This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to our daily drive time devotions. We're walking together through Romans
chapter 9 this week. This is our fourth day looking at that chapter.

And today I'd like to do something a little bit different. I'd like to answer a
question that has been in your mind I'm sure from the first day of looking at
this chapter. It's all through this chapter and that is a question about our
free choice and God's sovereignty, God being in control.

The question is how could God know and plan everything that will happen and yet
give us a free choice? Aren't those two ideas somehow mutually exclusive? I'd
like to just delve into that and just give an answer to that because it's all
through this chapter.

The answer is one of the great truths of the Bible is that God is able to know
and be in control of all that happens. The Bible calls that predestination
election and yet he's able to give us a free will and individual choice within
that plan. Of course it looks like that is impossible to us but that's why God
is God and we're not.

He is able to do both even though we can't logically figure out how he does it.
This is one of the most difficult questions that can be asked about who God is
and how he works in this world but it is also one of the most important. That's
why you've been asking it since the beginning of this chapter.

If God determines the details of our lives does that mean that we have no
choice? On the opposite side if God gives us a choice doesn't that put us in
control rather than him? Well our God is an awesome God.

He is able to give us as a part of his creation a free will to decide and yet he
is able to remain in complete control of his creation. How does he do that? I
don't know how he does that.

That's why he's God as I said and we're not. I believe that God is both in
sovereign control and that God has given us free will as taught in the Bible and
I believe it's important to keep both of those truths in balance. If you lean
too far in the direction of God being in control you come down on the side of
fatalism.

It doesn't matter what you do but if you lean too far toward man's free will you
come down on the side of humanism. It's all controlled by what we do, by our
choices, by our decisions. We are in control of our fate.

We're talking about the doctrine of election and predestination and it is one of
the most difficult doctrines that Christians try to understand. In simple terms
election means that God chooses certain people for a certain purpose just as we
elect government officials. Spiritual election addresses the question of how God
chooses us for salvation and there are two main ideas concerning election,
Calvinism and Arminianism.

Calvinism named after John Calvin, 16th century theologian, emphasizes words
like elect and chosen and predestined. People who lean strongly in this
direction typically believe that only certain people are chosen to be saved,
that God in essence passes over the non-elect. They base their views on verses
like 1st Peter chapter 1, verses 1 and 2.

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God's elect, strangers in the world
scattered out throughout Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, who have
been chosen according to the foreknowledge of our God and Father through the
sanctifying work of the Spirit, through obedience to Jesus Christ. That is one
strong idea of looking at this idea of election and predestination. Another idea
theologically is the idea of Arminius, named after James Arminius, another 16th
century theologian, and this emphasizes words like "whosoever will may come" and
"God is not willing that any should perish.

" It bases its views on verses like John 3, 16 or 2nd Peter 3, 9. Arminians
typically believe in free will and that God in his foreknowledge sees those who
will respond with faith in Christ and then he elects them based on that
foreknowledge. 2nd Peter 3, 9, the Lord is not slow in keeping his promise as
some understand slowness.

He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to
repentance. I believe all the pastors in our church teach that the scripture
teaches both truths and to exclude one set of verses or to emphasize one or the
other causes us to become unbalanced in our view of God and of the Bible. God
allows us the freedom to choose to love him or not.

Our freedom to choose cannot supersede the sovereign election of God. Now those
are ideas that are difficult, almost impossible to reconcile in our finite
minds. In the end, it's a matter of trust.

By the way, we do not believe that the Bible teaches a view of God's control or
predestination in which we are assigned the plan of God for our lives without
our choice being involved in any way. Some would call this a double
predestination, meaning some are predestined to heaven, others predestined to
hell, it happens before you're born, you don't really have any choice in the
matter. We believe instead that the Bible teaches God and his wisdom has allowed
our choice to play a part in this process.

God in his greatness is able to know about and be in control of everything and
yet also allow us to have a free choice. That doesn't make sense again from
human perspective but that's a reminder of God's greatness. One picture, and
it's an imperfect picture, all pictures are of this, one picture that's always
helped me at least to begin to understand these twin truths of God's sovereignty
and our free will is that of two ropes hanging down before you through a ceiling
above your head.

They extend through that ceiling. One is marked predestination and the other is
marked free will. If you're able to look through the ceiling you would see that
the two ropes are actually one.

They're hanging on a pulley above the ceiling and God can see in many ways what
we cannot see. He can see that the ways that these seemingly contradictory facts
are actually one powerful truth. Our free choice can't violate God's sovereignty
and God's sovereignty cannot, will not, he has chosen, will not violate our free
choice.

There is a second picture that's always helped me besides the picture of a rope
and that's the picture of the two sides of a coin. Again an imperfect picture
but it's helped me to understand this issue of our choice and God's sovereignty.
If you take a look at a coin you've got heads on one side, tails on the other.

You can look real clearly at one side, the side that has heads and you can see
the detail in that and understand it or you can turn it over and you can look
real clearly at the tail side and see very clearly what's on that side and the
details, the date, all the different lines that are on that side. But you cannot
look at both sides of the coin clearly at the same time. I guess if you took a
picture of it but I'm talking about physically.

You could try to turn it back real quickly and you'd miss something on both
sides. You could try to look at it on edge and you'd see the blurred vision of
both sides. When it comes to these twin truths of our free will and God's
sovereignty they're like two sides of one coin and God can see both sides at the
same time with clarity, all the detail.

You and I cannot. I can see one side very clearly when I look at it and I can
flip it over and look at the other side very clearly. When I try to see them
both it's not quite as clear because my human mind can't totally reconcile how
these two truths fit together and that's where trust comes in.

I trust the God who sees both sides. I trust the God who sees how everything
fits together. Someone once asked the great preacher Charles Spurgeon how he
reconciled divine sovereignty and human responsibility and Spurgeon replied, "I
never try to reconcile friends.

" These two truths are not in opposition. They're actually friends of one
another. Now I know as we talk about this that for some the most frightening
thought that haunts them is, "What if I want God but he doesn't want me?

What if somehow I want to be elected but he doesn't elect me? " The truth is
that will not happen. If you have a desire for God in your heart, if you've
decided to begin a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, express that
desire through faith.

You are one of the elect. That is showing you who you are. So don't be afraid of
that.

That is a false fear that Satan wants to put into some of our minds. Remember
that Paul's theme in this chapter is divine sovereignty. Not human
responsibility but divine sovereignty.

There are other chapters in the Bible that focus on human responsibility. As you
read this chapter don't forget both truths but don't forget the focus here. We
tend to want to focus on ourselves or human beings.

In a chapter like Romans chapter 9 we are encouraged to focus on God, this God
who is in control. In fact as we pray today I'd like you to thank God. Thank God
that he is God and we are not.

Just take a moment to say God thank you. Thank you for who you are. You're the
God who made everything.

I am not. I'm not one who could make even sometimes the simplest, the smallest
of things but you made everything with perfection. You are the God who created
me.

You are the God who has a plan not only for this universe but for my personal
life. And God I thank you for who you are. Forgive me for those times when I
have tried to act as if I somehow could figure out the universe or the way you
did things better than you could.

God I know, I know that in your perfection, I know that in your love, the way
you have chosen to act, the way you have chosen to do things is best, is right,
is holy. You've chosen to do it so that most people could come to know you.
You've chosen to do it out of love for your creation.

You've chosen to do it in my own life out of love for me. And so I thank you
right now and I apologize right now in my own life for those places where I am
acting like God, where I'm acting like I've got it better figured out than you
do. God, you're God.

I can trust you and I put my trust in you in a fresh and a new way right now. In
Jesus name, amen. Tomorrow we're going to be looking together at Romans chapter 9
verses 25 to 33.