The doctrine of unconditional election is so different from what many of you grew up with

that many of you grew up with that you find it hard to believe that it's in the Bible

and you find it hard to feel that it's good news. There's an intellectual

issue and there's an emotional issue, which means that I'm swimming against a doubly difficult current Sunday after Sunday in Romans 9, because I believe with all of my heart it is in the Bible and I believe with all of my heart it is good news.

And so I have an impossible task.

But all things are possible with God.

And so I want us to pray before we proceed.

So let's pray.

Father in heaven my prayer is that this people downtown and this people here in Roseville would see what is really there in the scriptures

that you inspired. Secondly, I pray that they would understand it, as much as a fallen finite human being can't understand it.

Third, I pray that we would all together embrace it

as precious, more precious than gold and more pleasant than honey and more practical than

all the books of theology or help at Barnes and Noble.

And I pray fourthly that the effect of this embrace of this truth would be radical,

sacrificial, loving, servant lives, lives, ready to lay themselves down to bring the gospel to

those who are not saved. Whether it's in Somaliland or Indonesia or Pakistan or Uzbekistan or Ivory

Coast or across the street or across the cubicle.

Father, forbid that we would be paralyzed by doctrinal preoccupations. We believe that these things are in the Bible

for the sake of radical Christ-like God exulting, mission advancing, justice- pursuing, soul-winning reasons.

And so I'm asking for the impossible, Lord, all of those four steps to see what's there to

understand it to cherish it and then to be so transformed by it that we lay down our lives to love people into the kingdom.

I ask this in Jesus name, amen.

...