Did God Really Say We Have No Say in Our Salvation?

Reading this morning is from the book of Acts, right near the end of Acts, not quite the end, chapter 27. We're reading the whole chapter. Probably one of my favourite passages of Scripture. It's action-packed. It's not a metaphor, but it's a real account of what the apostle Paul was having to endure as he was making his way to Rome to meet with Caesar, no less, and face the judicial system there.

Of course, there was no guarantee about the outcome of how that would go for him as well. But here he is persevering with his journey even as he takes to the seas. Again, we're reading from Acts, Acts chapter 27, begin at verse one. And it was decided that we should sail for Italy. They delivered Paul and some other prisoners to a centurion of the Augustan cohort named Julius, and embarking in a ship of Adramyttium, which was about to sail to the ports along the coast of Asia, we put to sea accompanied by Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica.

The next day, we put in at Sidon. And Julius treated Paul kindly and gave him leave to go to his friends to be cared for. Putting out to sea from there, we sailed under the lee of Cyprus because the winds were against us. And when we had sailed across the open sea along the coast of Cilicia and Pamphylia, we came to Myra in Lycia. And there, the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing for Italy and put us on board.

We sailed slowly for a number of days and arrived with difficulty off Cnidus. And as the wind did not allow us to go farther, we sailed under the lee of Crete off Salmone. Coasting along it with difficulty, we came to a place called Fair Havens, which was near the city of Lasea. Since much time had passed and the voyage was now dangerous, even the fast was already over, Paul advised them saying, "Sirs, I perceive that the voyage will be with injury and much loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives." But the centurion paid more attention to the pilot and the owner of the ship than to what Paul said.

Because the harbour was not suitable to spend winter in, the majority decided to put out to sea from there on the chance that somehow they could reach Phoenix, a harbour of Crete facing both southwest and northwest, and spend the winter there. Now when the south wind blew gently, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, they weighed anchor and sailed along Crete close to the shore. But soon, a tempestuous wind called the northeaster struck down from the land. And when the ship was caught and could not face the wind, we gave way to it and were driven along. Running under the lee of a small island called Cauda, we managed with difficulty to secure the ship's boat.

And after hoisting it up, they used supports to undergird the ship. Fearing that they would run aground on the Syrtis, they lowered the gear, and thus they were driven along. Since we were violently storm-tossed, they began the next day to jettison the cargo. And on the third day, they threw the ship's tackle overboard with their own hands. And when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days and no small tempest lay on us, all hope of being saved was at last abandoned.

Since they had been without food for a long time, Paul stood up among them and said, "Men, you should have listened to me and not have set sail from Crete and incurred this injury and loss. Yet now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For this very night there stood before me an angel of God to whom I belong and whom I worship. And he said, 'Do not be afraid, Paul. You must stand before Caesar.'

And behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you." So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told, but we must run aground on some island. When the fourteenth night had come and we were being driven across the Adriatic Sea, about midnight the sailors suspected that they were nearing land. So they took a sounding and found twenty fathoms. A little farther on, they took a sounding again and found fifteen fathoms.

And fearing that we might run on the rocks, they let down four anchors from the stern and prayed for day to come. And as the sailors were seeking to escape from the ship and had lowered the ship's boat into the sea under pretence of laying out anchors from the bow, Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, "Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved." Then the soldiers cut away the ropes of the ship's boat and let it go. As day was about to dawn, Paul urged them all to take some food, saying, "Today is the fourteenth day that you've continued in suspense and without food, having taken nothing. Therefore, I urge you to take some food, for it will give you strength, for not a hair is to perish from the head of any of you."

And when he'd said these things, he took bread, and giving thanks to God in the presence of all, he broke it and began to eat. And they were all encouraged and ate some food themselves. We were in all 276 persons in the ship. And when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship, throwing out the wheat into the sea. Now when it was day, they did not recognise the land, but they noticed a bay with a beach on which they planned, if possible, to run the ship ashore.

So they cast off the anchors and left them in the sea, at the same time loosening the ropes that tied the rudders. Then hoisting the foresail to the wind, they made for the beach. But striking a reef, they ran the vessel aground. The bow stuck and remained immovable, and the stern was being broken up by the surf. The soldiers' plan was to kill the prisoners lest any of them should swim away and escape.

But the centurion, wishing to save Paul, kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and make for land, and the rest on planks or on pieces of the ship. And so it was that all were brought safely to land. So far, chapter 27, the book of Acts. May God add His blessing to the reading.

I have secrets. I have one eye with which I see you and another eye for looking at the Bible. I'd also like to read from Ephesians, although our message does come from the chapter Tony read in the book of Acts, and isn't it an exciting story? Well, I want to read the opening verses that we find there in Ephesians. I, Paul, apostle of Christ Jesus, by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and are faithful in Christ Jesus.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love, He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of His will according to His purpose which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth. And I hope you noticed I stressed the "in Christ," "in Him," and we will come back to that later.

And our message this morning is entitled, "Did God really say that we have no say in our salvation?" And you will remember this is part of a series I started a few months ago. We noted that Satan likes to sometimes take a truth and move it this way in order that we react and move this way, because he doesn't want us here where the truth lies. And here again, we have one of these situations, and that's concerning the doctrine of election. Now I visited a church in The Netherlands, known as a Netherlands Reformed Congregation, and it was a large church, about 500 people, and it was Lord's Supper that Sunday.

And I thought, oh, we'll be here for a while because there was only one table there. But no, the first table met, and it wasn't even full at the table. People had communion and sat down again. And I asked later, why only these people? Well, they are the ones who know they are elect, and the rest of us are waiting for a sign so that we may join them.

Now is that how we understand the doctrine of election, that somehow God gives us a sign? You're one of the chosen ones. This sounds more like God moving us like pieces on a chessboard rather than our full participation in the wonderful story of our salvation. Does it mean that we just wait to be elected? And when we are, thank God, we can sit back and relax and leave it all up to God.

Well, I'm sure Satan would love it if we had that kind of attitude. But I think we all know that that is clearly wrong. And it's for this reason that some people then throw out the doctrine of election because they say, well, look to where that leads us. But of course, that is going the other way, and that's no better. Now let me make it clear at the very start that I am not going to explain the doctrine of election to where you can understand it, because it defies all human explanation.

I think the best I can say is that God's logic is not our logic. And that makes sense because our logic is always, if we do this, then the next will happen, and the next will happen. But God is somebody who's not bound by time, and He can do something tomorrow that happened yesterday, so to say, which is total nonsense to us. But that's how God works. He's outside of time, and therefore any kind of logical or hope of a logical understanding is lost because we don't understand how God's logic works.

All we can conclude in the end is with Job who said God's ways are just too wondrous for us to understand. They are beyond our understanding, and we can leave it at that. But we must accept the doctrine of election simply because it's so clearly and repeatedly taught in Scripture. Look at how God chose Abraham. Look at how God chose Israel.

Look at how God chose His church. You can look at the teaching of Christ in John chapter 10. He talks about His sheep who know Him because the Father gave them to Him. And then in John 15:16, we read, "You did not choose me, but I chose you." Now, Paul is probably the theologian we remember best for his teachings on election.

And if you were to continue reading there in Ephesians 1 and into chapter 2, it's all about this wonderful doctrine and how it helps us, how it gives us our assurance of salvation. But Paul's not the only one. Peter talks about it quite a bit in his epistles. John does. And even James, as we will see later, gets at it from another angle.

So rather than to try and explain this is how election fits together, I think we do better to look at an example of where we see God's defined purpose and our human responsibility coming together in just a wonderful way. And I want us to notice that God meets us in our need, that God gives us a promise, that we are required obedience, and that the outcome is salvation. Now Paul, in our story, begins of course earlier. Paul wanted to get to Rome. You can read him mention that in his epistles, including the epistle sent to Rome where he says, "I long to come to you so that I can impart some of the gifts that God has given to apostles to you."

Because the apostles, they had all the gifts, but they were able through laying on of hands to bestow some of these gifts to others. And as no apostle had been in Rome, but the church had formed there through people who'd moved into the area, Paul thought they would be enriched by having this special unction of the Spirit that allowed the use of gifts. And so Paul makes it clear, he said he'd go to Rome, but first wants to go to Jerusalem and say hello to the people who sent him and all that, and also worship in the temple in a New Testament way.

And then it seems that everything went wrong because Paul is put in prison, and then there was a plot of the Jews. A number of young men vowed that they would not eat until Paul was killed. Now I wonder if they kept the promise because they wouldn't have lasted till Paul died. That's for sure. But we do see then that Paul was taken to, I think it was Caesarea Philippi, and maybe I'm mixed up there.

But in any case, he is held to trial there, and as he's not getting anywhere, he then appeals to Caesar. Now he could do that because in God's providence, Paul was a Roman, and any Roman citizen could appeal to Caesar rather than be judged by a local court. Now this doesn't mean that Paul wasn't a Jew. He was, of course, a Jew, but he had Roman citizenship, and that was something very precious. And that's how God had worked beforehand for Paul to meet God's goals.

Now we can often see that. Perhaps you've experienced it in your own life that you want to go one way but God has planned for you and you end up doing something else, and you realise, hey, it's God's plans, not my plans that count. And I think it's been the experience of every Christian. A lot of missionaries write about it, how they plan to do one thing, but God sends them to do something else and it works out just right. Well, I don't have time to look at that today. It's a subject for another message.

But we see very clearly here that God is working in Paul's life to have him do that wonderful ministry that he did, ending up in Rome. And it may be that he even went further than that. There's good reason to believe that he went to Spain as well. But anyway, that's for another time. We see here how Paul is used by God not only to come to Rome, but also to help people he meets on the way.

And it mentions here a centurion called Julius. And I'd be very surprised if he didn't end up a Christian. The very fact that his name is mentioned, probably because people can say, "Oh, yeah. I know about him." Certainly, Aristarchus, the fellow passenger there, he was a tradesman.

He would have been mentioned because he was now a Christian. And of course, there's the church at Sidon there where Paul was able to visit on the way, and of course the people in Malta who came to know the gospel as a result of this shipwreck. So you see how God brings it all together in a wonderful way. God meets all these people in their need through Paul. And these were not saints when Paul met them.

We see that these were merchants greedy for gain. We see that they were, yeah, people who ignored Paul's advice and went their own way, people who ignored God. None of them deserved that God should help them, but God chose to meet them in their needs. And that's how God works, isn't it? Christ died while we were yet sinners.

Not because we deserved it. No. We deserved nothing, and that's how God works. Now in our story, we see that there's not just one man, but a whole shipload of people in need because there's a storm that threatened the life of the ship's crew and the passengers. Now can you imagine for fourteen days being in a storm?

I've been seasick for a couple of hours, and I thought I was gonna die. I don't know how I'd last for fourteen days, but without rest and conservation of, well, much smaller boats than we use for our cruising today, I guess. And then things got so desperate that all the cargo, the purpose of the voyage, was thrown overboard, and people thought, "That's the end. We're gonna lose our lives in this." And then Paul comes with a promise.

I've heard it from God through an angel that not one of us is going to be lost. Now, what a wonderful message to hear in such a situation. God sent an angel to Paul to let him know that he would be spared because he had to go before Caesar. But with that message came the news that all the passengers and crew would be safe as well. And it would appear that they believed Paul because they seemed to listen to him.

They listened to him, and he invited them to all come together for a meal. They even listened to him when he said, "We've got to cut off the lifeboat and let it go away." Well, that seems the last thing you want to do in a storm, let the lifeboats go. But Paul gave that advice and they followed it. Now that's hardly something you would do unless you had some trust in Paul, and maybe some were beginning to have trust in the God of Paul.

Paul advises them to take some food to strengthen them for what lays ahead, not just a quick bite, but they have a meal together. And Paul prays, and no doubt he prayed that God would, yeah, hold to His promise and save them all. And look, the author then mentions that this involved 276 people. Now that's not a small company, is it? That's a huge group of people there, and not one of them was to be lost.

Now there's one thing I didn't mention before when I said that Paul advised that the lifeboat should be abandoned. And the reason was that the crew, when they realised they were getting closer to land, realised that they'd be better off jumping in the lifeboat and taking off and leaving the passengers to fend for themselves. And Paul makes it clear, "Unless these crew stay with the ship, you cannot be saved." Hey. Wait a moment.

Didn't Paul already say that they would all be saved? But now he's giving a condition. Unless these men stay on the ship, you cannot be saved. So why did Paul give this ultimatum to the centurion and the people there? To make sure that they would be saved.

And here we have, I think, the mystery of God's promise at work. When God promises something, this is gonna happen, it doesn't mean that you can now sit back. It means that God is gonna use you to make things happen the way He wants them to happen. And we see that very clearly here, how it is because they obey God that the ship's crew and passengers are saved. God promises salvation.

Yes. But this counts also on human obedience. What would have happened if they had not obeyed, if the sailors had abandoned the ship? Well, of course, God could have saved them some other way, but I think God very much wanted people to take a part in this and to, yeah, to cooperate with Him. Now I think that's how God normally works.

Maybe He works differently in the minds of infants or mentally weak people, but I think of people who have capacity to think and to do things. God wants us to follow Him and show that we trust Him as part of His electing salvation. They have to do what He says and to show that they have faith in Him through what they do. And I think this is where the book of James is so handy for us because James says, don't talk about salvation by faith unless you realise that when we talk of faith, we talk of a faith that shows itself in works, a faith that is alive, a faith based on trust in God, not just believing He exists. Even Satan believes He exists.

No. It's much more than that. It's putting your life in the hands of God. And that is what is so important here in the mystery of our salvation, that we put our lives in the hands of God saying, "God, you know best, and we will do what you say." Does that mean that God's promises are conditional?

That our salvation really depends on us and our cooperation? Well, God's promises are often stated as conditional. For example, in Genesis 4:7, one of the first instances of God speaking to Cain: "If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must master it."

There are conditions there. If, if. We find the same in Deuteronomy where it states seven times in the book that God will bless Israel if they are obedient to Him, to His commandments. And in John 15:10, Jesus states, "If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I've kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love." Now the word "if" points to a condition. Does that make the promises conditional?

But we all know that our salvation doesn't depend on us. If it depended on us, well, I'd be worried. Wouldn't you be worried if it depended on you? I think so. So what does it mean?

How can we then be saved? And Paul wrestles with this question, and we read it in Romans 7, for our reading of the law, where Paul says, "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" Because he realises that in himself he's always doing the wrong thing and not the right thing, and so he can never be saved on the basis of obedience. But then he answers the question: "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with the flesh I serve the law of sin.

God's promise of salvation becomes unconditional in Jesus Christ because He keeps the conditions for us. And that's what election is all about. Did you notice when I read in Ephesians 1 how we are elect in Christ? That's how it works. Paul addresses the book to the saints who are faithful in Christ Jesus.

You see, it's not our faithfulness it's talking about here. It's the faithfulness of Christ, the faithfulness we have in Him. And in verse four, we read that God chose us in Him, that's in Christ, before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before Him. Verse five, He destined us in love to be His sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of His will. Now the phrase "in Christ" is repeated five times in this chapter, and you find it throughout the New Testament because this speaks about what it means to be a Christian who trusts in God.

It means that we put our trust in Christ to do where we fail to do what is required. And it is in Christ that these conditional promises become unconditional so that we can have that assurance. Yes. It will happen because if I fail, Christ will do it for me. And that is the glorious reality of our election to salvation.

It doesn't mean that there are no conditions for salvation. No. It doesn't mean that we can ignore these conditions. No. But it does mean that when we fail, Christ will do it for us.

He who was faithful to the end for His people. And that is why you and I can have that assurance, knowing that God's promises will come true for us in Christ. Even as the promise of salvation required obedience for those in the storm with Paul, so God uses our obedience in and through Christ to bring about His plans. And that's why it's very important that we seek to do His will and do our best here. I think it's summed up well by Peter in the opening sentence that we had at the beginning of the service where we are reminded that we are chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and the sprinkling with His blood.

We are chosen to be obedient in Christ. Thank you, Lord, for Jesus who made it possible what we could not do in ourselves, to find salvation because we are accounted as your obedient children. Amen. Let us pray. Our Lord and Father, we give you thanks for this wonderful doctrine of salvation even though it's something we cannot logically understand.

Yet your word makes it so clear that that's how we are saved, because we are chosen in Christ, and Christ will do what we cannot do in ourselves. And so, Lord, we thank you that we can have that assurance of salvation, that if we trust in you and we trust in your Son, Jesus, that you will bring about all these wonderful promises. We thank you for the way that you saved Paul and this great company of mariners and passengers with him because they listened and obeyed. And so, God, we pray that you will make us obedient and use us to bring about your plans to the praise of your glory. In Jesus' name. Amen.