In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of His glory.
In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in Him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory.
For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened so that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe according to the working of His great might.
That He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand in the heavenly places.

Now today we are going to continue along the theme of last week on the question of whether we can or cannot lose our salvation.
I want to begin by telling you that I’m not trying to win the centuries‑old debate. I am not trying to say that we are better than someone else. I am trying to show you that, scripturally, God has promised to keep His people and He does not fail in that promise. And this is the consideration we have.

When we really look closely, as I hope I will be able to show you today, it isn’t just a simple disagreement. There are issues about who God is and His character and His nature. They are woven into this issue. And so it is an important consideration.
My purpose, if I can get everything squared away up here, is not to try to win a debate but to convey assurance to those who fear the possibility of losing their salvation.

If you have been told all your life that you can lose your salvation, I submit that there is an underlying anxiety there that God doesn’t want us to have because we are focused in, as I hope to show you, it becomes on us and not on Him.
Now, I am not trying to win a debate. However, it is impossible to discuss this side without throwing light on that side. So it may sound like I’m trying to win a debate. What I really want to do is unpack the richness of Scripture on this subject.

Last week we looked at how the Holy Spirit is the firstfruits or the guarantee of our salvation. We dealt briefly with the idea of predestination and the possible violation of free will by noting that the will of unredeemed man is opposed to God and will not, indeed cannot choose God without some work of His Spirit prior to the exercise of faith. Both sides agree on prevenient grace; they just divine it differently.

Our focus was on whether we can lose the gift of salvation, looking especially at the viewpoint that says I chose to believe and therefore I can choose to stop believing.
I want us to begin there again this morning because this is a very important consideration. This premise—let me apologize—there is a little bit of overlap here at the beginning, and then I come back to it. That’s just the way I couldn’t get it to lay out any differently.

Here’s the premise: If I believe that I can lose my salvation and that prospect grieves me, I’ve used this illustration before.
If you believe you can lose your salvation does that bother you? Because if it doesn’t bother you I don’t know why anybody would protest that they could lose their salvation. The only reason I know is that you would want to say that is I’m grieved by the possibility that in spite of my faith and my work and my service I won’t make heaven my home.

If you believe that you can lose your salvation and it grieves you, what will you do to prevent it? What will you do to keep that from happening? And this, I think, if you don’t think there’s any need to do anything then there is an indifference about heaven to begin with.
And so it’s important for you to understand this: If I say that I believe I can lose the gift of salvation and it grieves me, what will I do? That question gives us two considerations. The first is not the consideration—we’ll come back to that.

The first implication is that somehow the work was incomplete. What God has done needs additional effort to complete it. If I believe I can lose my salvation at the core is a belief that it’s not done, it’s not settled yet, and I’ve got to do something to prevent that from happening.

Now this falls into the category of not understanding justification. These are two big words—justification and sanctification. If you don’t read the doctrinal parts of the New Testament you will never hear those terms. They’re not in Psalms or the Gospels, but they are part of the doctrinal substance. This is what Martin Luther uncovered or rediscovered in the Reformation: God has justified us; we are right with God based on what Christ has done. It is complete, it is finished, it is satisfied. The debt is paid.

That is what justification says. For Jesus’ sake, when I put my faith in Christ and His death on Calvary, God declares us righteous. He imputes to us the righteousness of Christ that cannot be improved upon. You cannot make it better or add to it; it is as good as it can possibly get because it is the righteousness of Christ—the infinite and inexhaustible merit of Christ. That is what God has given us when we put our faith in Christ.

Justified in faith, the debt is paid. And this is for the believer. Christ’s work on Calvary for the believer has infinite, inexhaustible merit. If you have a viewpoint that you can lose your salvation and the way you’re going to prevent that from happening is to try harder, you’re arguing that I can add to the righteousness of Christ, which no one can do. If you could do that Jesus would never have had to die. God would just tell us get your act together, pull yourself up by the bootstraps and get this work done.

That is justification: the work, the debt has been paid because of what Christ has done. Many people confuse that with sanctification. Sanctification is the process where God makes us what He has declared we are. We are declared righteous and nothing can be added to that. But then we are called to be sanctified—apply ourselves to righteous living and efforts of prayer, Bible study, sacrifice, etc.

The key: The degree or success of my sanctification has no bearing upon my justification. It doesn’t matter how good I am as a Christian or how I strive to be better; it does not affect the justification. God has declared us righteous for Christ’s sake.

This can be seen in a question many people ask regarding baptism: Must you be baptized to be saved? You should be baptized. But what about the thief on the cross? He did nothing yet he went to heaven because he was justified by the work of Christ, not by any works he could or couldn’t do.

It is justification. All debt has been paid. Whether you grow fast in the Christian life or slowly, it has no bearing upon your justification. You have been declared righteous based on what Christ has done; it cannot be improved or added to.

The second thing that comes in—I’ll come back to this moment—is that I got too many numbers on my outline. The first flaw: If I believe I can lose my salvation, it grieves me. What am I going to do? I’m going to try harder. That implies the work of Christ is somehow incomplete—that it wasn’t enough to get the job done and I must contribute. That is not justification; justification says it’s done, and I live out of that experience in sanctification.

The second thing about preventing it is that it doesn’t take seriously the power of sin. It does not see sin as a real threat. Oh, I got this. I can handle that. Everybody who thinks that way misses the power of sin in your life. How will you overcome this? We don’t really know. In our culture we keep watering things down, change definitions, and everything is okay. There is no such thing as sin. The only sinful thing is to say there is something called sin. That’s the culture we live in.

If I believe that I can lose my salvation and I’m grieved by that, what will I do? Either infer the work of Christ is not sufficient or believe I can fix it by self‑effort—and we cannot.

Let’s return to the viewpoint that says I chose to believe; I can choose to stop believing. This is the argument: I looked down through time; He saw that I would believe when confronted with the gospel and chose me because of my choice of Him—very important. Those who believe this make two assertions. First, because it was my choice I can walk away later. I’ve heard people say almost boasting at a passage in John where Jesus says nothing can snatch you out of My hand. And I’ve heard people say, well, nothing can snatch me out but I can walk out if I choose to. That’s a major biblical flaw I hope to illustrate.

Second, that I could sin in an unforgivable fashion—somewhere in my future I will commit a sin so incredible that God would not forgive me. Always when this comes up people quote the unforgivable, unpardonable sin: there was only one, and it was blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is saying what’s being done by the Spirit is actually being done by the devil. When Jesus says anyone who speaks a word against the Spirit that sin will not be forgiven because Jesus worked with the Spirit.

In 1 Corinthians 12 Paul says no one speaking by the Holy Spirit will call Jesus accursed; the Holy Spirit in us will not allow us to criticize Him for something He’s doing. It is impossible for the modern Christian, the New Testament Christian, to commit that unforgivable sin.

But this is the argument. Let us note these two claims—these two assumptions—which I must pause and be fair—not everybody on the other side even knows about these things. Unfortunately, in America today a lot of Christians are just biblically ignorant. They don’t know what it is they say they believe because we’re not teaching from the pulpit. Both of these share a common trait: a deficient view of God’s foreknowledge—a inconsistency on foreknowledge.

You have to get it in your mind or my illustrations will fail. God looked down through time; the choice was made in eternity past, according to verse 4. He chose us before the foundation of the world. He looked down through time and saw that I would respond to the gospel and chose me for salvation because I would respond, because I believe in Him. Because it was my choice I can choose to stop believing and walk away later on.

Now I’ve got to give you three thoughts. The first comes back to my glass. Some people got it the first time; others haven’t. There’s nothing in the glass. It is a very old glass. Not promoting the Atlanta Braves—this relic we have for 40 years. If I turn the glass over the water runs out. Everybody agrees? Everybody knows that.

God does not know things by experience—we do. God knows them because He’s God, but it is a fitting analogy of foreknowledge. If you turn this glass over the water will run out—fact. Everybody knows it. The foreknowledge is perfect, but there must be an external force to turn the glass over until that happens. The water will not come out on its own. Somebody must bump into the pulpit and knock it over; an earthquake; a tornado; or the pastor can turn it. Until an external force turns the glass my foreknowledge will not bring it to pass.

When God—whether this is true or I disagree with it—that God made a choice because He looked down through time, saw that you would believe when you heard the gospel, even if it’s true God must work to bring the gospel to you. Therefore the idea is just my free will; God has to work in other ways.

Second: people say this ignores the second choice. If He looked down and chose me because I would believe but I can later choose to stop believing—would He know that? Would He know that I would stop believing? And if He did, why would He choose me first?

If the choice is made because He knew you would believe, He will also know when you stop believing, and you have to ask why would He choose me if He knows I’m going to stop believing? I know it’s tough, and you can’t imagine. You think it’s hard to hear. Try to get up here and preach it.

If He knew you would later quit believing this is the argument. People are like, well, I can stop believing later. It’s my choice. I have free will. I can stop believing later if I choose to. But God would know that. He would know whether you would ever make the second choice. Why would He choose you knowing that later you’re going to make a choice to stop believing? Especially in light of Matthew 10:22, he who endures to the end will be saved. In Matthew 24:13, he who endures to the end will be saved. Why would God choose someone He knows is not going to endure to the end?

So that argument that God knew I would believe, but I can walk away later, I can quit believing, God would know it if you did that. He would know it. And you have to ask why would He choose me? But then this also brings out a deficient view of God’s forgiveness.

Now let’s talk a moment about another analogy that I’ve shared. What is salvation? What is it? And it’s the most bottom line, fundamental down to earth: it is the forgiveness of sins. So when you say I can lose my salvation, you’re saying I can lose the forgiveness of God.

On what basis could you possibly lose the forgiveness of God? Well, I could commit a sin that is so heinous that He couldn’t forgive me for that sin. If salvation is tied, and children, you have to go to your Scripture. I can’t give it all to you in one day, but you can go to the Bible.

Jesus says what? At the end of Luke’s Gospel, He says go into the world and preach repentance, forgiveness. And forgiveness. Salvation is being forgiven of my sins. To lose salvation means I have lost God’s forgiveness.

Now how would that come? Now this is where this view of foreknowledge has got to be understood. How could I lose God’s forgiveness? The only possible answer is that I would have to commit a sin or some conglomeration of sins which would preclude God’s forgiveness.

If salvation is directly tied to forgiveness, which it is, and losing salvation means I’ve lost God’s forgiveness, how would you do that? You would have to commit sins that are unforgivable. But we’ve already noted that the justification that comes through Christ, the forgiveness in Christ, is inexhaustible and infinite. And it has been accorded to our credit because of our faith in Christ.

God has chosen. This is important. You’ve heard us say this before: all your sins are forgiven—past, present, and future. Why do we say that? Because God has to forgive us of all of our sins.

Now think a moment with me. The argument is God looked down through time and saw that I would respond to the gospel. But it is impossible that God would know I’m responding to the gospel without knowing why I need to respond to the gospel, which means my sins. See, here’s where I said inconsistency on foreknowledge. We want to say God knew that, but He doesn’t know this. He knows it all. He knows not only if you make that argument again, I don’t think that’s the way it happens, but if you make that argument that God knew I would respond to the gospel, then He must know why you responded to the gospel, which means all of your sins. He knows all of your sins. He doesn’t learn about your sin Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. That’s how we learn about our sins. That’s how we go to God in prayer and confession.

But God saw it all from the beginning. He knew our sins and when He chose us He chose us with the full knowledge of every sin we would ever commit and He must forgive those sins then. He cannot make atonement and make us His children if we are still carrying the guilt of sin. He must forgive it all at the beginning of our relationship.

And the person that says, well, someday I might be able to commit a sin that’s so bad God wouldn’t forgive me fails to see God’s already aware of all those sins when He chose you for salvation.

Now, I can’t bring all this out, but I challenge you to go back and read the book of Deuteronomy. In the book, the end of the book of Deuteronomy after giving them all this instruction, God says here are all the things you’re going to do in betraying and turning and running and rejecting. But He still makes them His people. God knows all of our sins before any of them are committed and He must forgive all of those sins.

This is a song most of you know or have heard of it. It is well with my soul. It was written by Horatio Spafford, a Chicago lawyer. His four daughters died in a shipwreck. He got on a boat and went out into the ocean as I understand the story. He wrote the song “It Is Well With My Soul.”

And here’s what it says.
When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul.

My sin—oh the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin, not in part but the whole, was nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord! Oh, my soul.

My sins have been paid for by Christ, and when you put your faith in Christ the righteousness of Christ is applied to all of your sin, not just some of it. Because if He only applies it to some of it, you can never really say you’re saved. Sin is what separates us from God; if it’s not atoned for we are in a constant state of separation from Him. And this is not what Scripture teaches.

Why must He forgive all of our sins from the get‑go? Because broken people in a fallen world are going to be guilty of sin. Raise your hand if you’re perfect. Raise your hand if you honestly believe I’ll never say or do anything wrong the rest of my life, and then after you raise your hand, make it for the exits because you’re in the wrong church.

God knows we’re going to fail. We cannot say He knows the future perfectly and then act like He doesn’t know what sins I’m going to commit in the future. There’s an inconsistency: God knows some things but not everything? No—He knows it all, as we saw in the first week when all the predictions of the Bible result from Him knowing all things. We cannot argue He knows all things but does not know my sin. Precisely because we are broken and will stumble along the road that He pays for all the sin. I cannot be lost because of any sin I don’t foresee; God has foreseen them all and forgiven them.

Listen to Psalm 103:
The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide or keep His anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust; He knows the challenges, difficulties, and battles. Yes, He calls us to holiness as Jason has pointed out, but as all of us are willing to admit, we don’t receive or achieve that in this life. In perfection. And even the smallest sin separates us from God. Only those who are arrogant enough to think I can overcome sin on my own strength would ever buy into an idea that I can be lost because of sins committed; you’re already lost if we believe that.

Now you say, “Well, Pastor, that’s a very good passage, but notice it says twice that we must fear Him.” Yes. But fallen man does not have that fear. All of us know that. How many of you have ever talked to people about hell and they say something like this: “I’ll have plenty of friends in hell; it’s going to be a party; we’ll have a good time.” There is no fear of God in the eyes of those people. We try to put it there by warning them about the end of the world or telling them about hell, but that doesn’t change them.

In Romans—​which we looked at last week—there is no righteous; no one seeks for God; all have turned aside together; they have become worthless; no one does good—none at all. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Where does the fear come from? If we don’t have it in our fallenness, where does the fear come from? It comes from God. God Himself gives us the fear. And again this is not your past—it’s not new. I know you haven’t heard some of it, so you blame me. But this is what Augustine said. This is what Luther said: “Augustine said, command what you will, but then will what you command.” Give me the power to live the commands that you have—not just follow on your own strength and your own righteousness.

Listen to this: required fear is provided by God Himself. It is His work, children. That is why you can’t fail—it’s His work, not ours.

Jeremiah 31:31‑34
Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. I will put My law within them and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more.

There are some days that I think I am going to perish—so I’m drinking three‑week‑old water. Let’s hope I don’t get contaminated.

Now listen to the next passage from Jeremiah, still talking about the same thing because of the bridge:
They shall be My people. I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear Me forever. I will make with them an everlasting covenant that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they may not turn from Me. I will rejoice in doing them good with all My heart and with all My soul. I will put the fear within them as an act of salvation. I will not wait till they fear Me to save them—I will give them that fear as I save them.

When we base a loss of salvation on the free‑choice argument, we are arguing three things:
1) God’s foreknowledge is limited; He doesn’t know about my sins or future choices—He just says here’s the chance for you to make it to heaven and honest people. And I don’t mean that in a derogatory fashion. I know it sounds that way, so I won’t say it as I was going to say it.
2) We argue God would decide not to forgive us of some unforeseen sin: “down the road, I’ll do something really stupid and God will say out you go.” That’s a complete contradiction of Jesus in Matthew 10:22, who says, he who endures to the end will be saved. And Matthew 24:13, who endures to the end will be saved.
3) We argue that the Holy Spirit failed in transforming our hearts, so we might walk away from God because we never truly experience His work.

The argument that “I chose to believe, I can stop believing” overlooks that Scripture says nothing can snatch us out of Christ’s hand (John 6:44), yet it also states no one is condemned for denying the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38‑39). The only unforgivable sin is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit—speaking a word against the Spirit that will not be forgiven. No modern believer can commit that, because the Spirit protects us from self‑condemnation.

The confusion often stems from a deficient view of God’s foreknowledge. If He looks down through time, sees I will respond to the gospel, he must also know why I respond—that is, my sins. He knows all our sins before we commit them, and when He chose us, He did so with full knowledge of every sin we would ever commit. He cannot make atonement if we still carry guilt; He must forgive all those sins from the beginning.

I challenge you to read Deuteronomy again: at its end God lists everything they will do in turning and running and rejecting, yet He still makes them His people—He knows their future sin, forgives it then, and keeps them in His covenant.

This is the song many know: “It Is Well With My Soul,” a hymn of complete trust that all our sins have been nailed to the cross and no longer burden us. The righteousness of Christ applies to every part of us—if He applied only some, we could never truly be saved. Sin separates; atonement unites.

All this shows why God’s promise is firm: He has already secured forgiveness for every sin before it happens, and He will not lose the salvation he has given because that salvation rests on Christ’s finished work, not our ongoing effort.

We argue God’s foreknowledge is limited.
We cannot say He is all‑knowing and then claim there are things He doesn’t know.
We argue that God would decide not to forgive us of some unforeseen sin.

Down the road, I’m going to do something really stupid, and God will say, “Out you go.” That contradicts Jesus in chapter 5, who says whoever comes to Me, I will in no wise cast them out; sin is forgiven.

Thirdly, we’re arguing that God’s Holy Spirit failed in transforming our hearts.
The person who says I chose, I can stop, I can choose to stop believing, does not take into consideration that the purpose of the Holy Ghost coming into us is to transform us so that we would never have a thought of walking away from God.

Who makes that kind of statement?
Well, I chose to come; I can choose to leave. Why would you do that? Why would you leave the most wonderful thing in the whole universe?

Now here is an observation from your pastor. It’s not a scriptural observation, but I think it’s worth hearing.

You and I live in a world where we lose everything—everything: our homes, our pets, our health.
We come into the world wearing diapers, and if we live long enough, we go out wearing diapers.
We lose bladder control and bowel control; we can’t control what we eat or our heart rate or blood pressure.
All of it is lost.

And then we come along and say: “Man, let me tell you about this incredible gift of God that is outrageously wonderful.”
But be careful—you’ll lose it too. Where’s the hope? Where is the hope of transferring our efforts and our hearts to our abilities rather than His and the sufficiency of His work?

I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so they may not turn from Me.

By the way, it is really pointless to say, “Well, I would never do it, but I could.” Why would you defend a choice you know you’re never going to make?

Now that brings us back to the work of the Holy Spirit in our text.
And most of this we have to come back to next week, but I have to touch on and lay a foundation here for just a moment.
And that is all it is.

I’ve only got 12 more pages of notes—just kidding, people.
We have to come back a moment to the word predestined.
Predestined.

And we want to revisit our definition from last week: God determined beforehand—which is what the Greek word means—to save a people, which is what the text says, for the glory of His name, which is mentioned three times in that text.

God determined beforehand to save a people for the glory of His name.

Now Romans 8 says this, and I’m trying to deal with it:
I can walk away if I want to.

Romans 3, 28; Romans 8:28–29 from the New American Standard because it renders it more appropriately, we know that God causes all things to work together for good. Nothing randomly works for good. God is causing those things to work for good.

And you can see this in the story of Joseph.
He causes all things to work together for good—to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose, for those whom He foreknew.

He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He would be the firstborn among many brothers.

Let us go back to our definition:
God determined beforehand to save a people for the glory of His name, which occurs—the glory occurs in conformity to Christ.

Where God gets glory is when we are reflecting Jesus in our daily lives.

How do we do that?
We do it because the Holy Spirit is transforming our hearts to that purpose. He is… He is… He is… He is… so that we would be conformed to the image of His Son.

The point I’m trying to make—and I’m butchering it, I’m sure— is that the son would never walk away. If you’re really becoming like Jesus, you would never reach a point in your walk on this planet where you say, “I’m done with it.”
I’m just going to walk away. Because the Holy Spirit would have failed to transform your heart.

This also does away with the idea that I can just live any way I want to.
If I can’t lose my salvation, I can just live any way I want to. No, you can’t, because we were called; we were predestined to righteous living.

He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love, He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will. We aren’t just—

Try to stay with my outline a little better.

Children, listen now.
Salvation is not merely about taking your name off the hell’s register and putting it on heaven’s register. It is about transforming us here on earth.

The person who says I can walk away if I want to, is saying with that realization they’re saying: the Holy Spirit has failed to do the work of transformation in my heart. And that is the whole thing.
He is come to do—transform us to be like Jesus—and Jesus would never walk away.

Now because we have to go back to our text next week and unpack the fullness of it, I have to say a few things here about predestination and personal faith.

Because one misconception people say: “Well, predestination means you’ve got no will, you’ve got no choice, you’ve got no decision—you’re just a robot.” That’s not what the text says.

Notice that the same person who says predestined twice makes three references to personal faith.
Verse 13—You heard the word of truth and believed in Him.
Verse 15—I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus.
Verse 19—What is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe?

We aren’t robots or automatons; that’s not what predestination teaches. The same person who says we’re predestined talks about our faith and the exercise of our faith.

And then notice that if you would and if you did—I don’t think I have a slide because I’ve got to get to my life lessons—Verse 16, and we’ll unpack this more next week.

Listen to Verse 16.
I do not cease to give thanks for you remembering you in my prayer, because that’s another misconception.

“Well,” God is predestined, “why don’t we pray?” Because God uses our prayers to bring about His predestined plan. He ordains the means as well as the ends.

And Paul, who just finished announcing all these blessings upon predestined people, says, “I pray for you without ceasing.” Why do that? Because they are part and parcel—part and parcel.
He goes on there and prays, and we’ll look at this next week. He prays for them to experience those predestined blessings.

It isn’t automatic. It isn’t robotic. You choose to believe.

I’m trying to put together a book on this whole thing—going back all through the Old Testament of all the predestined events and how the people involved were exercising their faith freely.

Now that brings us to three life lessons.

Number one: There is mystery. There is no contradiction. The only way we come to the idea that it’s contradictory is because we’re ignoring the mystery. We’re talking about God, the sovereign of the universe who created things out of nothing. As Jason said, He is other. He’s not like us. There is a limit to our ability to understand who He is.
There is mystery. There is no contradiction. By the way, the mystery should provide all, not alone.

As I said last week, many people come to this predestination and their hackles get up. They’re afraid of it. But why should you be afraid? Paul says this is part of the blessing of God.
There is mystery. There is no contradiction.

Number two: If there is a contradiction, the entire Bible would be incoherent and you would throw it away. Let’s all go home and live our lives. Get away with the mystery of God, and you will have nothing but contradiction.
There is mystery in the subject, but there is no contradiction.

Our faith is a product of His favor. His favor is not a product of our faith; his favor depends on our faith, but that’s not what Scripture says. I quote the well‑known passage from 1 John: “We love Him because He first loved us. We choose Him because He first chose us.” Unredeemed men will not choose God unless God works in their hearts.

Number three: Which goes to our point about no contradiction and we’ll look at it more next week.
I am guaranteed success in God‑ordained endeavors, but I must endeavor. The idea that it’s all robotic, you have no control or decision, is simply not biblical. Paul says, “Here are all these things that you’ve been predestined to, but here’s what I’m praying: God would open your eyes so you could understand the full import of it.”

I am guaranteed success in my endeavors, but I must endeavor.
Lord, thank you for this day and for giving us the opportunity to be together. Thank you also for helping me labor through this passage.