Pastor Matthias continues our sermon series in our Five Doctrinal Distinctives. This week, Pastor Matthias speaks on Reformed Soteriology.

CG Questions: 5 DISTINCTIVES
Week 3: REFORMED SOTERIOLOGY - GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY IN SALVATION

Questions:

-Read through Ephesians 1:3-14 out loud as a group. What in this passage stands out to you? Are there any parts of this doctrine that you struggle with? If so Why?

-What's your salvation story? Do you remember choosing God or feeling God choose you?

-Why do you think people have struggled with the doctrine of election?

-As a Christian, the doctrine of Election answers the question “why did God choose me?”
Most simply as: “because he loved/loves me.” What does this tell you about the character, person, and heart of God?

-How should we treat/talk with those who do not hold to this doctrine? If you don’t hold to this doctrine what do you do with the verses we shared in the sermon this week?

Scripture:
Ephesians 1:3-14

THE APOSTLES REGARDING ELECTION

Ephesians 1:4-5, 2 Thessalonians 2:13-14, 2 Timothy 1:9, Acts 13:48, 1 Thessalonians 5:9

JESUS REGARDING ELECTION

John 5:21, John 6:44, John13:18, John 15:16-19, Matthew 22:14

Note, Quotes, and Slides:

MISCONCEPTIONS REGARDING ELECTION:
1. Election is not Fatalistic or Mechanistic
2. Election is not based on God’s Foreknowledge of Faith or Merit
3. Election does not lead to License
4. Election is not fair

Order of Salvation:
Election - Gospel Call - Regeneration - Conversion - Justification - Adoption - Sanctification - Perseverance - Death - Glorification

Monergism vs Synergism
Calvinism vs Arminianism

PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF ELECTION:
1. Humility
2. Hope
3. Evangelistic Courage
4. Worship

An Act of God before Creation in which He chooses some people to be saved, not on account of any foreseen merit in them, but only because of His sovereign good pleasure.
~ Wayne Grudem Systematic Theology, p.670
"I believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterward; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love. So I am forced to accept that great Biblical doctrine."
~Charles Spurgeon

"The wonder is not that some are saved and others are not, the wonder is that any are saved at all. For we deserve nothing at God’s hand but judgment. If we receive what we deserve (judgment), or if we receive what we do not deserve (mercy), in neither case is God unjust. Therefore, if anybody is lost, the blame is theirs, but if anybody is saved, the credit is God’s. This paradox contains a mystery our present knowledge cannot solve, but it is consistent with scripture, history, and experience."
~John Stott (Reading Romans with John Stott)