This morning we are reflecting on the fourth letter in TULIP. The “I” stands for Irresistible
Grace, which is the beautiful doctrine that points to God’s deep commitment to
us and how he reaches out to us. We sing the song, “Amazing Grace, how sweet
the sound,” and irresistible grace is all about God making his grace so
sweet to us that, while we may fight against it for a time, in the end our
hearts are so drawn to Jesus that we find we have no choice but to accept his
love for us and commit ourselves to become his followers and children of our
heavenly Father.
The heart of the Canons of Dordt lies in the teaching that our faith is a gift from God, as Paul teaches us
in his letter to the church in Ephesus, “For it is by
grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is
the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s
handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in
advance for us to do.” The Canons of Dordt puts it like this in the third
and fourth point of doctrine, “faith is a gift of God, not in the sense that
it is offered by God for man to choose, but that it is in actual fact bestowed
on man, breathed and infused into him.” This image of how God gives us
faith brings me back to creation where God gives humanity life by bending over
us, making us with his hands and then breathing his life-giving Spirit into us.
This is the same image that the Canons give us of how we are given the gift of
faith, it’s breathed into us as a gift of life.
Ezekiel 36 is all about heart change, changing hearts from stone to flesh. This heart change leads to
relationship change. God’s people kept walking away from him, going after other
gods that were more interesting and seemed to promise a lot more. Now God gets
ticked off at them and allows them to be taken into exile, showing them that
their new gods are weak nothings. But God doesn’t give up on them, he keeps
coming after them. The Jews are far from home, living with loss and grief, not
fitting in here in the land of their conquerors. Now God shows up, “It is not for your sake, people of Israel, that I am going to
do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned
among the nations where you have gone. I will show the holiness
of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have
profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I am proved holy through you
before their eyes. “‘For I will take you out of the nations; I
will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land.”
God’s going to bring them home again!
Then there’s that beautiful picture of renewal and
hope, “I will sprinkle clean water
on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and
from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I
will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”
God acts on us and in us first, making it possible for us to come back to him. He
pours his Spirit into us to move us to follow his
decrees and keep his laws. God does this in a spirit of generosity and
grace, with promises of abundance and flourishing when they return home. Their
land will become like the garden of Eden, their cities rebuilt strong and
fortified, the people becoming as numerous again as sheep, echoes back to God’s
promises to Abraham that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars in
the night sky or the sand on the beach.
Irresistible grace is more about experience than
about head knowledge.
It’s God pursuing you like a lover until the reality of his love overwhelms you
and you find that you can’t say ‘No’ to him. This is the story of the
prophet Hosea in the Old Testament, a prophet who is told to marry a prostitute
and to love her and never give up on her. Hosea and his wife Gomer are a picture
of what our relationship with God is like; we keep running away, God keeps
overwhelming us with his love and desire for us and captivating our hearts. How has God overwhelmed you with his love and desire for
you, how have you experienced God’s irresistible grace in your life?
The Arminians taught that “the Spirit calls
inwardly all those who are called outwardly by the gospel
invitation; He does all that He can to bring every sinner to salvation. But
inasmuch as man is free, he can successfully resist the Spirit's call… man's
free will limits the Spirit in the application of Christ's saving work. The
Holy Spirit can only draw to Christ those who allow Him to have His way with
them. Until the sinner responds, the Spirit cannot give life. God's grace,
therefore, is not invincible; it can be, and often is, resisted and thwarted by
man.” Arminius believed that even though God may
want us to be his children, we can tell God “No.” God’s not able to persuade us to become part of his
family, even though that’s what he wants. Our salvation depends on us accepting
God first.
The Reformers taught that “the Holy Spirit extends to the elect a special inward call that inevitably
brings them to salvation. The external call (which is made to all without
distinction) can be, and often is, rejected; whereas the internal call (which
is made only to the elect) cannot be rejected; it always results in conversion.
By means of this special call the Spirit irresistibly draws sinners to Christ.
He is not limited in His work of applying salvation by man's will, nor is He
dependent upon man's cooperation for success. The Spirit graciously causes the
elect sinner to cooperate, to believe, to repent, to come freely and willingly
to Christ. God's grace, therefore, is invincible; it never fails to result in
the salvation of those to whom it is extended.” For
me, this is a huge comfort, knowing that God doesn’t give up on me, that he’s
going to persist until his grace moves me to accept him. God’s also working to
transform me. He loves me so much he accepts me for who I am, and he loves me
too much to let me stay the same, but gives us the Holy Spirit to make me more
and more who he has created me to be. This goes for you too.
Irresistible grace leads to what in church
language, we call regeneration. The Canons describe it this way, “This
divine grace of regeneration does not act in people as if they were 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.” The Holy Spirit helps our hearts
make a U-turn back to Jesus. The Holy Spirit works in our hearts to attract us
to Jesus by reminding us of how much Jesus loves us, how he went to the cross
to die for you so that you can have peace, hope and love shape your life and help
us obey and become more like Jesus. It’s like we got sick and the Holy Spirit
works to make us better again. This is a huge comfort to me because it fills me
with hope that whenever I am talking to others about Jesus, whenever I’m
praying for my neighbours and friends, and others to accept Jesus, I can trust
that Jesus is going to love on them so much that they’ll finally submit to him.
There was an older man in Thunder Bay who kept showing up at the Christian Community Center guys’
group.
He was such a miserable guy that at times we would even ask him why he was even
there. He would never give us a straight answer. Then one evening, as we were
talking about what it means to be a man after God’s own heart, the other
leader there with me looked straight at this miserable guy and said, “It’s
time you admit that God wants you.” I was shocked when the guy’s response was
to start crying. He said, “I didn’t want to come, but I couldn’t help
myself, I had to keep coming to hear that someone loved me too much to give up
on me, but I could never really believe that until right now. Thank you.”
That’s irresistible grace in action.
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