We're now on week six of our series through the five solas and it's funny because I planned on taking six weeks total for it all. But here we are on week six and specifically we're in week three now of our look at Sola Gratia, Grace Alone. We, of course, part of the bigger picture here is this is a series talking about the foundations of our convictions here at CRBC. The five solas and their relation to the local church. And so we began by previously covering Solus Scriptura, Scripture alone, and Solus Christus, Christ alone, and we're examining these things in light of, you know, who we are and what we're about here at CRBC. Today we're going to spend one more week on grace, though, for the third week in a row. For the third week total, I should say. Because there was lots of discussion last week, and for the second week in a row I didn't get through all my material. And not only that, but several folks approached me after Sunday school last week, and even later in the week, with additional thoughts and questions about how this relates to the local church, how it relates to our understanding of conversion, how it relates to evangelism and things of that nature. So, you know, I made the argument that the issue was central to the Reformation. And in many respects, it's central to our church's life and ministry witness as well. So it's important that we get this right. It's important that we. We're going to spend some time here, thus the third week in a row that we're going to spend on this issue. So if you have thought about it, if you've got more questions and stuff, that's what I'm hoping to get from you this morning. And perhaps this can be a good time of discussion. Let me just say that I see three bow ties this morning. I am super impressed. That has all the makings of a great, great day. You want to talk about the foundations of CRBC? We can begin there. I heard that. Alright, so I'm going to, again, like last week, go a little bit detailed in our review and as we kind of talk about what we've looked at so far and then we will try to come back around and consider a few additional things. We talked about Grace Alone, Sola Gratia. We looked at it historically. in relation to the Protestant Reformation. And then we turned to look at it doctrinally, where do we find this in scripture, and then we didn't fully get to this, but we kind of tried to make application to why and how it still matters in the Christian life and in Christian ministry. And so to recap these things briefly, historically we spent a lot of time thinking about it in relation to the Protestant Reformation, and a lot of time thinking about Roman Catholic doctrine. and what the Reformers, how they sought to reform the church, how they, of course, from Scripture, built the doctrine of grace alone that is very distinct from Roman Catholic teaching. We consider how earning, deserving, dispensing grace that helps us attain salvation is the message of Rome, doctrine of Rome and the Reformers came in contrast with unmerited sovereign grace that by itself accomplishes and completes our salvation. So that's what we looked at historically. Then doctrinally we considered a few scripture passages from where we get the idea of grace and what it does. We looked at this section in Ephesians 1, chapter 3 through 14, and we saw how from predestination to accomplishment in human history through, you know, the incarnation and work of Jesus Christ, and to its application to us, it is God there in Ephesians 1, not human beings, who is presented to us as the sole efficient cause of our salvation. And from beginning to end, there's this recurring phrase, to the praise of His glorious grace. Paul wants us to see the salvation in which the Ephesian church stood and enjoyed was a result of His grace. His grace in eternity. His grace in human history in Christ. His grace in applying it to us through the Spirit by means of our faith. We consider it as well, Ephesians 2, 8-9. By grace you have been saved. By grace. Grace is the cause of our salvation. It is the cause of how we have been saved. Grace, God's work in that is what brought it about. Again, we consider that this is a date of causation here. But also that you have been saved is in the past perfect tense, and that's important. This is something being done to you from the outside. You are passive in it. And it's perfect tense, which means the past act with continuing ramifications. You have been saved, therefore you stand in a state of grace, as it were. We also look at Romans 3, 23 and 24. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified. There's that statement of salvation. Right standing before God, justified, forgiven, redeemed by His grace as a gift. who are justified by grace, not by works, who are justified by His grace. That is the cause of our justification, contrary to Rome. The Catholic doctrine, yes, yes, yes, grace is necessary, but it helps you attain your justification. But here we see that His grace is what justifies us through the redemption that is in Christ. And this comes to us as a gift. It's not earned. It's not merited. It's not deserved. It is a gift. And we consider our confession as well. Chapter 10, paragraph 2. Talking about this effectual call of God. The effectual call in bringing dead sinners to new life in Christ is of God's free and special grace alone. Free, meaning it's not deserved, it's not earned, it's not merited. This is His choice. He is the one who has free will in this matter. It is His freedom and it is His special grace, which would be another way of saying it's individual. Individual grace, not from anything foreseen in man. God did not look down and see how special you were or that you would respond positively and thus give grace. Not from any power or agency in the creature, not from anything in us. But here, again, that language of being wholly passive, just as we saw in Ephesians chapter two. Because being dead in our sins and trespasses, we are dead until we are quickened, made alive, brought to new life, renewed by the Holy Spirit. So that's what we looked at doctrinally. That's kind of the passages that we looked at, the emphasis there in our confession for why the Protestant reformers believed and held what they did. And we moved on from there, from Rome, and considered how this relates in modern evangelicalism. identified three areas where it still matters and this is our point of application and this is where we didn't finish. We talked about, and we that's as far as we got last week, the gospel we proclaim in personal conversion. How does grace alone affected the gospel that we proclaim in in the life and ministry of the church, in personal evangelism? How does grace affect our understanding of sanctification as well? Secondly, and how does grace affect and change the ongoing ministry of the local church? These are the three things we didn't get to, which hopefully we'll get to today, right? Although we're already 15 minutes in, and I just now finished review. Nathan was rolling his eyes over there, I know. Alright, so what I want to do is kind of circle back around and talk about this and I want to, in relation to the gospel we proclaim, I want to look at one more scripture passage and maybe open it up for a little bit of discussion that again is our kind of our goal here. I don't have a whole lot of material as we try to make application of this. But I'm going to circle back around and think about the gospel we proclaim in relation to a lot of what's going on today. what we can see about who we are as a church plant in relation to this. So I opened this up last week by pointing out that the dominant view today is that human nature is basically good and that we just need a little help. That's the view not only of secularism, it's also unfortunately something that is very prevalent in the evangelical church as well, by default. People are good, we need a little help, we need a little coercion, we need the right education. Reason, truth, right from wrong is located in the self. That's the American way, right? in the human will. You can do it. Rather than understanding the totality of human blindness apart from grace. We also see in relation to today that the predominant view is God gives everyone a chance. And we need to urge people to choose Jesus. Again, this right here stems from these two things right here. This right here presupposes those things, even if these things aren't stated explicitly. That make sense? So, and I argue that we must not point unbelievers back to themselves in evangelism, but to God. That the focus of our evangelism is ultimately on humans and their response. God is the weak, beggarly, waiting for them to respond. But the focus of our evangelism, our calling unbelievers to faith and repentance, is ultimately on God. It is when man is the determining factor in salvation that God is robbed of His glory. So this is an aspect of seeking the glory of God in all things. This is the aspect of exalting Him and His grace and His nature. rather than supplanting him by putting human autonomy center stage. And this is what obviously spurred a lot of discussion last week. So I want to circle back around and talk a little bit more about this in relation to, again, the kind of predominant view of evangelicalism today. So instead of Rome, I want to consider Arminianism. the Wesleyan tradition and their idea of grace because again this is very very popular in our day and age even though oftentimes it doesn't go under these labels. I will show you what their own theologians essentially argue and how that is relevant to the discussion here. In the Westphalian tradition, humans, because of the fall, are totally degenerate and unable to save themselves or respond to the gospel call. I mean, that sounds a lot like Calvinism, right? Sounds a lot like total depravity. But, well, I should say, nobody by nature can respond to the gospel in their own free agency. So far there's some agreement to there. However, but because Jesus Christ died for all, He secured what they call as prevenient grace. Universal blessing that is given to everyone, the entirety of the fallen race. What does this mean? Well, prevenient grace is, as again, I'm quoting their own, I believe I got this from John Miley, Systematic Theology, prevenient grace is universal helping grace. That's the label they give to it. Universal helping grace that comes to all and it gives people the ability to respond to the gospel. So you see here how they try to do justice to the idea that, okay, it's pretty clear in Scripture that we're saved by grace. But they want to hold on to this human autonomy, this free agency here. And so this is where this idea of prevenient grace comes in. And it is a general healing of the fallen nature. It's a general help to the human nature. It allows unbelievers to do good things in life, in their view. Right? So it, you know, kind of keeps people from being as bad as they could be. Which, you know, the Reformers also have a doctrine of common grace as well. But does anybody know the difference between our common grace and what's being described here? Oscar? Absolutely, yeah, that's right here, it enables free agency, enabling to respond to the gospel. But I would also say, that's true, I would also say that generally speaking, the Reformers' idea of common grace, and I say this, well, there's a lot of issues involved here, but there's not a direct connection to the death of Christ that the Arminians make here. They hold that because Christ's atonement is applied to everyone, that common grace flows. Reformers would talk more about God's common grace as an aspect really of His nature. He is a good and gracious and long-suffering God. At times we would say, okay, the death of Christ does in a way enable the long-suffering of God, but again, they would not apply the work of Christ to the entire human race in the same way. Caleb? And that, too, as well. Absolutely, yes. In fact, I would point, when I taught through covenant theology a few months ago, we would point to the Noahic covenant. Ultimately, it's a covenant of common grace. And it still exists today. We can look out and see the rainbow. That's God's covenant sign that He's not going to bring instant judgment upon us. Cody? That's a good question Yeah, I honestly do not know I From my reading, I hear both of what you're saying there. Because they would at times speak as though the prevenient grace comes when the preaching of the Gospel. But at other times as well, they emphasize how it's universal and it comes to all people. So how do they deal with that question of people who don't sit under the preaching of the Gospel? That would be the answer to the question right there. So maybe yes and both? So there's this universal helping grace. It heals human nature halfway. And it enables them to choose the gospel, to respond to the gospel call. And thus regeneration, new life, being born again, follows one's acceptance of Christ by faith. How do we respond to this? I want us to look at Ephesians 2. You can turn there if you have your Bible. We looked at Ephesians 2 already last week, but I want to look at the entire chapter. Ephesians 2, of course, comes on the heels of Ephesians 1. Go figure. And Ephesians 1 emphasizes, as I've already argued, God's side of the equation of salvation, predestined in Christ, chosen according to His will, to the praise of His grace, right? According to His purpose that He set forth in Christ as His plan for the fullness of time. But Ephesians 2 looks at kind of the same thing, but more from the standpoint of humanity. More from the standpoint of humanity in fallen sin. And what I want to do is, I want you to see how this shows the particular work of grace in new birth, in new generation. So grace, again, not being just universal saving help, but grace being something that accomplishes its purpose. Grace being something that is particular and individual. and has distinctive effects rather than a general healing of human nature. So would someone do me the favor and read Ephesians 2, 1-10 loud and clear. Anyone? You were dead by trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work to send the disobedient, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, bearing up the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God be rich in mercy. loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, Amen. Thank you. I want you to notice, of course, from the standpoint of human sinfulness, the picture that Paul the Apostle paints here about this salvation and specifically about this grace. That's our topic. Before salvation, you were dead in your trespasses and sin. Pretty clear, right? Dead means you have no life. Dead means that you have no ability to do anything. In fact, chapter 4, 18 and 19 elaborates on this. He talks about being darkened in our understanding. If you're dark in your understanding, you're ignorant, you're blind, you don't know which way is up or down or right. We are alienated from the life of God. We are ignorant due to the hardness of our hearts. We are callous. and have given ourselves or themselves, he's talking there of the unbelieving Gentiles, up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. Now he's talking in the present tense about those who do not believe. He's talking about those who are still dead in their trespasses and sin. This is not the language that we would expect if there's been a universal help, saving grace, come because of the death of Christ. Furthermore, before salvation, back in chapter two, we are captive to the course of this world and to Satan, the prince of the power of the air. If you can free yourself, you're not really captive, are you? If you have the ability to free yourself, to choose Christ, if you have this saving hope enabling you to escape, then you're not really captive. Captive means you're under his control and there's nothing you can do about it. Not only that, we are captive to the passions of our flesh and the desires of the body and mind. This is the sinful nature. Sin is our master outside of Christ. Verse three, we are outside of Christ, children of wrath, sons of Adam from birth, objects of God's wrath. And what then is the change? What happened to bring captive sinners under the power of sin and Satan and children of wrath? What happened that brought salvation? What is it that made the difference? Very clearly, v. 4, those beautiful words of Scripture. Martyn Lloyd-Jones talked about these are some of the two most beautiful words in all of Scripture. But God. I would highly recommend his sermon series, which has been turned into a commentary through Ephesians chapter 2. It is phenomenal. But God. That's the change. The change is not in us. The change is in God. We remain the same. But God acted. And how did He act? Did He act with this universal saving help? Or did He act, well, here's how Paul describes it, but God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love of which He loved us, even when we were dead, see, we were dead, there's this continuity there, there's not healing, there is, we were dead. There's nothing we can do, but He made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved. See, made us alive with Christ is what grace has accomplished. Grace hasn't healed our nature, grace hasn't enabled us to act, but He made us alive through His grace. His grace made us alive and this leads to our, we have been saved, this is our salvation. Here. All right, Cody, help me out. Where's Brandon? Oh, Brandon. Are you guys at Verbs yet? See if I can say, that's a, Paul essentially made up a word here. It's putting two words together. Synazopiosipolison. Made us alive. It's one word in Greek. Actually, it's made us alive together. That's one word in Greek. And it's in the Ares Active Indicative. Help me out, guys. You're in Greek, come on. What does this mean? Nobody wants to take a shot. It's a tense of the verb here. Made us alive, it's in a third person, which means that God performed the action. He did it. We didn't make ourselves alive. He made us alive. And the Aorist tense points to the fact that Paul is looking at it as a completed act. It's not an ongoing process. This morning you came to church. It's over, it's done, you came. That's different from saying, you know, you were on your way to church. And that's important as we realize that our salvation, our new life, and this is more going to Rome here rather than Arminianism, but it's a completed act. It's done, it's finished. Romans 5.1 uses the same, very similar verb tense, but essentially says the same thing, that we have been justified. Have been justified. Action being performed from outside of us, onto us, resulting in the grace in which we stand. Romans 5.1 and 2. It's not a process. It's complete. It's done. And what has been done is new life. And how has this been done? Paul, before he even gets to 8 and 9, he's so excited to, or fervent to remind them of how this has happened that he inserts it here before he even gets there in verses 8 and 9. It is by grace. It is by grace. that you who are dead have been made alive and that this action is completed and done and finished and there is no losing that, there is no completion of that that remains, there is no changing that. And we, of course, are the passive recipients of this grace and kindness. It is not the result of works. So, again, that's to look at it from our human perspective of how this salvation enters history. And my point, again, is that grace accomplishes that. And in a sense, it is personal. It's talking to people. It's not talking to just groups. It is personal. It is converting grace. It's not healing grace. and it's complete grace. The byproduct of this is that if grace only helped us seal the deal, Paul couldn't use this language of made us alive and by grace you have been saved. He's pointing to the action of God in relation to the sinful deadness of man. Any questions or comments on that before we move on? You guys tracking here? Josh? I'm not sure. Not that comes to me off the top of my head. What is the central message of Ephesians really is the sovereign work of God, particularly in the church. In fact, that's the book I plan on preaching after Judges, preaching through after Judges, such a centrality of the church, but on the sovereignty of God, and not only in salvation, but also in sustaining and building His church. There's not really an issue or problem in Ephesians that he's writing to address, like so many of the other epistles. But clearly, since he spends two chapters emphasizing the sovereignty of God and salvation, that must have been an important issue that they needed to learn and know. That's really the best I could answer on that. Okay, so how does this relate to the Gospel we proclaim? Again, we must proclaim the Gospel of grace. We must push people back upon God, and not themselves. We must be careful of evangelizing in a way, careful not to evangelize in a way, that exalts man or would seemingly supplant God's sovereign role in conversion. As if. Sinners, unbelievers are not dead in sin, as if it all depends upon them, as if they need to make the first move towards God. In fact, that's what we're going to consider briefly in our sermon today through the book of Judges is this continual theme that God does not wait for Israel to make the first move towards Him. He always initiates the grace and the mercy and the forgiveness. He doesn't wait for repentance. That's the kind of God that He is. That's how gracious He is. And He pities us in our sin. He comes to us when we cannot make our way to Him. While we were enemies, while we were dead, Christ died for us. So I got a lot of questions about altar calls. I know a lot of you have grown up in relation to this. So what does that lead us? Where does that lead us with things, sorry, typo there, with things like altar calls? Like how should we respond to this? I grew up 21 years, essentially, in Southern Baptist churches. I grew up with the altar call. from a sight just as I am, from heart, every verse. I grew up in a context where there was a lot of manipulation, emotional manipulation, a lot of emphasis on come forward and make a decision for Christ. How do we respond? How does this affect that? Any comments, any thoughts? Does it affect it? Josh? Absolutely. We cannot force people into the kingdom. In fact, Paul speaks of, I think it's in 2 Corinthians, refusing to practice cunning practices. in their ministry, in their evangelism, underhanded practices. But let me ask you this, haven't many people been converted from altar calls? I mean, you talk to the greatest generation. Billy Graham at his high point, his pinnacle. I mean, you're gonna run into a lot of people who say, I was saved at the Billy Graham crusade. I was saved when the preacher gave an invitation and I came forward. That was the moment in my life when God brought me to life. I've heard it again and again and again. It's used as justification for this. How would we respond? Did I see a hand, Oscar? Say that again. Nothing we can do to keep people from God, absolutely. And God uses those things. But if God uses them, does that mean that we ought to use them as well? Why not? Sorry to put you on the spot. Absolutely, yes. Yeah, it does. In fact, you know, just from a practical experiential standpoint, I've met people who've been saved in the Roman Catholic Church. because of their exposure to the Word of God and being convicted in Roman Catholic worship. Does that mean that we should be okay with Roman Catholic worship since God used it to bring conversion to somebody? No. I think our response to that would be that God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick. Kemp? For those who say, well, yes, I was saved at a Billy Graham crusade, it also can give a false hope on a human event. That's where I'm putting my stock in, because I went forward, I said the prayer, and I took care of that. I'm in it. And so instead of seeing the conviction of the heart, the fruits being confirmed by a church, it's all put into that one event. That's a great point. So that's what's scary about, you know, all the calls and everybody else going, oh, I better go too. And so it's like you were saying, the emotional, the visual manipulation that Yeah, that's a great point, particularly in the respect of, I was told as well, like, when you doubt your salvation, you know, look back to that day when you decided to follow Jesus and you came forward. Write the date in the back of your Bible. And again, it's pushing people back upon themselves. My decision is what saved me. My response, this ritual that I went through, kind of like being baptized or taking the Lord's Supper in some Roman Catholic sense, this ritual that I went through is the ground of my salvation rather than pushing people back and placing our hope and trust in the sovereign work of God. I think as well, Nathan. Yeah, I think the most basic answer I could give would be because he's so full of grace and mercy and That he accomplishes his purposes as we see in judges the judges were all but one of them were incredibly wicked wicked men, but and women but God used a God used them to save His people in a typological, temporal sense. That's the story of all the Old Testament as well. Like David, the great leader of the people, was an adulterer and murderer. Paul himself was a murderer. God uses sinful humans and sinful means to accomplish His purposes. That does not mean that we should be okay with that. Like we should be okay with a pastor who commits adultery and murder because David was a great leader of God's people and he did it as well and God used it for good. No, there's some extremes that we could take to that. But to counterbalance that, I would also say that statistics show otherwise. I'm thinking, and it's off the top of my head, it's been at least 10 years since I read this book, but it's phenomenal. Ian Murray, Evangelicalism Divided. He really takes a hard look at, bless you, he really takes a hard look at Billy Graham crusade and some of the statistics of how many people respond and how small, tiny of a percentage are still in a church five, ten years later. And listen to what Spurgeon says here. It very often happens that the converts that are born in excitement die when the excitement is over. Some of the most glaring sinners known to me were once members of a church and were, as I believe, led to make a profession by undue pressure, well-meant but ill-judged. You see, we focus so much on the fact that people have been saved by this that we neglect to look at the flip side of it. How many people were damaged by this? How many people were hurt by this? How many people were led falsely to believe that because they made a profession and walked the aisle that they were truly converted? How many false converts were created? And I think when you look at it that way, it's like looking at the Roman Catholic Church. Okay, one person, for example, got saved by going to Roman Catholic Mass. Well, what about the myriads who are being misled? So that's why results are, one reason, why results are never the criteria for determining methodology in the church. We must look at what God has said, not at what from our perspective seems to work. And we must look at how genuine converts are created according to the teaching of Scripture through the preaching of the Word, the ministry of the church. rather than on our perspective, what seems to really connect with people and get a favorable response. Any questions on that? Comments? Great, I'm out of time. Amber? No, no, no. I wasn't saying that for you. I was saying that because I haven't got to my two other topics yet. Go ahead. for being at grace, and how they see God's grace as healing rather than converting, and altruism and experiential emotionalism, a lot of those false converts are Yeah, as if the ritual is going to fix their life. the experience, the response. Again, placing too much emphasis on excitement, on emotion, on a decision on a point in time when very easily discouraged folks because conversion, new life is a long, slow process of change and growth. Luke. Luke. it creates a really sense of doubt because it depends on you and your flaw. You continually make mistakes. You're trying to be better to earn your salvation. And I think a lot of people who still believe this perspective actually still battle with a lot of doubt inside. They may not come out the same. Oh, absolutely. I made a decision, I'm good. But I think internally, I know when I was Arminian, I was confident I actually used it in my heart, but internally I was trying to actually use it in my heart over and over again. I'm like, was it real? Was it, you know? It's like, it's perfect, but it depends on us. We're like, this is actually creating more sense of non-assurance. It's ironic, because they think that if it's all God, then where's my assurance? I remember as a kid, I used to pray the sinner's prayer every night before I went to sleep. Because I was afraid that I didn't mean it. And I would do it every single night. And then as a teenager, golly, I struggled with sin. I was a false convert. And you know how many times I walked the aisle to rededicate my life? It's like, oh, the first one didn't take. So I need to do this. And it was a temporary cleansing of my conscience because You know, I think another argument could be that the altar call really is a sacrament. It's a sacrament that, just as Rome has created these magical sacraments, you know, because the Pope thinks it's a good idea, the church has created a sacrament as well. This is a ritualistic cleansing that you can go through to ease your conscience and to bring you closer to God, and unfortunately ends up making the problem worse. Cody? He's coming to you and he's sitting down with you, yes. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And even when we talk about altar call in regards to making a profession of faith, well, they use the argument that, you know, if you'll deny me before men, I'll deny you. And that's what baptism, the role of baptism serves as well. You know, as Credo Baptists that we are, that is your profession in front of the church. that you are joining yourself to God. As Galatians 3 says, whoever's been baptized has clothed themselves with Christ. You know, 1 Peter talks about baptism being an appeal of a good conscience towards God. This is all something that we do, even though baptism is what God does to us as well, but it serves the role that they're trying to fabricate in the altar call and supplanting what should be the primary illustration of conversion. The visual sacrament of dying, going under the waters of death, and being raised clean and new to walk in newness of life with Christ. So it's very good how the real sacraments accomplish those things in a scriptural way, a more effectual way, and an obedient way. All right. See you guys next week, right? You know, truth be known... No, I did not. So we got to talk about sanctification. But here's the thing, this really flows right into Sola Fide, so I'll just combine it all so that we'll cover how does grace affect sanctification and the ministry of the church and we'll just combine it all so that we can get a move on and finish this series. So let me go ahead and Because if I don't get through it quickly, I'm going to hear it from Nathan. Let's go ahead and pray.