Good morning. It's good to see everybody. Glad to be back at Sovereign Grace Baptist Church. I do love this church dearly. I think about you guys often. I'm grateful to know that on the north end of the county there's a church that is faithfully preaching the Bible, faithfully preaching the gospel, and I appreciate these conferences. Our church has followed suit, sort of. We don't have the gift set that your elders do just yet, but we are. I mean, I've gone back to our church every time I've come here and just really challenged our elders in our church to be more faithful to Scripture and to, you know, for us that are gifted to teach, to exercise that gift to teach in a way that benefits the body of Christ. And I appreciate, Todd, the way you guys model that for other churches in this community, and I hope you guys that are part of Sovereign Grace Baptist Church realize the blessing that that is to have men who are committed wholly to teach the whole counsel of God. So I'm glad to be here. My task this morning... is to have a discussion on Pelagianism. And I added to it a little Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism, and Arminianism, because they all do go together. And so what we'll do first is we're going to talk through some history and just kind of see the origins of this type thinking. And in that, we'll see the consistency of this type thinking even up into our day today. One of the most enduring lies of the human heart is this, I can fix myself. When you think about that, I mean it's very simple and I think we would agree very common, and don't just think outside the church walls, I think functionally a lot of us think that way. We may not say it that way, we may not write that on an exam as our final answer, but We genuinely think we can fix ourselves. When you look at scripture, you see that quickly. In Genesis chapter 3, as soon as sin enters the equation, Adam and Eve attempt to fix themselves. So, an enduring lie of the human heart is I can fix myself. Whether it's subtle or blatant, this desire for control fuels theological systems and thinking like Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism, and Arminianism, which we'll define here in just a second. But each of these place the weight of salvation in some form on the shoulders of mankind. And so that's essentially what we're looking at this morning. We may use words that you're not familiar with, talk about men that you're not familiar with, talk about spans of time that you're not super familiar with, but what we all will be familiar with is the desire or thought that we can fix ourselves, but also we should have a conviction and a passion about how is it that I'm actually made right with the Lord? How is it that I as a sinner am justified before the Lord. And so even though this is probably one of the more easy heresies to understand, because we can all relate to it, I don't want it to lose its importance and seriousness in that. And so in the early 400s, there was a British monk named Pelagius. Pelagius was disgusted with the morality of the church. And so I think that's an important thing to understand about Pelagianism, this short bio of Pelagius, in that the tension that came in his heart was driven primarily by him looking at the so-called church or the Christians and being disgusted by the way that they lived their lives. So he was disgusted with the morality, the tension came in his heart, But instead of looking to the Word, instead of turning to the grace of God and Jesus Christ in the Gospel, and really humbly and appropriately in the ways that Jesus laid out in His Scripture, confronting that sin, what He did, as again, an endearing lie of the human heart as I can fix myself, He turned to what is essentially, in the simplest way I know to describe it, He was a Pharisee. It was pharisaical in the way that he thought, in the way that he began to believe. He taught that humans are born morally neutral. He taught that humans can live without sin if they simply choose to obey. The idea, even though I don't think it began with Pelagius, but the idea of free will and human choice were top priorities in his teaching. Here's a quote, he famously said, a man is able to be without sin and to keep God's commandments easily if he wishes. Now I'll be honest with you, I read that and I thought, what planet are you living on, buddy? But Pelagius reasoned that God would not command. Now, here's his logic, and I really think we'll be able to grasp this logic. You may have wrestled with this yourself. He reasoned that God would not command something unless we were naturally capable of doing it. There's a quote. Whatever God commands, He commands not impossibly. In God's providence, The ministry of Pelagius overlapped with another man's ministry, Augustine of Hippo. Augustine forcefully opposed Pelagius. He believed that Pelagius stripped grace of its necessity and that he just, quite honestly and frankly, misunderstood human nature. Pelagius was not happy at all with the teaching of Augustine, primarily because of the character of the church, remember, from the beginning. And so Augustine prayed this famous prayer, line of a prayer, to the Lord, give what you command and command what you will. Well, in a sense, Pelagius' ministry sort of birthed out of refuting what Augustine taught, again, because of the tension in his heart of the character and the morality and the behavior of the Christians. And so he went after Augustine's theology. And the quote that I read to you a second ago from Pelagius, whatever God commands, he commands not impossibly, was a refutation of Augustine's prayer, give what you command and command what you will. Now, Pelagius and Augustine agreed on the second half of his prayer, command what you will. They disagreed on the first part of Augustine's prayer, give what you command. You see, at the heart of Augustine's prayer is the right biblical thinking and understanding that even the faith and the belief and the obedience and the desire that we have are gifts from God as well as the salvation. And Pelagius rejected that. He rejected that wholeheartedly. But Augustine insisted, as they would go back and forth in their day, that even our desire to obey must be given by God. At the Council of Carthage in 418, and later at Ephesus in 431, Pelagianism was condemned. It was condemned by the church. Augustine warned, and I'm quoting Augustine here, the Pelagians refused to admit that God's grace is necessary because they do not admit that man's nature is corrupt. But Pelagianism didn't die with Pelagius. In the 5th and 6th century, and if you don't like history, hang in there with me. We're on a path here. In the 5th and 6th century, what is semi-Pelagianism is birth. which essentially in its simplest form, if you're taking notes, is man starts, man is the initiator still, and God helps. And so in response to Augustine's and Pelagius' teaching, some sought middle ground, acknowledging the need for grace, but suggesting that the first step toward God still belonged to man. And that became known as semi-Pelagianism. Semi-plagians believe that while divine grace is necessary for salvation, it is only applied after man takes the first step of faith or desire. In other words, to say it in more modern terms, grace helps those, or God helps those who helps themselves. Again, I have it in my notes. Say what? But again, Augustine's writing held the line. Quoting Augustine here, it is not by their own merits that the children of God are made such, but by the grace of the mediator. The church, again, formally rejected Pelagianism, this time semi-Pelagianism, at the Council of Orange in 529, affirming that even the first movements toward faith are themselves a result of grace. But Pelagianism still didn't die. Over a thousand years later, Pelagianism is repackaged in Arminianism. Jacobus Arminius, 1560-1609, introduced a watered-down Pelagianism. Arminianism, which I'm not assuming everybody has heard that term, but I feel like if you've heard one, more than likely that's one that you've heard more often than Pelagianism. Arminianism taught humanity was affected by sin, but listen, this is a key term, and I'll define it. Is affected by sin, but that provenient grace was given to all people, enabling them to believe, giving the opportunity for belief, but not ensuring they will. Alright, so here's a good working definition for Provenient Grace. It restores free will. So, Arminians believe in the sinful nature of man, different than Pelagianism, who believed man was born morally neutral. We did not inherit the sin from Adam. We're born morally neutral. Well, Arminianism is a watered-down version of that. But in this Provenient Grace, God gives this restoration of free will, which makes faith a possibility. So essentially in this, the gospel call of Jesus and his church is a mere offer. It's an opportunity. And that's the extent of it. It's an offer, and God's just hoping people respond appropriately. So, Provenient Grace restores free will, makes faith possible. It is resistible. It can be rejected. And this is an important fact here. It's universal. Meaning that this grace, this Provenient Grace, is given to everyone. The way Armenians see the doctrine of election, And I truly, and if you are Arminian, I genuinely am not being disrespectful in what I'm about to say. I hope you hear that in my tongue. But their idea of election, you know they don't wholeheartedly reject it, some do, but is that in this prevenient grace that God looked down in his foreknowledge through the corridors of time and he saw who would choose him and so then he conveniently chooses the ones that will eventually choose him. Most Armenians that I know that have a problem with the full sovereignty of God, their main tension and rub is that God would create humans that He knew were going to hell. And I've looked at a lot of, I think, brothers that are Armenians in this conversation and said, brother, you have not lost that tension. If God is looking through the corridors of time knowing who's going to choose Him, and He conveniently chooses them because they're going to eventually choose Him, yet He's still creating people who He knows will not eventually choose Him, you have the same tension. It's the exact same rub. And so in this view, the final decision lies with the individual. So again, remember, the reason that we're even talking about this heresy is because of what's at stake. How are we saved? How is it that we are made right with God? In this view, Pelagian-Arminian view, the final decision lies with the individual. They affirm the need for grace, but the decisive, and guys, that word is critically important for you to hear in understanding this. The decisive act of our salvation, according to the Pelagian and the Arminian, is in our hands. It's up to us decisively. And so, For obvious reasons, Arminianism echoes the earlier error of Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism. The Council of Dort in 1618-1619 was convened in part to address these teachings and it reaffirmed the biblical understanding of salvation as fully the work of God. And so this, again, was refuted by the church. And so every point in church history when this has surfaced, the church as a whole has rejected this teaching, not because Augustine or the Reformers, not because their personalities were stronger, but because they were faithful to the Bible. And it was Scripture that was going to stand. And for any man, woman, or child that wanted to be and desired to be faithful to Scripture, whether they liked what they saw or not, what the church did rightfully was say, hey, we're going to stand on Scripture and ask us to submit ourselves to Scripture. And so when we see tension in Scripture, which is a normal thing, brothers and sisters in Christ, if you don't like tension, you're probably not going to like the Bible. If you're scared of tension, then there's a chance and a huge temptation for you to see things in the Bible that cause tension in your heart and for you to depart from the true teachings of Scripture into some of these type errors. Because they'll make your heart feel better. They'll make you think God is nicer than he seems in the Bible. And so Scripture is meant and designed and ordained and breathed out by God to communicate to us who God truly is. And it's our responsibility to submit to what we see, not only embrace what we understand. I mean, I wasn't here last night, but I saw the lineup and I was like, dude, if your idea of Christianity is I'm going to understand all of this fully and totally, then you've probably already been disappointed in this conference. Our call and petition is faith, to trust the Lord at His Word. and to understand that He is infinitely greater than we are. And we are to submit in faith to what His Word reveals. Well, Pelagianism still hasn't died. Arminianism still hasn't died. Today Pelagianism is alive and well. Think of these phrases that maybe you've said or maybe you've heard in sermons or on coffee mugs in a Christian coffee shop. Just try harder. You've made the first move, or what I like to think of as Diamond Rio theology. I'll start walking your way, you start walking mine. God helps those who helps themselves. Pelagianism and Arminianism, there are variants of it in every single denomination. Now, hear me out. Not necessarily in the statement of faith, but certainly in the pews. Why? Because Pelagianism, Arminianism, and what we saw all the way back in Genesis 3, it's the logic of the human heart. You do good for me, I do good for you. In turn, I do good for you, you do good for me. And think of how easy it is for particularly North American Christians over the last couple hundred years to fall into this heresy. The land of the free, rugged, individualism, privacy fences. We work hard, we accomplish, a capitalistic society. I'm not necessarily being negative toward those things, but I want us to understand how prevalent this thinking is in modern evangelicalism. Everything we do in this life is performance driven. Try it Monday morning. It's your job. Don't perform. and see what result you get. Right? Over-perform? You get bonuses, you get promotions, you get attaboys, you get attagirls. Sports, for teenagers that are involved in any sort of sport, is performance-driven. And so it's not... I don't think it should be hard for us to understand why the tendency of our heart is so quick to think that way as it relates to the gospel. And so it's alive and well. In fact, I had... How much time do I have? Okay. I was asked, and I'm not going to use any names of anybody or any church or any organization in what I'm about to say, okay? You can read between the lines if you'd like. but I was asked to speak to a group of teenagers a few years ago. And it was towards the end of the school year, and this person that was over the teenagers called me and said, hey, I really would like for you to come speak to the teenagers at the end of the year, just kind of pump them up to finish strong. And it was in a Christian context. And she said, but I'd like to talk to you about the message. And so I went and met with her, and she said, I'd like for the title of your message to be Work Harder. I said, OK. And she said, well, by the way, my pastor preached a sermon last week, and he titled it Work Harder, and I think it would be perfect. So I'm not really asking you to preach his sermon, but if you could preach something like his sermon, it would really fit well. And I'm thinking, call him to preach his sermon. OK? But I'm glad she didn't. Because I went and listened to the sermon, and the whole premise of this message of work harder, do better, like the gospel moment, the gospel point in this message, was he looks at his congregation, and he says, I tell this to every single young man and woman that I'm discipling, I tell this to every single student that comes through my college, I look them in the eyes, and he goes, they look at me like I'm crazy, and you're going to understand why in just a second. They look at me like I'm crazy, and I ask them, what does the floorboard of your car look like? And I'm thinking, where is he going with this? And then when they look at me, this is him now, he's like, and they look at me like I'm crazy, they kind of, there's some shame, they look down, and then I say, what does your closet in your bedroom look like? What does it look like under your bed? Like this is the moment, like this is the moment of the sermon, the crescendo, the gospel, supposedly. And then he brings it down. In his tone, and he's skilled, man. He's got some serious charisma. He brings it down, and he says, how can you expect God to trust you with anything spiritual if He can't trust you with the little things? In which He has tied the righteousness that only comes through Jesus Christ to a human effort, something as stupid, excuse me, as the floorboard of your car in the closet in your room. Hints of plagianism. Man-centered, man-driven, works-based righteousness. That we somehow, in and of ourselves, have the ability to produce this holiness and this righteousness on our own. So much so, that even in this day and age, this was only a year ago, or two years ago, two years ago, that that is being preached and proclaimed in one of the largest evangelical churches in America. It's alive and well. But what does the Bible say? Ephesians 2, if you have your Bibles, Ephesians 2 verses 1-10 is where we're going to conclude our time. We are going to jump over to Romans 5 quickly, but Ephesians 2, 1-10. It's clear that we'll see that Scripture contradicts these man-centered views. Thankfully, I don't have to argue from my own opinion on this. Scripture is blatantly clear against this heresy. So, if Pelagius said we're born good, Arminius said we're born sick, essentially, we're going to see Paul say we're born dead. Ephesians 2, beginning in verse 1. And you were dead in the 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 in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead and 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 the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness towards 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 work so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Verses one through three make painfully clear that we are dead in our sin. Paul is not using metaphor here. But even if he was, what else could it mean? This is the spiritual reality of every single human being that is born in Adam. Spiritually dead. Dead means no pulse. Dead does not mean, as the Arminian would say, dying. Or sick. Or limping. It's dead. Not weakened, dead. And in our deadness, we followed the world, we followed Satan and our own desires, and as Paul says, we were by nature, by nature, not by deed, first, but by nature children of wrath. The Pelagian would say you're by deed. You're born neutral and you're a sinner because you eventually sinned. What scripture teaches is that we are by nature children of wrath. We are by nature spiritually dead. And dead things do not have the ability to do anything but to continue in their deadness. I guess you could argue all we can do as dead people is stink, and that would be accurate. And so this is inherited guilt and corruption very, very quickly, and I'm going to speed up here. Romans 5, and I'm probably just going to skim through this, but I highly encourage you to read Romans 5, 12-21, because I really feel like with Ephesians 2, 1-10, 5, 12-21, you could take that to any Pelagian, any Arminian, and humbly sit down in grace and have your composure kept and say, hey, can we submit to the Word of God? Let's read this together. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned. For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was the type of the one that was to come. Let me skip down, and there's some beautiful verses there about the free gift in comparison of the first and second Adam, second Adam being Jesus. But jump down to 17 for the sake of this argument. For if because of one man's trespass, that's Adam's sin, death reigned. So where did sin come from? How did the spiritual deadness happen? For if because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Listen, he says it another way. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men. For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. 21, so that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness. Brothers and sisters, you see the danger. If we lose the truth or the reality of our spiritual deadness, we don't only elevate ourselves, but we diminish the glorious grace and mercy of God. And so anytime we exalt ourselves, we diminish the Lord. But the Bible doesn't let us do that. It keeps us right here in reality that we are spiritually dead. And then you have verse four and two of the most glorious words, the gospel in two words. But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses. Now, listen, he made us alive together with Christ. And so this is not CPR. This is not take a round of antibiotics. This is a resurrection. There's spiritual deadness, and the only way that what's spiritually dead will be resurrected and brought to life is if God Himself in His great infinite love and mercy and sovereign grace comes and speaks life into that dead soul. And it's only then that that soul, that heart, that mind can see and savor and worship and believe in and obey and have faith in Jesus Christ. There's no way possible biblically for the faith and the belief or the work or the desire or the affection to ever precede the resurrection. It cannot. It's an impossibility. So in verse 5 he continues, "...and when we were dead, made us alive together." I don't even really... I mean, he's inspired by the Holy Spirit, but anybody that's honestly reading this would obviously deduct, oh, this is by grace we've been saved. But he emphasizes that. This is by grace that you have been saved. I'm speeding up here. Verse 6, we are united with Christ. He's raised us up with Him, seated us with Him. And so the same power that raised Jesus from the dead raises sinners. And then dead sinners, somehow, and this is mysterious, but somehow, currently, right now, one day fully realized, but right now, we are seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Verses 7-9, He points to the future grace, that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. In verse 8, the Spirit inspires Paul to pen for again by grace, You have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. Even faith is a gift. The Pelagian, the Arminian says we choose with enabled will or we have the ability to choose. What the Bible says is that our entire salvation, including the faith, is not from us. It's from God. It's a gift. It's not a result of works. So no one can boast. Pelagius, Arminius, they boasted in the will of man. The gospel removes all boasting in man, and it boasts in the Lord. In verse 10, not only are we saved by the power of God, but even the works that we eventually do are not to earn grace. We do good not to earn grace, we do good because of grace. And these works have been prepared beforehand. Even our obedience was prepared by God. He gets all the credit. He gets all the glory, and that's the point. And so you see the danger of this heresy is that it elevates man, diminishes God, and gives glory, undue glory to man. In conclusion, at the heart of all man-focused religion is the idea that we can fix ourselves. When Adam and Eve sinned, I told you it went all the way back to Genesis 3, they sewed fig leaves together to cover their shame. That's the very first, albeit primitive, act of self-salvation. It was mankind's first attempt to make it right or to fix themselves. And we've been trying to do it ever since. Pelagianism is a fig leaf. Arminianism is a fig leaf. Any way that we think, and I think all of us do in some capacity, that we can fix ourselves or should, or that our salvation is somehow dependent or secure because of our efforts and our righteousness, all of that thinking is a fig leaf. God's response in Genesis 3 was not to affirm their efforts. Please listen. God's response was to give them an adequate covering. He provided for them in the animal skins that which they could not provide for themselves. Would it freak you out too bad if I told you that I was saved under the preaching of an Arminian? I was. He preached the gospel. He did. And so I don't want to leave us with this sense of arrogance or me condemning every Arminian free will or whatever to hell. I think there are unregenerate in Calvinistic circles, Arminian circles, in every circle. But I trust that the Lord will faithfully do His work through broken vessels. And so I, as a Reformed church, I don't want us to beat our chest I think the proper appropriate response, especially for younger Christians, because I think most Christians, maybe 99% of Christians begin with Pelagian thought. Why? Because it's the logic of the flesh. I did this. And it's through faithful biblical discipleship that we all began to understand, wow, I thought I chose him. He actually chose me. And that's a glorious truth. So let's not leave. Arrogant, because we think we're right. Let's just be faithful to open the Bible and to keep it open. And to keep preaching it. Proclaiming it. And trusting our theology that God will faithfully work in the hearts and minds that He so desires. And that we pray to that end. We cannot lose grace. We cannot. I talk to many young people I have a lot of young people in my home, believe it or not, a lot of them, basically a youth group. But I talk to so many young people and young adults that have been raised in the church, they've been taught the Word of God, and then life kind of hits, like things happen, they make mistakes, they get in a dark place, and even though they haven't been taught Pelagian and Arminian thinking, Functionally, that's what they think. And so, they begin to think, well, I've done this, and I've done this, so it can't mean that I'm a part of this, or maybe that I could ever be a part of this, or nothing that I've been taught is real. And so, there's this war going on inside their heart, and their soul, and their mind, and the war is centered on this Pelagian thought. They're thinking about their righteousness based on their actions. They're thinking about God's reception of them and welcoming of them through Jesus Christ based on their effort and their actions. And if they deduct, a lot of young people do, a lot of immature Christians do, if they deduct that their sin is greater than the grace of God, then they will walk away from it. And if they're hearing Pelagian teaching, whether from a pulpit or on TikTok or Instagram or whatever, that's do better, do better, do better, do better, and you completely lose the grace of God, could lose their soul. This is why this matters. If we lose grace, we are all hopeless. Every single one of us. We cannot lose grace. So wherever you are this morning, whatever stage of life, I'm sure some of you have people you're discipling or you're being discipled or just whatever's going on in your life, just let this be a moment and an opportunity for you to boast in and to celebrate and to worship Jesus for His divine grace. But if you haven't trusted, if you haven't trusted in the grace of Jesus Christ, Come to Him. Come to Him. You're dead in your trespasses and sins. And there's only one means for spiritual life, for salvation. And it's through Jesus. I think it's fitting to end from Psalm 115, verse 1. Not to us, O Lord. Not to us. but to your name give glory for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness. Let's pray.