some robot. See, that's the falsehood, subtle falsehood. It's not like that at all. What does He say? Turn your eyes to Romans 8 and reflect on this matter, like Apostle Paul does. He says in Romans 8, again, this passage is so beautiful.

It's so choc--we can camp out here forever. But he says in Romans 8, "We know that God causes all things by His sovereign choice to work together for the good of those who love God. And to those who are called by His choice, according to His purpose, for those whom He foreknew, He also predestined." It's there.

"To become conformed to the image of His Son, all by His choice, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren. And these whom He predestined, He also called. And these whom He called, He also justified. And these whom He justified, He also glorified." The choice was to call you, to love upon you that you would be a child and therefore called a brethren?

I mean, talk about mind-blowing. To consider ourselves elevated to the stature of a brother of Christ? Incredible. To be sanctified in Christ, His choice. To then be glorified, His choice. And all of these things are all-inclusive, and we cannot separate it just because we don't know how to keep it all together in our minds.

Any accusation that says, "You know, election just seems so arbitrary. It seems so fatalistic." No. This is the kind of choice that God gives in which He is choosing to do all and every piece of salvation to such a degree that Apostle Paul's complaint isn't, "Well, wait a minute.

What about my own agency?" Or, "Wait a minute. What about my own input?" Or, "Wait a minute. What about..." No, Paul's response is like this. We turn our eyes to verse 38, and what he says is, For Apostle Paul, thinking about election gives him incredible security, knowing the very presence of God is with him now, was with him before, and will be with him forevermore.

That's eternal security, amen? That's comfort for the soul, amen? To know in our hearts that no earthly created thing, no experience or circumstance, not even time itself, will separate us from the love of God. Why? Every single piece of that was by God's choice. Every single piece of that chain is all-inclusive.

None of that is going to break. And so I want to encourage you guys. There are some of us in the room who do struggle with a sense of assurance. Why? You have your fair share of failures. Look upon yourself, and you have tons of deficiencies. You lack so much.

The doctrine of election, when was the last time you said to yourself, "Whoa, wait a minute. Because of salvation that God gives, the person that I am is not, 'I am a Christian, and therefore, I'm just going to be a struggling Christian. I should be a striving Christian. I should be a working Christian.'" The scriptures call you elect.

That's your title. And that gives us so much confidence, joy, assurance. Yes, does the scripture talk about you need to examine yourself to see if you're of the faith? Yes. But when was the last time you verbally expressed to God, "Aside from all the things I see happening in life, aside also from seeing my track record, I am convinced nothing will separate me from the love of Christ." Why?

Because those he foreknew, he has predestined. Those he predestined, he has justified. And those he justifies, he will glorify. The glorification is as good as done for a Christian because every bit of salvation has been by God's choice. Amen? As an example, the greatest example and story, one of the questions I posted on Facebook was, "What's a good story of election?

What's the good analogy? What's the picture of election that God has given to us from the scriptures?" And that picture is none other than His choice nation, the nation of Israel. Another way to highlight this idea of the all-inclusive nature of God's election is the all-inclusive blessings He gives when He promises.

Right? When He gives promises, another way to think about election. And that's what I mean by the all-inclusive nature of a promise. Why? Because when He thinks about the nation of Israel, this is what He says. Turn your eyes now to Romans 4. Okay? Romans 4. Oh, my bad, my bad.

I made a mistake. Romans 9, verse 4. Okay? Romans 9, verse 4. In Romans 9, verse 4, Apostle Paul is grieving over the fact that he is praying for his own people, his own kinsmen, but he recounts the incredible blessing that includes just about everything. And this is what he says.

"The Israelites, who, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the temple service, and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is Christ according to the flesh." When did the nation of Israel ask for any of that?

If you have ever heard the picture of some idea that your salvation is kind of like you're drowning in the ocean, and then because you're drowning in the ocean, you can't make it to the sea, God comes in a helicopter, and He comes on a ladder, and you have to grab it.

Let me ask you a question. When was any of this stuff something that the nation of Israel said, "Help me, come, give me the ladder. Come, give me the covenants. Give me the law." None of this stuff are things that humankind could even imagine asking for. Every one of these blessings were given by God by His choice and His purpose.

And that's what I'm saying. Appreciate about the all-inclusive purpose of God, that His choice was not just simply a moment of time, a decree from old, but it was all-inclusive of every nature of salvation. Amen? But the part of it is, point two, the hard part actually is that this blessing was very exclusive.

But it's on us now to receive this teaching that this blessing is very exclusive, and appreciate the fact that it was intentionally so. So I highlight this element of election revealed to us in Romans 9, that the election of God is intentionally exclusive. We must appreciate the intentionally exclusive nature of God's choice.

So what I'm making the point about it is, there is obviously an exclusive nature to it. God said this is the way it was. And there may be a complaint like, "Wait a minute. You're saying all these promises God planned and He decreed, and He chose the nation of Israel, and one of the accusations is, 'Look, the nation of Israel, the vast majority of them rejected Christ.

The vast majority of them constantly fell to their sin. And look at them. They're experiencing the consequences of their rejection. What gives? Why is the blessing not secure?" And the apostle Paul says, "Wait a minute. You have this weird presumption. Not everybody in Israel was a child of promise." Let me read you the passage.

It says here in Romans 9, verse 6-13, which is the center crux of our sermon today, he says, starting from verse 6, "It is not as though the word of God has failed, for they are not all Israel who are descendants from Israel, nor are they all children because they are not Abraham's descendants.

But through Isaac, your descendants will be named." God said, "Remember, you have this weird presumption that every single person who has a drop of Abraham's blood is going to be saved. But I always told you that it was going to be through a specific person of my choice, namely Isaac." And he says, "That is, it is not the children of the flesh." Again, it's not flesh, it's not blood, but it's the children of promise.

You can insert the idea of sovereign choice there. "Who are regarded as descendants, for this is the word of promise. At this time I will come and Sarah shall have a son." Again, even after Isaac, God chose a specific son. Verse 10, "Not only this, but there was Rebekah also when she had conceived twins by one man, father Isaac, for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God's purpose according to His choice would stand.

Not because of works, but because of Him who calls." That verse right there disproves this idea that God looked through the corridors of time, saw who would exercise faith. He says, "No, before you even exist or have any opportunity to exercise anything, I've already chosen." And then he says, verse 12, "It was said to her, 'The older will serve the younger,' just as it is written, 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.'" This is a very, very interesting portion of scripture, and you could already tell why many people would have trouble with that.

How can God say, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated"? It's a very difficult thing to overcome. And just to emphatically, I guess, highlight that a little more, I would like you to turn to Malachi 1, and I want you to understand that's not even just one person. Meaning, when he says, "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated," is he just talking about Jacob and Esau?

No, he's talking about their entire lineage. Take a look in Malachi 1, verse 1 through 5, he says, "The oracle of the word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi, 'I have loved you,' says the Lord. But you say, 'How? How have you loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother?' declares the Lord.

Yet I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountains a desolation, appointed his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness. And though Edom says, 'We have been beaten down, but we will return and build up the ruins.'" So the Edomites are all the lineage of Esau, and they keep saying, "Oh my gosh, we're going to, you know, we've suffered, and yes, we've lost battles, and we've been conquered, but don't worry, we'll rebuild ourselves." And God says, "No." "Thus says the Lord of hosts, 'They may build, but I will tear down.' And men will call them the wicked territory, and the people toward whom the Lord is indignant forever.

Your eyes will see this, and you will say, 'The Lord be magnified beyond the border of Israel.'" This is pretty hard for us to take, but I want you to remember that what God is saying here is number one, the choice that I give, it's mine to give, and intentionally so.

And though, yes, you might complain, "Wait, that doesn't make sense." It does not make sense that God would take an entire nation, and then he would hate them to such a degree that he keeps pushing them to experience ruin. Charles Spurgeon, he was describing this, and he talked about how one of his students, this comes from one of his sermons and the lectures to my students, students said, "I have great, great trouble with this verse.

How can God just say, 'Esau, I hated'?" And Spurgeon responded, "Rather than asking, 'How can God say, 'Esau, I hated,' I asked the question, 'How can he say, 'Jacob, I loved'?" That pretty much starts to dig at what are the presumptions, the false assumptions that we have in our mind.

Question, do we see God as the government? Does God run programs by which everybody should be able to apply? Do we see God as an institution? He is the great, great school by which everybody should have the opportunity to apply. Do we see him as some kind of program?

Do we see him essentially as maybe like a policy that we should hold at church? We have this policy. We reject nobody. Those are false assumptions we have embedded into our mind in the way that we see God. But a better picture of this is to say no individual can go to God and apply to him and say, "Yes, I know I'm a wretched sinner.

Yes, I know I'm living in filth, but make me your wife." There is no right we have to go to God and say, "That's not fair. Why don't you make me your child?" We're thinking about it the wrong way when we all of a sudden think that it's wrong for God to choose.

There's a lot of false assumptions, but I want to also highlight to us God highlights to challenge our assumptions, to go against cultural norms. It's cultural to pick the firstborn, and God says, "I'm not going to do that." It's cultural to make sure we pick these individuals who have this because for us, we always somehow work by merit.

God says, "No, not my choice." My choice is mercy. That's what we move to in number three. The third point of it is what we need to appreciate is God says, "Yes, it's my choice. Yes, it's my prerogative." That's what the passage says. You have any idea how little you have in your salvation.

Again, not to take away from the fact that we have to repent, we have to receive, we have to submit ourselves to the Word of God. All of that is true, but God says, "Not by man who runs, but my choice will stand." It's so emphatic. What he says, though, is, "But I want you to understand this choice is not arbitrary.

It's not cold. It's not mechanical, and I don't operate by policy." Praise the Lord. God does not operate by policy. God operates by personal mercy. Take a look at verse 14 of chapter 9, Romans 9.14. Romans 9.14, it says this, "What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there?

May it never be," strongest negative. "May it never be that God is unjust for being exclusive, for being intentionally exclusive. For he says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.'" So then, it does not depend on man who wills or man who runs, but on God who has mercy.

Skipping down to verse 19, or actually I'll pause there and then meditate on this for a little bit. God says that His sovereign election is not by anybody who runs, who toils. Obviously, I'm going to do this side versus that side. Okay? Excuse me. On this side, I want you to imagine one way of thinking about salvation, survivor island.

Okay? Deprivation of resources. You know you're lost. Okay? I.e., you're depraved and all of that. But nevertheless, there's a survival that we must. We must go seek out. Right? We must go seek out resources. We must go seek out rescue. We must go da-da-da-da-da. Or another way to picture it.

Earlier, I described one of the famous pictures of salvation. Because people would say, you're in a vast, vast ocean, so big, you could not possibly swim to shore. You're drowning there. And so, upon calling for help, God comes with this rescue boat and is now up to you to grab on to his life, you know, little circle thingy, buoy.

Cling to it. Right? That is not the way that God has envisioned His mercy. Throwing to us the lifeline is not God's mercy. That's a gross injustice to the level of mercy He chose to give. Amen? What's the right picture? I mentioned to you the nation of Israel is the analogy, is the picture that God wants us to think about.

And He actually describes it from His perspective in Ezekiel chapter 16. It's a longer passage, so walk through with me. Ezekiel 16, verses 1 through 15. And we're trying to appreciate the fact that when God says, "I have chosen you," if we think of it as any kind of picture we can think of on earth, where we throw lifelines, we give people a break, we give second chances.

I've heard so many times, like, "God is a God of second chances." And I realize, yeah, that what we're doing is we're trying to envision the level and depth of His mercy. And that's good. But oftentimes it's still too little. Take a look at this in verse 1. It says, "Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 'Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominations, and say, 'Thus says the Lord of Jerusalem, "Your origin and your birth are from the land of the Canaanites.

Your father was an Amorite, and your mother a Hittite. As for your birth, on the day you were born, your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water for cleansing. You were not rubbed with salt or even wrapped in cloth. No eye looked with pity on you to do any of the things for you, to have compassion on you.

Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for you were abhorred on the day you were born. When I passed by you and saw you squirming in your blood, I said to you, 'While you were in your blood, live.'" Yes, I said to you, "While you were in your blood, live." You have to picture the incredible devastation.

To think we are even in the ocean, trying to float, is not enough to look at our demise, to look at the sad state of man. We are as good as dead. Verse 7, "I made you numerous like the plants of the field. Then you grew up, became tall, and reached the age for fine ornaments.

Your breasts were formed and your hair had grown, yet you were naked and bare, still full of shame." Verse 8, "Then I passed by you and saw you, and behold, you were at that time for love. So I spread my Spirit over you, covered your nakedness. I also swore to you, entered into a covenant with you, so that you became mine, declares the Lord God.

Then I bathed you with water, washed off your blood from you, anointed you with oil. I also clothed you with embroidered cloth. I put sandals of porpoise skin on your feet, and I wrapped you with fine linen, covered you with silk. I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your hands, a necklace around your neck.

I put a ring in your nostril, earrings in your ears, beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your dress was of fine linen, silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour, honey and oil, so you were exceedingly beautiful, advanced in royalty." Listen to this, "Then your fame went forth among the nations on account of your beauty, for it was perfect because of my splendor," insert, "which I chose to bestow on you." The election is incredible mercy of God to bestow Himself and His own glories upon His simple created beings.

However, the story, as you know, is one of tragedy because in verse 15, He says, "But you, you trusted in your beauty, played the harlot because of your fame, and you poured out your holler trees on every pastor by who might be willing." Did God not know that those individuals upon which He lavished Himself, His love, His care, incredibly precise, incredibly intimate mercies upon would then play the harlot?

Did He not know that the people to which whom He has given His mercy and grace to reveal, "I have chosen you from long ago before the foundations of the world, I thought of you," would look at Him and say, "That doesn't seem fair." God in His willing, kind heart was so willing to endure all things.

That's His choice of us. That is not something we can say we have a part in. And what I realize is the definitions of mercy that I used to think about. If you guys have heard probably in sermons before, I have probably said it multiple times. You know what mercy is?

It's when God says, "You deserve my wrath. I'm not going to give it to you." Because mercy means you don't get what you deserve. Grace means you receive far more than you deserve. I'm going to lavish you with love. But I read a passage like this, mercy means so much more, doesn't it?

In God's election, it's full of His heart. In His perfect, all-sovereign sight of each and every one of you, He looks upon with pity. He's moved in His soul. And no, it is not an arbitrary, heartless, mechanical way of saying, "You, you, you, you, you." It is an incredibly personal display of mercy.

That's what I'm trying to say. And every other picture by which we think, "Oh yeah, our election must be like this," is probably going to fall short. So stop it. But rather, relish in the fact that we have been given this mercy to see this election of God and to receive it not as a theological point, but a show of His love, a show of His care, a show of the kindness He wants to show you.

God has given you something completely unimaginable. We could not have devised it. We could not have brainstormed it. He has given us His sovereign election of mercy. Amen? And that's why God says, "What I'm trying to reveal to you is to my glory. My election is to show you the riches of my mercy." Point four, we must give glory to God for choosing to show us His mercy.

The election, the doctrine of predestination is to us a great, great glory of God. An incredible display of His glory to us. Romans 9, starting from verse 19, He says, "You will say to me then, 'Why does he still find fault for who resists his will?'" There's still a little bit of a, "Wait a minute." Right?

If you're so sovereign and you choose, and you're so sovereign that you affect the mind of man, you affect the heart of man, and there's no recess, there's no little bit of my heart by which my freedom to choose is untouched by the hand of God, false. God can harden the mind, the heart hardens itself, but God can completely encrust it.

God can give us over to the depraved desires of our heart. God can do all things, both in the physical world, both in the metaphysical world, all things spiritual, whatever it may be, we think we have a realm in, God says, "No, I have sovereignty." The mind says, "Well, wait a minute.

That doesn't make sense." Verse 20, "Rather than answering our questions based on our questions," He says, "but on the contrary, who are you? Who are you, O man, who answers back to God, 'The thing molded will not say to the molder, 'Why did you make me like this?' Will it?

Or does not the potter have the right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath, to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?

And He did so to make known, look at this, the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory." Verse 24, "Yes, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among the Gentiles, as He says also in Hosea, 'I will call those who are not My people, My people, and her who was not beloved, beloved.' And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not My people,' there they shall be called sons of the living God." So she called the incredible mercy of God to the prophet Hosea.

He told Hosea, "Go find yourself a woman of harlotry." Her name was Gomer, and she was unfaithful, repeatedly unfaithful. Hosea was called to love her, and yet she would continue to give herself away. And they had children, and amongst the children, one of the names of the children was Lo-Ramah, which means, "You are not My people." But by the incredible mercy of God, He displayed, "I have the choice to be so counterintuitive, counter logic, you could say, counter to what makes sense to you.

Why would I ever show faithfulness to a bride who's so unfaithful? Because it's My choice." Does that not move us? Does this passage not scream, like, "Whoa! Our salvation is beyond comprehension." And He says, "According to His will, He has desired that, yes, although I could make you an object of wrath," I want you to think about this, "we may complain, 'Wait a minute, it seems so twisted.

If you knew that I was going to suffer, are you trying to tell me that before I was even born, you were going to inflict me with harm, that I was going to experience suffering in this life? Maybe I'd even have a deformity, a deficiency? I was going to have hardships in my life?

I would endure pains just so that I could be an object of your mercy?' The answer is, 'Yes!' That's to God's glory, and it's to your love and grace." God could have made every single one of us clay, clay targets for destruction. If God was a shooting man, He could say, "I'm going to shoot you into the sky, and I will show you glory of how good my aim is by killing all of you.

Why do I have to choose any of you?" Because He says, "I could have vessels of destruction to show you the power of my wrath, and in an instant, every single clay target in the sky, every single clay on earth, will be destroyed by my precise wrath." And He says, "No, but that's not my heart.

That's the point." He says, "I look upon you with pity. I move with compassion. I love you from the beginning to the end. I am your author and the perfecter of your faith. Some of you wrestle with the assurance of salvation. No, with full certainty, God's love is so great, grand, and beyond comprehension, that when He places His mercy upon you, He places everything upon you, and you will not lose it.

Why? Because it wasn't your choice to begin with. It was for His glory. The mercy He's shown you was for His glory. You will not lose it, because God will never lose His glory, and you have been to your privilege now the object of the glory of God. You're a vessel of His mercy." I wanted us today just to experience a fresh appreciation for our salvation, that from the beginning portions to the middle portions and the end portions, God has ordained all of it.

And yes, you will suffer, and it will make you, with your human eyes, be like, "I don't see it. I don't get it. What is He doing?" But I want you to remember, with our human eyes, we look on Jesus, He's just a man. He grew up. He matured.

He was a teen, then He was an adult, then He was a rabbi, and everybody said, "Come see the rabbi." But God, through His mercy, told you, "That's my Son. There's glory in Him." And by mercy, we said, "Praise the Lord, the Son of God." The disciples of Christ-- Pastor Peter has been talking about the disciples, and again, intentionally so, Christ chose the lowly, the unsuspecting, for His glory.

And the disciples said, "Come see the miracle worker." And Jesus, by His mercy, revealed to them, "Poof! You think you chose me? I chose you." And then to us, it looks like, "I have to strive. I have to work. I have to choose this day. I have to labor.

I have to repent, and I have to exercise my faith." True. God says, "Your faith is secure because I am the perfecter of your faith." Don't try for your own sense of nobility or any sense of identity or any sense of your value to hang on to your own agency because the beginning place for every Christian is, "I am just an abject death before you.

You have told me, if any part of this is up to me, no man seeks God, not even one." Romans 3. "You have told me, we're dead in our transgressions. We're objects of wrath. Thanks be to God." When you rescue, you rescue fully. When you heal, you feel fully.

And when you save, you save to perfection. And in this way, what we have is a unique, exclusive privilege that has been given to us by the mercies and compassions of God, and it includes every part of salvation. Amen? Let's glorify God by remembering, as it says in Ephesians 1, verse 4 through 9, "Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him, in love he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the kind intention of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace." You and I are vessels.

God created us to be recipients, and we can do none other than to say, "Thank you, thank you, thank you." We want to be filled with the mercies of God so that when we understand his grand election, we're not thinking, "Oh yeah, do you believe in election? What? How dare you?" Or, "What?

How dare you not?" And then it becomes a theological point of argumentation. No. It becomes for us this great, great joyous occasion to say, "Praise the Lord. I'm not bragging about, 'I got into college. I got into Harvard. I got into X, Y, and Z profession, school, institution.'" No.

I got mercied. And this is the balance that Apostle Paul knew. In 1 Timothy chapter 1, verse 15 through 16, Apostle Paul resoundingly says, "You have no idea how much I got mercied." He says in 1 Timothy 1, 15, it is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance and appreciation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am the foremost of all.

Yet for this reason, I found mercy so that in me, as the foremost Jesus Christ, might demonstrate his perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in him for eternal life. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, our gracious Lord, we thank you. We thank you so much, God, that you do not leave us in the dark and we're left to wonder, truly are we secure when the world rages, when the reprobate and pagans, the wicked generation is thriving, when we feel like the minority?

Is our salvation truly secure when I feel so weak? I make mistakes all the time and I don't find in myself the confidence to keep faithful every day. Thank you, God, that you reveal to us by your mercy our salvation is yours to give. And you gave it with kindness in your heart, compassion in your eyes as you look upon us.

So Lord, we can do none other than to thank you this day. We thank you, Lord, from the bottom of our hearts. In Christ's name, amen. Let us stand together for the closing praise. ♪ When I can remember ♪ ♪ no wrongs we did do ♪ ♪ on this shallow low ♪ ♪ because not there's some ♪ ♪ thrown into a sea ♪ ♪ with a bottom or shore ♪ ♪ who says they are many ♪ ♪ His mercy is bound to me ♪ ♪ What patience ♪ ♪ and patience would wait ♪ ♪ as we prostrate thee ♪ ♪ What Father so tender ♪ ♪ is calling us o'er ♪ ♪ He welcomes the weakest ♪ ♪ the vilest of poor ♪ ♪ who says they are many ♪ ♪ His mercy is bound ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord ♪ ♪ His mercy is bound ♪ ♪ Shunner the time ♪ ♪ we see Him every more ♪ ♪ who says they are many ♪ ♪ His mercy is bound ♪ ♪ What riches ♪ ♪ of kindness He lavished on us ♪ ♪ His blood was the payment ♪ ♪ His life was the cost ♪ ♪ We stand in the dead ♪ ♪ we could never afford ♪ ♪ Our sins they are many ♪ ♪ His mercy is bound ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord ♪ ♪ His mercy is bound ♪ ♪ Shunner the time ♪ ♪ we see Him every more ♪ ♪ who says they are many ♪ ♪ His mercy is bound ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord ♪ ♪ His mercy is bound ♪ ♪ Shunner the time ♪ ♪ we see Him every more ♪ ♪ who says they are many ♪ ♪ His mercy is bound ♪ ♪ Our sins they are many ♪ ♪ His mercy is bound ♪ Amen.

Let us pray together. Our God, we are refreshed today to remember that you are sovereign in salvation, and we again thank you that then you freely gave it to us. Lord, we know that to us it costs us nothing, but to you it costs everything, including your Son. So we thank you.

We also know that as we're reminded of your sovereignty, Lord, when we go forth to preach the gospel and to speak of the mercy you receive, we know, God, that it will bear its fruit. And so, God, as we know that even here and abroad there are those who are yours, we pray that we could see your wondrous and sovereign work be done.

For the team that is out in Korea, we pray that you would divinely appoint them to be able to speak and proclaim of the mercies and the grace of Christ, and, God, that you would bring the lost to yourself. And even here, Lord, would you use us as a mighty beacon of light, that, God, we would share in the love of Christ.

We thank you this day. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. ♪ God sent his Son ♪ ♪ They called him Jesus ♪ ♪ He came to the world ♪ ♪ Heal and forgive ♪ ♪ He lived and died ♪ ♪ To my, my pardon ♪ ♪ An empty grave is there to put ♪ ♪ My Savior there ♪ ♪ Because he lives ♪ ♪ I can face tomorrow ♪ ♪ Because he lives ♪ ♪ All fear is gone ♪ ♪ Because I know ♪ ♪ He holds the future ♪ ♪ And life is worth the living ♪ ♪ Just because he lives ♪ Amen.

♪ Who has held the oceans in his hand? ♪ ♪ Who has numbered every grain of sand? ♪ ♪ Kings and nations tremble at his voice ♪ ♪ All creation rises to rejoin ♪ ♪ He who died ♪ ♪ Seated on his throne ♪ ♪ Come, let us adore him ♪ ♪ He ruled and king ♪ ♪ Nothing can compare ♪ ♪ Come, let us adore him ♪ ♪ Who has given counsel to the weak and questioned?

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