I truly enjoyed this sermon by Pastor John Piper (as I do most of his sermons).  He is THE foremost authority on predestination and election in our day and age.  At least in my opinion.  It's not just intellectual dogma with him.  It's truly the joy of Lord in our lives when election is understood, and Piper conveys that.  With that said, here is the last 5 minutes or so of the sermon.  I'll include the text, but the audio gives more:


The Election of Individuals in the Church

Now what happens in the New Testament with the coming of Christ? What happens is that God continues to rejoice in election, but now we move into a period when Israel as a people is no longer the focus of God's dealings. He turns for now to the Gentiles and begins to assemble new people for himself called the church. He's not done with Israel! But for now the focus is on the ingathering of the nations.

 

And since the church is not an ethnic group like Israel was, God doesn't elect a whole nation for earthly purposes like he did Israel at the Red Sea. Instead the New Testament speaks of election as God's choice of individuals to believe and become part of the redeemed people of God.

 

The Joy of the Trinity

 

Let's turn first to Luke 10:21. The reason I choose this verse is because it one of the two places in the New Testament where Jesus is said to rejoice, and my topic today is God's pleasure or joy in election. The 70 disciples have just returned from their preaching tours and reported their success to Jesus.

 

Luke writes in verse 21:

In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes: yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will [literally: for thus it was well-pleasing before thee]."

Notice that all three members of the Trinity are rejoicing here: Jesus is rejoicing, but it says he is rejoicing in the Holy Spirit. I take that to mean that the Holy Spirit is filling him and moving him to rejoice. Then at the end of the verse it describes the pleasure of God the Father. NIV: "Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure."

 

Now what is it that has the whole Trinity rejoicing together in this place? It is the free electing love of God to hide things from the intellectual elite and to reveal them to babes. And what is it that the Father hides from some and reveals to others? Verse 22 gives the answer: "No one knows who the Son is except the Father." So what God the Father must reveal is the true spiritual identity of the Son.

So when the 70 disciples return from their evangelistic mission and give their report to Jesus, he and the Holy Spirit rejoice that God the Father has chosen, according to his own good pleasure, whose eyes he would open to the spiritual reality of his Son (cf. v. 23). They are glad that God has taken the initiative to choose a people for himself, and that it depends ultimately on the good pleasure of God.

God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are so bent on exalting God the Father that they rejoice when he exerts his wisdom and power and grace to choose a people for himself in a way that will confound all the man-centered expectations of the world. The wise are passed over in their pride and the babes, the unlikely, the helpless, are surprised with divine favor.

 

The tables are turned from what the world expects. The wisdom of man is put down. And the freedom of God's grace is exalted when the prime candidates of the world are passed over and God surprises everyone with his choice of the babes. This is what make Jesus and the Holy Spirit rejoice—the humbling of human pride and the exaltation of God's freedom and grace.

 

God's Two Goals in Election

 

This is exactly what Paul focuses on when he describes God's election in forming the church in 1 Corinthians 1:26–31. As I read it, listen for this: what is being opposed and what is being promoted in the election described in these verses?

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onsider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise [!] according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose [election!] what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption; therefore, as it is written, "Let him who boasts, boast of the Lord."

 

The thought here is similar to the thought in Luke 10:21. God chooses freely who will belong to his people. And he chooses in such a way as to accomplish two things, which are really two sides of the same coin. In verse 29 the goal of election is "that no human being might boast in the presence of God." The goal of God in election is the elimination of all human pride, all self-reliance, all boasting in man.

 

And the second goal of God in election, the other side of the coin, is given in verse 31: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord." In other words, take all boasting off of man and focus all boasting on God. Humble man and exalt Christ. Make man see his utter dependence on God's mercy and magnify the glory of free grace. That's why God has pleasure in election—it magnifies his name!

 

The Most Precious Act of Love in the Universe

 

But note this well! Those of you who know that you are sinners and ungodly and weak and helpless to save yourselves and yet have seen in Jesus an all-sufficient Savior, and by the grace of God have been drawn to cast your life on him and hope in him and follow him—you will count the electing grace of God as the most precious act of love in all the universe.

And you will say with the apostle Paul in Romans 8: "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? . . . Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?"

 

The Pleasure and Purpose of God in Election