Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: Effectual Calling
## Reformation Covenant Church | Pastor Dennis Tuuri

2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 1. We’re moving on in the Canons of Dort to effectual calling, and just as Romans 8 is a place to remember God’s election and Ephesians 1 and 2 are about depravity and Isaiah 53 God’s accomplished atonement for his sheep, so 1 Corinthians 1 is a great text to remember in terms of irresistible grace. Or, “effectual calling” may be a better phrase to use, and this is what the Canons of Dort use.

Please stand with the reading of God’s word beginning at 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 1, and notice the emphasis on calling as we go through this text.

Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, to the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus, that you were enriched in everything by him in all utterance, in all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ, our Lord. Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you may be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe’s household that there are contentions among you.

Now I say this, that each of you says, “I am of Paul, or I am of Apollos, or I am of Cephas, or I am of Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, lest anyone should say that I had baptized in my own name. Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas. Besides, I do not know whether I baptized any other.

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.” Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

For since in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Gentiles foolishness. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of this world to put to shame the wise. God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty, and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence.

But of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that as it is written, “he who glories let him glory in the Lord.” And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God.

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for the simplicity of the gospel and the way you effectually call those that you have chosen from before all creation in your love for them. We thank you, Lord God, for the tremendously encouraging words in this text on our calling. And we pray that you would help us by the Holy Spirit to understand the text. May it, Lord God, encourage us as well as challenge us and admonish us to further fruitfulness for our savior. Thank you, Father, for the word of our savior. May it be preached today in conformity to it. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

Today is Trinity Sunday, and I didn’t really choose this message distinct to Trinity Sunday, although it fits very well with it. You know, we celebrated Pentecost, and this is kind of the end of the first half of the liturgical year when the life of Christ is focused on, and now the life of the church is focused on in the second half of the year with a series of ordinary Sundays. Not ordinary in the sense of plain, but ordinary in the sense of numbered ordinals.

So that’s what we’re in now. And Trinity Sunday is the bridge, as it were. And it’s a nice Sunday to talk about effectual calling because as we move from the work of the Father in unconditionally electing some based on his love of them, we move to the work of the Son in accomplishing our atonement, our redemption two thousand years ago on the cross. And now we move really primarily to the work of the Spirit.

Of course, we have a triune God involved in all of these things, but the emphasis in election seems to be the Father, and the emphasis in the atoning work of course is on Jesus Christ, and the emphasis in effectual calling—irresistible grace—is on the work of the Spirit. So this is a good Sunday to think about the work of the triune God and these summation of the doctrines of the sovereignty of God found in the Canons of Dort in the Calvinistic acronym TULIP.

We’re moving in the context of the “I” in TULIP—irresistible grace, or what might be a better phrase, effectual calling. And this stresses the broadness of what we’re doing. So another good thing about Trinity Sunday for beginning this consideration of effectual calling is that on the basis of the life of Jesus Christ, the triune God is seen sovereignly electing, sending the Son to die for the sins of the elect, and then effectually calling those people that they may live out, then as part of their calling, that life of the church that we celebrate for the next six months or so.

So it’s transposition and effectual calling. I guess what I’m trying to do immediately here is put it in a little bigger context than just irresistible grace to salvation. Calling, as we saw in 1 Corinthians 1, has a lot of implications to it, and it’s far broader than just being called to salvation, although that is the primary focus both in the TULIP and also in the Canons of Dort selection here.

The work of the Holy Spirit is kind of stressed in this section, and what I’ve given you is, after the outline, a couple of pages of historic documents there. Article 11 is what I’d like you to turn to and follow along as I read. This stresses the work of the Holy Spirit. The header here is not from the Synod of Dort; “The Holy Spirit’s work in conversion” is a particular edition I’m quoting from here that inserts that. But this is really what this section 11 is about.

Remember that the third and fourth heads of doctrine are put together into one long set of seventeen paragraphs or so—seven articles first, you know, talking about the depravity of men, and then what that means in terms of how God converts us. So Article 11 is in the section of the transition to election. So it says this:

Moreover, when God carries out his good pleasure in his chosen ones or works true conversion in them—he, excuse me, couple [of words] intervening—he not only sees to it that the gospel is proclaimed to them outwardly and enlightens their minds powerfully by the Holy Spirit so that they may rightly understand and discern the things of the spirit of God. But by the effective operation of the same regenerating spirit, he also penetrates into the inmost being of man, opens the closed heart, softens the hard heart, and circumcises the heart that is uncircumcised.

He infuses new qualities into the will, making the dead will alive, the evil one good, the unwilling one willing, and the stubborn one compliant. He activates and strengthens the will so that like a good tree, it may be able to produce the fruits of good deeds.

Okay, so last week we talked about evangelism—the general call, some people might call it—where God calls all men, commands all men to worship him and to repent of their sins. And this is dealing with the effectual call, the call on the elect particularly, that is always effectual. So there’s a general call and a specific call. Some people refer to it as the outward call and the inward call—that the Holy Spirit, through the proclamation of the gospel to all the world, calls all men. And yet God is specifically and effectually calling those who are his elect. And this chapter, this Article 11, talks about the work of the Holy Spirit.

And there’s a lot here. I encourage you to take it home, think about it, talk about it in family worship, in your own personal devotions, because it really is, as I said, it’s kind of a description of how the Holy Spirit works in the context of this effectual call. So like last week, we talked about evangelism. Now we’re talking about what the spirit does to those who are the elect through that secondary means of evangelism.

So the spirit is very much involved in the context of the effectual call. He really receives the emphasis, correctly, here in the Canons of Dort and in our thinking as well. Now, the spirit uses, as the section told us, both men and the Bible to save people. There’s a proclamation of the word through men, and they’re proclaiming the truths of the scriptures. So the spirit uses men and the Bible to save us, to do this work.

So the Father loved us and chose us before eternity. The Son died for us and made atonement, and the Holy Spirit called us to salvation. So the triune work of God—focusing now on the work of the Holy Spirit.

So this is a good Sunday to talk about irresistible grace or effectual call. I like the term “effectual call” better, because “irresistible grace” can become, sort of, the way people think about this truth—the sort of God we worship, the sort of people we are—is that, you know, God just draws, you know, like a robot to himself. He sends out the homing signal, and like in that movie where those, you know, those big robots, you know, hear the homing signal and they turn and they fly back, you know, robots. And so some people present Calvinism in this way: that God just kind of commands men and they’re like robots. They really aren’t living creatures or beings. They’re not really men anymore. They’re just kind of like robots. And “irresistible grace” has that connotation.

It’s a good phrase. It means that the grace of the Holy Spirit shown toward the elect—chosen in God and their sins atoned for by Christ—are irresistibly called. They will come. The Holy Spirit gets his man every time. But “effectual calling,” I think, is a little better sense of how this works. We just read in Article 11, and look at that again. Where it says he opens the closed heart, softens the hard heart, circumcises the heart that is uncircumcised, infuses new qualities into the will, making the dead will alive, the evil one good, the unwilling one willing, and the stubborn one compliant.

So it’s not as if we’re unwilling. The work of the Holy Spirit infuses new life into us and creates now a desire in us to live a life in accordance with Christ’s commands. So we’re not robots. He doesn’t treat with us as stocks and blocks. This is a phrase from Article 16.

And if you glance down in Article 16, “Regeneration’s Effect,” I want to read from that as well to talk about effectual calling and to try to distance it from misrepresentations of what effectual calling is.

Article 16 says this: “However, just as by the fall, man did not cease to be man.” Now, you have a will after the fall; you’re always going to choose the wrong thing. He’s still endowed with intellect and will. And just as sin, which has spread through the whole human race, did not abolish the nature of the human race but distorted and spiritually killed it—so he didn’t do away with it; he didn’t make us robots in the fall, but we’re twisted and distorted. We have a will, a free will, but we always choose to do what’s of our nature. Our nature is in rebellion to God.

Well, in the same way, it says:

“So also, this divine grace of regeneration does not act in people as if they were blocks and stones—stocks and blocks in one translation, blocks and stones. Nor does it abolish the will and its properties, or coerce a reluctant will by force, but spiritually revives, heals, reforms, and in a manner at once pleasing and powerful bends it back.

As a result, a ready and sincere obedience of the spirit now begins to prevail where before the rebellion and resistance of the flesh were completely dominant. It is in this that the true and spiritual restoration and freedom of our will consists. Thus, if the marvelous maker of every good thing were not dealing with us, man would have had no hope of getting up from his fall by his free choice by which he plunged himself into ruin when still standing upright.”

So you see, it’s not as if God draws us in the sense that we’re robots and we have no will. No, the Holy Spirit, through the preaching of the gospel, brings new life, instills a new nature in the context of the elect, the chosen of God whose sins have been atoned for, and become alive. And as living creatures, we then start to do what our new nature that God has given us in Christ wants to do, which is to follow Christ.

So, you know, understand that irresistible grace—okay—but effectually calling us is a little better phrase. God is effectual in reviving us, bringing us from death to life, from stubbornness of will to compliancy of will. He softens our heart, as it were, and we come then to him and start to live out the new nature that he has given to us by the Holy Spirit.

Now, there’s a logical following of this, right? I mean, if man is—if God has unconditionally elected some people and he’s atoned for their sins, and if man is totally dead, the walking dead in his sin, if he’s always going to choose the wrong thing, if there’s not any portion of his being, his will, that’s not tainted by the fall, he’s always going to choose wrong. Well, there’s a logical consistency to effectual call. The only way it’s going to work is if God does all the work for us monergistically, by himself—not synergistically, a combination of us working with God. That’s not what happens. God does it by himself. To him be all glory for this, as we read in First Corinthians.

There’s a logical, you know, way of looking at that which makes sense. But we want to look at the biblical foundation for this.

So I’m on point number four of the outline now: the biblical basis for effectual calling. And I’ve got several scriptures there. I won’t read them all.

Romans 8—remember, this is where we started the golden chain. Romans 8:28. Listen to what the scriptures say: “We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose.” So a summary designation of Christians are the called ones, and that means effectually called—those who are called for his purposes. And then verse 29: “For whom he foreknew, those that he loved in eternity, he predestinated to be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he predestined, these he also called. He effectually called those that he had chosen in Christ. And those whom he’s called he’s also justified, and whom he justified he also glorified.”

So the progression of what happens here is that God’s love for us and his predestination is then worked out in time in the effectual call that we’re speaking of today.

John 6:44—Jesus says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

So here’s evangelism, you know? “Make you fishers of men.” And we fish today with the bait and with the line, and we think, well, we got to have the right bait to get the fish to bite the hook and then reel them in. That’s not biblical fishing. Biblical fishing is they use nets. And later in John’s gospel, this same word—that God must draw us to him—is used of when they have the heavy harvest of the 153 great fish, right, at the end of the gospel of John? And they start to pull it in. They’re dragging. They’re calling those fish.

Now, the fish didn’t decide to bite or not bite at the bait. The fish are swimming in the ocean. There’s a pack of them out there, and here comes the net and takes whomever the fisherman wants to take. You see, it’s totally the work of the fisherman. So this verse here, being used later in John to speak of this kind of fishing, stresses the sovereignty of God, not the choice of man to respond or not respond.

And therefore, we got to be careful what bait we use. That’s not the biblical way. There’s no bait involved in biblical fishing. You know, we can use the illustration, but in biblical fishing, the net is cast and he draws men to himself. John 6:44 is a very clear statement that the only way we are called is not because we respond to the call. It’s the effectual calling of the Holy Spirit drawing us, dragging us to himself.

Now, he does it by softening our hearts and infusing a new nature, but we are called nonetheless by the sovereign will of God. It’s not a cooperative venture. John 6:44 says that it’s like fishing with a net. We’re dragged to God.

John 1:12 and 13 says that “as many as received him, to those he gave the right to become the children of God, even to those who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.” So our being reborn in Christ is not due to our will, but the will of God who effectually calls us.

You know, in Luke 15:5, the lost sheep goes off, and we always remember that the pastor is supposed to leave, the shepherd’s supposed to leave the flock and get the lost sheep. But we forget that in Luke 15, where it describes this, what he does with that lost sheep is not lure him back. What he does is he picks him up—it says—and he lays him on his shoulder. Okay? So as a picture of salvation—of those who have become lost sheep through the fall—the Lord Jesus Christ, by use of the Holy Spirit using men and the scriptures, calls you. And when that proclamation goes out, those who are his elect, he picks up, lays on his shoulder, and brings in. You see? So again, the sovereignty of God and effectual calling is emphasized by that beautiful imagery given to us there.

2 Thessalonians 2:14 says, “We were called by the gospel.” So again, God uses means.

John 10:3—”to the doorkeeper opens and the sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”

And again in John 10:27: “My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.” The voice of the one calling his sheep is authoritative. You know, one way to think of this is: who’s doing the calling? Now, if it’s you or me, you know that it’s just us proclaiming the call to worship God. Our call is not effectual. Our word doesn’t always accomplish what it’s set out to do. But the Father is using men to call his particular elect, and whom the King calls—the sovereign, almighty, omnipotent King—whom he calls, they hear his voice and are drawn to him. So the authority of the call is linked to the authority of the one, the Holy Spirit engaged in this call.

And the sheep, the ones whose sins have been atoned for (Isaiah 53), the ones who God has ordained from the beginning—predestinated based on his love—those sheep hear the shepherd calling to them as men proclaim the gospel to them. And the Holy Spirit, you know, takes those earphones and starts to make them work. Again, gives them new life, and they’re drawn to Jesus. So it’s totally the work of the shepherd, but it is effectual. The sheep will come when they’re called.

Acts 2:39—”the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are a far off, even as many as the Lord our God will call.” Those whom God calls, the promise is to see. Now, it’s not talking about the general call of God. It’s saying that your children are called by God effectually and as a result are recipients of the promise. So the ones who are effectually called in this sense are the ones who obtain the promises. The promises are given to them.

Even in Romans 9, talking about God’s sovereignty, the ones who are called are those then who are the ones who are coming to salvation. In Romans 9:23: “that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he called.”

So the called ones in Romans 9 specifically are those who are effectually called—that he has decided from all eternity, predestinated unto grace and salvation.

Acts 13:48—”when the Gentiles heard this—so the general call goes out, the external call, the call of man goes out—but when the Gentiles heard this they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord, and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.”

So we preach the gospel, and those that are appointed to eternal life, the Holy Spirit will effectually call. So the interior call, the effectual call, is in the midst of the general call, and it’s based upon those whom God has chosen.

Again, in Acts 16:14, we read that “a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul.” And so this marvelous work of the Holy Spirit, this ineffable, loving, kind work of the Holy Spirit, is shown in Lydia, where the spirit opens her heart to hear those things. So we proclaim the gospel, but the Holy Spirit will effectually open the hearts, change the hearts, of those who are being called to salvation.

So many other such scriptures could be read, but we have this solid biblical basis for the idea of effectual calling or irresistible grace. The Bible compares God saving us to fishing with a net, not fishing with a pole and various kinds of bait. Jesus’s sheep will—W-I-L-L—Jesus’s sheep will, by God, respond to his call. There is no doubt about it. When God saved Lydia, he opened her heart. So he does it, but he doesn’t do it as to stocks and blocks or blocks of stone.

So, you know, this doctrine of the effectual call of God once more takes sovereignty out of the hands of man, humbles man, and is the last one of the last nails in the coffin of man’s pride. You know, when we proclaim the doctrine of unconditional election, it’s a nail in the coffin of man’s pride—that he can do anything by himself and that he was somehow responsible for his salvation.

And when we said that Jesus Christ died specifically for the elect, it nails another nail in the coffin of man who wants to say that the atonement was general and it’s up to me whether I respond or not.

And when we said that men are totally dead, they’re the walking dead, they’re in rebellion to God, they’ll live out that nature—even though they have a will, they’ll always live out that fallen nature—another nail in the coffin of men’s pride and autonomy.

And here, when we look at the biblical evidence for the effectual call, it’s not dependent upon the person. It’s dependent upon the sovereign God who opens their hearts or not. And this is the last nail in the coffin of prideful autonomous man. That’s what we all are in Adam. That’s our fallen nature. And these doctrines of the sovereign grace of God ring out like a hammer beating on these nails, nailing, you know, our hopes of our own glory, our own abilities, our own capability or decision-making in this thing. It puts death to those things. It puts death demands pride, and the end result of this is humility.

And that’s what First Corinthians stresses.

The Westminster Confession of Faith—again, this is on, I think, page three of your outline. You can turn to Westminster Confession chapter 10 of effectual calling to read along with that. An excellent summation of the doctrine—chapter 10 of effectual calling.

“All those whom God has predestined unto life, and those only, all those and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, so the eternal decrees of God are working out now in the context of time. He is pleased in his spirit—appointed and accepted time—effectually to call by his word and spirit out of the state of sin and death in which they are by nature to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ, enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, giving unto them a heart of flesh.”

I don’t like the reference there. I’m not sure that’s what’s going on, but the imagery is okay. Again, he’s taking the old nature and inserting a new nature—a heart we could refer to it as, a heart of flesh—renewing their wills, and by his almighty power determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ.

“You see that footnote there to John 6:44. Yet so as they come most freely—so they’re not robots. They come most freely, being made willing by his grace. This effectual call is of God’s free and special grace alone, not from anything at all foreseen in man, who is altogether passive therein, until being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit. He is thereby enabled to answer this call and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed in it.”

So we’re keeping away from two ditches: that we have any part in this thing, and yet that somehow we’re like robots. Those are the two ditches that they successfully avoid.

And then in their catechism, the Westminster Larger Catechism: “What is effectual calling? Effectual calling is the work of God’s almighty power in grace, whereby out of his free and special love to his elect, and from nothing in them, moving him thereto, he doth in his accepted time invite and draw them to Jesus Christ by his word and spirit, savingly enlightening their minds, renewing and powerfully determining their wills, so as they, although in themselves dead in sin, are hereby made willing and able freely to answer his call, and to accept and embrace the grace offered and conveyed therein.”

“Are the elect only effectually called? All the elect and they only are effectually called. Although others may be and often are outwardly called by the ministry of the word and have some common operations of the spirit, the spirit might work in those that are not effectually called, who for their willful neglect and contempt of the grace offered to them, being justly left in their unbelief, do never truly come to Jesus Christ.”

So yes, the elect and the elect only come. It may not be obvious to us when that is happening or what’s happening there.

If you turn to the Canons—Article number 12—in Article number 12, this is referred to as a new creation. Somebody asked why I had the Noah’s ark tie on today? Well, this is why. Canons number 12 talks about that God works in us without our help. But this certainly does not happen only by outward teaching, by moral persuasion, or by such a way of working, and then dropping down a bits:

“an entirely supernatural work, one that is at the same time most powerful and most pleasing, a marvelous, hidden, and inexpressible work which is not lesser than or inferior in power to that of creation or of raising the dead as scripture inspired by the author of the work teaches.”

So this is now like a new creation. The power of God works in the same way—not unlike, but parallel to the idea of—new creation. And so the Noah’s ark is a reminder of the effectual call of God to his people, bringing them into the new creation, out of the old world.

So effectual calling—the result of God’s irresistible grace or effectual calling—is the certain response by the elect to the inward call of the Holy Spirit when the outward call is given by the evangelist or minister of the word of God.

All whom God has elected will come to a knowledge of him. Our savior says that in John 6:37: “All the Father has given to him will come to Jesus as their savior.” Men come to Christ in salvation when the Father calls them, John 6:44. And the very spirit of God leads God’s beloved to repentance, Romans 2:14. This is effectual calling. The Holy Spirit irresistibly draws his people to himself, but does it in a most pleasurable as well as powerful way.

Being saved is totally then by God’s grace—his election, the atonement, and now the effectual calling of his Holy Spirit.

All right, with that as a general background, let’s look now quickly at 1 Corinthians chapter 1. So turn back in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 1, and we’ll have some observations on effectual calling from this—the verse of all verses. Chapter 1 Corinthians 1, as I said, is the one you want to store away in your memory like Romans 8, Ephesians 1, Isaiah 53, for effectual calling. 1 Corinthians 1 is really one of the best texts to look at.

And specifically in it, verses 23 or 24—rather, verses 23 and 24: “We preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block, to the Gentiles foolishness. General call, proclamation goes out. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

So he’s saying there’s a general call, but to those who are called in the sense he’s using the term here, it’s the power of God. It’s the saving power of God, both the Jew and Greek. It is Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. So their calling was effectual. And this verse tells us that there’s a distinction between the general call or invitation or proclamation or command to repent, and then he says that you were called—that you might indeed have this relationship with the Father and the Son.

So we have here an effectual call in 1 Corinthians 1:24.

Secondly, this effectual call is through the will and power of God. And again, you know, it’s the caller who’s issuing the call ultimately that determines the power of it. The Lord’s voice accomplishes what he’s going to accomplish. His word goes forth and accomplishes its purpose. And his purpose in the general proclamation of the gospel is to savingly and effectually and unilaterally, monergistically, call his elect to himself.

Verse one: “Paul, who is called to be an apostle.” Now, you know, we’ll talk more about this in a couple of minutes, but the call to salvation is linked here to a particular call of vocation for Paul. He’s using the same word. He was called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God. So it’s the will of God that is the operative principle in the effectual call. God is sovereign. It’s not up to the person that hears the word. They’re held responsible for rejecting it, but the reception of it is solely through the will and power of God.

Verse 18 says, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.” So those who are being effectually called, that message is the power of God that’s going to recreate us, you know, new creation, new birth—the tremendous working of the power of God happens in the still small spaces of our heart through the work of the Holy Spirit through the effectual calling of a powerful sovereign God.

This is the power of God that does this wonderfully beautiful incomprehensible work of regeneration and of calling us effectually to salvation in Christ. So there’s this wonderful blend—the wonderful way that the Canons and the Westminster Confession talks about the spirit of God enlightening us and giving us a new principle and making our hearts soft and teachable and drawing us in that sense. But it’s also on the other side, it’s the power of God. It’s the will of God at work.

Verse 24 of chapter 1: “but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” So effectual calling is by the power and wisdom of God. Paul was called by the will of God, by the powerful sovereign work of God. That’s the basis for our effectual calling.

We’re called thirdly, apart from our ability. Nothing in us, nothing in the preacher that’s going to make the difference. The message of the cross, he says, is foolishness to those who are perishing. Now, so to us, you know, to everyone apart from the grace of the Holy Spirit, the preaching of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the cross and the victory obtained in the cross, it’s foolishness. There’s no ability on the part of natural man to say that’s anything but foolishness.

But to us who are being saved, it’s the power of God. Why? “It is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?”

There’s no ability in people, and God does this explicitly for a purpose. And the purpose is to humble all men at his feet. As we come into the kingdom of God, we come on our knees. We don’t come with any ability or power in us. If he’d done just the opposite, the very purpose, the very way he uses the preaching of the gospel to effectually call us, the preaching of the thing that would be foolishness to us otherwise, is to humble us before him. There’s no glory on our part that causes us to respond. And there’s also no glory on the part of the one preaching the words.

I read into chapter 2, verse 1, because Paul says the same thing about his preaching. It’s not in his ability to evangelize that he’s counting. It’s upon his calling from God to do that and to effectually call all people. So there’s no ability on the part of the hearer or of the speaker that somehow magically gets this to work. Okay? It’s simply the proclamation of the truth of the gospel, and the Lord God is pleased to use that foolishness, that simple message, to recreate those whom he has loved and atone for the sins of in Christ.

Fourth—well, this is a wonderful effectual. We’re called through a particular means of gospel preaching. Verse 17: “Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect.”

To walk away from the doctrine of effectual calling and to say that it’s up to the evangelist to put the right bait on the hook and to make sure the message is right, Paul says that is the opposite of what he did. And in fact, he says that he did it not with wisdom of words. And if we rely upon the wisdom of words, upon our ability to bring people into the kingdom, then he says the cross of Jesus Christ would be of no effect. It’s that central to the gospel and to a proper understanding of who God and us are. We are called through the means of simple gospel preaching.

Colossians 1:21—wait, I think that’s not right. Let me see. “For since in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.”

So receiver, the speaker, is humbled before God, and God is doing a mighty work through the secondary means of men, but it is not of their abilities.

Fifth, what are we called to? 1 Corinthians 1 tells us: first of all, we’re called to humility. It’s kind of one of the big points of this first chapter of Corinthians—the end result of this should be that we would be humble before God. It wasn’t us. It wasn’t our wise words that brought people to salvation. It wasn’t our wise abilities that God then made us effectually called relative to. No, it’s of him.

Verse 26: “You see your calling, brethren. Observe your calling that not many wise according to the flesh, nor many mighty, nor many noble are called. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty.”

He says that even in the way it works, God doesn’t call, you know, the really cool, wise, sharp, rich people generally. Why? Because he wants to demonstrate that his grace is what’s being proclaimed, not the ability or the importance of men. In the very section where he really states very clearly the doctrine of the effectual calling of a sovereign God, he says the whole point of it is humility.

We’re called to be humble before God. He chose the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence.

That’s our big problem. We want to glory in his presence. And Arminianism and a false gospel, a gospel that says that ultimately man is sovereign instead of God, it makes men glory in his presence because it’s somehow up to me or somehow up to my great evangelistic ways. And God says, “I do not want you glorying as you come before me. I want you ascribing all glory, Lord and honor, to Jesus Christ and to the Father and to the Holy Spirit.” God wants us to be humble, and effectual calling is a doctrine of humility for men.

Secondly, he wants us to be saints. Verse 2 says: “to the church of God, to the church of God, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints.”

We’re called to sainthood. While we’re to be humbled before God, God says that we’re not called just to go to heaven. We’re called to live as sanctified ones here in the context of this earth. And so effectual calling is a calling not just to salvation. It’s an effectual living that God is requiring in us as well.

We’re called to be saints. We’re called to have our whole understanding of who we are wrapped up in a designation that we are the called of God. We’re called to be saints.

Third, we’re called to call. We’re called to call on the name of the Lord. “to the church of God, which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours.”

Our calling is fulfilled every Lord’s day when we come forward and call on God in prayer, and it’s fulfilled in our weeks when we pray effectually to God based on the worship we owe to him. We’re called to be saints. We’re called to be humble, and we’re called to worship God. We are called to serve as saints and worship God. We’re called to call.

Fourth, we’re called to the fellowship of the Son. “God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ our Lord.”

So we could have spent the whole message on this participatory indwelling. We’re called to have fellowship with Jesus. He has fellowship with the Father and the Spirit. And so our calling is absolutely integrated into this idea that we’re not isolated alien individuals—the way Adam and Eve became from one another. We’re called out of isolation into community. We’re called into the community of the Holy Trinity and we’re called into union with Jesus Christ in terms of that Trinity, but also we’re called into union with Christ in the context of the body. We are called specifically—you were called into the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ.

This is what you were called to do.

Finally, or fifthly, we’re called to glorify God. “As it is written, let he who glories, let him glory in the Lord.”

So effectual calling—in the very way that God uses to do it—brings us to give him all glory, Lord and honor. We’re called to glorify God. That’s essential to our calling.

Well, let’s touch on some implications now of this doctrine of effectual grace that we’ve done kind of a survey of here.

There are implications for our sanctification. Remember where all these great things called “called” are put into? It’s put into the first chapter of an epistle to a church that was wonderful and mature and sparkling in its lifestyle? No. It had been filled with problems. He said, “The rest of the epistle is basically a correcting of them. You have divisions.” He says it right away in this first chapter. Not good. Your worship is all messed up. You get together and just spontaneously worship. Don’t do that. He says, “Let things be done decently and in order.” He says, “Even at your, you know, your agape, you guys—some are getting drunk, some have nothing to drink. You’re sitting there. You have people in your body who are involved in gross sexual immorality.” He’s talking to a church. This epistle is given to correct sin. It’s given to increase their sanctification.

How do we do that? Ask yourself—what do you do? You got a child that you know you just continue to have problems. How do you sanctify? You got a husband, a wife. How do you sanctify them? Well, you sure address the problems. We know church discipline and all that stuff. But look where Paul starts. Paul starts with the doctrine of their effectual calling by God. He begins by addressing them as who they are—the called in Christ Jesus. He reminds them what that calling was too. He says, “You were called to the fellowship of Jesus Christ.”

That’s see—that’s a that’s getting him ready. That’s telling them the way they’re going to correct their division problem. If they remember the effectual call of God in their lives, it’s a call to fellowship. You’re all puffed up. “I’m like a Cephas. I’m an Apollos.” You got pride going on. And I’m going to humble you. Not by saying you’re a horrible person, but I’m going to humble you by reminding you of how you got into this. It wasn’t through wisdom. It wasn’t through being the best. It was the grace of God to humble you.

Humility—reminding us who we are in Christ and who we’re not in ourselves—is the beginning of their sanctification. So our sanctification, our exhortations and admonitions to one another, you know, should in like way, I think, begin with our effectual call. We saw Jesus do this in Revelation 2 and 3. Remember, he always tells them, you know, well, here am I. I’ve got what you need, and here’s what you’ve done good, and here’s what you’ve done bad. And then he reminds again that he’s [offering] blessings to them if they persevere. He doesn’t start with what they did bad. He starts with what they’re doing good, and he starts with himself and focusing on himself, the one they’re united to.

So effectual calling is not just some Calvinistic dry doctrine about salvation. It is integral to this epistle of sanctification, and it should be the way we one-another one another. We have a patterning of how to one-another one another well.

I’m having a final exam for Kings Academy kids this week. What’s the theme? Where would we go if we wanted to know how to one-another one-another well? Corinthians is one place. He’s correcting problems, and the way we do that is by reminding each other of our effectual calling in Christ. We don’t say, “You must not be a Christian.” No, we don’t do that. We remind them that they are Christians, that they were effectually called, humbled and called to unity in Christ.

So it has something to do with our sanctification.

Secondly, it has tremendous implications for evangelism, as I’ve already noted, but let’s drive the point home. You know, this is a tremendous text for those of us who want to speak to other people about Jesus because it says you don’t have to take some course on evangelism. You don’t need to know your Bibles all that well. You just need to know about the death and resurrection of Christ for sinners and that all men are sinful apart from him. All you gotta know is a simple gospel. And not only will it not get in your way, it says that really, if you get too fancy-dancy and smart and intelligent and all this stuff—you read too many books about evangelism—you’re going to miss the whole point that God will use the simple message of each of us to talk about Jesus to those that we’re in connection with. He uses that simple truth. It’s not up to you with great words to convince somebody. Don’t worry about that. Open your mouth. Just talk about Jesus.

You know, when I first got serious about the faith after I went away from God in my teenage years, brought back to him—first of all, his effectual [calling] was amazing. You know, I was trying to get away from [a band I was managing]. We moved up to Oregon and they were becoming Christians, and it was just—I was supposed to keep them all together and I had to go find a [new] place. They were just completely falling apart. The Lord God just crushed that band, and they did it in the most saving way. All but one of those men became very committed Christians in very short order, including me. I wanted to get away. I’d hitchhike. I didn’t have a car and hitchhike, you know, [and] men would pick me up. And over and over again, those that gave me rides would talk to me about Jesus, Jesus Christ. I was amazed, and I can’t remember the fine points of their discussion. What I remember is they called me to faith in Jesus in very simple ways.

And then, and this is, you know, God is getting me ready. He’s softening the heart. And then I go out and look for this place to rent out in a trailer court out west of Tiger. And the guy comes out, and I’m thinking, well, at least I’m going to be able to get away [and not] have to hitchhike so much and get away from these Christians. I don’t know why there’s so many of them up here, right? So I go to this place and I want to rent this guy’s upper story of this house, and the first thing he asked me is, “Are you a Christian?”

And I’m like, “Oh, you know,” and I remember looking up to the stars and thinking, “Why am I swimming upstream? Why am I swimming against the tide here? Why am I moving against the hand of a sovereign God who makes these stars move?” And I simply and humbly said, “Yes, actually I am.” And then I began to read the Bible, read through the New Testament right away. The first couple of days it was remarkable.

And see, there was no wise words. There was no great evangelistic tactics. The final blow that God delivered was a simple question: “Are you a Christian?”

This should be tremendously encouraging for us for our evangelism. You know, it’s not what kind of bait you put on the hook. All you doing is throwing out the net. Real easy to throw a net out. No bobbers, no, you know, lures, no flying ties, all that stuff. Now, I—you know, I know that there’s—I’ve kind of stressed this. Of course, it’s, you know, okay to think about those things and who you’re talking to. All fine, all that’s fine and good and dandy. But I’m saying at the bottom level, evangelism is simply throwing out the net and asking folks, “Are you a Christian or not? Do you go to church? Do you believe in Jesus Christ? He died for your sins.” That’s it. That’s all you need.

Well, that’s encouraging. It is for me. I ride this bus sometimes from Cami to Oregon City and back, and I don’t know what to say to people, but the message is simple. It’s tremendously encouraging.

First, that’s why he read verse two or verse one of chapter 2: “I, brethren, when I came to you, I didn’t come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God.”

That’s not how it works. It’s simple, very simple, tremendously encouraging.

Third, it has implications for our worship. The sovereign God—we’re called to glorify him and worship him. Our worship is dialogical. God speaks, we respond. God shows the initiative throughout our worship, and reminding ourselves we worship a sovereign God. We don’t come here with pride because we happen to have chosen for Jesus and the guy who isn’t coming today didn’t. We come knowing that we were hauled in the net.

So it has an impact for our worship. It has impact for our vocation. We’re called to be saints. We’re called to bear fruit. In Matthew, Jesus says that you know, “you didn’t choose me, I chose you, that you might bear fruit.”

We have been called for a purpose. It’s not just to go to heaven. That’s part of it, well, we are called to serve God here. Effectual calling is not about a point-in-time salvation. It’s about a calling to effectual living. Okay? Joshua—once God says, “I’ll be with you wherever you go. You’ll be effective for me. You’ll have fruit wherever you go, Joshua.” We should think the same things. Effectual calling—the powerful sovereign recreating work of God—is a calling for you to be effectual this week in bearing fruit for him.

That Adam was called—he was called to be a farmer, a herdsman, right? You know, we we used to talk about this more, but you know, some people—you know, church services have consecration dedication services for missionaries or pastors, whatever, and that’s just wrong because calling, vocation, vocational calling is redundant, right? ‘Cause “vocate” is calling. But calling has to do with our whole calling in life. And our calling to be herdsmen or veterinarians or mechanics, whatever it is, that is the outworking of this effectual call of the Holy Spirit to have you bear fruit for him.

There’s this relationship between irresistible grace, effectual call, and your vocation. I think in a way, I mean, we’ve sort of fallen in the other ditch almost, but I don’t know anybody that wants to be a pastor coming out of this church. And there’s one or two that want to be missionaries. We so stress the idea of vocational calling in the workplace. We gotta remember that a few of us, you know, we gotta carry on pastoral duties and this sort of stuff in the church. We need some guys like that, too. And some women and men in the mission field. Praise God for Liz who wants to go do that. But you see, I think that’s good what we’ve done here. It’s reminding us that the effectual call is to a vocation, to bear fruit for Jesus. It’s effectual.

It has an application for our psychology as well. Jesus says, “You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I brought you in the net, and I did this so that you might have fruit.” And then he says something very significant: “that your fruit might remain and abide.”

God says that the fruit is indistinguishable from your calling. You don’t know [which] what it is your fruit. Part of it we could look at the fruit of the Holy Spirit in your life—character qualities. Part of it [is] what you’ve done in the earth. Whatever it is, you’re here today because God has effectually called you. And you’re here today to recognize [that] the spirit of God has been at work in your life, bearing fruit. And you’re to be given the great promise of the Savior. Hear these words, good, lovely saints. Take them down deep into your soul. “Your fruit shall abide.”

You see, it’s not up to you. It’s up to the sovereign God. He sovereignly and effectually calls you, and he sovereignly brings that fruit to bear in your life. And he sovereignly says that fruit shall abide. Now, it doesn’t take away our responsibilities. Our response is to say yes, let’s cooperate with that plan. But you see, your life matters. You know, Alexander the Great, the man with the great empire—nothing left. The sand blows it all away. We tend to think this way that our lives just come and go and nothing abides. And there’s some truth to that. God wants to humble us. But Jesus says that effectual calling is to an abidingness to your fruitfulness. Your life will have an effect that goes on and on and on in the providence of God in this earth.

We were at a funeral service yesterday for Robin’s mom. What a lovely thing. By the way, they have their funeral service start at the baptismal—[it was a] memorial service at the baptismal font where God called her to union with Christ as a child, right? Picks up the lamb, puts the [lamb], brings the lamb into union with Christ. Affectionately called [that woman]. She lived 80 years having fruit for Jesus. Is her name on a plaque somewhere? Probably not. She’d hold, you know, a drug-addicted baby. Babies. She had some girls she was trying to mentor and be a big sister to at various times. Did all kinds of small things. But you know that fruit abides. Your life matters. Don’t don’t give in to the almost prideful, self-centered, “woe is me. I’ve lived a lousy life.” No. You’ve been effectually called to effectual living. And God says your life matters. And that fruit shall indeed abide by the grace and the power of Almighty God.

It has a relationship to our prayers. Our savior says he’s called us that our fruit might abide, that you might ask of me what you want for the kingdom, and I’ll grant it. We’re called effectually, but it’s [a] call to effectual living and our savior says [a call] to effectual prayer. Our prayer is effectual in the context of our calling. And then immediately after this he tells them to love one another. “Let love of the saints continue.”

So there’s tremendous implications. It’s not just the doctrine of salvation. It’s what we’re saying, too. It’s what we’re called to do. We don’t need to use fancy words of human wisdom when we talk to people about Jesus. Since God saves us, he gets all the glory and worship, not us. God says we’re called to bear fruit and that fruit will remain. Our lives matter. They matter to him, but more importantly, they have significance in the world around us as well.

God says that this is his basis.

Let’s conclude by looking at Matthew 11. Turn to Matthew 11 in your Bible, verses 20 to 30. We won’t read the whole thing, but just the context is important. I think in chapter 11 of Matthew, Jesus is proclaiming the gospel, and people don’t come to him, you know? So he’s preaching the gospel, and these cities won’t repent. And Jesus changes his evangelistic technique here. We can—does he—what does it say in verse 20? “He began to rebuke the cities,” and when people don’t come when we call them, we sort of think, “well, we gotta make a different call, make them more please[d].” Jesus chose to rebuke them in response to their rebellion because they did not repent. So that’s what’s going on here—is [there] are cities that don’t repent. And he says it’ll be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah than in the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.

Verse 24 looks at verse 25. “At that time”—at the time when the preaching of our Savior’s gospel was not effectual to bringing people to repentance—”at that time Jesus answered.”

What does it mean “Jesus answered”? He answers the circumstances in which he finds the Father has sovereignly placed him. He’s answering the situation that’s just been described. The gospel’s been proclaimed and people have rejected it. At that time, he answers this situation and tells us how to answer it. He says, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in your sight.”

What’s our response to these Calvinistic doctrines where God has chosen a particular people and not others? We can be bitter about that, but we’re to have the mind of our savior. When we see even rejection of the gospel that’s proclaimed, we’re to be like our savior. He’s thanking his father for that circumstance, and he’s thanking his father for both the fact that some people reject it and are not effectually called and others are effectually called. That’s what he says here. “I thank you that you have hidden these things from certain people and I thank you that you have revealed these things to babes.”

Effectual calling—based on the atonement of Christ for his sheep and the foreknowledge of God the Father—this is a reason for thanksgiving in the context of our worship. We don’t swallow this with the, you know, we don’t swallow this with a lump in our throats and it’s hard to swallow. No, we should give thanks to God for these things. It’s his sovereign will. Why? Because, “Father, you have done it because it seemed good in your sight.” That’s enough for Jesus. It’s enough for us. It’s the sovereign’s good pleasure at work.

Notice that he refers to him as “Lord of heaven and earth.” He’s thanking him for sovereignty and who is called effectually and who is not. He’s thanking him for his sovereign election of some in love and his rejection of others. In response to those great truths—the sovereign God, Lord of heaven and earth, absolute sovereign—Jesus says, “I thank you for your sovereignty.” But the other title he uses—he answers and says, “Father, Lord of heaven and earth.”

The Lord God is sovereign. He determines what comes to pass. But he has brought us into this relationship that sees him not just as sovereign, powerful, omnipotent God, but as our Father as well. The will of the Son is—conforming itself, is conformed, of course, to the will of the Father. And if we recognize God our Father and bear his image, then in the midst of effectual calling to some and non-effectual calling, outward calling to others, we say, even as our savior said, “Thank you, Lord God, for it’s pleased you to do these things.”

When people rejected Jesus, Jesus thanked God. That’s our attitude. As we continue to look at the Canons of Dort, the doctrines of grace, our attitude is a thankfulness to God for these very truths.

Let’s pray.

We thank you, Lord God, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you do indeed hide these things from some and reveal them to others, and in a way that’s most attuned to removing the pride of man, bringing babes to salvation and rejecting the wise. We thank you, Lord God, for your sovereignty. We thank you for your love. We thank you for your sovereign election. We thank you for these doctrines of grace that your scriptures teach as well as the doctrines of condemnation, condemnation to those, and reprobation to those who are not drawn effectually to you.

We thank you, Lord God, that these things seemed good in your sight, and so they seem good, as your children, in our sight as well. Now, help us as we come forward, Father, to renew our commitment to speak the simple, mature word of our savior to those that we might come across. Help us to trust your sovereign grace at work in simple words and not try to be smarter—too smart for our own good or for the good of the kingdom. Help us to be simple in our proclamation of the gospel.

Help us, Lord God, also, as we come forward, to offer ourselves anew in calling to you, knowing you have called us effectually. This doctrine of effectual calling is also the doctrine of effectual living and effectual prayer. Make us, Lord God, joyfully submissive to these truths.

In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.