Good evening, everyone. Before we open our Bibles, I want you to take your red Trinity hymnals and turn to page 855, 855. I just wanna read the one point from the chapter of justification that I'm gonna cover this evening. It's point number four on page 855 in the chapter of justification. Point number four says, God did from all eternity decree to justify all the elect, and Christ did in the fullness of time die for their sins and rise again for their justification. Nevertheless, they are not justified until the Holy Spirit doth in due time actually apply Christ unto them. If you'll take your Bibles and turn to 1 Peter 1, 1 Peter 1, 1 Peter 1, verses 17 through 21. 1 Peter 1, verses 17 through 21. And if you would keep your finger there in that passage, because after doing some introductory material, we are gonna walk through this block of text here. 1 Peter 1, verses 17 through 21. This is God's word. If you address as father, the one who impartially judges according to each one's work. Conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth, knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with the precious blood as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. For he was foreknown before the foundation of the world but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you, who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. Before I pray, I just wanted to share with you, many years ago, I took Evangelism Explosion training, the D. James Kennedy training. This has probably been almost 20 years ago. And reading the fourth edition of that book, Evangelism Explosion, Kennedy points out that thousands of people came to know Christ by signing up for evangelism training in their church. And as it turns out, many people that wanted to be trained to share the gospel had no idea what the gospel was. And then going through those initial steps, those initial questions, do you know you have eternal life? And what would you say if he died and stood before God and he asked you, why should I let you into heaven? And then when you get the wrong answers to those questions and then to have the great joy of telling someone, I have good news for you. The good news is that heaven's a free gift. You can't earn it. You can't deserve it. You can't merit it by anything that you do. Thousands of people that went through EE training came to Christ by going through that training. And that's one of the reasons I want to emphasize the gospel in my own life and ministry, is I don't want you to have to get saved going through evangelism training. I want you to be saved because you've heard it so many times from me, there's no possible way you could misunderstand it or not have heard it. Let's open with prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your decree to justify your elect people. What a glorious truth. What an astounding display of your love and kindness to your people. That multitude of people so vast no man can count them, chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, elected by name individually from all eternity, upon whom you set your love from the whole mass of condemned and damned humanity that you would in the fullness of time send forth your son to achieve their salvation, and then in your sovereign decree and providence to mercifully send preachers and evangelists to tell them about the gospel and to call them to faith in it, and then to apply Jesus Christ to every single last one of them perfectly so that they all can go to heaven. May we rejoice in that blessed truth we ask in Jesus' name, amen. It's one of the most comforting truths to know that God decrees God has an eternal plan, an eternal purpose. It's executed flawlessly, perfectly in time and space. The absolute sovereignty of God is a source of great peace to those who truly understand and rest in it. God knows the future in exhaustive detail because all of it was planned by him from eternity past. God's sovereignty does not allow him, thank goodness, to be surprised, to be taken off guard or thwarted in anything that he has purposed to bring to pass in his eternal plan, his decree to glorify himself as he sees fit in his own creation. The scriptures are God's revelation of what man is supposed to believe about God and what duty God requires of man. And therefore, praise God, the full and perfect legal justification of all of God's elect is part of what God decreed and purposed to accomplish from eternity past. That eternal purpose will not fail. Ephesians 3.11 says that, that it is the eternal purpose that he accomplished in Jesus Christ. The cross of Christ is no afterthought on God's part, nor is it plan B. There is only plan A, what God has decreed to take place. And before the universe was created by God, the plans of God were perfectly settled and known entirely to him. Remember from our catechism, question number eight, how does God execute his decrees? How does he bring to pass this glorious plan that's all encompassing? How does he do it? In the works of creation and providence. God created a vast and glorious universe. He created one planet with life on it, one planet with his images on it, earth for man. Providence is God's most holy, wise, and powerful, preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions. On this glorious stage of creation and in God's providence, God is executing and bringing to pass his eternal purpose, his decrees. This is why God's children literally do not need to worry about anything ever in this world. If we really could see how wonderful this truth is, we would do all of our work. We would do all of our duties. We would love God and love people and worship God in spirit and truth and study his word and be content and complete in Christ and sleep like babies every night with no worries at all. Sadly, our sin makes such a simple and wonderful life nigh unto impossible, but by the grace of God, we can approach it in this life as we learn in the school of Christ to walk by faith, not by sight. What I see tells me the world's going crazy, but by faith, we know that God has a purpose in all of it, and that purpose will be realized, and that is to glorify himself. The topic before us in the last couple of points of the chapter on justification there in the Westminster Confession, point number four, God's decree to justify his elect is not actually executed in the lives of individual believers until in due time, according to God's eternal plan, the Holy Spirit applies Christ unto them. It's kind of like a long engagement. It's a guaranteed long engagement. The Lord Jesus to his church. When Amy and I got engaged, I had just turned 21 years old, and we had talked about getting married a little bit sooner than we did, but that was a very short conversation. I remember it well. I said, do you have any money? She said, not really. I said, neither do I. Guess we'll need to wait till I finish school and get a job, huh? So we were engaged long distance for 10 months She lived in Cincinnati was working and I was at Ohio University three hours away finishing my senior year in college The plan was to get married but there's a big difference between a plan to get married and the day you actually get married and March 22nd, 1997 was that day. And in those 10 long months leading up to it, there was great excitement and there was great joy. Engaged, however, is not married and married is not engaged. God decreed from all eternity to justify his elect and Christ did in the fullness of time, die for their sins and rise again for their justification. But the decree to justify does not actually justify us. The plan to make us right with God does not actually make us right with God. God has appointed a specific moment in time when each of his elect people will be born again, effectually called, granted repentance unto life and saving faith in Christ. And they're not actually justified until that moment, just like an engaged couple is not actually married until their wedding day. We believe that Jesus died only for his elect people, those given to him by the Father before time and no others. And many have objected to this doctrine by insisting, wrongly of course, that this requires us to believe that the elect are actually justified from all eternity. Since we believe that by his death, Christ actually, really, truly, properly made a full satisfaction to God's justice in behalf of his elect, it must follow that the elect are justified from all eternity, or that they're born into the world already saved and already justified. The problem with this idea is very simple. The Bible does not teach that. Listen to the rest of point number four of chapter 11. Nevertheless, they are not justified until the Holy Spirit doth in due time actually apply Christ unto them. Westminster Confession 11.4 was written to discard the notion of eternal justification of the elect. And here's one of the main points of tonight's message. What is very clearly taught in the word of God is that even the elect are conceived in sin and are really and truly under God's wrath until the moment that they are born again and effectually called by God. We are not saved by the raw power of God's decree of election. There can't be a decree to save without an actual cross in history to bring that salvation to pass. There can't be just a bare decree to save without God decreeing to send forth parents and missionaries and elders and radio programs to bring those glad tidings to God's elect people and then to effectually call them through that gospel and unite them to Christ. And here's one of the greatest points of confusion for those who hear about Calvinism or Reformed theology, which is really just a shorthand way of saying the biblical Christian faith. Many people think that it's God's decree in and of itself that saves people. It's not. No more than an engagement is actually a marriage. Remember what the confession and what the Bible teaches us and what it says about God's decrees in the chapter of decrees in chapter 3.6, it says, as God hath appointed the elect unto glory, listen, so he hath by the eternal and most free purpose of his will foreordained all the means thereunto. So often people say, if you think God's already decided who's going to heaven and who's going to hell, then what's the point of evangelism? What's the point of praying for people? Of course, my response would be, if he hasn't decreed that, what's the point of evangelism or praying for people? He decrees all the means there unto as well. He decrees every step of the way, every tear that is shed, every sleepless night of burden for the people that you love. So many people think that we believe God, He just decrees the outcome and therefore we don't need to evangelize or pray or weep or write books or do conferences or make friends or love people or anything like that. God decreed not just the final outcome, but every single step along the way throughout all of history toward that outcome. And that point goes on to describe all the historical means and space and time that are just as much a part of God's decree as the final outcome. So I just wanna encourage you, when you talk to people who are confused about what we mean by the sovereignty of God or what we mean by election, we don't mean that God simply decrees the final outcome. He decrees every single step toward that outcome as well. And those steps are just as important as the final outcome. What are all the means that God has appointed to bring His elect to glory? Here's what the Westminster Confession says, summarizing dozens of passages. Wherefore, they who are elected, being fallen, and Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by His Spirit, working in due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by His power through faith unto salvation. Neither are there any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only. A text of scripture that we love and we look to for encouragement and comfort in the face of life's hardships and difficulties is a text whose teaching on this topic can very often be overlooked. I wish people wouldn't just memorize Romans 8, 28. Memorize verse 29 and verse 30 and 31 and 32. We often use Romans 8, 28 through 30 as a proof text, and rightly so, for the fact that those who are truly justified cannot lose their salvation and be lost. But it's also a very clear biblical teaching that God does not just decree the final outcome, but every step toward that outcome. Romans 8, 29 and 30 does not say, those whom God foreknew, He glorified. It doesn't say that. It also gives every other step. Listen to the text of God's word. Very familiar passage, but let us teaching hit you afresh. Romans 8 29, for those whom he foreknew. What does that mean? Those whom he chose to enter into a love relationship with before time. Those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son. In other words, those upon whom God said is redeeming and gracious and undeserved love, he determined their destiny. He predestined them to be conformed to the image of Christ. That's just as much a part of God's plan as being glorified in heaven one day. It goes on, so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren. And these whom he predestined, he also called. What does that mean? effectually called at some point in their life between their conception and their death. There will be an effectual calling of that person through the gospel. They will be born again by God's spirit, granted repentance unto life and faith in Jesus, and united to the Lord and justified and adopted. It goes on, and these whom He called, He also justified. He declares them righteous. He imputes Jesus' preceptive law-keeping to their account, and He accepts His payment at the cross for all their sins, and they're justified. And it goes on, and these whom He justified, He also glorified. At the resurrection, we are raised up in glory and are made fully blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity. God's decree includes his foreknowledge of us, his entering into a love relationship with us before time begins, along with every single step towards that final glorious outcome. God's decree to save his elect is like a long engagement. In fact, let us remember how the whole narrative in the Bible ends. It's actually really like an engagement and a wedding feast. Remember Revelation 19, 7. Let us rejoice and be glad and give glory to him for the marriage of the lamb has come and his bride, his church, his elect people, purchased, justified, adopted, and now glorified. His bride has made herself ready. It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, right, blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the lamb. And he said to me, these are the true words of God. The decree God made to have a church composed of a vast multitude of undeserving sinners redeemed by His Son, our Lord, was made before time began. But there were many steps that were also decreed to bring this glorious wedding feast to pass, the creation of the world. the fall of the human race, the promise made to Adam that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent's head, the call of Abram and the promises made to him, the promises made to Isaac, to Jacob, to Israel, to David, the birth of Jesus, the life and ministry of Jesus, his mighty miracles, his cross work to satisfy divine justice, his life of obedience to bring his elect people that gift of righteousness, Paul calls it in Romans 5, 17. His resurrection from the grave after he dies on the cross, the sending of the Holy Spirit, the great commission and the proclamation of the gospel of Christ to the world in order to bring together in one the children of God who were scattered abroad and then still to come in the future Christ's glorious second coming, the final judgment, the acquittal of his elect of all charges and the declaration that they are righteous in Christ, and then the new heavens and the new earth in which righteousness will dwell. That's the plan and decree of God he executes in time and space by the works of creation and providence. So whatever other concerns or whatever else is bothering us, he's gonna make this happen. Be still and know it, don't worry about anything else. He's gonna glorify himself in this way. Isn't that wonderful to know? Remember that this chapter before us in the Westminster Confession, it's on justification before God. And the justification of sinners is one part of the grand eternal purpose and decree which God has determined to accomplish. Elect sinners are born in original sin, just like everyone else in Adam's race. We're not different from others in that way. We're not born already justified before God. We're not born forgiven. The elect are not actually justified until the moment when God, working through the proclamation of the gospel, makes them alive in Christ. In that moment in time, when repentance unto life and saving faith are granted by God, then that elect sinner is once and for all eternity pronounced justified before God. Now to summarize and reiterate, the decree to save the elect and bring them to heaven does not in itself save us. The decree is God's plan to, in time and space, take all the necessary steps to save his people. We are saved by the work of Christ alone when that work is applied to us in our effectual calling. Our Shorter Catechism has three great questions, summarizes it so well. Question 29, how are we made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ? We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ by the effectual application of it to us by His Holy Spirit. How does the Spirit apply to us the redemption purchased by Christ? The Spirit applies to us the redemption purchased by Christ by working faith in us and thereby uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling. What is effectual calling? Effectual calling is the work of God's Spirit whereby convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ freely offered to us in the gospel. Until that moment of effectual calling, we are not actually justified. There is that glorious act of God making us born again in an instant of time, that supernatural rebirth from above. Even the elect of God at one time in their lives had hearts of stone. and we're under God's just condemnation. Until we are united to Christ, we are like everyone else, children of wrath. Amazingly enough, the apostle Paul, who understood his own election, understood that he had been radically saved and converted, that he was one of God's elect. He said to the church at Ephesus, Ephesians two, verse one, and you he made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all, he said, We all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and we were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. And he goes on, what is the next two words? But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love. And he goes on from there. Although the elect are chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world and the grace by which we are saved was given to us before time began, all the elect are conceived and born in sin, lost, just like everyone else in Adam's race. We are no different. And the prophet Ezekiel gives a beautiful, warm, loving description of what God does in the heart of every single one of his elect people. Ezekiel 36, 26, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statues. And you will keep my judgments and do them. We all know what life is. And we all know what death is when we see it. We know what death is. The imagery is vivid and memorable. The heart in our chest, it's a powerful pump that distributes blood, that life-giving liquid created by God to every living cell in our body. But if that pump is made of stone, we're dead. If that organ that beats all day, every day, and has done so since we were just a few days old in our mother's wombs, if it suddenly turned to stone, we would die instantly. And the biblical image communicated to us is that our spiritual heart, that which is far more important than the pump in our chest, that is made of stone. Spiritually, we begin dead. We're spiritually stillborn. Our spiritual hearts are as lifeless and as inanimate as stone. The supernatural power of Almighty God comes to us in that planned and decreed moment of time and changes that stone to a life-giving muscle that begins to pump life into our dead souls. We were like the man in John chapter nine, born blind. would have had no frame of reference to understand the colors of the rainbow or of a sunset. What could someone possibly think that that means to describe it, the beautiful lavender, purple, and orange, and red colors? A miracle has got to take place. Jesus sees us and pities us, although we deserve no pity. Jesus loves us, although we deserve none of his love. He has compassion on us, although we have very little compassion for those around us. Jesus lays his life down for the despicable and the wicked, when only for a good or a righteous person would any of us even consider laying down our lives. Nevertheless, the tender and gracious love of God comes to us and makes us alive and justifies us and adopts us into his family. And then he sets us on the path of truth and holiness. And God causes us to walk in his statutes and keep them and do them. To walk in the way of duty. It's the most satisfying and happy thing for a child of God. To know that you're obeying God and doing His will is truly the only way of life that gives us shape and substance. Without Christ, our existences are directionless, vacuous. We simply walk from one disappointing experience to greater levels of emptiness. What good can a corpse really do anyway? What life is there for the spiritually walking dead? It is a glorious and comforting thing to know that your adoption into the family of God is something he both planned and desired from eternity past. When Christian people struggle to understand God's love because they themselves were not properly loved by others or by parents or because they've been hurt or have abuse in their past, this is truly a delight for such a believer to contemplate. Paul marveled at it himself in 2 Timothy 1.8. He said, God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. You were already there, formed and created in his mind, fallen in Adam, and he set his love upon you. That grace that was given to us before time started. Paul remembered the days of darkness. He remembered his days of lostness and misdirected zeal. And it was just fuel to the fire of his new resolve. 1 Timothy 1.12, he says, I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who has enabled me because he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor and an insolent man. But I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant with faith and love, which are in Christ Jesus. His own salvation amazed him that someone like him, an insolent, arrogant, self-righteous, angry man would be a child of God, not only a child of God, an apostle of that message. It's an amazing thing that God can take people so vile, so wicked, so utterly selfish, so devoid of good, and actually make them useful for his purposes. Paul saw it as a source of great wonder and joy in his life. It's the source of true contentment in life's hardship and difficulties. We are children of God and heirs with Christ of heavenly glory, bliss, and unending happiness with God. This love that God has is not generic. It's not generic, it's not general. It is intensely personal. It's not a provision, but effectual. It's not nameless, but specific. It's not weak, it's powerful. It's a love that accomplishes the salvation of everyone that God sets that love upon. And the phrase that I've used a lot of my own ministry is that God elected not a generic class, namely those who exercise free will and believe in Jesus. He didn't elect conditions. He elected people, individuals by name from all eternity. That is the heart of grace. If you don't have the doctrine of unconditional election of individuals elected by name from all eternity, you lose the biblical notion of grace altogether. It's gone. It's unconditional, meaning God's choice of who is shown mercy instead of fairness is not in view of anything foreseen about the guilty sinner thus elected, nor regarding anything that they would do And therefore, how can a true Christian who gets this be anything but completely humble at all times and never look down their nose at anyone for any reason at all? God's love is eternal and effectual. It extends from eternity past through all of history, through all of our sin, all of our stubbornness, all the way into eternity future. His affection, His love, His absolute commitment to His elect to justify them and bring them into glory can be seen in this truth, this fact, the bloody body of His Son on the cross. If you doubt, does God really love me? Does He really love me? Just remember what Jesus did. There it is. There's the answer. It's a demonstration of love. God's thoughts towards his people are of love. Do you know that? God thinks about you. If you're one of his people and you're united to Christ, you're justified, you're adopted, his thoughts about you and how much he loves you cannot be recounted back to him. The psalm writers rejoiced in that, they gloried in it. Psalm 40, verse four, blessed is that man who makes the Lord his trust, amen, and does not respect the proud, nor such as turn aside the lies. Many, O Lord my God, are your wonderful works which you have done, and your thoughts toward us cannot be recounted to you in order. You're no afterthought to him. You are the special objects of his divine affection, willing to spend the highest cost for. He sent his son to suffer and die an agonizing death to make wretches his treasure in heavenly glory forever. The Psalm writer, Psalm 40, verse five. If I would declare and speak of them, of God's thoughts about us, there more than can be numbered. We read this passage in our scripture reading, 1 Peter 1, 17, hopefully you're still there, you see it? Go to verse 17 of 1 Peter 1. If you address us, Father, the one who impartially judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth." Don't you love the way that that's said? What are we going through right now? It's just a little stay. The time of your stay on earth, like you're gonna stay at a hotel for a short time. Verse 18, knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers. but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ." We are called to conduct ourselves and our lives in the fear of God because we know that we personally, as individuals, unconditionally loved, chosen, elected, predestined to eternal life, we're in the fullness of time, redeemed by the blood of Christ from our former futile way of life. That word that's translated futile, mataios, means worthless. It's kind of a harsh term. Really? My life before Christ, what was it? Worthless. Worthless. But God changed all that. He changed all that. Do you really know him? When he redeemed us and brought us to himself through the work of his son. Verse 20 is the key to our message this evening. See verse 20? For he was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you." Why was he here? Why did he leave footprints in the sand? Why did he bleed that blood on that cross? Why did he say what he did? For the sake of you, he says. who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God. Christ and all of the elect in him were foreknown before the foundation of the world. The plan to do this with every true believer, Peter wrote this letter to, was in God's heart before there existed anything in creation yet. before the foundation of the world. God had planned every detail of this for his people and their salvation and the glorification of his amazing grace in it. And it says, but he has appeared in these last times for the sake of you. It was planned in its entirety, both the final outcome and every step toward that outcome. But when the fullness of time and God's plan had come, Christ came and actually satisfied divine justice and produced the perfect righteousness by which alone we are justified and enter into heaven. And then in the fullness of time, each vessel of mercy who would ever believe God's promise and believe in Christ is effectually called and Christ is actually applied to them. And some of those vessels of mercy are born again in the womb, like John the Baptist, who leapt for joy when he was near Jesus, when he was very small in Mary's womb. Others, like the man who died on a cross next to Jesus, were born again a few minutes before he died, but all are equally loved, elected, predestined, cherished by Jesus. They all go equally from death to life when that moment comes, from condemned to justified when that moment comes, from orphaned to adopted when that moment comes in God's decree and plan. Let's look at one final historical example. It's one I've quoted to you a lot. Acts 13, 47, Paul and Barnabas at Antioch of Pisidia preaching there. They said, 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. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified 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. These are the people that God engaged himself to before time began. I doubt many of them, when they first believed, fully understood this, just like so many of us probably didn't either. When you were born again, if you remember when that happened, did you immediately think, Lord, thanks for choosing me in Christ and for the foundation of the world and giving that gift to me before time began? Probably not. In God's program of our sanctification, we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. One of the ways we grow is that our understanding of just how gracious grace really is and how wide and deep and high and unfathomably great the love of God really is. We can study the details of how God's decree interfaces with the events that come to pass and how sinners are saved. And that's wonderful. But eventually, if you're a believer, it will really grab your soul and grip your heart. Grace really is grace. And God's love really is the most wonderful thing a person can have. Let me put it this way, as you live life, as you study God's word, as you pass through trials, your understanding of grace and the love of God will not decrease. As you live your Christian life, as you pass through the trials, as you study the word of God, as you read Romans and you read Ephesians and you read Philippians, nobody does that and goes, wow, I'm so thankful for my free will. No true Christian lives their life in the Lord thinking more and more through the years. You know what? The love of Christ just isn't as great as I thought it was. True believers don't walk with Christ for years and decades and start thinking, you know what? I really am all that. Isn't God so privileged that I'm gonna be in heaven with him forever? No, we all grow in our understanding of just how marvelous the love and grace of Christ really are. At the end of the doctrinal portion of Ephesians, Paul closes with a rhapsody of praise to God, similar to the end of Romans 8. And he says in Ephesians 3.14, for this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. that He would grant you according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to all the fullness of God. I think Paul was pretty excited when he wrote that. And when that was read to the church at Ephesus, they weren't yawning, they were excited. He said, I pray, Paul says, I pray that somehow you'll be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth to know the love of Christ. When Acts 13, 48 tells us that among that group of Gentiles who heard the gospel, that as many as have been appointed to eternal life, believed the eternal plan and decree of God is behind his altogether loving, gracious, and merciful opening of those people's hearts. Each one of them was known, loved, predestined to be a recipient of God's grace at that very moment. And when Christ came into the world, it was for their sake, just as if you're born again, it was for your sake that Jesus came. The love that took hold of those people is the same love that has taken hold of us. God engaged Himself to us before time began. He knew and loved us by name in His fatherly heart before the foundation of the world. God the Son, having received this love gift of the church from the Father before time began, covenanted to enter history, to live and to die, to secure all that they needed to have eternal life. But just like everyone else, they started out dead in their sins and under God's just condemnation. What we all need to see and appreciate and marvel at is this, our salvation was not accidental as if we just happened to be born in the right place at the right time and find ourselves in the right circumstances and happen to be in the right mood to make the right use of our will. No, our salvation was planned by God for us individually before time began and then was applied to us in due time at the exact moment God planned. You have burdens, you have things that are really getting to you, really bothering you, that make you go sit in a dark room and stare at the floor and are depressed. If you have faith in Jesus and repentance for your sin, don't worry about anything else. That's proof that God loves you. Blessed be His holy name for that eternal and glorious love that He has loved us with. Paul describes the moment of conversion in such strikingly gracious terms. Listen to Ephesians 2, 3 and following, just listen to this, let this soak into your soul and let this rejoice your heart on this Sabbath day. Paul wrote, among them, we too all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, 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 ages to come, he might show the surpassing riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Let that stir your heart and warm your soul. Whatever else is going on, whatever issues you've got, if you know him, it's because he set his affection upon you by name, individually, from all eternity. And that's why when you heard the gospel, it came alive in your heart. Don't ever doubt that he loves you. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we bless your name for that particular redeeming, saving love that you gave to your elect people. May our hearts, those who truly do know Christ, rejoice in what he did and everything that he is for us. We ask in his name, amen.