Let Grace Be Grace - Part 4

Hang up the telephone of heaven, because there's no point asking him to do what he can't do, namely save sinners. But if God has a right, if God is God, if He can reach down into your son, or your daughter, or your husband, or your wife, or your mother, or your father, or your uncle, or your neighbor, or your colleague, and by a sovereign work of quickening, freeing grace, cause them to see Jesus as irresistibly desirable, so that with all the freedom that they now have, they embrace Him, then ask Him to do it over and over until He does it. Sovereign grace is a mighty incentive to pray. Third, since God can take for Himself who He wills, therefore share the Gospel with everyone and trust that the power of God will triumph over all obstacles. Tell the good news of salvation to the person you think doesn't have a prayer in hell to be saved. Tell them the good news, because you know that the Gospel is the power of God. You know that by the Holy Spirit coming through your mouth, God can do wonders. He can raise the dead. He can say, Lazarus, come forth! Come on, Lazarus, wake up! And the very command, the very pleading creates the life. Oh, I encourage you, I encourage all of us, witness to unbelievers with tremendous confidence that God saves the hardened sinner. Fourth, since God's grace keeps us from falling, preserves us for Himself, since He chose and since He called and since He justified, He will keep us. Therefore, draw this inference. Kept by the power of God, believer, kept by the power of God, take risks for the poor and the perishing. Who can separate you from the love of Christ? In tribulation, distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? No! Therefore, take risks! The doctrine of sovereign grace is meant to unleash very loving people on the world who don't care about their own lives anymore. God keeps them. You can't kill me unless my time is done. Like Henry Martin said, I'm immortal until my work is done. Therefore, throw yourself into the hardest place for Christ's sake. I've been reading and praying with Noel and Talitha through the November Global Prayer Digest. It's all about unreached peoples in China. And they are so terribly, totally unreached. I can't pronounce most of them. And I read them, I just want to say, Lord, send laborers, send them from Bethlehem. Don't let us just dream about, well, we're safe, we're kept, we're called, we're chosen, we're justified, make money and live comfortably. What's that? That's not Christianity. That's American dream, perverting theology. Let grace be grace in what it does to our lifestyles, in what it does to our passion for the lost and the poor. I just wrote a vision today. I won't tell you too much about it because I don't even know if it's going to fly, but it's called Mission 210, from Galatians 2:10. Anybody know what Galatians 2:10 is? It's Paul saying to Peter, James and John in Jerusalem, gave them the right hand of the fellowship, and they reminded us to do what we were eager to do, namely to remember the poor. I want us to have fresh ideas. We're all so wealthy. We're all so comfortable. We're all so secure. Sovereign grace is to unleash very dangerous, risk-taking, loving, lay-down-your-life people for the sake of the poor and the perishing around the world. Implication number five, O Christians, let us exult in grace. Let us worship the Lord of grace. Let us love the Lord of grace. Let us be happy in the Lord of grace. Let grace be your joy and His glory. Wake up in the morning and say, Saved by grace, and say thank you. Go to work and say, Saved by grace, and say thank you. Come home in the evening and say, Saved by grace, and say thank you. Do a good deed and say, Saved by grace, and say thank you, Jesus. Exult in the God of grace. Let your heart overflow in praise and thanks. If you're not a praising person, you don't know grace like you ought to know grace. Oh, that God would come and give us a taste deep down in this emotional junk of our lives that keeps us what we were made by our parents and by our background, keeps us ungracious, grumbling, murmuring, doubting negative people. Oh, that it would be shattered by sovereign grace. I am loved for absolutely no reason in me. Which leads us to one last amazing implication. And it does not apply to everybody in this room, but just a few. Namely, those who came here not yet believing in Christ. And therefore, not yet enjoying His salvation. What does the doctrine of sovereign, free, unconditional grace say to you? It says this. Listen very, very carefully. It says, don't say, I may not be chosen. Rather say, since God's choosing is holy and totally dependent on unconditional free grace, there's absolutely no reason to think I'm excluded. I'm going to say that again. That is massively important for everybody. Massively important for any unbeliever here who's trying to play games with God or is fearfully trembling at the prospect of free grace manifest in an election that happened before the foundation of the world. The word of that grace to you tonight is, don't say, I may not be chosen. Rather say, since all God's choosing is by grace alone, there is absolutely no reason that can be given that I should be excluded. Therefore, I will not be excluded. I will embrace the Savior. I will hear Him coming out of Pastor John's mouth saying, come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. And you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Oh, Father, please, beyond all my poor, poor ability,