Our text today is Acts 13, verses 42 through 52, on page 1105 of the Bible's in the seats. So last time we read about Paul and Barnabas making their way inland in Asia Minor, that's modern day Turkey, and they ended up in Pisidian, Antioch. And there, Paul was able to preach in the synagogue before the Jews and the Gentile God-fears. There was a mixed multitude. He focused on proclaiming Christ as the Messiah, the fulfillment of the promises of the Davidic covenant. And then this week, we read about the end of their time in that city due to the Jewish opposition that arises once again. So we're going to pick up at verse 42. This is immediately following his sermon. So we see the reaction immediately following that sermon that he gave in the synagogue. As Paul and Barnabas were going out, the people kept begging that these things might be spoken to them the next Sabbath. Now, when the meeting of the synagogue had broken up, many of the Jews and of the God-fearing proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, were urging them to continue in the grace of God. The next Sabbath, nearly the whole city assembled to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began contradicting the things spoken by Paul and were blaspheming. Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, it was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first, since you repudiate it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life. Behold, we are turning to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us. I have placed you as a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the end of the earth. When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. And the word of the Lord was being spread through the whole region. But the Jews incited the devout women of the prominence and the leading men of the city and instigated a persecution against Paul and Barnabas and drove them out of their district. But they shook off the dust of their feet in protest against them and went to Iconium. And the disciples were continually filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. Let's pray. Lord God, as we come to your word today, our primary desires are to be in worship of you and to grow in piety. Every passage of scripture gives us reason to give thanks to you and exhorts us to walk in holiness. And so we ask that you guide us to those ends in this text today. Bless now your preached word. Make us receptive to the truth found in these scriptures. Bless our gathering with your presence May it be glorifying to you, faithful to the text, and helpful for your people. Please send your spirit to work in us now. We ask this all in Jesus' name, amen. As I said, verse 42, where we started, immediately follows the sermon Paul gave at that synagogue in which he proved thoroughly from the scriptures that Jesus was the fulfillment of the promises of the divinic covenant. And we went through all of that last week. And it did truly seem to be the first time that those in Pisidian Antioch had heard that argument, had heard that case made from the scriptures, the ones that Paul drew out from the Old Testament prophecies. It is a convincing argument, at least to reasonable people. It's very convincing. There really is no good refutation of what Paul proved. So as a result, initially, the people that heard him were urging Paul and Barnabas, come back next week. Come talk to us about this. a bunch more. We want to hear more. This is very intriguing. We haven't heard this before. Come talk about it again. And more than that, even many of the Jews and the God-fearers were following them. They were engaging them on the subject of the gospel. So this carried on past the synagogue gathering, probably throughout that entire week. Verse 43 describes, and it sounds somewhat innocuous, like they just had some more questions, in the NASB at least. The way it's phrased in the Greek, it seems to be saying that they actually were being persuaded by the gospel. These do seem to be actual converts that are following them, and Paul and Barnabas are saying, yes, continue in this grace. We read that last week, we didn't cover it so much, but Paul and Barnabas are saying, yes, continue in this grace. That's what they say in the epistles, too, when they're writing to To converts, they're saying, continue in this grace a lot of times. So we didn't cover it much last week, but all of that sounds very promising, right? You hear this first sermon, you hear this reaction to it, and see how the people reacted. It sounds very, very promising. Things are going to be very fruitful in Thessalonian Antioch. The Jews and the God-fearers take the Old Testament scripture seriously, so there's all the reason in the world that Christianity should take hold amongst all of the people there in the city should be a very good situation. We should expect the following Sabbath to be much of the same, given that the synagogue had this whole week to digest the sermon, examine the scriptures that Paul brought out, see if they were true. And Luke really doesn't leave us waiting about this. He jumps the narrative forward one week to the following Sabbath. And by that time, Word had gotten around about this whole thing, because now nearly the entire city had gathered to hear them preach. And since the city was mostly Gentiles, the audience would have been mostly Gentiles, or at least largely made up of Gentiles here. More than likely, the God-fearing Gentiles who had been at the synagogue that first time, probably many of them had been converted, they probably had gotten word out to the city and all the Gentiles amongst them that salvation that Paul was speaking of actually included them. And thus, a bunch of those Gentiles came to see if that was true. Again, this is quite promising. This looks to be a quite promising situation. But at the same time, this huge Gentile turnout changed the receptivity of many of the Jews in the synagogue that had previously at least been willing to hear what Paul and Barnabas had to say. Verse 45 tells us, when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy. As you may remember, the same thing happened back in Jerusalem when the people were drawn to the apostles they're preaching, when they were out on the temple grounds. And the jealousy of the high priest and the Sadducees there is eventually what led to the first burst of persecution in Jerusalem. And later on, we will see jealousy once again spark turmoil in Thessalonica, another Greek city. So this is a clear pattern that we see. It can be somewhat hard to relate to on paper. We think, you know, the Jews, they should be some of the happiest to hear their news about the Messiah. This news, the Messiah they had been waiting for, that's promised in the Old Testament scriptures. He has come, and guess what? It includes the Gentiles. That should seem like great news to everybody. You would think they'd be very happy. And to be fair, a few of them are. But largely, they tended to react negatively. And the ones that do react negatively do so quite aggressively. It's not just like, OK, agree to disagree. No, they move to shut it down. They react very aggressively. And there were a few contributing factors to this. So the Jews had made an obvious idol out of maintaining their very specific religious and ethnic identity. Very, very specific. This is one of the reasons that circumcision was so important to them. They wanted to maintain the religious ethnic identity that they had had for a couple thousand years. We could tell from the details in Acts how they were clearly holding the Gentiles at arm's distance, arm's length, instead of introducing them into the worship of Yahweh. They really don't seem to call them in too much. There are people drawn into the worship of Yahweh, and that's great, but they seem to always kind of hold the Gentiles at arm's length. In addition to seeing their identity threatened, the Jews also had secured for themselves some social and political privileges from the Romans. They had kind of proven themselves to be pretty difficult to deal with. They would not just go along with things that were said, and the Romans tended to accommodate them a little bit, and they gave them some of these social political privileges. And they saw that situation as less stable if the Christians created a stir by proclaiming a new Davidic king. They don't want the Christians threatening that situation. If they were all called to worship Jesus, and they were supposed to include all the Gentiles who worship Jesus, then their movement would be kind of too broad to warrant those special privileges from the Romans. It's going to be like, well, this is everybody. Well, we're not going to give everybody these social-political privileges. There's nothing special about the group this size. This is everybody. They wanted that identity. They wanted those social-political privileges. They didn't necessarily want all the Jews or Gentiles included. I mean, if it included everyone, then the Romans would not be willing to extend that leeway that they had granted to the Jews. But, so those are contributing factors. But more often than not, the largest contributing factor to the Jews' negative reaction to the gospel is pure jealousy of the Christians that preached it. Jealousy of the reaction, jealousy of the attention. All of those things are persistent, ongoing issues with them in Acts. We see it repeatedly. And honestly, still today, those are some of the ongoing issues with disbelieving Jews. They are not motivated by truth here. The Jews in the synagogue that oppose them are not motivated by getting to the truth. They do not regard their own scriptures enough to realize their own fulfillment. They don't take seriously the Old Testament that they followed, that they claim to believe, and see the fulfillment of Christ in those scriptures. They're distracted by these other silly things that should never determine one's fundamental beliefs. The jealousy thing is a particularly strange phenomenon, honestly. But people do get oddly jealous over unexpected stuff. This is just an example. I don't know if any of you have seen this happen in real life, but sometimes if there's like an unknown band, like a music band, they have a small following, the fans of that band, like before they're popular, can sort of feel like they're part of some kind of special elite group. And then if that band gets really popular, and they gain a bunch of new fans. And the old fans, who were there from the beginning, actually kind of resent the new fans. It's a weird phenomenon, right? You would think, oh, they would embrace all these newcomers. They see now how good this band is. Everybody gets to enjoy it together. You know, there's a bunch of people agree that the band that makes this good music and they share this same perspective. But instead, the old fans resent them because, you know, they were there first. That was kind of their thing, their little baby. And, you know, they knew the band before they were mainstream and before they were popular. I mean, it sounds dumb, but it really does happen. And to a degree, this sort of same thing is what we are seeing from the Jews again and again. Like this is our God. We worshiped him before all the Gentiles were included, before he was proclaimed to everybody. This sort of like our little thing and they sort of resent newcomers. And I hesitate to say this because I genuinely have not seen this as an issue here, but the same thing can happen in small churches. Those who are at a small church early on. They really contribute, they help build it up. They're the ones that invest into it with their service and with their spiritual gifts. They can face that same kind of temptation of sort of jealousy when the church begins to grow and newcomers come in. There can be sort of a resentment towards newcomers, even though they've begun to come to the church because they appreciate the very things that the original folks established. And again, let me reiterate, I have not seen that happen here. I'm not saying that. Don't think I'm saying that because I want to address this problem we have in our church. No, I'm just saying this does happen in small churches. I still consider us a small church, so it's not like we've really faced this anyway. Maybe it will happen when we build this new building. I don't know. Point is, even though this sort of jealousy thing can be hard to relate to on paper, when we think about it, we can all face this temptation a little more easily than we might realize. I do not suspect we are in danger of this sin, but at the same time, we probably ought to remain cautious and aware of how the human heart works, how we could fall into this poor line of thinking that we see from the Jews, this weird sort of jealousy. Anyway, like we have seen before, jealousy was the issue once again. The Jewish leaders had become consumed with their own power, their own influence, their own reputation, the honor that they loved to receive. Like we've mentioned before, Jesus called them out for this in his ministry as well, talked about how they loved the honor that came from their role. And the more connected Jews in Pisidian Antioch don't like the massive amount of attention the preaching of the gospel is getting. There are some connected Jews here, and they don't like it. So they go about smearing Paul and Barnabas. They speak against them in public, in front of everybody. They even try to contradict the gospel. Paul tells them the truth that Jesus is the Messiah. And these Jews come here, and they lie. And they say, no, he's not the Messiah. They blaspheme. Just like they did with Jesus, they are willing to blaspheme in an attempt to win back the crowds. Don't go following this new teaching. Come back to us. But Paul and Barnabas respond to this ridiculous reaction fearlessly and boldly. It says they spoke out boldly. They condemned them. They basically said, look, we came to you first, right? You are the Jews. This is our pattern. We come to you first. Christ came from you according to the flesh. We're going to come to the Jews first. And they acknowledge that normal pattern. The gospel goes to the Jews first. But what comes once they repudiate it? It goes to the Gentiles. So Paul and Barnabas tell them, that's what we're doing next. You're going to repudiate this. We are going to the Gentiles. We're taking the message to them. Now this isn't pure pragmatism, though. It's not just like, well, we're not having success here, let's try a different method. It's not pure pragmatism. They explain this by using citations from Isaiah to prove this is what their duty was, this was God's plan from the beginning. They allude to language from Isaiah 42 and 49, speaking of the Lord's servant. Now that is most immediately speaking of Isaiah. Typologically, it's speaking of Christ as the servant. And as a second level fulfillment, it's somewhat speaking of the servants of the servant that do and mimic him. So he says, I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. I will also hold you by the hand and watch over you. And I will appoint you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations. That's Gentiles, the ethne, a light to the Gentiles. Isaiah 49 says something similar. Is it too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved ones of Israel? So it goes to the Jews first, right? I will also make you a light of the nations so that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. That was the plan from the beginning. Go to the Jew first, but also take it to the ends of the earth, to all the nations, all the Gentiles. This was prophesied long ago as God's plan for the gospel. The gospel will be to all the nations. God even promised Abraham that his seed, talking about Jesus, would be a blessing to all the nations of the earth. Which means that, yes, the gospel must reach the ends of the earth. If it's going to bless the ends of the earth, it's got to reach the ends of the earth. In making this case from scripture, once again, they are saying that they are doing the work of the servant. Jesus was a servant. We're doing his work in proclaiming Christ to the Gentiles. And in proclaiming Christ as that fulfillment, as that servant, they are affirming him as the servant in Isaiah. They say part of their job is to go to the ends of the earth to preach the gospel so that all humanity will see the salvation of the Lord, as it says in Isaiah, and gets cited in Luke 3, 6. They also tell the Jews in verse 46 that in repudiating the gospel, they judge themselves unworthy of eternal life. And that is, of course, what salvation is all about, right? This isn't salvation of just inclusion in the covenant. It's eternal life. These are eternal consequences. Remember what they were repudiating. It was the message that Paul had preached the week before that we just talked about all last week. He based eternal life there in that sermon on the resurrection of Jesus, God's forgiveness of sins that came through Jesus, justification for sinners, all through faith in Jesus. That was his point. It's all through Jesus. This is the grace that he had been urging the men that followed them after that first synagogue meeting, the believing Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles that followed them. That's the grace that they were urging them to continue in. Grace is salvation. Salvation is eternal life. So rejecting Jesus is rejecting Israel's Messiah, which means rejecting eternal life. Paul and Barnabas tell them, you are rejecting your own Messiah, so you will not receive grace. There will be no forgiveness, no justification, and thus there will be no eternal life. None for any that reject Jesus. They have judged themselves in this way, is their point. So all of this, again, follows the standard pattern. They go to the synagogue first to proclaim Christ, and then they turn to the Gentiles when the Jews largely reject the message. Never entirely, but largely. This entire thing is explained publicly. Nearly the entire city is seeing this put on display. They come there and they start preaching Christ again. The Jews speak up, the disbelieving Jews speak up, try to repudiate it, start smearing Paul and Barnabas. And then Paul and Barnabas say, look, we're going to the Gentiles. This is what Isaiah said. This is what's going to happen. And then finally, these situations that keep looking promising, right? Everything was set up to look real promising. They do finally turn out pretty good. Because when they say all this in front of the whole city, it actually causes the Gentiles to rejoice. They rejoice hearing about this. They're hearing about their inclusion for the first time. Salvation is not exclusive to the Jews. You have Jewish men there telling the entire city salvation, eternal life is not exclusive to just their people. Verse 48 tells us they both, the Gentiles, both rejoice and they begin to glorify the word of the Lord. In fact, just let me reread verse 48 because it's an extremely significant verse. We're gonna spend some time on it. When the Gentiles heard this, that is when they heard that salvation would be brought to them as well, They began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. So there was a number amongst them that had been appointed to eternal life, and those are the ones that believed. So not all the Gentiles who are here come to faith and rejoice, but the ones that do are the ones that had been appointed to or ordained to or destined to eternal life. In other words, the elect that were among them believed because they had been elected or they had been chosen to believe. They believed because they were chosen to believe. It's really such a simple and quick comment that Luke puts in there, but it packs this huge punch. It says so much in so few words. And this is the important part. Luke writes it to us for a reason. He records that for a reason. For us to know what it means and understand its implications, which I would argue are crystal clear. Now, I am going to get a bit technical with the grammar and the language of just that short sentence here. And I do so so that you can be confident that I'm not reading this meaning into the text, that our tradition does not read this meaning into the text. It's there, and it's undeniable. So that word, taso, is translated as appointed to eternal life. It could be ordained to eternal life. It could be designated to eternal life or decreed to eternal life, destined to eternal life. All of those are words that are commonly acceptable translations for that term in this context. The word can be issued for the issuing of an edict or a decree from a king, which that's kind of what appointment to eternal life is anyway, right? But you will see it in Romans 13. There's no authority except from God and those which exist are established or appointed by God. God puts them in place for a purpose, right? There's no authority except for the ones that God puts in place. We see it in Luke 7, 8. The centurion uses this language. He says, for I also am a man placed under or put under authority, put in a place, appointed to this position under authority, is what the centurion says. He understands it. It carries that sense of being placed into a position or into a station. It can mean to assign someone to a certain classification. And you can see the sense of a higher authority or a power doing the placing, right? Placing something into a specific position for a specific purpose. That's the whole idea. And of course, we already know the place or the station being spoken of here because the text tells us. It's talking about being placed in a position to receive eternal life. Appointment to eternal life. That's the station that the placement is all about. The designation for eternal life. These people have been designated. They will receive eternal life. And the only one who can place people in that position is God. People don't do it themselves. They can't place themselves in a position. God places people in the position to receive eternal life. So it is understandable that the word here is in the passive mood. Meaning the decree to eternal life happened to these believers, passively. They were passive in receiving the appointment to eternal life. They just existed theoretically and something happened to them. This wasn't something they did to get it, it came upon them. It happened a long time ago in eternity past. And then most importantly, the appointment is in the perfect sense, or the perfect tense. And that's a grammatical thing that we do a little bit differently in English, but you will understand it. So they believed, and that's in the past tense, what's called the aorist, they just believed, right? Luke's telling us this past event, they believed. Just means it was in the past. Luke is reporting the event just like any other past event. This is what happened when Paul said salvation is going to the Gentiles. They believed. That's the past. That's the aorist. Then Luke uses the perfect tense for the appointment of eternal life or to eternal life, which is the past of the past. It's a past event. in the past. So let me explain that. For example, I could say, you know, I was, when I was born in 1982, my older brother had been born. You know, he was already there. I'm speaking of a past event, my birth, and I want to reference an event that at that time in the past was already in the past at that point, right? He had been born. So we'll use sort of, that's the perfect tense. a thing where you're talking about a past event, where at that time there was a past event, the past of the past. In English, we use little helper adverbs like already. My brother had already been born. But going back to verse 48, for us, the audience who is reading this, the rejoicing Gentiles believed in the past, but it was because of their appointment to eternal life and even the farther past We could use those English adverbs, the helper adverbs, like, because they had already been appointed to eternal life, is why they believed. Do you see that grammatical sense that Luke is very deliberate to put in the right order? So if you're able to follow that kind of subpar explanation here, it is a grammatical fact that the appointment to eternal life, the destination of eternal life, logically and chronologically precedes their believing. That's the important thing that Luke is saying so simply. The point in the text is that believing is placed on the foundation of the appointment to eternal life. The appointment is causative of the belief. That's what we mean by logically precedes it. The appointment causes the belief, and it came before it in time. Obviously, it happened first, and then they believed later. That's the chronological element. It chronologically proceeds. So the appointment of eternal life logically proceeds, is causative of the faith. It chronologically proceeds it in time. In other words, Luke is saying in verse 48 exactly what we say in historical Protestant Reformed doctrine, what we say in our confession. We believe in time, in history, we believe because we were appointed to believe in eternity past, when God foreknew us, when he predestined us. It cannot be reversed the way that many modern evangelicals do. We cannot say we were appointed to eternal life because we believe. That doesn't make any sense. That's the tail wagging the dog. It reverses what scripture says in verse 48 in order to make man the determiner of his own salvation. But Luke gives us this comment to keep our theology straight. To give the glory to God. Why do they believe? Because they were appointed to believe. Who gets the glory? God does. God is the determiner of salvation. He is the one who appoints some to eternal life. And as many as were appointed do believe. When this word, the appointment, the destined, the decree, when that word is used in conjunction with God, it is speaking of him sovereignly acting to do something specific for his purposes. It's not a sovereign decree or ordination. Simply put, this is 100% about God predestining these people to salvation. This is reform doctrine, undeniably. And because they were elect, That is because they were designated for eternal life, they believed. When believers come to recognize this biblical order, when they recognize that it's because of divine causation that we believe, it can at times be like a second conversion. It carries that kind of significance. This is why we don't pass up these sorts of comments. It does change how we worship God. When we believe and we preach this truth, we will worship God for doing something we previously had not been worshiping Him for. because he deserves glory for it. That's why we do it. That's why we preach on it. That's why we don't pass it up, because we ought to worship God for this specific act. We prayed after reading this passage that God would guide us into worship of him through the preaching of this text. This is how he does it. He shows us these things, and then we worship them for those things. So if you have never, or if you do not regularly, give thanks to God for your appointment to eternal life Let this be the day that you start doing so. This comment in verse 48 exists in scripture for a reason. It is to make sure that we know the foundation of our faith and it is God's own action. It is to ensure that we do not take credit for our own faith, to not place ourselves above the disbelieving Jews in this text who had this ridiculous reaction of jealousy to the large crowds. We can't place ourselves above them because the only reason we believe is because God appointed us to believe. This is what God's sovereignty and salvation does. It elevates God's grace and it humbles man's pride. Now pair this Pair this doctrine that we just covered. Pair this with the exhortation earlier as well about avoiding the jealousy that we see from the Jews. Avoiding that line of thinking. Pair those two together. Think about it. How could anyone get jealous of others coming to know Christ, of others joining the church, when they realize the only reason we ourselves ever came to believe is because of God's appointment to eternal life? You see how it works together? This has real life application against the very sins that were warned about in this text. How could we be upset that others are receiving something that we have, how can we be upset that others are receiving something we have when we rightly recognize the only reason that we have it, the only reason we received it in the first place is because it was granted to us as well, because it was graciously given to us. Grace is a gift, and jealousy has no place in the heart of any believer who rightly understands salvation and how it works. So that verse matters a lot. Now, after this incident, some inexact period of time passes. in the text. Luke doesn't really tell us how long, but they start receiving this opposition and they go about and they're preaching throughout the surrounding area. The gospel is spreading. People are believing it. They're probably going in and out of the city to all the surrounding villages and whatever it is. And the good thing is the word is spreading in that region. It does confirm that. And why is that? Why does the word spread in that region? Why does it take hold? Well, we can answer that definitively, because the Lord had appointed many in that region to eternal life. We know how it works. The predestination to eternal life is the reason for the gospel's success. So they must have been traveling through the local cities and towns around Pisidian Antioch. And this is, in fact, the region where we see many first century churches. The churches in Galatia. are in this region. There's multiple churches in this region. The Galatians, it's not just an individual church, it's churches in this region. But that Jewish jealousy raged on, even while they're in and out of the city. And they begin to stir up trouble for Paul and Barnabas by inciting some of the elites. They use those connections. You know, the more rich and powerful folks, the Jews had those social political privileges. And they're using them to make ministry as difficult as possible for Paul and Barnabas. They don't want this message getting out. And they are able to instigate a persecution. against Paul and Barnabas, which eventually drives them out of their district. So they leave. Paul and Barnabas leave. They move on. They shake off the dust of their feet. This is this symbolic gesture. Jesus commanded them, when you're rejected, to shake off the dust of your feet. And that's in Matthew. It's in Mark. It's in Luke. It signifies a sort of repudiation and a disassociation with those believers that reject the Messiah. Much like, you know, if we, you've done that, you know, like dust off your hands, like, all right, you know, I'm done. You signal you're done with something. You're like, I'm wiping my hands clean of this thing. I've done it, I'm done with you. Done with that, whatever. It's very much similar to that. So they're driven out and they head about 80 or 90 miles southeast to a city called Iconium. We're going to talk about the time in Iconium next week. And as they go, Verse 52 tells us, and this verse bears repeating as well, verse 52 says, the disciples were continually filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. And why shouldn't they be joyful, right? Persecution isn't good. They're not happy they're persecuted. But it's also not a reason for discouragement. They did their job. And the ones appointed to eternal life believed as they did their job. Paul and Barnabas got the message of the gospel in front of the crowds, in front of the city, and the ones appointed to eternal life were converted and they believed. That's their job. Tell the truth and let the Holy Spirit convert the ones appointed to be converted. And those there heard the voice of their shepherd in preaching, exactly what Ken talked about in the assurance of pardon. They heard the voice of their shepherd. And so they came to Jesus in faith. The opposition from disbelieving Jews is what the disciples were told to expect. This is the normal pattern. But all the persecution in the world and all the rejection from the synagogues and the temple leaders and even the martyrdoms of God's appointed messengers will never stop God from bringing salvation to his people. to the ones that he destined to eternal life. They can't do anything to stop it. They're going to hear the voice of their shepherd and they're gonna come. When they hear the gospel, they will rejoice. Jesus died to save them. His atonement will not go to waste. Their sins will be forgiven. They will believe and they will be justified. The comfort that comes with gospel proclamation And the comfort that comes in evangelism and in missions and in being part of a church is that God is the one who is sovereign over salvation. We can't screw it up. We can be uninvolved with our laziness or our lack of engagement. We can be uninvolved and miss that blessing, but we're not going to screw up God's plan. His appointments do not fail. Not one person that has been ordained to eternal life will be lost. Not one will be taken from his hand. Not one of them will reject Jesus their entire life. God is praised in all of salvation because all of salvation is of the Lord, which is why we say, soli deo gloria. Amen and amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you have answered our prayer. You have guided us into worship and thanksgiving. You have guided us into greater piety, into greater joy. We pray that we would indeed remain cautious and aware of the human tendency towards jealousy of these very silly things, even the blessings that you have granted to us. When we remember that we were not the ones who were humble enough or smart enough to come to salvation through Christ, but instead that we received it when it was brought to us. When we remember that, we are turned away from the kind of jealousy that we see in this text. And more than that, we are turned to joyful thanksgiving. You wrote our names in the book of life, and you will preserve our names in the book of life. by your grace alone. So we once again renounce all of our good deeds as worthy of any reward of eternal life and we instead exalt the name of Jesus. We rejoice at his salvation and we glorify the word of the Lord. We pray all these things in the name of Jesus Christ by whose work alone we are saved, amen.