Pastor Pat Edwards 10/28/2007
Grace Baptist Church in Bountiful, Utah

After last week's bat I thought I ought to bring a pillow. I was so busy telling you to accept God's unconditional love that I didn't explain his love and I felt bad. It's like when my parents emphatically told me and my brothers, "Eat this, it's good for youand you'll like it!" but didn't tell me what it was. How could I know that the big, round pile covered in vegetables and meat was something they call pizza and I would love it. But as I prepared this week's sermon I realized that the rest of the sermons deal with the nature of God's love. So I've brought this nice soft pillow to comfort you with this week.

Last week I told you the foundation for life with God is knowing his love for you and his purpose in creating you - to have you live his life with him. And that's the catch - coming into new life with Jesus doesn't give you the life you've always dreamed of - it gives you the life he's always dreamed of for you. So if you don't want a new life on his terms then you get to keep the life you have which many of us come to learn isn't satisfying.

I said the mini-sermon series would be based on an outline I found in a book by Henri Nouwen. In his book he uses the words of Jesus when instituting the Lord's Supper to describe believers; taken, blessed, broken, given. I don't want to push this analogy because I think it's primarily illustrative but the words of Paul in 1 Cor. 10 seem to give some support for the outline Nouwen uses. 16Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? 17Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf. So we can say the beloved, followers of Christ, are taken, blessed, broken and given for they participate in the cup and the loaf.

This week our first word is taken. I want to start by asking, how are we taken or chosen; how does his choosing work? An obvious fact we sometimes overlook in choosing is that we're noticed, we're unique - we're not just a face in the crowd. But once we're noticed he takes us, he chooses us. But Christians disagree on exactly how that happens so let me give you three simplified examples. Remember we are all dead in sin before the grace of God makes us alive so we will have three dead people up here. I need three volunteers which I shall now select.

I want you and I choose you and everything else is irrelevant. That's it.

I want you because I know that you will respond to my choosing, you will be obedient to my call, you will respond to my love.

I want you and I will give you the ability to choose me but you don't have to, you can refuse and remain in your present dead life.

Bible verses can be found to support each argument. But how it happens isn't as important as the fact that it does happen. Regardless of the interpretation you accept the bottom line is that in each case the love of God starts the action. Everything depends on His grace. With that wonderful truth in mind let's look at the inspired words of the scripture.

Eph 1. 3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight... 11In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory.

Paul writes to the believers in Ephesus that before the world was created, before the sin of Adam and Eve and mankind's fall from grace, God the Father chose us to live in and through Jesus, he chose us to be holy and blameless, he chose us that we might bring praise to his glory. In other words before anything was created, before all the bad stuff started God knew you would exist and he chose you clear back then to bring glory to Jesus.

Peter writes to believers, 9...you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.1 Peter 2 The purpose of our choosing is to dwell in a special relationship to God - as a chosen people, as a royal priesthood serving him, as a holy nation set apart to live like him. And all of this is so we can give glory to the one who brought us out of darkness of sin into the wonderful light of holiness.

In John 15 Jesus tells the disciples, 15I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit?fruit that will last... 19If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. While we offer service to God we are much more than servants, we are his friends, friends of God because that is what God wants. Talk about friends in high places! We are further chosen to bear spiritual fruit, the only kind of fruit that lasts for eternity. We are chosen to be like our God, producers of good things.

Jesus also says he has chosen us out of the world. He has pulled us free so we can escape life among the walking dead in order to enjoy his life with him forever. When we begin to experience that life people of the world hate us for they envy us and they realize they no longer have any power over us.

Finally we find a summary of what it means to be chosen in Romans 8. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. God the Father chooses us to become like Jesus, to be formed into his image. He calls us, he justifies us and he glorifies us as we respond to his life-giving grace.

This is some of what it means to be taken, to be chosen, to be loved by God. We are chosen to be holy and blameless, bringing praise to God by who we are and what we do; we are chosen to exist in a unique relationship providing special service as his people, his priesthood, his nation. We are chosen to be God's friends and to bear his fruit in a dark and troubled world and we are chosen to bear the image of Jesus in ourselves and to receive glory by fulfilling the purpose and desires of God. So "What would Jesus do," may feel like an overused expression but it's a question his followers, his servants, his friends should be constantly wrestling with. "Would Jesus make this purchase? Would Jesus say these words? Would Jesus desire this?" Of course the longer and closer we walk with Jesus the less we have to ask the questions because we know the answers from both experience and the growing intimacy we have with him.

We need to constantly celebrate that we have been taken, we have been chosen, when most things in our world work to deny it - our own thoughts and emotions, comments of others, activities we do and done by others. We have to keep taking our eyes off ourselves and keep the focus on Jesus. I think that's the biggest problem Christians have. We talk about God's love and grace, we say how important it is then we primarily focus on ourselves and our failings. Then we feel uncomfortable around the Lord and we pull back. Stop doing that and remind me to stop doing that. When you sin, quickly confess it, receive his forgiveness and, "Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face; and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace." Keep your attention on the truth that you are loved unconditionally and you have been chosen to be with him and like him.

Once I really accept I am chosen by God himself that truth frees me up to see and accept the choseness of others. I don't have to fear I'll be pushed back because someone better will be given my place. I don't have to push myself forward because I'm secure in my relationship with the creator of the universe, the Lord and savior of mankind. I can be on the other side of a crowded room while others push forward to be with Jesus but every once in a while he looks up and winks at me to let me know he knows I'm there and we'll have our time together. Or maybe my cell phone beeps and there's a text message, "I love you." with the initial J after it. So leave here today knowing Jesus says, "I choose you!"