Matt Chandler - The Divine Sovereignty of God

If you have your Bibles, why don’t you grab those? We’re going to be in Romans chapter 8. Last weekend, our Fall Series took a turn away from our kind of statement that defines what we’re up to and who we are, and moved to what we’re calling our distinctives. So let me explain distinctives real quick, and then we’re going to dive into the distinctive that we’ll cover this week. If you’re thinking about Christian theology, there are kind of two buckets in which you should be thinking. One bucket would be a closed hand, which represents Orthodox Christian belief. This means that if you don’t believe these things, you’re not a Christian. The other bucket would be called the open hand of theology. This is where Christians will differ on what we believe about what the Word of God teaches on a particular subject.

So what we’ve done now is made a turn to cover the village’s distinctives. What we want to do with distinctives is inform you where we land, and then show charity to others. Last week, that started with baptism and the Lord’s Supper. What we were saying last week, and what Trevor effectively communicated, is that this is what we believe the Word of God says about baptism. We believe in believers' baptism; we think that’s what the Bible teaches, and we’re going to surrender to the Bible’s teaching on this. However, that’s not what Presbyterians believe, and it’s not what Methodists believe, and it’s not what Anglicans believe.

We’re not saying they’re not Christians; we’re not saying they’re not our brothers and sisters. In fact, we would healthily affirm they are our brothers and sisters. We land differently on this issue, and we’re going to show each other charity even as we perceive one another to be wrong. I don’t know why you’re giggling; I think they’re wrong, they think I’m wrong, but I love them and praise God for them. We just disagree on this distinctive. One of the things you and I must learn and grow in during this hyper-angry day is to show charity to our brothers and sisters. People who disagree with us on secondary matters are not heretics. Look at me: people who disagree with us on secondary issues are not heretics.

So last week we started with baptism and communion. Today, we’re going to talk about divine sovereignty, or I’ll call it the electing love of God. Next weekend is the inerrancy of Scripture. We believe here that the Word of God is inerrant and sufficient. From there, we’ll talk about complementarianism, or the role of man and woman in the flourishing of the church, the home, and the world. Then we’ll wrap up our distinctives by discussing the peculiar gifts of the Holy Spirit, particularly the sign gifts. The reason I mention it that way is that every gift we have is from the Holy Spirit. You’ve got the gift of administration; the Holy Spirit gave you that. You’ve got the gift of hospitality; the Holy Spirit gave you that.

What I want to address in that last sermon is the strange ones, the weird ones, the sign gifts of the Holy Spirit. So that’s our series. Today, let me start by talking about the electing love of God. Now here’s what I know: this subject makes people anxious, but I’ll tell you this: it makes your pastor nearly explode with joy. You just have to know I’m not anxious. On February 6, 2003, our alarm went off in our bedroom earlier than normal. We had pre-packed a bag, and we grabbed that bag. Lauren and I got in the car and drove to a hospital about 25 minutes from here. We had not been pastoring here for three months at this point, maybe four months, and we checked in. We had scheduled the birth of our firstborn.

Now, just a quick note: if you want to have your baby in a bathtub in your living room, I’m cool with that. You should just do it. Learn the breathing techniques, and just go for it. I’m for you. Lauren has a solid theology of epidurals. She points to the fact that pain in childbirth is a result of the fall, and that through the coming of Jesus Christ, He has redeemed not just in salvation, but through gifts of common grace. You can see what’s happening right now; even Lauren just started worshipping, her hand came up. I might have heard a tongue, but that’s several weeks from now. We’ll talk about that later.

So, now in this space, we sign up, we get there, and then we’re all in. There are drugs being pumped into her system; Audrey is 14 now, and she seems to be doing fine, with no long-term damage or anything like that. Hours and hours and hours later, Audrey was born. Here’s the first time you’re in that room. I know not all of us have been in that room; all of us have been in that room at some point, but not all of us have been there as adults. The first thing that sticks out to you when you enter that room is how rough the nurse is with your baby.