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Summary
We are reminded that faithful Christian living requires holding together God’s absolute sovereignty and our genuine human responsibility. Through a wide-ranging Q&A, this session addresses prayer, parenting, marriage, God’s sovereign decree, and hospitality—showing that these are not contradictions but complementary truths rooted in Scripture.
Key Lessons:
- God’s will operates in two senses—His will of command (revealed in Scripture) and His will of decree (sovereign providence)—and we are called to obey the first while trusting the second.
- Parenting requires wisdom in discussing marriage and sexuality: cultivate godly anticipation in children, frame these gifts as pointing to Christ and the Church, and guard against awakening desires before their time.
- God’s sovereign election is not fatalism—His decrees are accomplished *through* human means such as prayer, obedience, and evangelism, not in spite of them.
- True saving faith requires regeneration first; since the natural man has a blinded mind, a heart of stone, and an enslaved will, only God’s sovereign grace can produce the faith that saves.
Application: We are called to do our duty faithfully—pray, evangelize, parent with intentionality, show hospitality wisely—while trusting that God accomplishes His sovereign purposes through those very acts of obedience.
Discussion Questions:
- How does understanding both God’s will of command and His will of decree change the way you approach unanswered prayer?
- How can parents cultivate a healthy, Christ-centered anticipation of marriage and sexuality in their children without awakening desires prematurely?
- If God’s sovereign purposes are accomplished *through* our prayers and obedience rather than apart from them, how should that motivate your daily walk with Christ?
Scripture Focus: Ephesians 1:11 (God works all things after the counsel of His will); Romans 9:11–23 (unconditional election, mercy, and hardening); 1 John 5:1 (regeneration precedes faith); Philippians 1:29 (faith as a gift); Hebrews 13:1–3 (hospitality to strangers); Luke 10 (the Good Samaritan and the high standard of the law).
Outline
- Introduction
- Prayer, God’s Will, and Human Responsibility
- Parenting: When to Discuss Sex and Marriage
- Marriage as a Gift and a Picture of Christ
- Encouraging a Child’s Desire for Marriage
- Marriage Readiness and Discipleship
- God’s Sovereign Decree Is Not Fatalism
- The Calvinism Question: Inability and Accountability
- Romans 9: Election, Mercy, and Hardening
- The Potter and the Clay
- God’s Glory as the Purpose of All Things
- Regeneration Precedes Faith
- Hospitality, the Good Samaritan, and the Church’s Mission
Introduction
He has to just grab your seats as we do a little Q&A with Mike Ricardi this morning. The name Ricardi will sound familiar to you. We have a few Ricardis in our Calvary family here: Joe and Rose, and then Joe and Nicole, and my grandkids. It’s a wonderful thing.
Joe Mike is known to a lot of us, but in case you don’t know, Mike grew up here in New Jersey in Piscataway. He has gone to the Master’s Seminary in Sun Valley, California. He now serves as a pastor of local outreach at the Master’s Seminary and also as an assistant professor there, and as pastor of the Grace Life Fellowship.
What we’re going to do today is Khalif and I have microphones. We’re just going to walk around and it’s an ask anything kind of day. Be prepared with your questions. But knowing Mike, even if we fall short on questions, he might have some things to say that would be edifying to us.
Mike, why don’t you come on up and let me just pray for you and for us and we’ll get started.
Father God, we praise you for your great love for us in Christ, for the adoption as sons we have through faith in Christ, and all that we are and have through salvation. Father, may you open our eyes to see those things today even as we discuss and enjoy together.
And for those who do not yet know you, that you would cause them to be born again through your word. Pray that you would guide our conversation today, that led by your Spirit we would ask things that would be glorifying to you, edifying to one another, and leave us here inflamed with a love for you and for your word. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Let me say thanks to Mark for the introduction. Thank you guys for welcoming me. It is a pleasure to be with you. I look forward to opening the word a little bit later this morning and happy to just have a little bit of family time with you in a Sunday school hour where I’d be happy to answer questions about anything that’s on your mind.
I could have chosen another lesson and gotten up and given instruction, and I’d be happy to do that frankly, still if that’s what you’d prefer. But I also realize that sometimes you say the things that you want to say as a teacher and sometimes nobody cares to hear those things.
If there’s an option, I’m happy to let you all tell me what you’d like to talk about. I know obviously you have very capable elders and teachers who do that for you. I think more often recently you guys have had some Q&A time, and we’ll have some Q&A time with your elders. This is not at all meant to supplant that but only to be a supplement.
Really it’s an opportunity for you to bless me by letting me know what’s on your hearts and how I could speak to that from the scriptures. But I’m also happy to answer any kind of question that you might have.
Is anything on anybody’s mind right away, just to jump off the bat? Mark and Khalif have the microphones.
Yes, ma’am.
Good morning.
Hey, good morning.
Prayer, God’s Will, and Human Responsibility
Good morning. My name is Glenda. I want to know that God is supreme. When we pray “your will be done,” do we wait on his will, or do we go forward saying, “Well, I know he’s going to answer my prayer because it’s his will”? Or do we seek guidance from the word of God so that we can get good, clear direction that this is his will, whatever we want to do?
It’s a great question. I think the answer is both, actually. I think that in every aspect, what your question is kind of coming around to is that this is one application of that age-old confluence of the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man.
In one sense, scripture speaks of God’s will in at least two senses. One is what he commands to be done. Right? This is the Lord’s will. We ought to do what he wants. He has revealed his mind to us in the commandments that he’s given us. He says, “This is how you ought to walk. Walk in it. Do this. Don’t do this.” Right?
Two Senses of God’s Will
And so God’s will, we call that his will of precept, his will of command. Right?
“We should always search out the revealed will of God in the scriptures and order our lives in a way that conforms to his commandments.”
And so we should always search out the revealed will of God in the scriptures and order our lives, our thoughts, our words, our actions in a way that conforms to those commandments. No matter what we pray about, he will never lead us to do something contrary to his revealed will.
But then scripture speaks about God’s will in another sense which we call the will of decree or his sovereign will. That’s the kind of thing where in Ephesians 1:11 Paul says he works all things after the counsel of his own will. Or in Job 42 where Job says, “I know that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” Or in Isaiah 46 where God says, “I am God, there is no other. I’m God, there’s no other besides me. I accomplish all my good pleasure.”
In that sense, when you’re praying for the will of God to be done, that’s a prayer that is always answered because he does according to his will in the host of heaven and nobody can thwart his plans. Nobody can stay his hand, as Daniel 4:35 says, or say to him, “What have you done?”
So when you’re praying for any given thing, you’re praying as Jesus taught us to do, right? “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Lord, may it be that what you want according to your command be fulfilled on the earth just like the angels and the saints carry out your will perfectly without hindrance in heaven. May that happen here on the earth.
But then Jesus also tells us to pray in accordance with the will of God.
“He will never lead us to do something contrary to his revealed will.”
“Ask anything in my name in accordance with my will and if it’s according to my name, I’ll do it for you.” Right?
Waiting on God While Doing Your Duty
And so we do properly pray, “Lord, if it is your will, we ask that you would heal so and so of their affliction. Or if it is your will, I pray that you would convert sinners today by the preaching of the word. Or if it is your will, I pray that you would lead me to the right job or the proper house or that sort of thing. If you’re a younger person, to the proper spouse, right?”
And so I think by saying “your will be done” or “if it is your will,” we’re submitting our requests in a spirit of humility that says, “I’m happy to subject my desires, Lord, to your desires for me.” But while we ask according to your will—lead me to the proper spouse, whatever it is—if it’s his will not to do that immediately, we’re forced to wait, right?
Our responsibility is to wait on the Lord and to trust that his non-answer is an answer. At the very least, it’s a “not yet” and “not now.” And yet that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things that we could be doing according to the revealed will of God to put ourselves in a place to see those things fulfilled.
So if I’m seeking to be married, for example, and I’m asking God to send me the wife according to your will, I’m thankful that he’s already done that. She’s over there. But if I were to be praying for that, even though God may not answer that immediately and say, “Okay, marry this woman,” there are certain things that I can do as a young man to prepare myself for being a good husband.
That would mean putting myself into a position where I could provide for a family. Bathing myself in sound teaching of the word so that I can instruct and equip a family and lead them spiritually. Maybe even in terms of what I eat and how I exercise and the ability to care for my body in such a way that I might be able to physically protect a woman and a family.
Those are all things that I can do while waiting on the Lord’s response to my ultimate request. I have biblical principles that are revealed to me that I can obey while waiting. And so it’s really both. I do what’s my responsibility to do according to the revealed will of God in the moment. And then I pray that it would be according to God’s will of decree to grant my requests.
And if he doesn’t, I submit myself to him anyway. But I do my duty while I’m waiting for the answer.
“I do my duty while I’m waiting for the answer.”
Parenting: When to Discuss Sex and Marriage
My question leans more towards your opinion on parenting. I’ve had a few conversations with family and other people about when it is the time to have the sex talk with your kids and explain things. I have kids—some of them don’t really care to know anything right now, and some of them have a lot of questions. What would you say would be the biblical route to go, and should it be shared? I’ve been told that some people think you shouldn’t explain certain things in the Bible until they’re older.
Yeah, that’s a good question. I think there’s a verse in the Song of Songs where Solomon says, “Do not awaken love until it so desires.” That’s one caution against being too early with that. You don’t want to create more questions or longings in the heart of a young child who has no outlet to express those longings until quite a long time. I don’t even mean just sexual intimacy—I mean relational intimacy, romance, these sorts of things.
My oldest ones are going to turn nine in a month. With those ones, we’re kind of right on the edge of whether we preempt some things or give even more time. That controlling scripture in my mind is: I don’t want to awaken love before it so desires. I don’t want to create longings in the heart that have no lawful expression, because longings in the heart that have no lawful expression is the definition of covetousness.
At the same time, I need to be realistic and recognize that the world we live in—whether it’s what might show up on a commercial on TV, what might get said by somebody, or what might get said to them by their friends—I want to be able to be the one to speak into that and create those categories for them. I don’t want somebody else to create those categories. I want to be able to talk about that with them so that when they do hear about it, they have the schemas, they have the categories to understand what’s being said and to accept the truth and reject the errors and perversions of the truth.
In terms of when precisely that is, you’re right to frame that question as my opinion, because the Bible doesn’t say do this at this time or at that time. All we could do is take those principles and do our best to apply them, knowing our own children and knowing the environments that they’re in. Some of your kids are in public school, some in private Christian schools, some homeschooled. That makes a bit of a difference.
Some of them are exceptionally innocent and sweet, and others are more, shall we say, earthy and curious. Knowing your children at that point is going to be a big indicator. For some kids it’ll be later than other kids.
The one thing that we do know—if there’s any kind of marker of adulthood in scripture, the best we have to go on is that a young man became a son of the commandment at 13 years old in Israel. We have a bar mitzvah, right? The son of a commandment, or a bat mitzvah, the daughter of a commandment. That’s when they were recognized as a responsible unit before God, a worshipper before God, responsible to obey the commandments themselves and not merely under their parents’ protection.
The Bible doesn’t know anything of adolescence, right? Adulthood happens at 13. We should be training our children to embrace that kind of responsibility as early as then. Not that we send them to work at 13 years old, but that we begin to regard them as young men and young women and not children and not the mythical category of adolescent from 13 to 18, because our culture wants perennial children so they can be easily controlled and manipulated.
So I would say if your kid is 13, it’s probably too late, in my opinion. In terms of when is too soon, it’s just the call that you’ve got to make. For me, somewhere right around now—9 years old up to around 11 years old, whatever.
You’ve got to really make sure that you do that. You don’t have to do it in all of the gory details. There’s a way to be restrained, right? You could be reading Ezekiel and you have language like “you were whoring with the idols” and “the issue of horses” and things like that.
That’s pretty strong stuff. I might choose different devotional material for family worship time while my kids are still younger, but then eventually they’re going to come to me and say, “What’s the issue of horses?” And it’s going to be a weird conversation.
But it is in the scriptures because God is using things that are particularly disgusting to illustrate the horrifying nature of idolatry. There’s a way to harness that.
Even Paul, when he says things like “I count this all rubbish”—scubala—some people like to say that’s some sort of profane language. It’s not. It’s the way that you would say refuse or excrement or something like that. Those are all very polite ways to say something very nasty. That’s the kind of language that you would use.
So I think you want to be measured. I think you want to be guarded. You don’t want to be lurid. You don’t want to create a longing in them that God says there is no expression for. You want them to treat even the desire for sexual intimacy and romantic companionship the way that somebody thinks of driving a car. Driving a car is not ugly. It’s not dirty. It’s not nasty.
“You want to be measured. You want to be guarded. You don’t want to create a longing in them that God says there is no expression for.”
Marriage as a Gift and a Picture of Christ
Sometimes Christian parents can treat sex as if they’re talking about it with their kids as if it’s a dirty thing, as if it’s an ugly thing, as if it’s an ungodly thing. And it certainly is an ungodly thing for somebody to practice outside the bonds of marriage. But sex in itself is beautiful, lovely. It’s a gift of God that testifies as a parable to the intimacy that the Christian enjoys with Christ and will enjoy with Christ at the consummation of the ages when we go to be with him face to face.
That’s what sex is supposed to mirror: when the great bridegroom reunites with his bride, the consummation of joy that they have in one another is mirrored in sexual intimacy in marriage.
Driving is not ugly. Driving is not disgusting. Driving is not nasty. Driving is a wonderful privilege. You get the freedom, the joy of even just seeing different surroundings. But if you drive before you have a license, we’ve got a problem, right?
That’s what it is. Here’s this wonderful thing that God reserves for his people after a certain time and when certain conditions are met.
“Sex is a gift of God that testifies as a parable to the intimacy the Christian enjoys with Christ.”
Just like driving, which you should look forward to doing, you should look forward to this. But you should not attempt to do this outside of the confines that he’s laid out for us.
Otherwise, you pervert something good, a good gift into an idol, into something by which you dishonor God. Here’s something by which you can honor God and he’s given it to you to honor him and for your enjoyment, and you pervert it into something by which you dishonor him.
That’s the neighborhood of where I’d want to be with that.
Going off a little bit, I guess a second part to that question. For example, I have a seven-year-old who started reading at a very young age. We taught her to read and she did really well.
She started reading the Bible and she has questions, stuff like that. She also sees me and her mother’s marriage and she desires marriage. That’s all she talks about. She wants to get married, can’t wait to get married, all this stuff.
But I also have people in my life who think that’s something I should push down right now and tell her no, that’s not for you. I guess not scare her away from it, but kind of scare her away from it because they think she’s too young. And I disagree with them, but I just would like to get your opinion on that.
Encouraging a Child’s Desire for Marriage
Yeah, I would say marriage is a wonderful thing. It is among the best gifts that God has given mankind. Some people take the interpretation that 1 Peter 3 refers to marriage as the grace of life. And if it doesn’t, it certainly applies to that.
You should speak so very highly of marriage to her and encourage her that it is a good desire to have. You should warn her that God does not give that gift to everyone. There are some people who want it and who don’t have it, and she should be able to set her heart on Christ, the great bridegroom, with greater affection than any earthly bridegroom that she might have. But it’s a very good thing to want that and to say all in God’s good timing.
Right now, we don’t get married before 18 years old. You’re seven. How many years is that? That’s 11 years from now. That’s longer than you’ve been alive. And not everybody who wants to get married right away at 18 gets married at 18. Some people get married at 22. Some people get married at 35. So that’s a long time.
I would want to cultivate a joy and an anticipation for it the same way I’d want my kids to say, “I can’t wait to drive. That’s going to be so cool when you drive.” But say, “But don’t you dare take my keys and take the car before you have a license, right?”
The hard thing about that is pretty much everybody can drive at 16 and 17. Sometimes it’s not the case that somebody gets married at 18 years old or 22 years old or 25 years old. Sometimes God makes you wait.
Where will your heart find its satisfaction while God is having you wait? You can cultivate, and I would say too, what is marriage? Marriage is designed by God from the beginning to be a picture of the covenant-keeping grace between Jesus Christ, the great bridegroom, and his bride, the church.
Ephesians 5, Genesis 2—this mystery is great. I’m speaking with reference to Christ and the church. So teach her that the thing that she’s longing for, one, is not ultimate, but it exists to point to something ultimate. And two, that the thing that it points to—that’s ultimate—is able to be had right now.
“The thing she’s longing for exists to point to something ultimate—and that ultimate thing can be had right now.”
You can enjoy all the fruits of that union right now. I think speak of it with that kind of joy and love and say feast the appetites of your heart on that. And then you’ll enjoy the picture even more when it’s time.
Marriage Readiness and Discipleship
Yeah. This kind of brings up other things. I mean, I have friends overseas, Syrian brothers and sisters who get married at 15 and 16 years old. So there’s a question: What would you suggest considering we have so much pressure in our society, the western world as opposed to the eastern world, to always delay? Yet they’re getting pressure from magazines and billboards and even the people around them.
Well, I would say I don’t know what the laws are about 15 and 16 where their parents can give special permission up to a certain point. But I think if you are the right person and if you’ve found the right person and you are ready to love the one you are with, if you’re ready to choose the one you will love, then love the one you’ve chosen.
If you understand what it is to keep covenant even when feelings vary, even when communion is variable, union never is. Union is fixed and permanent. If you’re ready to keep that union to the glory of Christ with this one and no other, go for it. Make that covenant together.
But so much of that is knowing yourself. Because of our culture and because of our own failures as parents, our children are often not ready to be married at 15 and 16 years old.
Who is the right person? The right person is a believer in Jesus, a sold-out life laid down slave of the Lord Jesus Christ. Very few 15-year-olds are slaves of anything noble, right? They’re slaves to their own passions.
There’s a self-centeredness and narcissism that needs to be purged from them. That’s the job of Christian parents and also those teenagers who would desire marriage early. Be wed first to the bridegroom of your soul. Entrust your entire life to Christ. Count the cost of what it is to walk according to his lordship for the rest of your life.
Understand what it is to care for a wife, to be a spiritual provider, protector, lover, and leader. Discern what it is to submit your life to the leadership of another sinner and to joyfully and eagerly follow his leadership even when he doesn’t deserve it.
“Be wed first to the bridegroom of your soul. Entrust your entire life to Christ.”
If you’re ready to do those things, I am happy to have people married younger for sure.
But I also don’t want to lionize or glorify marriage itself as if it’s some sort of cure-all. They’ll get married and they’ll grow into it, but I don’t want to create relational strife beyond what’s absolutely necessary. I want to prepare them to handle conflict biblically.
A lot of times that happens while in those earlier years, you’re just walking with the Lord and learning what it is to have a relationship with him. I myself made a profession of faith when I was 5 years old, but I wasn’t saved until I was 15, maybe even 16. Even after that, as night and day as the change in my life was, developing those disciplines of regularly reading the scriptures, praying, having a vital prayer life daily with the Lord Jesus, knowing what it is to repent over sin, grieve over sin, and to do the hard work of mortification—those are rhythms that are difficult to create well in a young person.
It can be done. Some people get saved at six, seven, eight years old and they’re well discipled at 12, 13, and they know what it is to walk with the Lord. They know what it is to kill sin before the throne of God and to seek the face of Christ and delight oneself in him and to know the blessing of his countenance. That is great.
But if you don’t know what that is, you’re not ready to lead a woman to do that. You need to learn to do that yourself. If you don’t know what that is as a wife, you don’t know what it is to lead children to do that. You need to do that yourself.
So I think it’s reasonable that somebody who is exceptionally mature could be married at 18 years old. And in other cultures perhaps even younger than that. But there needs to be serious discipleship ahead of that, and that’s often not achieved.
“If you don’t know what it is to walk with the Lord yourself, you’re not ready to lead a woman to do that.”
God’s Sovereign Decree Is Not Fatalism
So Danny, yeah. Could you speak a little bit about God’s eternal sovereign decree and why that may not be fatalism?
Yeah, it’s definitely not fatalism. Fatalism is the idea that there’s a degree of resignation to the philosophy of fatalism. Well, it’s all determined and so, whatever will be will be. And therefore, my responsibility to do whatever it is that I might do is entirely obviated.
It’s entirely undermined because God has decided already.
It is true that God has decided already.
I rattled off several of those passages before. I’ll say some of them again. Ephesians 1:11 really says it very plainly. He predestined us according to the one who works all things after the counsel of his own will, which means there is something called the counsel of the will of God.
A lot of times when you see that word counsel or plan or decree or purpose, it’s all referring to the same reality: that before time began, God determined everything that would happen in time. The way that the Westminster Confession and the Second London Baptist Confession borrows that language is: God did from all eternity freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass. He works all things after the counsel of his own will.
So there was a counsel of his will before time began according to which all things in time are worked by him according to his providence.
And yet the confession does go on to say: yet so as not to make God the author of sin nor to abridge the freedom of the creature. So in other words, fatalism would say God’s absolute sovereignty and meticulous providence in determining every single thing that has happened.
Fatalism says well, that means you don’t have any responsibility.
The Bible says God determines the free choices of men. Free choices in this sense—not that you have the power of contrary choice, not that you’re free to do otherwise than God decreed. Free in the sense that you can act according to your own inclination. That whenever it is that you do anything, you have no sense that God was forcing your hand.
If I were to lift my Bible and hold it up for five minutes, that would be my prerogative to do so. As I lifted my hand, I felt no compulsion, right? I felt nothing constraining my hand as if I had to. I just decided to do this.
And yet my lifting my hand at this moment on this day in this place was determined by God before the foundation of the world in eternity past. As much as the ending of World War II, as much as the crucifixion of Christ, the resurrection of Christ—that’s all things after the counsel of his own will.
And so my responsibility as well as my freedom to do what I please is not at odds with God’s absolute meticulous sovereignty—down to the, as Sproul said, the mote of dust flowing across a ray of sunlight in a summer window. Not one molecule, Sproul says, is out of the control of the sovereign God and his determination.
So the reason why that’s not fatalism is because God’s determination is not the cause for our inactivity.
“Not one molecule is out of the control of the sovereign God and his determination.”
Providence Accomplished Through Means
Our activity is the means by which God brings about his determinations.
So you say, if God is sovereign, why pray? He’s going to do what he’s going to do anyway. Why ask him to do it?
Well, because he has decreed that your prayers are the means by which he’s going to do it. Philippians 1, Paul sits in prison in house arrest in Rome and he says, “I know that this will turn out for my deliverance.” There’s the decree of God. I know that I’m going to be saved from this trial.
Next words, through your prayers and the provision of the spirit of Jesus Christ, I know that God has determined that I will be delivered from this. Whether it’s physically out of this jail so I can minister again or whether it’s to die and go to be with Christ. I know that he has determined my deliverance through the instrumentation of your prayers.
So your prayers are the means by which God’s sovereign will is accomplished. Let me say this. I was at the beach Friday night and it turned out that it was the will of God that my family and I were able to return home safely. I know that because we did, right? So it was his decree that we returned from Belmar safely.
If I could have had that knowledge then, or whether I had the knowledge or not, it was determined. So it was going to happen. God had determined that I was going to drive home safely. No accidents, no terminal deaths, nothing of that sort.
Does that mean that while on the Garden State Parkway, I could have just said God has determined that I’m going to get home safe, Jesus, take the wheel? No. That would be silly. That would be fatalism, right?
The means by which I get home safely, even as God has inevitably determined, is me steering the van and making sure that I press the gas and the brake at the proper time, right? God’s going to do whatever he’s going to want. I don’t have to pray. Wrong. God’s going to do what he wants by means of your prayers.
“Our activity is the means by which God brings about his determinations.”
God, I don’t have to evangelize. God’s going to save the elect as he pleases. No, no, no. God’s going to save the elect by means of your prayers and preaching of the gospel to them.
And so God’s sovereign purpose in your life down to the meticulous details is going to be accomplished by your faithful obedience to his revealed will, not in spite of it. You say, really? God sovereignly determines the free choices of men? That feels like a contradiction to me.
Proverbs 22 says that the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord and he turns it whatever way he wishes. The king’s heart is in the hand of God. Kings do according to their own inclination and yet God is the one secretly determining which way that king’s heart is inclined.
Or 2 Corinthians 8:15 or 16 says, “But thanks be to God who puts the same earnestness on your behalf in the heart of Titus.” Titus is eager to come to you. Titus is concerned for your welfare. Titus has you on his heart. He’s earnest for you in his prayers. Why? Oh, he just decided to be that way. He was just a dutiful, beautiful, obedient slave to the Lord and he did. No, God puts that earnestness on your behalf in Titus’s heart.
Well, now wait a second then.
“Your prayers are the means by which God’s sovereign will is accomplished.”
Does Titus really have a choice as to whether he cares for me or not? Well, yes, he does. You say, “Well, if God put that in his heart, I don’t know if that’s him really being a good guy or if it’s him just being a robot.”
It’s not a robot. It’s that God is working by his grace and goodness into the heart of his servants unto the benefit of his other servants. So anytime that you’ve done anything good in your life, anytime you’ve wanted anything good in your life, God has put that desire in your heart. And you haven’t felt like, I really don’t want to do this good thing, but God’s forcing me to do it. No, he’s put it in your heart and he’s inclined your heart to do the thing that he wants. He turns your heart whichever way he wishes.
We pray that in Psalm 119: “Oh Lord, incline my heart to your testimonies and not to dishonest gain.” Right? Incline my heart to what is good. Make me want the things that are pleasant, not turn me into a robot and steal my faculty of volition, right?
That’s a robot who has no will, right? But it’s not that we’re saying we have no will. We want things. We choose things. We’re saying that outside of Christ, we have an enslaved will that wants all the wrong things.
And what God does when he comes along by his spirit and regenerates us is he frees our enslaved wills to love and want those things that we ought to want.
I’m not a Calvinist, but I’m not an Arminian either. I’m kind of in the middle, which I know doesn’t make much sense. That’s just what Arminians say.
The Calvinism Question: Inability and Accountability
But that’s what I—my question is, one thing that’s holding me back from Calvinism is this: the idea that if you don’t have the ability to choose to believe, yet at the same time you’re judged for not believing. I know it’s basic, but that’s one question.
Yeah. That’s called—your concern is that it seems unjust for inability and responsibility to coexist.
The objection is “ought implies can.” If I ought, I am able. If I am unable, I cannot rightly be ought. I can’t—what I mean is, I can’t be responsible for what I’m unable to do.
That’s exactly right. You have pinpointed the nexus, the crux of the Calvinism-Arminianism debate, and it rests on that unproven, unbiblical philosophical assumption that ought implies can. Not unbiblical—anti-biblical, because in Romans 9, Paul makes that very objection. Not himself, but in the voice of an imaginary conversation partner as he’s proving his point. So listen, Romans 9.
“The crux of the Calvinism-Arminianism debate rests on the unbiblical assumption that ‘ought implies can.’”
Romans 9: Election, Mercy, and Hardening
Well, he—how far back can we go? Though the twins were not yet born, this is verse 11, it had done nothing good or bad, but so that God’s purpose according to his choice would stand. Literally, it’s his according to election purpose would stand.
Not because of works, but because of him who calls, which by the way, not because of works, but because of blank is something that you see in Paul’s epistles all throughout Galatians, Romans, right? Not because of works, but by faith. Is he who justifies you do it by the works of the law or by hearing with faith? Romans 9:30, we’ll say in a little bit longer.
What do we say then? The gentiles do not pursue righteousness attain righteousness. Even the righteousness which is by faith. But Israel pursuing a law of righteousness didn’t arrive at that law. Why? Because they didn’t pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. Faith, not faith, but works. Not faith, but works.
Romans 9:11 is talking about election, where those other verses are talking about justification. Justification is by faith. Election is by him who calls, not by works, but by faith would be the per that’s Paul’s refrain throughout his letters.
And that would be the perfect time to say that election is conditioned upon foreseen faith. And Paul deviates from his norm. And he says, “It is not because of works, but because of him who calls, not because of the believer who believes or even would believe.”
And for that reason, it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger, just as is written, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” God makes unconditional discriminating choices upon the sovereign whims of his own good pleasure. That’s Ephesians 1:4, right?
He predestined us to adoption as sons according to the good pleasure of his will. Right? What shall we say then?
There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be. For he says to Moses, I’ll have mercy on whom I’ll have mercy and I’ll have compassion on whom I have compassion.
You say, Paul, that doesn’t answer the question. There’s no injustice with God. And all you did is you quoted me a verse that says he’ll do whatever he pleases.
That’s right. Paul’s saying there’s no injustice with God. And we know that because this is in the Old Testament scriptures and you’ve been aware of this for years and years that God is absolutely free and sovereign in his choices.
And then he summarizes it. He editorializes that quote from the book of Exodus and he says in 9:16 so then it that is salvation the ones who receive the mercy of God and the compassion of God. It does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs but on God who has mercy.
For the scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up to demonstrate my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.” Pharaoh was raised up precisely so that God would demonstrate his attributes in Pharaoh’s rebellion.
Pharaoh does not decide, I think, that I, as a sovereign free agent, will frustrate the plans of the Almighty. Pharaoh is raised up by the purpose of God. His heart is hardened by God to not do the very thing that God has commanded Pharaoh to do through Moses. Let my people go, but I will harden his heart so that he will not let him go.
If you have a problem with that, you have a problem with the scriptures. And then here is Paul’s further editorialization where thinks Paul, you’re really making it hard for yourself here. So then he has mercy on whom he desires and he hardens whom he desires.
Romans 9:17: “For this very purpose I raised you up to demonstrate my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.”
You will say to me then, why does he still find fault? For who resists his will? That’s your objection.
Why does he still hold accountable those who cannot resist his will? He takes it as a given that the will of God is the decreed will of God in this verse and it is inviolable. Nobody can resist the will of the almighty God. Who resists his will? It’s a rhetorical question.
The answer is nobody. So then how can he still find fault? How can he hold men accountable unto eternal damnation when nobody can resist whatever it is that he wills? He has mercy whom he desires. He hardens who he desires. And nobody can change that.
I’ll observe one thing. It’s never a good thing to believe those things that Paul is arguing against.
Okay? And that guy he’s arguing with is arguing odd implies can. Number one. Number two, here there are two answers to this objection.
One is for the insolent objector who would call God immoral or unjust for holding men accountable for what they are unable to do. And the second is for the submissive worshipper that just really wants to understand.
The Potter and the Clay
The one to the insolent objector comes in Romans 9:20 and 21.
On the contrary, who are you, oh man, who answers back to God? You who have been here for about 6,000 years, you who’ve been created from the dust of the ground, you whose next breath depends on the God whose character you’re impugning, who do you think you are to question his justice?
You forget yourself.
He says, “The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why do you make me like this?’ Will it? Or does not the potter have the right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?
If I make stuff, I can make a throne as well as I can make a toilet bowl. Are you going to reproach me for making a toilet bowl for one purpose and a throne for another purpose? Fine china and styrofoam plates. I’m the creator. If you would say, ‘I would do it differently if I was creator,’ when you create a universe, you can do it however you like. This God has done it this way.
And he says, “And if your inclination is to say that is unjust, put your hand over your mouth. You’re above your pay grade.”
But to the submissive worshipper who says, “No, no, no. I would not reprove God. I would not accuse him of injustice. I would learn what justice is by hearing the words of his mouth and conform my own understanding of justice to what’s revealed in these pages. I just want to understand how does this work?”
Romans 9:21: “Does not the potter have the right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?”
Paul addresses this in Romans 9:22 and 23. What if God, willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And what if he did so to make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy which he prepared beforehand for glory?
Paul’s using what-if statements to make statements. God, willing to demonstrate his wrath and make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath fitted for destruction. So don’t I have a right as the potter to fit things or prepare things for whatever purpose I please? Yes, I do have that right.
And what if it was a great ordeal of patience for me to endure these insufferable reprobates who disobey me and dishonor me as their creator and suppress the truth in unrighteousness?
And what if that patience displayed satisfies the heart of those who believe in me? What if that power to raise up and to tear down magnifies my worth to the place that it settles the heart of the anxious believer who needs to know that there is a sovereign God who ordains all things?
What if by the institution of the reprobate and the elect, if by those who cannot do anything but what I determine, who are required to do what they cannot do, if by that arrangement I display the worth of my character and the glory of my name in my patience, in my power, in my mercy, and in my glory?
God’s Glory as the Purpose of All Things
If those four things and the rest of my attributes are what will satisfy those with eyes to see beyond anything, if the greatest benefit is to know God, then if God is known by certain means, those means are the most loving for God to undertake to accomplish his ends.
This is not about you and me. This is not about somebody getting an opportunity. This is not about a chance.
This world is a theater. I’ll say this next hour is a theater for the glory of God. And he says, “I will be glorified by showing off my grace to sinners and rescuing them. And I will be glorified in showing off my justice to sinners by pouring out my righteous judgment upon them for their disobedience.”
By commanding something of everybody that is impossible for every one of us to do, God puts us in our proper place, humbles us to the dust, and he magnifies the glory of his own grace. And he says, “If there are any to be saved, it’ll be I who does it.” Salvation is of the Lord.
“If there are any to be saved, it’ll be God who does it. Salvation is of the Lord.”
You are dead in your trespasses and sins.
You are dependent upon a new birth to happen to you, which a child participates nothing in—the conception of his soul nor the birth by which he’s brought into the world. And Jesus says you must be born all over again.
Regeneration Precedes Faith
You say, “Well, I’m believe and then I’m born again.” No. No. 1 John 5:1, “Everyone believing presently that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God.” Perfect passive indicative.
Everyone believing present active participle.
First, at least in logical order, there is the new birth and then there is the believing. You say, “But then that doesn’t seem fair.” Then God has to be the one. God is going to give faith to some and not to others.
That’s right. Faith you by grace you’ve been saved through faith. That is a gift of God, not as a result of works.
It’s the gift of God by his grace so that no one can boast. Faith is the gift of God. To you it has been granted to believe and to suffer for his sake. Philippians 1:29.
God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life. If what it takes to—if what is faith? What is saving faith? Saving faith is the exercise of the mind which says I receive and I know the proper facts of the gospel. I believe that God is holy, that man is sinful, that Christ is savior, that I must repent and believe.
It is the assent of the heart, right? I agree with those things: that I’m a sinner, that Jesus died for sinners, and that I may have access to him if I repent and trust in him. And then it is the will’s closing with Christ. It’s entrusting one’s soul entirely to Christ. Mind, heart, will, saving faith.
Man in his natural state has a blinded mind. Ephesians 4:17.
He has a heart of stone. Ezekiel 11, Ezekiel 36. And he has a will that’s enslaved. Romans 6.
So if saving faith is the proper working of the mind, heart and will, and my mind is dark, my heart is stone, and my will is enslaved, how am I ever going to exercise that faith?
Only if I get a new mind, a new heart, and a new will by some power outside of me.
“We need a new mind, a new heart, and a new will by some power outside of us.”
Because the power—I can’t just change my own mind. My mind is dark. I can’t just change my own heart. My heart is stone. I would have to have the desire to change my heart from stone in order to have the desire to change my heart from stone.
You see, if the natural man doesn’t receive the things of the spirit, but they’re foolishness to him, they’re never going to be foolishness to him until he’s not a natural man anymore. And God has to make him a supernatural man.
If the mindset on the flesh is death, and if the man, if the one who is in the flesh cannot please God—Romans 8:7—and faith pleases God, have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they should turn from their wicked way and live? Yeah, I have pleasure that they should repent and believe.
If faith pleases God and then man’s mindset on the flesh cannot please God—not just does not please God but cannot please God—then I need my mind to be set on the spirit before I can do the pleasing act of faith.
God is sovereign, not us.
All right, one more. This guy’s had his hand up a lot. He’s overlooked because he’s right in the front. He deserves extra credit for sitting in the front.
Thank you. Wow. To get back to the question I had, please forgive me. I’m glad I put notes that way I can go back to it. I’m sorry.
Okay. The question I have has to do with hospitality.
Okay.
But before I ask the question, if everyone permits me to do so, you’ve got five minutes and I’m already long-winded. So, okay.
Is that because I work for the state, because I was a social worker? When it comes to the subject of sex, if your kids are going to public school, as a social worker, I was trained: if a kid starts talking about sex and he’s doing it with other kids, you’re going to get a visit from me because that’s the way the government teaches us.
So we need to be aware of that.
Yeah, that’s right. We want to be sure that we understand the consequences of a tyrannical and overreaching nanny state who wants to parent your children. And when you teach them according to the will of God, yes, there will be consequences because they think that your kids are their kids and not yours.
You’ve got to count the cost.
Well, I could respond to that, but you’re the one asking the questions and I’m the one answering them.
Yeah. Yeah. Because I’ve had experience of going into homes and sexual abuse is a real, severe problem.
Sure. And in most of those cases, people think that if the child knows about these things, they must be experiencing them in some way.
And that’s obviously a reasonable assumption in many ways but an unreasonable one. Absolutely. So yeah, they do need to be protecting. That’s true. But it would be a wrong inference to assume that knowledge of these concepts means familiarity with them experientially. That is an unjustified assumption on the part of the state.
I understand their motives are ultimately perhaps in their mind noble. They want to protect those who are in abusive situations. But that’s an unfounded assumption that will ultimately wind up proving too much.
And the reality is God gives the responsibility of the raising of the children to parents. And the interposition of the state is there whenever there is civil liability, right? Whenever there’s criminal activity.
But you can’t suspect criminal activity without evidence. And simply knowing, being familiar with these concepts is not evidence. That would be an unrighteous judgment. Jesus calls us to judge with righteous judgment and also not to assume facts not in evidence, right? But the state doesn’t operate according to biblical principle.
You have a question? Yes, I do.
Hospitality, the Good Samaritan, and the Church’s Mission
I’ll get back to you on what you just said. We could talk about that together. But my question again has to do with hospitality. Without going into all the details, something happened last night which is causing me to ask this question.
Understanding what I—I won’t—I guess you can look up the verses in Isaiah, the verse in Luke, where Jesus tells a story about the man that fell upon robbers.
Fell upon robbers.
Yeah. Luke 10.
Yeah. And then in Hebrews where it talks about the possibility of entertaining strangers.
My question is based on the fact that because I was a pastor and because I did work for the government as a social worker, whenever a member of the church came upon a homeless person and they wanted to provide temporary housing for that person, I would immediately tell them don’t do it.
But last night my conscience started bothering me. Like I said, because of the situation, and I’m just curious how you would address that.
That’s a big question. What’s our responsibility in light of Luke 10 and, for example, Hebrews 13? You have it in LA more than anywhere I think right now where you’re just going to find people at the offramps. If there’s any help you can give, any help is helpful.
Well, for one thing, Hebrews 13 begins with “Let the love of the brethren continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember the prisoners as though in prison with them and those who were ill-treated, since you yourselves are also in the body.”
The context of Hebrews 13 is within the family of Christ. The strangers that we’re to show hospitality to in Hebrews 13 are those Christians who we may not know personally but who come to us with letters of commendation from other churches. Especially in the ancient world, that was very important.
You could have somebody who pretends to be a brother just to mooch off of the brethren. For that reason, Paul speaks of letters of commendation. That’s why the Judaizers in 2 Corinthians 3 write their own forged letters of commendation to say, “Hey, you should receive us. We’re from the church in Jerusalem.”
Paul—and I think Paul wrote Hebrews, but the author of Hebrews, Paul in Hebrews 13 says, “Let the love of the brethren continue. Show hospitality to strangers. If there are Christian brothers who come to you in Christ’s name, open your home to them and make sure that they lack nothing. Send them on their way. These are those who’ve gone out for the sake of the name.” 2 John 7 or is it 3 John 7? One of those.
As to Luke 10, the parable of the good Samaritan, many have argued that this shows us that we owe the poor as much as we could possibly give them. That we basically ought to hand these homeless folks our credit cards and say, “Go have a nice stay at a hotel. Stay warm tonight.”
I’ve known friends of mine who know people. The pastor of outreach before me had a young lady, a college student, do that very thing. Just hand a guy her credit card because she was trying to obey Luke 10. It didn’t work out well for her.
But I appreciate that that’s in somebody’s heart. I want to care for you the way that I know that the Lord Jesus will care for everyone when he returns in his kingdom and the lion lays down with the lamb and banishes poverty from this world.
The key piece to remember is the kingdom. Though there are aspects of the spiritual fulfillment of that kingdom—Colossians 1:13, “he has transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son”—there are aspects of that kingdom which are present. The kingdom which the Old Testament prophesies remains yet future.
The son will sit on his glorious throne when he comes with his angels. Matthew 25:31. It’s Christ who’s going to bring about the kind of conditions of peace and shalom that we are to attempt to implement in our own personal lives but which we cannot do. The poor you will always have with you.
Jesus said Luke 10 is actually the same kind of thing that happens in Luke 18 with the rich young ruler, right? “One thing you still lack. Sell all your possessions and give your money to the poor and follow me.”
Well, is Jesus asking every one of us to take vows of poverty? Sell everything we have. Be mendicant wanderers. Be the ones on the street. No, right?
What is he doing to that particular young man? He’s identifying an idol in his heart and he’s saying, “You need to go so far above and beyond what you think you need to do. You think that eternal life is just a matter of, oh yeah, I’ve kept these commandments since I was a boy. You actually haven’t begun to keep one of the commandments. Let me show you what obedience to one of them would look like. It’s this outlandish display of radical generosity. And you couldn’t even begin to do that. Why?
Because your heart loves your money and your things more than anything. What you need to do is you need to put your faith in my faithfulness, in my obedience, and stop looking to your own.
And I think that the parable of the good Samaritan is the same idea. It’s an overwhelming, outlandish example of over and above kind of care for the poor that Jesus is saying you could never care for the poor this way. You could never do what you would need to do to inherit eternal life if you were going to try to inherit eternal life on the basis of your works.
So let me show you how high the standard of the law is. Show you that you come short of it. In every one of your best moments, you come short of the good Samaritan. And you have to look away from your faithfulness and your attempts at earning.
Practical Wisdom in Caring for the Poor
And you need to trust in my statement of righteousness. I think that individually believers should decide whether they want to help a homeless person on the basis of what they believe in their own heart. I can afford to lose this $10, or I had a friend who had a space in his house—an extra bedroom for homeless people that he made available one at a time to try to minister to them, preach the gospel to them, and eventually send them back on their feet.
I don’t begrudge anybody who would do that if they have the means and if they have the protections in place to avoid abuses. At the same time, you don’t know whether that guy at the off-ramp is going to take your $10 and buy a sandwich or if he’s going to buy a bottle of whiskey.
I would encourage you to take the guy to a sandwich shop. If he’s asking for lunch, say, “Hey, we want to have lunch. I’ll have lunch with you. I’ll buy you a sandwich.” Sit him down, get him what he wants, and preach the gospel to him. Hear his story. How’d you get here? What’s going on?
Why did I stop and do this with you? It’s because there’s a savior who’s done so much greater for me, and I would love for you to know him. You should make the decision on an individual basis according to stewardship, time, demands on your resources, and Christian liberty.
I would advise young ladies not to do that alone, especially with a man. If you’re going to do it at all, you probably should do it with a partner, with a friend, so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses, everything would be established.
The short answer, which I’m never really good at, just to summarize, is that it depends on one’s own personal conviction, liberty, and the stewardship that God has entrusted to you. But the church should not feel that unless we banish poverty from our world, we are somehow derelict in our mission.
“Take the guy to a sandwich shop, sit down with him, and preach the gospel to him.”
“Our mission is not to banish poverty from this world. Our mission is to banish spiritual poverty by supplying the riches of the gospel.”
Our mission is not to banish poverty from this world. Our mission is to banish spiritual poverty from this world by supplying the riches of the gospel through faith in Christ. Silver and gold I don’t have. What I have I give to you.
Mike, thank you so much. Would you be willing to close us out in prayer?
Sure.
Great.
Father, thank you for your precious people who are dear to you and dear to us as well, as we are members of the same body. Thank you for their concerns about how to live life faithfully in obedience to Christ in a fallen world, how to live life together.
We pray that this hour was not wasted, but that it would have indeed borne fruit in the hearts of your people. That it would have lifted our thoughts to heaven and the glorious savior that we do have in Christ, who has met every way, every need that we could have and will banish every need one day soon as he comes to remake this entire world and take us to be with himself.
We look forward to that day. I pray that you would bless the saints of Calvary Community Church and that you would be their good shepherd day by day as they pursue you with the eyes of faith. That you would be indeed near to them, answering their prayer requests according to your will as they wait on you while not neglecting their own responsibility.
And Lord, we rejoice in this marketplace for the soul. We rejoice in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, which we celebrate by gathering as your people on this day.
I pray that as praises are sung, as prayers are lifted, as the word is preached, that you would exalt Christ in the hearts of your people. That you would let them feast upon him by the eyes of faith. That you would satisfy them this morning with your loving kindness.
And that we would leave from here more thoroughly conformed to the image of Christ and ready to live lives entirely submitted to his glorious will.
We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.