the doctrine of election and evangelism — James M. Boice

“and all who were appointed for eternal life believed” — Acts 13:48

"Isn’t it interesting that we should have this statement of the doctrine of election right in the middle of this great evangelistic story? There are people who cannot imagine how anybody can be an evangelist if God decides who will be saved and then saves them. The argument goes, “If God is going to save certain people, God will save them regardless. What I do doesn’t matter. Or, if it depends on me, then it depends on me and you must not talk about election.”
Actually, those who have had the greatest faith in God’s electing power are also those who, by the grace of God, have proved to be the most effective evangelists. Virtually all the famous missionary pioneers were believers in election.
“Why did they go out to evangelize, then, if they believed God was going to save people anyway?”
That isn’t quite the way to put it. If God is going to save someone, God will save them. That is true. But it is not quite correct to say that God will save them anyway, because when we say, “God will save them anyway,” we mean that God will save them apart from our (or another’s) witness, and that is not true. The God who appoints the ends also appoints the means, and the means he has appointed in the evangelization of other people is our witness.
We are to take the gospel into all the world. But as we go we are to know that God will work through that witness to bring to faith those he has appointed.
I sometimes say I do not know how you can evangelize any other way, at least not in a thinking manner. Suppose it does not depend on God; suppose it depends on you. Suppose people are saved because you are eloquent or because you have the right answers or because you happen to be in the right place at just the right time—entirely apart from God’s election. If that is true, it means that if you do not have the right answers, if you are not in the right place, if you do not present the gospel in just the right way, then these people will perish and it will be your fault. I do not know how anybody can live with that.
On the other hand, if you believe that God has appointed some for eternal life and that as you testify God will use that testimony to bring those persons to faith, the burden is removed and witnessing becomes what it was meant to be: a joy, as it obviously was for Paul and Barnabas."

— James M. Boice (1997). Acts: an expositional commentary (pp. 248–249). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

To pray is the obvious, natural thing for a child to do — Martyn Lloyd-Jones

"Prayer is something which is expressive of the relationship between the child and the Father. Now I think that is a very important argument. You show me a man who does not pray very much and I will tell you the real problem of that man. It is that he does not know God, he does not know God as his Father. That is the trouble. The problem is not that he is not a moral man, or that he is not a good man. He can be highly moral, he may be very faithful in Christian church work, there may be nothing he is not prepared to do, but if he does not pray, I tell you that the essence of that man’s trouble is that he does not know God as his Father. For those who know God best are the ones who speak to him most of all.
There is no need to prove a thing like this—the little child always speaks to his Father. Have you not often noticed how the child of some great man talks to him freely, while another man going into his presence is nervous. Not so the child; the child speaks freely, because he knows the relationship and so he speaks to his father. And that is why the most saintly people are the ones who pray most; that is why the Lord Jesus Christ prayed more than anybody else, because he knew God in a way nobody else knew him. That, then, is the way to approach this question of prayer. The whole trouble with people who get into difficulties over prayer is that they start at the end instead of at the beginning. You do not start with the desire for answers, you start with adoration, and it is because we forget this all important matter that we tend to get into such perplexities. To pray is the obvious, natural thing for a child to do and there is nothing that expresses more eloquently or more cogently the whole relationship of man to God as prayer. That is the first thing. So, then, I think that the saints and, supremely, our Lord himself, prayed to God, primarily, not to ask for things but to assure their own hearts and to maintain their contact with God and to make certain of their contact and communion with him.
Our whole idea of prayer is false. We think of prayer only as guidance and requests. Now if you were to put that into practice in human relationships you would regard it as insulting. No, the thing the saint wants to know above everything else is that all is well between his soul and the Father. There is nothing the saint delights in more than to know God as his Father. He likes to maintain the contact and communion, to assure his heart before God and in the presence of God. The saint is in this difficult world, there are temptations from the outside and the whole world is against us, and the saint is tried—sometimes he almost despairs. So he goes to God immediately, not to ask this or that but just to make certain that all is well there, that the contact is unbroken and perfect, that he can assure his heart and know that all is well.
That is what our Lord is doing here in John 17, and that is the thing which stands out most frequently in this prayer. Our Lord is assuring his own human heart in the presence of his Father…"

— Martyn Lloyd-Jones (2000). The assurance of our salvation: Exploring the depth of Jesus' prayer for His own: Studies in John 17 (33–35). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.

Paul’s order of salvation — B.B. Warfield

Ephesians 3:14-19 — “We note the significant order of the requests. First, the work of the Spirit in the heart; second, the realizing knowledge of the Gospel; third, the Christian life. Men sometimes seek other orders. We hear the cry around us daily of first the life, then doctrine. Paul’s order is, first the doctrine, then the life. We hear the cry around us of first know, then believe. Paul’s order is, first believe, then know…
What in detail is his [Paul’s] order of salvation? Just this: first, the Gospel is proclaimed; secondly, there is the preparation of the heart by the Spirit; thirdly, then faith and Christ’s indwelling through faith; fourthly, through this indwelling we grow strong to apprehend the truth of Christ’s love; fifthly, by this apprehended knowledge we are enabled to live a Christian life. Search and look: and you will find the same order everywhere in Paul and in the New Testament…
It issues hence into all Christian sentiments and activities. First the Apostle mentions love; “being rooted and grounded in love” (Eph 3:17) is the intermediate step to the apprehension of Christ’s love. Love apprehends love. Out of this Christ-filled and Christ-led heart, we are able to see His love and to appreciate it. Hence, next, knowledge. And then, out of this knowledge, life.
Now, observe as to Christ’s indwelling: (1) Christ may dwell in us; (2) He dwells in us through faith; (3) His dwelling in us is the source of all our knowledge of the Gospel and of all our Christian walk.”

— B.B. Warfield, Faith and Life, (“the fullness of God” sermon)

righteous in Christ — C. H. Spurgeon

“As Christ was made sin, and yet never sinned, so are we made righteousness, though we cannot claim to have been righteous in and of ourselves. Sinners though we be, and forced to confess it with grief, yet the Lord doth cover us so completely with the righteousness of Christ, that only his righteousness is seen, and we are made the righteousness of God in him. This is true of all the saints, even of as many as believe on his name. Oh, the splendor of this doctrine! Canst thou see it, my friend? Sinner though thou be, and in thyself defiled, deformed, and debased, yet if thou wilt accept the great Substitute which God provide for in the person of his dear Son, thy sins are gone from thee, and righteousness has come to thee. Thy sins were laid on Jesus, the scapegoat: they are thine no longer, he has put them away. I may say that his righteousness is imputed unto thee; but I go further, and say with the text, "Thou art made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).”

— C. H. Spurgeon, The Heart of The Gospel

http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/1910.htm

Justified by faith — J. Gresham Machen

“The beginning of the Christian life is not an act of man but a wonderful act of the Spirit of God.

But it is accompanied by a conscious act of man; it is accompanied by the act of faith. Faith is not a meritorious work; the New Testament never says that a man is saved on account of his faith, but always that he is saved through his faith. Faith is the means which the Holy Spirit uses to apply to the individual soul the benefits of Christ’s death.

And faith is a very simple thing; it simply means the receiving of a gift; it simply means that abandoning the vain effort of earning our way into God’s presence we accept the gift of salvation which Christ offers so full and free. Such is the doctrine – let us not be afraid of the word – such is the doctrine of justification by faith.

That has been a liberating doctrine; to it is due most of the freedom that we possess today, and if it is abandoned freedom will soon depart. If we are interested in what God thinks of us, we shall not be deterred by what men think; the very desire for justification before God makes us independent of the judgments of men. And if the very desire for justification is liberating, how much more the attainment of it! The man who has been justified by God, the man who has accepted as a free gift this condition of rightness with God, is not a man who hopes that possibly, with due effort, if he does not fail, he may win through to become a child of God. But he is a man who has already become a child of God. If our being children of God depended in the slightest measure upon ourselves, we could never be sure that we had attained the highest estate. But it does not depend upon ourselves; it depends only upon God. It is not a reward that we have earned but a gift that we received.

A hard battle indeed lies before us. This faith of ours, if we be true Christians, is a faith that works; and it is a faith that fights – against sin. But we begin the battle not with God as our reward, but with God as our ally. There is the high liberty of the Christian man. Let us not throw our liberty away; let us not descend into the bondage of dependence upon ourselves, let us not descend into the hard bondage of agnostic Modernism. But having received the gospel – this great Magna Charta of Christian liberty – let us stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free.”

— J. Gresham Machen, God transcendent, sermon Justified by faith

Contentment — Arthur W. Pink

“Most people suppose that contentment is impossible unless one can have gratified the desires of the carnal heart… Contentment comes from within not without; it must be sought from God, not in creature comforts… What is "contentment"? It is the being satisfied with the sovereign dispensations of God’s providence. It is the opposite of murmuring, which is the spirit of rebellion—the clay saying to the Potter, "Why hast Thou made me thus?"…

Contentment, then, is the product of a heart resting in God. It is the soul’s enjoyment of that peace which passes all understanding. It is the outcome of my will being brought into subjection to the Divine will. It is the blessed assurance that God does all things well, and is, even now, making all things work together for my ultimate good. This experience has to be "learned" by "proving what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God" (Rom. 12:2). Contentment is possible only as we cultivate and maintain that attitude of accepting everything which enters our lives as coming from the Hand of Him who is too wise to err, and too loving to cause one of His children a needless tear.

Let our final word be this: real contentment is only possible by being much in the presence of the Lord Jesus. This comes out clearly in the verses which follow our opening text; "I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me" (Phil. 4:12, 13). It is only by cultivating intimacy with that One who was never discontent that we shall be delivered from the sin of complaining. It is only by daily fellowship with Him who ever delighted in the Father’s will that we shall learn the secret of contentment…”

— Arthur W. Pink, Comfort for Christians

http://www.pbministries.org/books/pink/Comfort/com_16.htm