SPEAKER_00: Let's start us off with some prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you for this time we have together.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you for the tie that binds us, that is our Redeemer, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Help us this morning as we reflect on Him as the Redeemer, the redemption he accomplished, and the redemption that's applied to us by the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, as always, we our hope this morning is that you would not just fill our heads, but you would fill our hearts, that you would give us a better grasp of what you have done for us in Christ, so that we can live in better response to it and share it with others as we go about our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Help us this morning, send your spirit now.
SPEAKER_00: We pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so last week we um we turned from the person and the work of the Redeemer to the application of his benefits to us.
SPEAKER_00: Question 29 asks, how are we made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is that we are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ by the effectual application of it to us by his Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So we're partakers in that we have a share in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We're united to him, we have communion with him.
SPEAKER_00: We have redemption in that he has paid the price of redemption through his blood.
SPEAKER_00: And it is effectually applied to us in that God applies the benefits of redemption to us effectively, powerfully, sovereignly by his Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So today we ask how the Spirit does that.
SPEAKER_00: Question 30.
SPEAKER_00: How does the Spirit apply to us redemption purchased by Christ?
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit applies to us the redemption purchased by Christ by working faith in us and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling.
SPEAKER_00: So we'll talk some about the Spirit working faith in us, and we'll also talk about effectual calling.
SPEAKER_00: We'll be covering questions 30 and 31 in the shorter catechism today.
SPEAKER_00: So, faith.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit applies to us the redemption purchased by Christ by working faith in us.
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean for God to work faith in us?
SPEAKER_06: He gives us faith.
SPEAKER_00: He gives us faith.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: You want to add anything to that?
SPEAKER_00: We like that?
SPEAKER_00: We like Randy's answer.
SPEAKER_02: He gives us confident expectation that he will accomplish what he said he was going to accomplish.
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00: So he doesn't just give us faith, he gives us hope.
SPEAKER_00: Because what you're describing there is Christian hope.
SPEAKER_02: Because you have to have faith in something.
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is the assurance of things hurt uh hope for the conviction of things unseen, right?
SPEAKER_01: I would say, in my own experience with you, that you know, as you walk with God, you see him move in your life.
SPEAKER_01: And that increases my faith as I see his hand in everything.
SPEAKER_01: My faith gets stronger, and um and that's what I experience.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I was gonna say something about providing evidence for faith.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so God doesn't just give the faith, he gives the conditions of faith, and he enables us to exercise faith too, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because faith is something we have to do, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You you have to believe.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't believe for you.
SPEAKER_00: We acknowledge from Ephesians 2, 2, 8 through 9, by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing.
SPEAKER_00: It is the gift of God, not a result of work, so that no one may boast.
SPEAKER_00: The gift there refers to both the grace and the faith.
SPEAKER_00: God gives us faith.
SPEAKER_00: Well, having faith, we have to exercise our faith.
SPEAKER_00: But it's really important that we don't confuse faith with a work.
SPEAKER_00: As yes, we have to have faith, but faith is not the thing we do in order to merit our redemption.
SPEAKER_00: Now think about that.
SPEAKER_00: How does that compare to how you've maybe been taught about faith or thought about faith in the past?
SPEAKER_00: So often, go ahead.
SPEAKER_02: Faith.
SPEAKER_02: And believing.
SPEAKER_02: And what you read about and what God is teaching you.
SPEAKER_02: And you believe, and you know, I obey.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, faith is believing.
SPEAKER_00: Believing is the the verb form of the noun faith.
SPEAKER_00: In Greek, they're they're the same word, just in slightly different uh forms.
SPEAKER_00: It is so it is a response, really.
SPEAKER_02: It's not just believing that God exists because James tells us the devil do that.
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_02: Um, it is it is what the vision or the knowledge of God's character elicits from us.
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_02: That to me is believing faith.
SPEAKER_02: That's biblical faith.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: He gives us a glimmer of himself, and the response that goes back to him is this biblical faith.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's an important point in there in what you were saying.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just believing in God, it's believing God when he reveals himself, when he reveals who he is and what he's done and what he requires of us.
SPEAKER_00: So it's got content.
SPEAKER_00: It's got definite content.
SPEAKER_00: Brennan.
SPEAKER_07: That's similar to Adrian's book or going on in chapter one day.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_07: I mean, I think a lot of times I don't know about it.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: It's the head, it's the heart, it's the hands.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
SPEAKER_06: Versus the thing that we need is the righteousness.
SPEAKER_06: Right.
SPEAKER_06: And it's the righteousness that we receive by faith, by believing God as Abraham believed that.
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
SPEAKER_06: But there is a sense that we put our faith in our faith.
SPEAKER_06: And remember that it's the righteousness that we need.
SPEAKER_06: Right.
SPEAKER_06: That we actually think that we have.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: And Jeff is getting at what I was getting at in my question.
SPEAKER_00: He's a he's a plant.
SPEAKER_00: I paid him five bucks for coming class.
SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes the way we're taught about faith and the way we think about faith in evangelical churches is faith is the one work that you do in order to be saved.
SPEAKER_00: It's not generally articulated in that way, but faith becomes the thing that, you know, I write the date in my Bible and I look back to the day I put my faith in Jesus, and that's where I place my confidence.
SPEAKER_00: As opposed to faith being the open hand that lays hold of Christ, faith being the instrument by which we receive the redemptive benefits of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: See, it may sound like a bit of a distinction without a difference, but it's actually all the difference in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Because on the one side, what you have, what you ultimately end up with is faith in your own faith.
SPEAKER_00: Why am I saved?
SPEAKER_00: Because I've decided to follow Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Because I have believed in him.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, what about on the really hard days when your doubt is assailing you or when things aren't going the way they should?
SPEAKER_00: How do you feel about your faith then?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: As opposed to, you know, why, you know, why are you saved?
SPEAKER_00: Why do you have eternal security?
SPEAKER_00: Why do you have assurance of faith?
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus loved me and gave himself for me.
SPEAKER_00: That one is faith.
SPEAKER_00: It is an articulation grounded in faith, as is an exercise of faith that doesn't rest our salvation in that faith itself.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: So it it's so when the Spirit applies the benefits of Christ to us, when God works faith within us, that's the kind of faith that he's working within us.
SPEAKER_00: He's giving us the spiritual perception, he's giving us the sensitivity of heart and mind to hear what he said and to understand what he said, to receive what he said, to respond to what he said.
SPEAKER_06: Your first description is stuff that we do.
SPEAKER_05: Your second description is what Jesus did.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_05: So it's not about at all what we do.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we are saved by works.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' works.
SPEAKER_00: And faith is how we lay hold of those works.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the work that we do in order to, you know, complete or actualize Jesus' work.
SPEAKER_00: It's the organ by which we receive what Jesus has already done for us.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the kind of faith that God works in us.
SPEAKER_00: And ordinarily, how does he bring that faith about?
SPEAKER_00: Think biblically.
SPEAKER_00: What does God use to elicit faith from us?
SPEAKER_00: Preaching.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 10, 17.
SPEAKER_00: So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's a pretty, in that sense, it's kind of an expansive understanding of the word preaching.
SPEAKER_00: There's the kind of formal preaching that happens in a worship service that I do up there in the pulpit.
SPEAKER_00: But there's also the kind of informal preaching that the whole church does in terms of our Christian testimony, in terms of our witness.
SPEAKER_00: And God uses that witness in order to elicit faith.
SPEAKER_00: Christ speaks in and by the word of God as it is spoken by the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And he uses that to grow the word of God, to grow the church.
SPEAKER_00: And so that kind of raises the question as we're thinking about this.
SPEAKER_00: What about people who aren't exposed to preaching?
SPEAKER_00: Or people who aren't capable of hearing that preaching with normal understanding?
SPEAKER_00: And our confession is actually pretty modest and helpful in how it summarizes the Bible's teaching in that respect.
SPEAKER_00: It's confession chapter 10, paragraph 3.
SPEAKER_00: It says, because think of the categories.
SPEAKER_00: What categories of people come to mind then?
SPEAKER_00: Infants and the mentally infirm, people who also people who are kind of on the frontiers where maybe the gospel hasn't penetrated yet.
SPEAKER_00: Or where you don't see churches yet.
SPEAKER_00: And 10 3 says, elect infants dying in infancy are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who works when and where and how he pleases.
SPEAKER_00: So also are all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.
SPEAKER_00: In the chapter on the church, it'll also talk about the visible church of Christ out of which there is no ordinary expectation of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: There are still extraordinary cases in the world that I think we can admit that you may not see the ordinary preaching of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: You may not have a person coming into a church service on a Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_00: You may have an infant who hasn't had the possibility of sitting through a sermon and hearing the external calling of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: What are we saying?
SPEAKER_00: That they're not saved?
SPEAKER_00: No, what we're saying is that God is capable.
SPEAKER_00: God is able to save people in those situations.
SPEAKER_00: And especially in the case of the infant, we have the witness of Scripture, David, and his baby by Bathsheba, 2 Samuel 12, 22 through 23.
SPEAKER_00: David said, While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, Who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?
SPEAKER_00: But now he was dead.
SPEAKER_00: Why should I fast?
SPEAKER_00: Can I bring him back again?
SPEAKER_00: I shall go to him, but he will not return to me.
SPEAKER_00: David had the expectation that this child, being his child, being a child of the covenant, was a child that he would be reunited with.
SPEAKER_00: And he could have that expectation on the basis of the covenant promises.
SPEAKER_00: Like Peter says in Acts 2 on Pentecost, for the promise is to you and to your children.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the kind of hope that Christians can hold out or hold on to if you've been through miscarriage or the loss of a child.
SPEAKER_00: It's also something we can hold out to each other when we go through, you know, with when our brothers and sisters go through that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: So ordinarily faith comes by the preaching of the word, but that is not, that does not necessarily mean that someone who's in a condition where they could not receive that outward call in a way that we would or that we would expect, it doesn't mean that God can't reach that person either.
SPEAKER_00: Alright.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit applies to us the redemption purchased by Christ by working faith in us and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling.
SPEAKER_00: Uniting us to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We spoke about that at length last week, so we don't necessarily need to rehash all of it.
SPEAKER_00: We can simply reiterate that the whole of our salvation is comprehended in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: John Calvin, one of the most famous quotes he has from the Institutes of the Christian Religion, comes from Book 3, chapter 1, paragraph 1.
SPEAKER_00: He says, we must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us and we are separated from him, that all that he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us.
SPEAKER_00: Union with Christ is the great gift within which all of the other gifts of God are comprehended.
SPEAKER_00: We did this little exercise last week where we read Ephesians 1 and we raised our hands every time something like in Christ or with Christ or through Christ came up in the text, and it's like we're raising our hands the whole time.
SPEAKER_00: Because the reality is that Jesus is not some vending machine from which we draw the benefits of redemption.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is our covenant head, he's our covenant Lord, he's our covenant redeemer.
SPEAKER_00: So everything we have from him, we have by way of union with him personally.
SPEAKER_00: So what he did, we do.
SPEAKER_00: What happened to him, happened to us.
SPEAKER_00: When he died, we died with him.
SPEAKER_00: When he rose, we rose with him.
SPEAKER_00: When he now lives, we live with him.
SPEAKER_00: And when he comes back in glory, we will rise in fullness with him.
SPEAKER_00: So our union with Christ is absolutely central to the application of the benefits of redemption to us.
SPEAKER_00: So the last bit of this answer talks about effectual calling.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit applies to us the redemption purchased by Christ by working faith in us and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 1 9.
SPEAKER_00: God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So what is that?
SPEAKER_00: What is effectual calling?
SPEAKER_00: This is shorter catechism 31.
SPEAKER_00: And it answers this way.
SPEAKER_00: So again, it's the work of God's Spirit, but there are a number of things that God does in that process.
SPEAKER_00: So getting ahead of myself, it's effectual calling.
SPEAKER_00: Why is it important that we call it effectual?
SPEAKER_00: What kind of work is the word effectual doing there?
SPEAKER_00: In what sense is God's calling effectual?
unknown: Guaranteed result.
SPEAKER_00: Guaranteed result?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: It's yeah, it's a it's a work or it's a calling that accomplishes exactly what it intends.
SPEAKER_00: So to look at something like this, let's turn to John 11.
SPEAKER_00: And if somebody wants to read for us, John 11, verses 41 through 44.
SPEAKER_00: John 11, forty-one through forty-four.
SPEAKER_00: This of course is the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.
SPEAKER_05: So they took away the stone, and Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard that you have heard me.
SPEAKER_05: I knew that you always heard me, but I said this, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.
SPEAKER_05: When he said these things, he cried, he cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out.
SPEAKER_05: The man who had died came out, his hands and feet were bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth.
SPEAKER_05: Jesus said to them, Unbind him and let him go.
SPEAKER_00: Did Jesus have a conversation with Lazarus?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Did Jesus ask for his permission?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Did Jesus wait for his reply?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus simply said, Lazarus, come out.
SPEAKER_00: And he did.
SPEAKER_00: That's effectual calling in a nutshell.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a powerful illustration of what Jesus said in John 10.
SPEAKER_00: My sheep hear my voice, they know me, they follow me.
SPEAKER_00: What he said in John 5 about the day coming when all the dead will rise from the tombs.
SPEAKER_00: And proves it in his very own resurrection, right?
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus' calling is a bad book, but it's also effectual.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you, friend.
SPEAKER_00: Appreciate that.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' calling is effectual, right?
SPEAKER_00: God's calling is effectual.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 55, 10 through 11.
SPEAKER_00: As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth.
SPEAKER_00: It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
SPEAKER_00: So God's speech is efficacious.
SPEAKER_00: God's speech is actually an action.
SPEAKER_00: And the first place you see that is in the very beginning, the creation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: So God speaking, God calling, it accomplishes exactly what God intends.
SPEAKER_00: In some cases, it confirms sinners in their rebellion, and it condemns.
SPEAKER_00: Like Isaiah 6, you know, hearing they will not hear, seeing they will not see.
SPEAKER_00: But in other cases, in our case, it saves.
SPEAKER_00: And so here we're talking about the effectual call of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: His voice is conveyed to us by the Holy Spirit who prepares our hearts and minds to receive it.
SPEAKER_00: So thinking about that, right?
SPEAKER_00: Effectual calling is the work of God's Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: There were plenty of people who heard Jesus' audible voice.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus preached to the crowds.
SPEAKER_00: He called to the crowds, and yet they didn't respond to him.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't follow him.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't believe him.
SPEAKER_00: Why not?
SPEAKER_02: They did not have a unit.
SPEAKER_02: They had no inclination.
SPEAKER_02: Anything to say.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians 2, 2 Corinthians 3 and 4 talk about a people who walk in darkness, right?
SPEAKER_00: John 3 as well.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of all over the place.
SPEAKER_00: A people who walk in darkness who are self deceived on account of their rebellion.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 1 is Suppress the truth in unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_00: That's our default state of mind, that's our default state of heart.
SPEAKER_00: Unless and until the Holy Spirit does a work in us.
SPEAKER_00: John 6.63, it is the Spirit who gives life.
SPEAKER_00: The flesh is no help at all.
SPEAKER_00: The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit, in order for someone to respond to the call of God, the Spirit needs to be working in their heart and mind to actually prepare them and to enable them to respond to that call.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a really, really important thing for us to keep in mind when we're talking to people about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Why do you think so?
SPEAKER_07: It takes the weight off of us.
SPEAKER_00: Keeping this in mind, it takes the weight off, like Brandon was saying.
SPEAKER_00: But it also gives us a confidence.
SPEAKER_00: So there's an urgency that you can feel in evangelizing people or in having apologetic conversations.
SPEAKER_00: There's an urgency that you should feel, right?
SPEAKER_00: You're contending for people's souls.
SPEAKER_00: You're trying to communicate the life, light, and love of Jesus to them.
SPEAKER_00: There should always be an urgency there.
SPEAKER_00: But having a good sense of the Spirit's work in that transaction gives you freedom to engage it as a faithful instrument of God's word and not as someone who thinks that they have to argue this person into the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: So the practical benefits of that are, you know, less stress and anxiety for you, but also, you know, it sets you free from being a jerk for, you know, for lack of a better way of putting it.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you approach evangelism or apologetics with this sense of like, if it's meant to be, it's up to me, you're gonna go hard.
SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna try to unload the truck at them.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, if you die tonight, what's it?
SPEAKER_00: If you die tonight, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying there aren't contexts in which that's necessary or good, but if you go into it knowing that this is the work of God's Spirit, you're actually free to pay attention and to listen.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, and to know maybe it's not not is now isn't the moment to press.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe now is the moment to press, right, as the case as the case may be.
SPEAKER_00: And you can do that with the confidence knowing that God actually does work in those situations.
SPEAKER_00: This is how God reaches people.
SPEAKER_00: So however you might feel about your own intellectual or rhetorical gifts, however equipped you might feel to engage that moment or ill-equipped to engage it, you can lean in knowing that in the providence of God, he put you in that place for a reason, and that you do your best to share what you can share, but you're gonna flub it at moments.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna not think of things you should you should say, you're gonna replay the conversation in your mind later and say, Oh, I wish I said this, I wish I said that, I wish I went here, so on and so forth.
SPEAKER_00: But set all that aside, the Holy Spirit's going to work in and through that interaction in order to accomplish his goodwill in that person's life.
SPEAKER_00: So you're free.
SPEAKER_02: I'm thinking of I used to fly a lot, going to conferences and whatnot, and you talking about that reminds me of Francisco.
SPEAKER_02: He was, I was flying to Texas somewhere, and this young Hispanic man got playing at BA with me.
SPEAKER_02: And so I always say, Lord, if you mean me to keep my mouth shut, please don't let me open my mouth.
SPEAKER_02: But if you want me to say something, please help me do that.
SPEAKER_02: And so he he seemed to, I smiled at him, he smiled back, he seemed friendly enough, so I said, Hey, uh, what's your name?
SPEAKER_02: He said, Francisco.
SPEAKER_02: I said, Francisco, that's a great name, that's wonderful.
SPEAKER_02: And the conversation, uh, I said, France Francis is one of my favorite saints.
SPEAKER_02: He was, he loved all the animals just like I do.
SPEAKER_02: And um he said, When I die, I'm going to heaven because I've already lived hell on this earth.
SPEAKER_00: And that was welcome to the party.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he was a street kid.
SPEAKER_02: He was a street kid in Mexico, he was he was beaten and abused and whatnot, just this little riffraff.
SPEAKER_02: And I still think that the Lord put me there just to listen, because he just unburdened.
SPEAKER_02: And never had any resolution, never any big come to Jesus moment, but just he had at least one person that cared by listening to him and paying attention.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and in the providence of God, we can be okay with that.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and he that may have set him up from later on during the gospel saying, Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_04: Just that see.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, most of the things.
SPEAKER_00: If you come with that weight of anxiety where you really think it's up to you, you're gonna try to turn, you're gonna try to close everyone.
SPEAKER_04: That's true.
SPEAKER_00: When you know, God may not have ordained that you would be the closer.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: You're warming up a lead, right?
SPEAKER_00: And somebody else is gonna come along in the future and close it.
SPEAKER_00: And sure, you can take that as an excuse to like lean out and only, you know, only talk to people about Jesus when you feel super comfortable about it.
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you're taking this as an excuse to not feel the urgency and not to engage, then you're mishearing and misunderstanding what the Bible actually calls us to.
SPEAKER_00: Again, there's urgency there.
SPEAKER_00: We ought to be seeking the Spirit's leading and having the conversations, but you know, let Him dictate how those conversations go.
SPEAKER_07: Be free.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: So Yeah, be passionate about how good the Lord is and how His love is just beyond comprehension.
SPEAKER_02: And but be sensitive to how that can be expressed in this moment in this context.
SPEAKER_02: Right, exactly.
SPEAKER_00: So the Spirit works through those situations, right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh effectually calling people in and through the sharing of God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Um in that, you know, you have regeneration, right?
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel 36, the taking of the heart of stone and the granting of the heart of flesh in its place, and the giving of the spirit to receive the word of God in our hearts and to desire to respond to it in the right way.
SPEAKER_00: It's important we don't think of that as a kind of mechanical, sort of uh a mechanical transaction or even a kind of coercion.
SPEAKER_00: Where God strips us of our agency that we you know we cease to be humans and we become automatons, or that's not even right, but robots, or the reformers would say, He does, he doesn't treat us, he doesn't work with us as though we were stalks and blocks.
SPEAKER_00: What God does by his grace is he changes us.
SPEAKER_00: He changes our hearts, he changes our minds, he changes our affections.
SPEAKER_00: Uh when we were in the flesh, in our fallen nature, apart from the grace of God, void of the Holy Spirit in us, we didn't want anything to do with God.
SPEAKER_00: So we retain the freedom of our will in the sense that we can do what we want and we can go where we want to go, we can make the decisions that seem right to us, but in a deeper sense, our will is in bondage to our sin.
SPEAKER_00: So what God does in regeneration is he sets us free from the bondage.
SPEAKER_00: He renews our wills and he gives us a desire to respond to Him and a desire to do what we're supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00: And the catechism answer begins to talk about that process with a conviction of our sin and misery.
SPEAKER_00: Effectual calling is the work of God's Spirit, whereby convincing us of our sin and misery.
SPEAKER_00: So giving us the bad news about who we are apart from Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And not just informing us of the bad news, but actually convincing our hearts, bringing about a spirit of conviction of all the things that we talked about in questions 17 through 19 of Catechism, how the fall brings us into a state of sin and misery, we lack original righteousness, we're guilty, we're corrupt, we um we've lost communion with God, we're under his wrath and curse, we're made liable to all the miseries of this life, to death itself, to the pains of hell forever.
SPEAKER_00: All of that.
SPEAKER_00: It's always true.
SPEAKER_00: It's objectively true of our state apart from the healing grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: What the Spirit does is not just give us a notional truth about these things, but actually bring them home to our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: So that we're convicted of I'm guilty.
SPEAKER_00: I'm fallen, I'm corrupt, I lack righteousness, I've lost communion with God, I'm under his wrath and curse.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going upstairs, I'm going downstairs.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the Spirit does within us, dealing with us as rational creatures.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 1.18.
SPEAKER_00: We see God do this with his people.
SPEAKER_00: Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow.
SPEAKER_00: Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
SPEAKER_00: It's essentially what's happening in that first component of effectual calling.
SPEAKER_00: God is reasoning with us and convincing us and persuading us of our need for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: The next component of that is, you know, he convinces us of our sin and misery, and then he enlightens our minds to the knowledge of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So he communicates the truth to us.
SPEAKER_00: He communicates the things that are to be believed in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a mere sentiment.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is not just a vibe.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is news, the gospel has content.
SPEAKER_02: And the gospel is power.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is power.
SPEAKER_00: It's a powerful word, though, right?
SPEAKER_00: It gets that effectual calling, right?
SPEAKER_00: God does not just zoink us, right?
SPEAKER_00: He informs us.
SPEAKER_00: He tells us about himself.
SPEAKER_00: He tells us what he's done.
SPEAKER_00: Creation, how he's made the world and he's made us to know him and love him and to serve him, to glorify and enjoy him, fall.
SPEAKER_00: He tells us about what happened to break our relationship with him, redemption.
SPEAKER_00: He tells us about who Jesus is and what he has done through Christ and the blood of his cross to reconcile us and all things to himself and consummation.
SPEAKER_00: He informs our hope.
SPEAKER_00: He tells us where everything is going and how the story ends, and how he brings about the full consummation and the making of all things new.
SPEAKER_00: So he convinces us of our sin and misery, but he also enlightens us.
SPEAKER_00: He casts away the darkness and allows us to understand the great and precious truths of the gospel so that we can respond to them to us.
SPEAKER_00: He renews our wills.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit enables us to accept the truth of the gospel by renewing our will and giving us a desire to accept it.
SPEAKER_00: Because we didn't want to apart from that.
SPEAKER_00: He persuades and enables us.
SPEAKER_00: There's a mystery here.
SPEAKER_00: So we have to believe, we have to respond to the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Yet we can only respond if God graciously enables us to do that.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, Lord of the Rings.
SPEAKER_00: What's that?
SPEAKER_02: Lord of the Rings example.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, bring it.
SPEAKER_02: Houses of healing, just finish reading it.
SPEAKER_02: Farmer has been hit by a poisonous dart and is unconscious and near death.
SPEAKER_02: And Aragorn comes in and puts his hands on him because the hands of the king are the hands of the healer.
SPEAKER_02: Remember that?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: And Farmer opens his eyes and looks in Aragorn's face and says, Command me, my Lord.
SPEAKER_02: That is such an incredible moment.
SPEAKER_02: Farmer was almost dead.
SPEAKER_02: The kingly hands of Aragorn healed him.
SPEAKER_02: And the first thing he says is, Command me, my Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And Evil recognizes him.
SPEAKER_02: He wants to be commanded by him.
SPEAKER_00: That's a great image of regeneration.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, the end of the I overjected question one making us right.
SPEAKER_07: So therefore, I as Holy Spirit also sure to give my life makes me hardly loving right now.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's so often, um, especially people who are kind of new to reform soteriology, or call it Calvinism.
SPEAKER_00: People usually understand by Calvinism the tulip and not the whole rest of the system.
SPEAKER_00: But this idea that God is sovereign over our salvation, that grace really goes all the way down, and that it's up to God to save us and not up to anything in ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes people get so geeked out about that that they kind of lose the category of free will altogether.
SPEAKER_00: We have a chapter in our confession on free will.
SPEAKER_00: Free will is a thing.
SPEAKER_00: Human beings have free will.
SPEAKER_00: But like I said before, in our sin, our will is kept in a kind of moral bondage.
SPEAKER_00: And so we need to be set free in that way.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we need the Holy Spirit to do for us.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: And the way we escape, you know, this faulty view of our salvation and our sanctification, where it's like we just become these puppets that God directs around.
SPEAKER_00: The way we escape that is by recognizing that truly what God does within us is, you know, how does he cause us to obey?
SPEAKER_00: By making us want to obey.
SPEAKER_00: His hands are the hands of the healer.
SPEAKER_00: He heals our hearts, he heals our minds.
SPEAKER_00: He helps us to receive the word of God not as this imposition, not as this set of shackles that keeps us from doing what we want to do and being who we want to be, but setting us free to see that this is actually the book of our freedom.
SPEAKER_00: This is the book that actually communicates to us how we were designed and shows us the way to walk toward blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.
SPEAKER_00: But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on it he meditates day and night.
SPEAKER_00: He's like a tree planted by streams of water.
SPEAKER_00: His leaf will not wither, it bears fruit in its season.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so that's that's the path that Scripture conducts us on.
SPEAKER_00: In our sin, we want nothing to do with that path.
SPEAKER_00: We want to go all over the place.
SPEAKER_00: We think we know what's best for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: After we've been regenerated by the Spirit, then we know that that's the path we gotta walk.
SPEAKER_00: We'll get all buggered up, we'll get confused, we'll get we'll turn this way and that because for a moment we'll forget who we are and what we're doing, and God will bring us back to the path.
SPEAKER_00: But that's that's again, that's that's a that's an organic process where He's making us want that as opposed to just kind of beating us into submission.
SPEAKER_02: One thing.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, the metaphor thing, image we think like a photo, like a you know, aesthetic picture.
SPEAKER_02: But God's image is very dynamic.
SPEAKER_02: It is doing, it is working, and the image that of God restored and renewed in us is a very dynamic thing.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the wind blows where it is, and you can't tell where it's coming from or where it's going, said Jesus to Nicodemus.
SPEAKER_02: That is how everyone born in the spirit that's like there's something inexplicable in the work of God.
SPEAKER_02: It's a dynamic image that is being restored dynamically.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the image of God is a manifold thing.
SPEAKER_00: You know, in one sense, it refers to our being, like the unique status we possess as human beings over against all the animals, being doing what we're called to do, to glorify and enjoy him, to know him, to make him known, to uh fill the earth and subdue it.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it includes relating.
SPEAKER_00: You know, God, it was not good that man was alone.
SPEAKER_00: And when it talks about the creation of the image of God in Genesis 1, 26 through 28, male and female, the pair, the image is ultimately a communal or corporate thing, and it'll only be fully realized in the end when we all gather together around the throne in new heavens and new earth.
SPEAKER_00: So the image is relational, it's also representational.
SPEAKER_00: The image, we are meant to reflect the goodness of glory and glory of God into the world.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the things that images did in the ancient world.
SPEAKER_00: The king would make an image of himself and use it to say, This land is mine.
SPEAKER_00: When you see my image, you see my sovereignty, you see my authority.
SPEAKER_00: So you have all those facets involved in our regeneration, all those facets involved in our sanctification and the renewal of the image of God, God making us who we're created to be.
SPEAKER_00: And again, the Spirit is working in and through to give us the desire to follow what the Bible says about these things so that we can live as those kinds of images.
SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
SPEAKER_00: Who is the quintessential image who shows us what it looks like to perfectly be in the image of God, do as the image of God, relate with the image of God, represent God as his image?
SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So as we grow in Christ's likeness, as we're discipled.
SPEAKER_00: To Jesus, as we're sanctified, conformed more to the image of Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit, like Paul says in Romans 8, then we be, then we become that image.
SPEAKER_00: And we do all those things.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, last component of the answer here to touch on.
SPEAKER_00: Effectual calling, work of God's Spirit, dot dot dot.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll read it all again.
SPEAKER_00: Repetitio et mater sui ora.
SPEAKER_00: Repetition is the mother of all learning.
SPEAKER_00: Effectual calling is the work of God's Spirit, whereby convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ freely offered to us in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And the sharing of the gospel, that God uses that in order to effectually call people to himself.
SPEAKER_00: And who is that gospel offered to?
SPEAKER_00: Is it offered just to us?
SPEAKER_00: Just to the elect?
SPEAKER_00: The answer is obviously no.
SPEAKER_00: You think I'm trying to trick you.
SPEAKER_00: And I say that because there have been some in our tradition, call them hyper-Calvinists, where kind of they take a dim view of preaching the gospel to the non-elect.
SPEAKER_00: Which doesn't make any sense, right?
SPEAKER_00: Biblically, Matthew 5, many are called, but few are chosen.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel call goes out to all.
SPEAKER_00: Acts 1.8, Jesus talking to his disciples, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria into the end of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 5, 20 through 21.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, we as ambassadors are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.
SPEAKER_00: We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
SPEAKER_00: For our sake, he made him to be sinned who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
SPEAKER_00: So there is a general call of the gospel that goes out.
SPEAKER_00: It goes out every Sunday when I preach.
SPEAKER_00: It goes out every day throughout the week when you share the gospel with someone you know.
SPEAKER_00: It goes out.
SPEAKER_00: Many are called.
SPEAKER_00: Many should be called.
SPEAKER_00: That's our job.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're called to do.
SPEAKER_00: But our job is not to choose.
SPEAKER_00: Our job is not to be the arbitrator of who gets the Spirit and the effectual calling of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That's God's business.
SPEAKER_00: So it's like in the sermons I preached on sowing the seed of the Word.
SPEAKER_00: It's God.
SPEAKER_00: God is the one who prepares our hearts to receive the seed of His Word.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one who makes us the kind of soil that will bear fruit.
SPEAKER_00: And for those who have not been the recipients of that regenerating grace, we're called to, we can't tell.
SPEAKER_00: So we're called to preach regardless.
SPEAKER_00: We're called to call regardless.
SPEAKER_00: And let God sort out what they do with that truth.
SPEAKER_00: But the call is free.
SPEAKER_00: The call is unconditional.
SPEAKER_00: We offer it to all.
SPEAKER_00: Come to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Be reconciled to God.
SPEAKER_00: And hopefully, we pray the Spirit works in that person to respond and to be reconciled to God in Christ.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus has a story about two sons.
SPEAKER_02: One, both the father told him to do something.
SPEAKER_02: And one said, No, I'm not going to do that.
SPEAKER_02: And then he went later on and did it.
SPEAKER_02: And one said, Oh, sure, Dad, I'll do it.
SPEAKER_02: But then he never did it.
SPEAKER_02: And Jesus said, which of them did the will of the Father?
SPEAKER_02: So even in my own, with my own students, I would think, you know, I see some playing on their phones in the back of the room, and I thought, well, maybe the timing isn't right for them to really think this is good stuff that I'm giving them, but one day, down the road, and I don't know what that is, they will encounter a situation that, oh yeah, this is what Dr.
SPEAKER_02: Donat was talking about.
SPEAKER_02: And that reminds me of Jesus' story that the son who said no was actually the one that ended up doing the father's will.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what I come back to in thinking about that is again the freedom of it.
SPEAKER_00: In one sense, we can we can marvel over the fact that God has done these things in us and done them for us.
SPEAKER_00: And it can remind us that our salvation is all of grace.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a good thing, it's a great thing.
SPEAKER_00: But it does help in terms of how we interact with other people when we're sharing the faith with them.
SPEAKER_00: God has given us the freedom to follow him, and he has given us the freedom to call others to follow him, not out of compulsion and not reluctantly.
SPEAKER_00: I know those apply to giving in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9.
SPEAKER_00: But we do it because we want to.
SPEAKER_00: We share Jesus because we want to, and we want other people to know what we have found in him.
SPEAKER_00: And if we come at it that way, then I think it completely changes our attitude to how we change Jesus, how we share Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And again, it sets us free to do it well.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever well looks like for you, you can stop trying to be whoever you watched on YouTube.
SPEAKER_00: You can stop trying to be whatever the vision of a great evangelizer that was shared with you in church.
SPEAKER_00: You can stop trying to be the person in the pew next to you who you think has it all together and you feel bad about yourself because you don't know how to do it that way.
SPEAKER_00: You can just be you.
SPEAKER_00: You can be faithful with the gifts God has given you.
SPEAKER_00: You can be faithful with the circumstances he's placed you in, and you can just trust.
SPEAKER_00: You can trust that he'll lead you in and through that in order to accomplish his will to redeem and reveal.
SPEAKER_07: Freely offered to us in the gospel.
SPEAKER_07: It's not free.
SPEAKER_07: It's not someone's paying for it.
SPEAKER_07: But it's been freely given to us because it's a debt game.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, it's just why is it free?
SPEAKER_07: Why is it not uh attached?
SPEAKER_07: Price.
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
SPEAKER_07: Twice.
SPEAKER_07: To us.
SPEAKER_07: But towards.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's a good word to end on.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you for the free offer of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for sending Jesus to pay the price for our sins so that we wouldn't have to pay for them on our own.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, we never could.
SPEAKER_00: So, Lord, thank you for this call.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the fact that you speak to us by your word and spirit, and you invite us to come, to eat, to drink, to enjoy bread that we have not paid for, and wine that we have not tread out ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, help us this morning as we come to worship you.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to receive these gifts afresh.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to receive your grace, so that as we go forth we can live as those who have been made new in Christ, who have been convinced of the truth about our sin apart from your grace, who have been enlightened in the knowledge of Christ, who have been persuaded, who have been enabled, who have been set free to embrace Jesus as He has freely given to us.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to be those people in our own hearts and our own lives, and also before others as we go forth to share your word, to share your truth in word and deed.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, continue to meet us this morning, we pray.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: All right.