So I’ll call this one part deux. When I left off my last post, I had just talked about how I came to believe in Jesus. I’d like to pick this one up talking about salvation. Here’s specifically what I want to be specific about: election.
Now, just stay with me here and don’t trip. I want to talk about election because I began to read the Bible. I read the Bible in an attempt to fully understand (if that’s even possible) this thing called salvation. For example, why would God save me? I was a vile wretch and an unrepentant sinner so why not just crush me under His heel and keep on moving? You know what I’m saying…like, why did I come to a place where I believed and so many of my friends, even though they had heard the Gospel rejected it? Why me was the basic question. Then, as I read and studied the Bible, I came to a very startling and sobering realization. I wasn’t the point. Let me explain. One of the reasons I utterly reject Arminianism is because that whole system of belief makes salvation about the person. Salvation ain’t about me or you, homie. Salvation is about God and His glory. That’s pretty much all you need to know. (Cue the mike drop) Seriously though, that was the realization that I came to as I studied God’s Word. I wanted to know what He had to say about salvation, not necessarily what I thought He said or even what I thought about it. In all seriousness, let me say this to you if you are not yet a believer. It really doesn’t matter what you think about God’s plan of salvation. He doesn’t need your approval. He’s God. You’re not. So, election. Now I’m not going to give some sort of technical definition of election. This ain’t no systematic theology class and I’m not that smart. By the way, as a side note, I am a big fan of systematic theology and reading all those smart dudes but what I don’t want to do is form all my opinions based on their opinions. You and I both should form our opinions based on what the Bible says. Here’s why: Cause’ God said it. Now I know that He used men to physically write the words but God wrote the Bible. We can debate that point if you like but you’re probably gonna lose that argument. Not because you’re arguing with me but because in the end, if you take exception to the Bible, take it up with the Author when you see Him. Enough banter. Election. I’m just going to talk about a few passages from the Bible that helped me to come to an understanding of election and the sovereignty of God in salvation. Here we go… I’m not going to quote all these passages word for word; I’ll let you go read them for yourself. Please do by the way. Go read them for yourself. This list of texts will not be exhaustive but are ones I’ve found to be helpful for me and the doctrine of election. I want to start in the Old Testament, mostly ‘cause I just want to but also because I think there are a lot of people roaming around out there who know squat about the OT and what it says about the sovereignty of God and how He has accomplished salvation through Christ. But I digress…again. A quick word about context before we proceed. Some of these verses, actually all of them I’ll be quoting will not be entirely “in context.” I say that ‘cause I know that some of you will try to hit me with that so I’ll just admit it outright and nip it in the bud. I’m not going to get into the context of this passage but will say this. I know this was not precisely talking about salvation, per se. Nevertheless, it is apropos. What does this passage say? It says that God will have mercy on whom He will and will withhold His mercy from others. This is a complex idea and if you spend too much time thinking about it, you’ll end up thinking that either God is a petulant bully or that salvation is like a secret club. Not true. Remember? He’s God. You’re not. He gets to call the shots. 2. Two passages from John’s gospel; 10:29 and 15:16 Before the “yeah but Paul said that and not Jesus” argument about election, let’s just back up a second and read what Jesus had to say in these passages. Let’s keep in mind that they are the very words of Jesus. So The 10:29 passage is Jesus talking about his “sheep” or his followers, those who had salvation then and those of us who would eventually come to faith in Him. He said that God the Father gave the sheep to Him (Jesus). That must mean that those “sheep” or believers had to be chosen by the Father. Right? Read it for yourself and see what you think. The second passage is from John is 15:16. Jesus said very plainly to the disciples, “I chose you.” Well, you say, yes He did. He chose them. Yes but that must mean that without Jesus’ choosing of them, they would not have come to Him. Now I know you could argue that we don’t know what would have happened if they had heard one of Jesus’ sermons; they could have believed then or another time. I suppose they could have…but they didn’t. Instead, Jesus said very clearly, “I chose you.” That means that, if you are in Christ, if you have placed your faith in Jesus, it is because He chose you. That should give you great comfort! See, if Jesus didn’t choose you then that means that you chose Him. And if you chose Him, then you could un-choose Him and then you’d be damned. But you didn’t. I didn’t. He chose me and He is unchanging and He doesn’t change His mind. His Word stands forever. What comfort! 3. Two texts from Romans; 5:6-8 and 8:29-30. The passage from chapter 5 says that Christ died for sinners, not those who “chose” Him. He died for sinners, not good folks who, through some random whim, chose to follow Him. No, it says sinners. The passage from chapter 8 says clearly that God foreknew, predestined, called, justified and glorified believers. God foreknew. He predestined. He called. All His actions. Not yours. Not mine. His. God has done this. This takes the pressure off you to chase and perform and hope you get it right! What comfort this passage has given me over the years. I am His because He chose me. Not because I deserved it or performed just right. He chose me for His glory and His purposes, not mine. 4. Two texts from Ephesians; 1:4-14 and 2:8-9. These texts say, again, that we have been chosen, predestined for adoption as sons. The passage from chapter 2 says you have been saved by grace, not works. If that doesn’t make you feel all warm and fuzzy, then I don’t know what to say to you. Ok, this is getting long so I’ll wrap this up. There is much more to say about election and such but I’ll just leave it at this. Election doesn’t make God unfair. Election makes God merciful. If He was fair, He would damn us all for our sin. Yet He is merciful and has chosen to save His elect. So, when it comes to evangelism, share the Gospel without fear. It’s not up to you! He will have mercy on whom He will have mercy. You just tell everyone you meet. You be you and let God be God. He is mighty to save. Even a worthless wretch like me. And you.
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A Long and Beautiful Trip
I like to tell stories. Not like made up stories but stories of real life. My family keeps telling me I should write a book of all the crazy, weird and funny stories from my career as a police officer. I keep telling them that no one but other cops would believe them. Nonetheless, I like to tell stories. I want to tell you a story…maybe you’ll find that part of this is similar to your story. Maybe none of it. Not all of it cause that would just be weird. This will be a series of posts cause there’s just no way I’m going to get all this said in one post or even two. Actually, I have no idea how long it’ll take but we’ll get there when we get there. The story I want to tell is about my journey into the world of reformed theology. I want to tell this story for several reasons. To be perfectly honest, I think one of the reasons I want to tell it is because I think that articulating all this on “paper” will help me make sure I actually believe it and that it doesn’t sound too nuts. I also want to tell it because I want to offer hope to you also. I want to show you the hope that lives in the good news of Jesus. So here we go. I think some history is in order to set the stage. Before I talk about my parents, I want to be very clear. I love and respect them deeply. They are truly godly people and I am fortunate to have grown up in a Christian home with parents who were present, who cared and loved their kids deeply. They were as involved as they could be in our lives and I am grateful for how they raised us. My father has been Baptist since forever; probably before he was born actually. As far back as I know of, my family, on my dad’s side, has been Baptist. And not just Baptist but like “fundamental” Baptist. Here’s what I mean by that. My grandfather, who never graduated from high school, owned one Bible and it was a King James Bible. In the Garrison house there was no cussin’ (unless it was my granddad), no drinkin’ and no smokin’. Everybody was in church on Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night prayer meeting as well as Sunday School and any other time the doors of the church were open. My dad started preaching when he was like 15 or 16. As of me writing this, he has been ordained for 49 years. He was a full time pastor when he was 19. He was no joke. Back in the day, he was the fire and brimstone kinda’ Baptist preacher. He was the preacher that sweated and raised his voice when he preached. Now don’t misunderstand me; his preaching wasn’t bad per se. It was just so Baptist. There were altar calls after every service and I had the lyrics for ‘Just As I Am’ memorized by the time I was like 5 years old. He pastored mostly little country churches in mostly rural north Alabama. That was my dad back in the day. My mom was raised Methodist. Like Methodist before they went all crazy liberal Methodist. Now they were still talking about that whole baptismal regeneration thing but I’m not here to throw rocks. When my mom started dating my dad, she left the Methodist church and moved over to the Baptists. She’s pretty conservative also. A wonderful and kind loving woman and a great example to me of motherhood. So that’s where it all started for me. When I was around 8 years old, I remember my dad preaching a particularly terrifying sermon about going to hell if you hadn’t invited Jesus into your heart. I wasn’t sure what it meant to invite someone into your heart but I didn’t want to go to hell ‘cause it sounded bad. So I walked down the aisle and said I wanted to invite Jesus into my heart and didn’t want to go to hell. I don’t remember who it was but someone recited a prayer and had me repeat it and presto! I was “saved” and got baptized and all that jazz. Again, as sarcastic as that sounds (and it was a bit), I don’t believe there was any malice in all that. But now that I look back on it, I know beyond a doubt that nothing actually happened in that moment. So I continued on through life, going to church and living a good moral life. Well, mostly. At least until I graduated from college and began my police career. Then I discovered booze; more importantly, I found out that booze made all the bad stuff go away. Temporarily at least. I saw so much awful stuff and did some awful stuff, some of it in the name of justice and some just ‘cause I wanted to. I lived in the depravity of the human soul daily. Needless to say I wasn’t going to church very often; mostly ‘cause I was either drunk or hung over on Sundays or waking up in someone else’s house trying to remember what happened the night before. It was a time of true darkness for me. And my family hated it. They hated every second of what I did. They had no explanation for my behavior. I mean, no one in my immediate family had ever dared jump so willingly into the ocean of human sin as I did. What they couldn’t seem to understand was that I had no desire to change. None whatsoever. On the outside it looked like I was having a great time. But I was in misery. It was a cycle of misery. I drank because I was miserable and wanted to drown it but it only made me sick and have hangovers and be more miserable. I was in deep misery. Then things changed. Just prior to my 30th birthday, my sister whom I loved so dearly died suddenly. She was 31. There was no medical explanation good enough to soothe me, no words of comfort that quelled my rage and grief. I shouted and raged and cursed at God, telling Him that I was the one to die; I was the vile and inhuman wretch. He should have killed me. I said a lot of those sorts of things and believed them. (Knowing what I know now, all those things were absolutely true and that’s why Jesus is so beautiful) And God took my rage. He didn’t strike me down, despite me begging Him to kill me and bring her back and all the other garbage I said to Him; He didn’t kill me. But for the first time in my life, I was actually talking to God. Then I started to read the Bible for some reason I didn’t know. I know now that God was calling me to Himself. By His Spirit He was regenerating me, waking me from my own death. But it wasn’t until I was 34 years old that I believe I came to faith in Jesus and was born again. I went on a retreat with some guys I had met at church. Oh, I forgot to mention I had decided to go back to church. I want you to picture this. I was working active undercover/plain clothes narcotics. I had long nappy looking hair, a few tattoos and a really surly attitude. I walked into a mega church where I lived and was like, ‘Um…no.’ Totally not my thing. It was like going to a concert in a church building. Lights and cameras and lasers and smoke…the whole nine yards. It was ridiculous. But God used it. More accurately, He used men I met there who invited me to a Bible study group and then to a men’s retreat. It was during that retreat that I finally believed that Jesus was who He said He was. I believed the Bible was true, that God had become flesh in the person of Jesus, that He lived a perfect and sinless life, died an atoning death to pay for my sins, justified me before the judgment throne of God and made me alive in Himself. I was free! The darkness was gone, the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ was pouring in and I was changed in an instant! Glory to God! Little did I know that He would then call me out in service to Him. To be continued… |
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