The Chosen Believed

Tom Shrader walks through Acts 13:42-52, tracing Paul and Barnabas's ministry in Antioch of Pisidia as they preach the gospel to Jews and then Gentiles, face persecution, and move on filled with joy. The focal point is Acts 13:48, where Shrader argues that belief follows appointment to eternal life — not the reverse — grounding salvation entirely in God's sovereign grace rather than human decision. He closes by drawing out three practical responses: humility, thankfulness, and a liberated approach to evangelism in which the believer's duty is faithful proclamation, while God alone saves.

“If you're a Christian today, you're a Christian today not because you made a decision for Christ. That decision for Christ was evidence that he'd already changed your heart.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Acts

Recorded: 2000 at East Valley Bible Church

Duration: 48 min

Themes: salvation, grace, evangelism, humility, thankfulness, perseverance, sovereignty of god, faith, new believer, doubting salvation, struggling with pride, sharing the gospel, feeling unworthy, questioning free will, seeker exploring christianity, young adult

Scripture: Acts 13:38, Acts 13:42-52, Acts 13:48, Acts 1:8, Matthew 10, Matthew 15, Romans 1:16, Romans 9:10-13, Romans 10:1, 1 Thessalonians 1, 2 Thessalonians 2, Ephesians 1, John 6:44, John 3:16, 1 John, 2 Timothy 3:11, Luke 10, Matthew 10:34-36, Philippians 1

Theological Themes: election, predestination, monergism, soteriology, eternal security, perseverance of the saints, sovereign grace, justification by faith

Full Transcript

Setting the Scene

Paul and Barnabas have arrived and moved inland into the Asia Minor area, into the region of Galatia. They went to Antioch, and on the Sabbath they went to the synagogue, where they delivered a message to the Jews and to the devout Gentiles gathered there. They gave them a history lesson of what God has done in the nation of Israel, including the fact that God promised a Messiah, a Savior, and that this promise was fulfilled in a descendant from David in Jesus Christ. Paul reminded the Jews that they themselves had been part of fulfilling the prophecy, for they had participated, as it was foretold, in the crucifixion and death of Christ. Christ had risen from the dead and appeared to many.

In verse 38, Paul said — and I am reading from the New Living Translation this morning — "Brothers, listen! In this man Jesus there is forgiveness for your sins. Everyone who believes in Him is freed from all guilt and declared right with God" — and now the bombshell — something that the law, the Jewish law, could never do. This exploded in their midst. These Jews were convinced that through their diligent keeping of the law they would receive and achieve salvation. Paul comes along and says, no, it is not by your might, not by your power — it is by a move of God that presents salvation to you.

The Response to the Message

When they were done, there was, as you would expect, a reaction. Verse 42: "As Paul and Barnabas were going out, the people kept begging that these things might be spoken to them before the next Sabbath." They said, "See you next week," and the people said, "Do we have to wait until then? We want to hear these things now." When the meeting of the synagogue had broken up, many of the Jews and of the God-fearing proselytes — that is, those Gentiles who were fully converted, including circumcision — followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, were urging them to continue in the grace of God.

Apparently some had already responded at this point, and Paul and Barnabas say, "We want you to continue in this grace." One of the marks of somebody who is truly converted is that they do not fall away. Do they sin? Yes. Are there times of hardship and suffering? Yes — but they do not fall away. In 1 John, John talks about those who had left the church, and he says not to worry: they were not really part of them, for if they had been part of them they would have never drifted away. One of the marks of a truly converted person is that they persevere to the end. If you are here today and you know Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are as certain of heaven as the saints who are already there.

The Whole City Assembles

Verse 44: "The next Sabbath, nearly the whole city assembled to hear the Word of God." The text does not say so, but we can reasonably imagine there was a buzz in the city all week. Did you hear what happened at the synagogue? Did you hear that this message has come? Paul is here, preaching salvation by grace. He is preaching a gospel that says Jesus died and rose again from the dead, and that we do not find salvation in the law — we find salvation in grace.

And wherever that begins to happen, almost inevitably, the enemy moves. When the Jews saw the crowds — there is their motive — they were filled with jealousy, just as the Jewish leaders were with Jesus, just as the Jews were with Peter when he began to preach and people responded. They were jealous of the crowds, jealous of the notoriety, worried about what it would do to them and their agenda, and they began contradicting. The term "contradicting" is in the continuous sense: they were continually speaking against Paul's message, and they were blaspheming him.

Turning to the Gentiles

But then, verse 46: "Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly, saying, 'It is necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first. Since you repudiate it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.'" By their refusal, they had condemned themselves. They had judged themselves unworthy of eternal life.

When Jesus was on the earth, He sent His disciples out — as recorded in Matthew 10 — and said to them, "Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans. Rather, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." In Matthew 15, Jesus said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." That was what He came to do: to reach out to the Jew. But then the Great Commission is delivered, and it says, "Go make disciples of all nations." We brought the message to the Jew first, and now to the Gentiles.

The Gospel to All People

The key verse in our study of the book of Acts is Acts 1:8: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, all of Samaria, and the remotest parts of the earth." Now the gospel is to go out to all people, all places, at all times. In Romans 1:16, Paul says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of salvation to the Jew first, but also to the Gentile."

Paul loves the Jewish people and has a deep heart for them. In Romans 9 he speaks of his passion to see his people saved, saying he would even give away his own salvation if it were possible so that they might be saved. In Romans 10:1 he writes, "Brethren, my heart's desire and my prayer to God is for them, for their salvation" — speaking of the nation of Israel. But as Paul also said, the gospel and Jesus Christ were a stumbling block to the Jews and a stepping stone to the Gentiles. The message goes to the Jews, and the Jews reject it. Paul then — as Luke records for us — declares, "For thus the Lord has commanded us..."

The Word of the Lord Spreads

"I have placed you as a light for the Gentiles, that you should bring salvation to the end of the earth." Paul and Barnabas speak out boldly, saying that it is necessary for this to happen. When the Gentiles heard this, their reaction was the opposite of the Jews. They were not moved to continually contradict and blaspheme. They were rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord.

This is where the power lies. It is not that Paul and Barnabas were bringing in a new world order, talking against the government, or addressing social issues, politics, or a better perspective on self-esteem. They taught the word of the Lord. And where the word of the Lord is taught, things begin to happen.

Look at what happens: as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed, and the word of the Lord was being spread through the whole region. That is the power.

A Living Example

I spoke at a church school this week, and the gentleman who introduced me — someone I did not know, and I do not think he knew me either — mentioned East Valley Bible Church. He said he had been talking to someone that week who goes there, and his question was: why is it growing? Apparently this man had heard through the grapevine that the church had gone from 600 to plus or minus 3,300 every week, and that was foreign to his concept of how a church typically functions. The assumption behind the question was that the church must be doing something wrong, compromising somehow, because God would never just grow a church otherwise.

The answer his friend gave him — and I do not know who said it, but this person had it figured out — was simply: all that they are doing is teaching the truth. That is what happens here as well. It is the word of the Lord that is spread. It is the word of the Lord that they proclaim. Things begin to happen.

The Gospel Divides

But there is a problem. The Jews aroused devout women of prominence and leading men of the city, and they instigated persecution against Paul and Barnabas and drove them out of the district. Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:11 and says, "You know of the persecution and suffering that was part of what happened to us at Antioch" — that is where we are — "and Iconium and Lystra." It is reasonable to assume that they were beaten there and that there was all sorts of external pressure and suffering.

I want to remind you: these are the right men, in the right time, in the right place, with the right message. They are right where God wants them. But conflict and suffering is almost always part of the sharing of the gospel.

John MacArthur writes this: "Conflict will often occur when the true gospel is being preached today. The gospel does not gather everyone together, nor is it generally a tolerable opinion that nonbelievers can take or leave." You have seen that in your own life. You can have spiritual conversations, and as long as we are talking about God as some kind of ethereal, non-described, non-defined power, everybody is happy. But once we begin to say it is the God of the Bible, the God who will judge sin, and more importantly, that it is about Jesus Christ dying for the sins of His people — dying and then being raised from the dead — all of a sudden people say they do not want to hear that anymore. That is too narrow.

Jesus Christ divides. The gospel divides. As MacArthur says, "The gospel splits people, dividing the penitent from the hard-hearted, the saved from the unsaved, the righteous from the reprobate, those who love the gospel truth and those who reject it."

We do not need John MacArthur to tell us that, because Jesus said it Himself: "Do not think I came to earth to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father." The word "against" there literally means to cut into two — to separate completely, and oftentimes permanently. It is the only time we see that word in the New Testament. "I came to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's enemies will be members of his household." This is what the gospel does. The gospel divides. The gospel separates.

A Warning to Those Who Think They Are Christians

Nonbelievers pull away from the gospel — even those who say they are Christians. Did you hear Tom's testimony? It was interesting that throughout all those years, he thought he was a Christian. He even periodically attended church. You could be here under that same false notion this morning, thinking that somehow you are a Christian. After all, here you are at eleven o'clock, with plenty of other things you could be doing. That, in and of itself, must have some merit — it must indicate something, and indeed it may. But what it does not mean is that you are saved.

Shaking the Dust

Here is what happens next. Paul and Barnabas shook the dust off their feet in protest and went down the road to Iconium, and the disciples were continually filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. In shaking the dust off their feet, they did what Jesus had instructed His disciples in Luke 10. Jesus said, "Whatever city you enter and they do not receive you, go into its streets and say, 'Even the dust of your city which clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Be sure of this, that the kingdom of God has come near.'"

One commentator writes that the Jews of Paul's day were scrupulous about not bringing Gentile dust back into Israel. By their act of shaking off the dust, Paul and Barnabas were saying in effect that they considered the Jews at Antioch no better than the pagans. There could be no stronger condemnation. Those Jews were left in their obstinate rejection.

Joy and the Spirit-Filled Life

They were filled with joy, not happiness. Happiness is circumstantial. Joy transcends circumstance — joy based on a relationship. So as life brings its ups and downs, there is joy and peace in the midst of it all. They were filled with joy even though they had just been beaten, even though they were suffering.

They were also filled with the Holy Spirit. There is a continual control of the Holy Spirit in their life because they are obedient — that is what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the driving force in their life. Their number one desire, their passion, is to follow God, to follow His Word, to do as Christ had commanded them to do. And consequently, they are filled with joy, filled with the Holy Spirit, and things are happening around them — people are coming to Christ, and there is power and strength around them.

The Word Preached and Many Believed

Now let us go back and really focus on one verse: verse 48. When the Gentiles heard this gospel — when they heard that the good news was available to them — they began to rejoice and to glorify, filled with glory for the Word of the Lord. The Word was taught, the Word was proclaimed, and look at what happened. The second half of that verse tells us: "and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed."

This is what happens so often when the Word of the Lord is preached. The Word is shared openly, and many believed. And because they believed — in other words, the result of the preaching was that many believed — the result of their belief was that they had eternal life.

What Eternal Life Means

When we think of eternal life, we typically think of heaven. And for me, when I think of heaven, I often think as much about the things that are not there as the things that are. There is no sorrow there, no death there, no sin there, no tears there, no pain there, no darkness there, no ungodly people there. I am there, free from the curse of Adam, in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ with a group of saints worshiping. Heaven is where Christ is — it is the eternal bliss of communion with the God-man.

But we try to bring this out frequently: eternal life begins here and now as well. Jesus said, "I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly" — the abundant life, life as it was designed to be. There is power in knowing Christ, and life here is transformed.

There is a myth — it is a lie — that the divorce rate among born-again, evangelical Christians is the same as the world's. I reject that categorically. The statistic being cited is that the divorce rate among those in the church and those in the world is the same. That may or may not be true, but it assumes that everyone in the church is a Christian. My experience over the last ten, fifteen, twenty years has taught me that simply is not the case. I do not believe that born-again Christians divorce at a rate of fifty percent. Do Christians have problems in marriage? Absolutely. Do some of those marriages end in divorce? Unfortunately, yes. But a Christian has the power to experience life as it was designed to be lived, right here and right now, and that transforms and transcends every area of their life.

Why Did They Believe?

The result of the gospel being preached was that many believed. The result of their belief was that they received eternal life. Here is the central question: why did they believe? Notice what the verse says — "as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed." It does not say, "as many as believed were appointed to eternal life." They believed because they were appointed to eternal life. They were saved by grace — God's grace, unmerited favor, God giving us what we do not deserve.

What we deserve is hell, punishment, and eternal separation from God. But what He gives us is grace. He gives us what we do not deserve. He gives us heaven. We are saints, and He calls us righteous because of Christ's death on the cross. It comes down to a simple three-word sentence — one that anyone who calls themselves a Christian would embrace: God saves sinners.

Salvation From God's View

What we want to do is look at salvation not from your experience, but from God's view. Your experience is this: somebody presented the gospel to you and you responded. Perhaps you were in a crusade setting, heard the gospel, and came forward in repentance and faith. Perhaps someone shared the principles of the gospel with you over a cup of coffee and you prayed to receive Christ. Perhaps you were at summer camp and heard the message and that was the moment. That is your experience, and it is real.

But we are going deeper than that. We are asking the question: why did you believe? How is it that you and a sibling, raised in the same environment, the same family, are in completely different places — you walking with the Lord today and that sibling not? Was it that you were simply smarter? Was it that someone came along with exactly the right words and could answer your questions, so you just connected? Was it that you had a better opportunity, or that the person who explained the gospel to you simply did a better job?

The answer is in that three-word sentence: God saves sinners. God — the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, working together — did everything from beginning to end to bring you to a point of salvation.

The Condition of Man

A guilty person, a helpless, powerless person is, and this is a key phrase, unable to do God's will. This is a key part for us to understand. We had a baby dedication this morning at eight, and a really cute kid, six months old. The kid was well-behaved, just sat there and looked around at it all and laughed. Something really cool about this was that we had four generations present. The child was here, his mom and dad were here, grandma and grandpa were here, and great-grandma and great-grandpa were here. The great-grandpa came up and prayed. It was a great deal.

But a lot of people in the room failed to understand what a wretched little sinner we had here. I spared the eight o'clock service of this point — I thought I'd let them get out. And I really believe if you talk to mom and dad, they could already say, "We are seeing signs of selfishness here. We're seeing signs where this kid does what he wants when he wants it, and when we try to pull that away from him, he reacts with anger and he'd rip our throat out if he had any strength or power to do it." That is the condition of man. But God — the triune God — saves sinners.

God Does the Choosing

We are going to look at salvation from God's perspective. What does the Bible say about salvation? There are a lot of issues that fall into that conversation, but we especially want to look at this issue of choosing. Here is what the Bible says: God did the choosing.

Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 and in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 to the church at Thessalonica, and in both cases he makes this point. He says, "Brothers, I know of your election by God." And again: "We always give thanks for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation." You were destined for glory from the very beginning — not because of anything you did, not because of who you were, but because of the work that God did in your life. God chose you. God selected you. God determined that you one day would be saved.

Not only did He make this choice, He made this choice before the foundations of the earth, before the creation of the world. In Ephesians chapter 1, Paul writes to the church at Ephesus about this and says He chose us in Christ before the foundations of the world. There is a purpose to that. He chose us so that we would be holy and blameless before Him. It is not some random, arbitrary choice that God made. God intervened and chose us for the purpose of seeing our lives become holy and pure, that our lives would become a display case for the work of God. Before the foundations of the earth, God determined who He would save.

Not Based on Our Works

There is something else about this choosing, this predestination: it was a choice not based on anything that we did. Here is what Paul writes to Timothy: "God who saved us and called us with a holy calling" — the word translated "called" there could also be rendered "chosen" — "God who saved us and chose us with a holy choosing, not according to our works." He didn't look at us and say, "That's a pretty good person there — if I can just come in and take off the rough edges, I really have a gem here." No, it had nothing to do with our works, nothing to do with our desires, nothing to do with there being something intrinsically more valuable in us than in others. He did not choose us according to our works, but according to His own purpose, according to His own plan.

Now, for many of you this is a reminder, but for some of you this is new. In a sense, it is almost unfair to spring this on you like this, but you need to begin to digest it. As you begin to think about this, your defense mechanisms kick in, and I think I know what they are. You are already saying, "Tom just doesn't realize this yet, but here is what happened: indeed, God did choose us — you can't argue about that — and indeed He did choose us before the creation of the earth — you can't argue about that. But He chose us because He looked down the corridors of time. He is God. He looked down the corridors of time and saw that at some point in the future we were going to choose Him, so His choosing of us was based on our choosing Him."

The Logic of Predetermination

The words themselves logically break that argument down. If He chose you because you were going to choose Him, then it is not predetermination — it is post-determination. And it gets even deeper than that. If you were going to choose Him without His intervention, then your choosing would have been based on some good work in you. No — God did not foresee your faith. In fact, what He saw was that you were never going to respond to Him on your own. "It does not depend on a man who wills or on a man who runs, but on the mercy of God."

This is an important point. If you remember no other verse, you must get this one, and it is simple. It is a linchpin in this whole conversation: John 6:44 — "No one can come to the Father unless the Father draws him." In this conversation, people frequently want to say, "What about John 3:16? 'For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, and whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.'" That is absolutely true. Whoever believes in Him has eternal life — but that is not what we are talking about. We are talking about why they believe. Here is what Jesus says in John 6:44: no one can believe.

No One Can Come on Their Own

You are dead in your sins and trespasses. You do not have in you the ability to do good. No one does good, no, not one. We say, "Wait a minute, I see people who feed the hungry, I see people who take care of the poor, I see people who go and mow other people's grass and do nice things." God says, "Here's the problem: you're looking at the action. I'm looking at the heart, and the heart is wretched and lost."

Is coming to Christ a good thing? I would say yes — and no one does good. No one in and of themselves comes to Christ. No one can come. No one has the desire. If God looked down the corridor of time and did not intervene, He would see nothing but billions and billions of God-haters who would say, "Get away from me, get that gospel away from me, I don't want anything to do with it."

No one has the ability to come — unless. We know English, so we know that word means there is a pre-existing condition, something has to happen — unless God draws you. The natural answer is, "Well, God draws everybody, doesn't He?" No. Because all that He draws come to Him. All that hear His voice come to Him. And none of His sheep will ever be separated from the Good Shepherd.

God does not look down the corridors of time and say, "Those people are going to choose Me, so I'll do a preemptive strike here and move first." God reaches down out of His grace and out of His mercy and gives you the ability to respond. That is what Paul says to the church at Philippi — in essence: "For to you it has been granted to believe in Him." You have been given the ability to believe in Him.

God's Choice Is Based on Mercy, Not Merit

It is so important to understand that when we look at God's sovereign choice, that choice is based on His mercy. Turn with me to Romans chapter 9. Paul is dealing with the whole issue of our security in Christ. In chapter 8, he speaks about how "all things work together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose." He then asks what can separate us from the love of Christ, what can come into our life that pulls us away — and he says absolutely nothing.

But why is that the case? The answer is that God has chosen us. Paul offers an illustration beginning in Romans 9, verse 10. The son being spoken of is Isaac. When Isaac grew up, he married Rebecca, who gave birth to twins.

Paul wants to make a specific point about God's choosing, and here is what he says in verse 11: "But before they were born, before these twins were born, before they had done anything good or bad, she received a message from God. This message proves that God chooses according to His own plan, not according to our good or bad works."

Make sure you understand the scene. Same father, same mother, twins in the womb. They had not yet been born. They had not done anything bad to be condemned or anything good to be rewarded. They are there in the womb. And this message comes — God says to her, "The descendants of your older son will serve the descendants of your younger son." Verse 13: "In the words of Scripture, God says, 'Jacob I loved, Esau I hated. Jacob I accepted, Esau I rejected.'"

Do you feel the full impact of that? Two boys in the womb, had not yet done anything good or bad. Paul says he does not want us to miss this — there is no merit and there is no penalty here. God chooses.

Justice, Mercy, and the Fairness Question

Paul also understood the way we think, so he knew that for two thousand years, and as long as anybody reads those words, we would say, "That's not fair. That's not right." So Paul asked: Was God being unfair? Of course not. Was God doing anything wrong? No.

Esau gets justice. Jacob gets mercy. No one gets injustice. No one is treated unfairly. Esau got exactly what he deserved. But God decided to extend mercy to Jacob — for no reason in terms of what Jacob was, or what he would do, or what he had done. He extended mercy for exactly the reason God Himself states: "I'll show mercy to anyone I choose and I'll show compassion to anyone I choose."

If you are a Christian today, you are a Christian not because you made a decision for Christ. That decision for Christ was evidence that He had already changed your heart. Your heart was hard, it could not do good, it could not come to Him — but He intervened. He caused you to be born again. He gave you a new heart. He saved you through grace. How do we know that you were a recipient of God's grace? You have faith.

The Practical Results: Humility and Thankfulness

Let me give you the practical result of this. Number one, your heart should be filled with humility. I hear people say, "If you believe God chooses you, it puffs you up and makes you arrogant." Are you kidding? I'll tell you what actually puffs you up and makes you arrogant — thinking that you chose Him.

For the longest time, I thought, "I didn't have much faith, but at least I had that mustard seed, and I'm hanging on to the fact that I could produce that mustard seed." I was pretty proud of that mustard seed. It wasn't much, but it was mine. And then God opened my eyes to His Word, and as I began to study, I realized — I didn't even have the mustard seed. This is not something that makes you proud and arrogant. It makes you humble.

Here is the second thing it does: it makes you thankful. If God had not intervened in your life, you would have experienced an empty life here — a life with no meaning and no purpose — and far greater than that, you would spend eternity in hell separated from God. We cannot microwave your spiritual growth; there is simply no way to do that. It takes time. But one of the truths that will jumpstart this is to understand that God saved you, that God intervened, that God the Father chose you before the foundations of the earth.

The Work of God in Salvation

God the Son, Jesus Christ, when He died on the cross, paid the penalty for the sin of His people. The Holy Spirit, at the appointed time, came along and ripped out your old heart and put a new heart in there that was sensitive and desirous of the things of God — a heart that was not at war with Him. Because you now have peace with God, you begin to experience the peace of God.

Evangelism Set Free

There is one more thing to consider: what does this doctrine do to evangelism? One might conclude that if God is going to choose whoever He is going to choose, then there is no point in evangelizing. But that misunderstands the purpose of evangelism entirely. We do not evangelize in order to win anyone to Christ. We evangelize out of obedience, with the understanding that our obedience is fulfilled when we proclaim the truth and God's glory is displayed in that proclamation.

I never share my faith with an anticipation that I am going to win a soul to Christ. I cannot win a soul to Christ — that is God's job. All of a sudden, then, evangelism becomes an extraordinarily freeing experience. Whether that person responds or does not respond, it does not matter in the sense that the outcome is God's job, not mine. My job is to proclaim the whole gospel.

In a world that is running away from hard truth, many are trying to find the very minimum they can tell the unbeliever because they do not want to offend anyone. But it is not our job to offend or not offend — it is our job to proclaim the truth, and the truth is offensive. In evangelism, you can go and in love say, "Jesus Christ died on the cross — come to Him in repentance and faith," and plead with people to respond. Whether they do or do not is God's concern, not yours.

A Faulty View of Salvation

This doctrine is enormous in its practical implications. We live at a time when many Christians are in very bad shape spiritually, and the reason is that they do not see God for who He is. I believe it is because they hold a faulty view of salvation.

They think they chose God. They think they are the ones who got this ball rolling. They think God ought to be very pleased that they heard the gospel and responded. In that way of thinking, man is magnified — and you can see how it opens the door to all sorts of false teaching.

God Magnified

But when we come along and say it is not us, it is Him — praise and honor and glory to Him — our God is made large. He is magnified. "Oh, magnify the Lord." How do we magnify Him? One of the great ways is to understand that He saved you, and that you now have both the privilege and the responsibility to obediently respond by sharing that gospel with those around you.

This is a key, fundamental truth of the historic Christian faith that every believer needs to understand. If this is new to you, we spent six or seven weeks on this in a tape series called *God's Plan for Salvation*, available in the bookstore or by order. There are also books available on this subject. What a great message. What a great truth.

Closing Prayer

Father, please help us see the truth of this, and let us love the freedom that comes with it in terms of evangelism. But break our hearts, break our pride, and make us thankful people to You, because You saved us. We pray it to You in Jesus' name, amen.