God's Choice (Chester UMC)

We're talking about God's choice today and, and I want to, I want

to anyone ever choose teams when you were a kid, like on the

playground at the park, at a friend's house, you get

together, you're playing. We used to, we never had enough

kids were very rarely had enough for a full baseball team.

So we played a game we called straight bass.

Anyone ever played straight bass baseball?

That was that was a lot of fun. You only needed like four people

to play straight bass. I always wanted to be one of the

people that got to choose the teams.

You never wanted to not be that person, right?

Because there was always the risk that you wouldn't get

chosen or you get chosen really, really late.

And when I was playing with my brother and his friend and one

other person, I was always chosen last.

They were all older and better at that stuff than I was.

But you know, I always wanted to be the person choosing because

if you're the person choosing teams, you get you get Otions

and generally you have two different ways, or at least I

did had two different ways of choosing teams.

Either I was going to pick the best players at every

opportunity. Whenever it was my turn to

choose, I was going to pick the best person in hopes of getting

the best players on my team. So again, whether it was

football or baseball or straight base or kickball or whatever it

was that I could get the best players on my team or my other

strategy, pick my friends because I wanted to have fun and

I was more likely to have fun with my friends on my team.

So I would pick the people that I liked or I would pick the best

players, the people that I thought were the best players.

What you didn't do was pick first.

The people that you weren't your friends and couldn't play.

And you know, let's be real, generally speaking, even if they

were your friends, but they were terrible, you still picked them

late. But you know, maybe that was

just me. I don't think so.

That was my choice when I was picking teams.

When we're talking about the Kingdom of God, we're talking

about God's choice. Who is God picking?

Why is God picking them? What's the basis that God uses

for picking people? To be on his team, to be part of

the Kingdom of heaven, to be one of his disciples and one of his

followers. One of the bases for picking

people in the ancient world was a a custom and tradition that

eventually was codified not only in Hammurabi's law, but also in

Moses's law. You can find it in the book of

Deuteronomy, not by this name, but the concept is primogeniture

or primogeniture. And I'm going to mess up

pronunciation on that at some point this morning.

Keep track, you know, do whatever sort of game you want

to do with my, my pronunciation failures.

But the, the custom and law of primogeniture was this.

There was the right of the eldest son to inherit the entire

estate of one or both parents. This was a deeply rooted

tradition in the ancient Near East and it eventually became

law. And it was a law that was

eventually adopted in into the Roman Empire.

It spread throughout Europe and and the eldest son had the right

to inherit, if not the entire estate, the majority of the

state of one or both parents. This is what was happening at

the time Isaac and Rebecca were having their babies.

Well, Rebecca was doing 99.9% of the work here and she was having

twins and the first baby born was Esau.

And by the custom and law of primogeniture, Esau would

inherit Isaac's estate and Rebecca's whatever she brought

to the party as well. And with Isaac, that included

inheriting the birthright, the blessing of God from your

descendants. I will make a great nation.

And through your descendants, all nations of the world will be

blessed. Which of Isaac's sons would

carry that birthright, would carry that blessing, would

inherit Isaac's wealth? If you recall, when Abraham

died, he sent all of his other sons away.

He gave the first born son of his marriage with Sarah, Isaac.

He gave him the vast majority of his estate.

He provided a little for his other children.

His oldest son was Ishmael. He gave Ishmael some stuff too.

But he made Isaac his heir. And Isaac's plan from the get go

was to make Esau his heir from the get go.

Esau was the apple of Isaac's eye.

Esau was the one Isaac wanted to inherit.

Esau was what today we might call a man's man.

He was an outdoorsman. He loved to hunt, he loved to

travel. He worked the he worked the

fields. He cared for.

You know, he did all of the things that men's men kind of

do. And he was really hairy, too.

That was a thing that the Bible felt was important to point out

even from the time it was not only apparently had a full head

of hair, he had back hair and chest hair already in place when

he was born. Jacob was the second born.

And by any definition, Jacob was a mama's boy.

He was favored by Rebecca. He didn't go out into the fields

and work. He stayed among the tents and

work. He didn't go hunting.

He stayed home and learned to cook.

And Isaac didn't think too much of Jacob.

And it was his plan to make his first born son his heir, receive

his estate and his blessing. The blessing of God to be carry

on this tradition of being the father of nations and a

blessings to all nations. But God had a different plan.

God chose Jacob, God chose the second son, the younger son, God

chose. In this case, God chose the

mama's boy to be the heir, to be the to receive the blessing.

So with Esau and Jacob, God violated the cultural custom and

tradition of primogeniture. God said, all right, that's

that's your rule. It's not mine, says God.

I've done this before. God might have reminded them,

remember Cain and Abel when when it was a little bit different

with Cain and Abel, but it was similar.

Cain was the older son, the first born son.

God did not accept Cain's sacrifice.

God accepted Abel's sacrifice, the second born son, and it

caused Cain great jealousy and hostility toward his son.

So God has a track record of doing this on occasion, picking

not the eldest but the younger to inherit the blessing, to

receive the estate, to carry on the tradition.

People for centuries, probably for millennia, have been asking

the question why? Why did God choose Jacob and not

Esau? And I've heard an extraordinary

range of very passionately given explanations, very confidently

given explanations telling This is why God chose Jacob, one of

the earliest ones I heard. Because we, we, we know in the

story, you know, Esau, he's out being a man's man.

He's out in the wilderness, he's hunting, he's gone for days at a

time. He comes back and, and, and he's

very hungry because he hadn't had anything to eat.

You would think he would have learned enough cooking to at

least have, you know, cook a rabbit while he's out there or

something, but didn't bother with that.

Apparently Jacob's got a pot of Stew that he's made fresh and,

And Esau says, I'm hungry, give me some food.

Jacob says, I'll give you a bowl of Stew if you give me your

birthright. And Esau said, well, what

birthright's not going to do me any good right now.

I'm hungry. You could have my birthright if

you give me a bowl of Stew. What are the worst business

deals in history, by the way? But Esau sold his birthright

literally for a bowl of Stew, and I've heard it explained This

is why God chose Jacob is because Esau didn't value the

birthright from God. God, all wise and all knowing,

even at the time that Jacob and Esau were still in their

mother's womb, knew that Esau would not have the proper

respect and concern for the gift of this birthright, of being the

heir, of receiving the blessing of of God's nation coming

through his line. Jacob just wouldn't there.

Esau didn't have enough respect for that, and so God chose Jacob

instead. It's a question of character.

It's a question of character. I think that explanation is

awful for one big reason. Jacob had no better character

than Esau did. He swindled his brother, for one

thing. You know why not as a brother.

You want hungry? Here, I've got some Stew.

Eat some Stew. No.

Give me your birthright or starve to death.

Ha. You know, where's the character

in that? And later, when his father was

blind and was going to give the blessing, which was another

tangible gift, a meaningful thing that could only be given

once, Jacob, at his mother's request, disguised himself as

his brother. He saw must have been a hairy

guy 'cause they took goat skin and and glued it on Jacob's

hands and, and, and Isaac thought that was Esau.

What a hairy dude. My, I'm not that I'm hairy, but

I'm not that hairy. But he swindled his father, lied

to and deceived his father, later swindled his uncle.

Jacob was not a man of high character.

Jacob was a man who who was was eager to manipulate

circumstances and people to get what he wanted and do things

that were best for him. Romans, which which Aubrey read

earlier, gives us a picture of why and and it's an answer

without being an answer and and it's it's the biblical

equivalent to when our children ask us something and we say

because I said so This is the summary of what Paul was right

in Romans is because I said so let's let's take a look at a

portion of that again. Yet before the twins were born,

or had done anything good or bad, in order that God's purpose

in election might stand, not by works, but by Him who calls, she

was told, the older will serve the younger, just as it is

written, Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.

What then shall we say, Is God unjust?

Not at all, For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom

I have mercy. I will have compassion on whom I

have compassion. It does not there therefore,

depend on human desire or effort, but on God's mercy,

because God says so. Why did God choose Jacob instead

of Esau? God says I chose Jacob instead

of Esau to show you that I could.

That was it. God, I'm in charge.

I'm picking the teams. I picked Jacob.

Why Jacob? Is he better than Esau?

Because I picked him? God never explains.

God never gives rationale anywhere in the Scripture.

There is no rationale given for why God picked Jacob instead of

Esau. The rationale we're given is

that God was trying to say to the whole world, I am not bound

by your customs, I'm not bound by your laws, I am not bound by

your traditions. I will pick whom I want to pick

because I said so, and that's it.

That's it. Trying to explain or justify

God's choice of Jacob is a waste of time and misses the point

entirely, because the point is just this, that God's choices

supersede our choices, our customs, our traditions, and our

laws. God is God.

God gets to pick, and one of the most important things God does

throughout Scripture and throughout human history is to

remind his people, I'm God. I'm God, and I'm not bound by

your laws. I'm not bound by your customs.

I'm not bound by your traditions.

I'm not bound by your systems of morality and ethics.

The entire book of Job is about that.

The primary one of the laws and customs was primogeniture.

The eldest son inherits. One of the more sweeping customs

and traditions and ethical systems was reward and

retribution. Society was in a hierarchy.

The people at the top controlled land.

They gave blessings and gifts to people below them to secure

their loyalty and the people below them.

It's like the godfather. You do what your patron asks,

and you do it faithfully, and your patron rewards you.

If you violate your patron's trust, your patron will punish

you, will seek retribution against you, the law of reward

and retribution. Faithful service brings

blessing, infidelity, traitorous behavior brings punishment.

Except with Job, who provided absolutely faithful service to

God and got suffering and pain and punishment instead of

blessing from God. Why?

When God, when Job asks God why God answers?

Because I said so. I'm God, that's why.

And that's really the only answer that Job ever gets.

God is not bound by our laws, our customs, our traditions,

even our moral and ethical systems.

God is God, we are not. And even when we go into God's

word itself, into the Scripture itself, and we distill and bring

out moral and ethical systems and laws and customs and

traditions and say, well, it's based on the Bible.

God must follow this because it's based on the very word of

God that we have before us. And God says, yet no, you don't

worship the Bible, you worship me.

The Bible is there to guide you, to guide us, not to limit and

contain and control God. God is not bound by any of these

things. Now, at some level, this is all

very theoretical, so let's get practical a little bit.

I created this heading and then I put 4 points under it.

We're going to look at all four points, and you will probably

realize before I did that none of them is practical.

Practical implications. I wrote them all out.

I got a lot prepared. I was like, they're really not

practical. There's practical stuff under

here, so bear with me. We'll get to the practical

stuff. First of all, the Kingdom of God

is not based on what humans assign value to.

That's a system of society that's often called a scriptive

society, that people are valued based on immutable

characteristics, unchanging characteristics about them that

society decides to ascribe to assign value to the law of

primogeniture, where the eldest son inherits all is that kind of

thing. There's there's nothing

inherently more valuable about an older child or an older son

than, say, the middle child. You can tell my brother that the

next time you're getting surgery at Holzer, you're no better than

your brother. Tell him that right before you

go under the knife, you have my permission.

We middle children touchy about this subject, but that's what

human society says. We we I mean, there really there

is nothing inherently better about being a son than a

daughter. And there's nothing inherently

better about being older than being younger.

But for the sake of well, there were reasons it it makes it

makes inheritance easier and simpler to have this kind of

law. There's less room for I'm not

sure what's going on up there. I think it's the Ki think we got

a bad K. I'm not sure we'll figure it

out, but it it makes things easier so there's less conflict

when dad dies or dad and mom die.

If everyone knows and the law and the customs says that the

oldest son gets it, then there's no room for fighting, there's no

room for arguing, there's no room for bloodshed.

So it greases the world of it greases the the wheels of

society to have rules and customs and traditions like

this. But God wants to make it clear

that that's not how he operates. That's not how he operates.

The fact that humans decide that men are better than women or

older is better than younger. God says you all can make that

decision, but you understand that's not how the Kingdom

works. The New Testament tells us that

specifically there is no male or female, all or one in Christ

Jesus. Things like skin color and

nationality have been given a scripted value, assigned value

in different ways at different periods in history.

The color of a person's skin mattered in a very great degree

in society, valued some skin color more than other skin

color. God says you can do that, but

that's not how the Kingdom of God works.

The New Testament says that as well.

In Christ, there is no Jew or Greek.

It covers nationality, ethnicity and everything that we would

label as race today. All of those things God says,

hey, that doesn't, one is no more valuable than the other.

Social and economic status, talent, you know, these kinds of

things we value. We value people that are really,

really good at getting an orange ball through an orange ring.

We place a great deal of value on people that can do that,

place a great deal of value on people that that that can do

certain kinds of skill, have certain kinds of skills and

education and training. God says, you know what, that's

not how I do the Kingdom of God. In Christ there is no slave or

free, doesn't matter. You're economic or social

standing in human society. All of that gets washed away in

the Kingdom of God. All of that gets relativized in

the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is not based

on what humans assign value to. The practical thing here is, is

we need to be deeply cautious about ascribed value, about

assigning value based on immutable or social

characteristics. Things that were born with or

roles were assigned based on those things that were born

with. There are still cultures in this

world that are deeply and clearly embedded in this with

caste systems. And there are other cultures in

this world where it's much more implicit and and less explicit.

But it's all suspect. It's all suspect and it all gets

washed away in the Kingdom of God.

The waters of baptism washed all of these kinds of sign values

away #2 here flip side of this is the OR the other side of this

coin. The Kingdom of God is also not a

meritocracy. This is often the the response

of those who who want to reject and a society a society based on

assigned value. They say we need a meritocracy

and and their functional reasons for meritocracies, just like

people find functional reasons for assigned values.

We want the best person doing, you know, we were just the best.

The people that have the most merit, those are the folks that

need to advance. The Kingdom of God is not a

meritocracy either. God did not choose Jacob because

he had more merit than Esau. God chose Jacob because God

could choose Jacob. We don't know why God chose

Abel's offering over Keynes. God never explains that.

We don't know why God punished Job even though Job had done

nothing deserving of punishment. God never explains that.

But the clear implication is God has not created his Kingdom on

the basis of human merit. Now we you've heard that before,

because meritocracy in the Kingdom of God is what

theologically we would call works salvation, that we get

into the Kingdom or we advance in God's Kingdom based on how

good we are on our merit, on our good deeds, on our good works.

But the Bible says God through Paul says it's by grace.

We're saved through faith. It's a gift of God, not of

works. Why?

So that nobody can boast. Nobody could boast, Jacob.

There was no point. He might have done it, but there

was no point in Jacob's life in which he could legitimately

brag. God picked me over you, Esau,

because I'm better than you. And God says no, no, no, no.

I picked you, Jacob, but not because you're better.

Not because you're better. This is a tough one in, in our

culture and in our society, there's such a strong tendency

for, to, to aspire to a meritocratic society in, in the

United States. And I'm not saying that human

meritocracies are, are evil or necessarily evil or always evil.

I'm just saying that the Kingdom of God is not a meritocracy.

And so we need to be cautious about this of ascribing value to

people of, of assigning value on the basis of merit is as

dangerous a practice as assigning value on the basis of

immutable characteristics like gender and skin color.

That's just, that's just, that just isn't how my Kingdom works.

That isn't how my cultural system within my Kingdom works.

We call this heaven, by the way, This isn't how the Kingdom of

heaven works. We don't earn our way in.

None of us can brag or boast for being there.

This was Israel's. This is one of the reasons why

Israel got sacked first by the Babylonian Empire and later by

the Roman Empire, because they came to believe we are.

We're God's chosen people. What?

Why would God choose us if we weren't better than all of the

other nations in the world? And they started acting like

they had earned, received by their merit, God's favor.

And then God said no, that as soon as they started thinking

that way, they started heading down the wrong direction, a

direction that led them to do abominable things, trusting that

God would protect them because they were all, after after all,

better than all of the other nations in the world.

And God was so determined for them to unlearn that, that He

allowed their nation to be destroyed not once, but twice.

The Kingdom of God is not a meritocracy.

Here's a third one. Not getting our preference is

often a sign of God's will being done.

It was Isaac's preference that Esau inherit his estate.

He didn't get what he wanted, and that was God's will being

done. I had a pastor tell me this a

few years ago when I was whining about something.

I don't remember what I was whining about.

I was whining about something. I whine.

You know how it is. You know you whine too.

I understand. But you understand.

We pray every Sunday and ask God not to give us what we want,

right? That's that's what we your

Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Another way of praying that is God, don't give me what I want.

We pray that every week in here. Jesus prayed explicitly, God,

your will not mine be done. God, not what I want, but what

you want. And one of the best ways to deal

with the disappointment of not getting what we want is to say,

OK, well, maybe this is because it's God's will not getting what

I if I'm not getting what I want is a good chance it's God's

will. And when I am getting what I

want, that's really the dangerous part.

Because then suddenly it's it's easy to start to think, well, my

will must be God's will. Not a bad thing.

When we get what we want, we always have to deal with the

possibility. Am I getting this because I made

it happen and because I wanted it to happen?

Or is this happening because God wants it to happen?

Odds are much greater when I'm not getting what I'm want that

it's God's will that stinks. I wish God thought more like me.

Make my life a lot happy now. That's not true.

My life is much better getting what God wants rather than I

want. But that's the thing with both

descriptive societies and meritocracy.

It's about a certain group of people getting what they want

and constructing society in a way that they think is going to

work and it's going to be best for everyone.

And God repeatedly steps in and breaks those things up to say,

just remember, I'm still God. I'm still God, and in my Kingdom

you're not going to always get what you want #4 reception into

God's Kingdom is a matter of God's choice, not our immutable

characteristics. Not because of skin color or

gender or nationality or any of those kinds of things.

Not because our works, not because we're better.

Not a meritocracy, but simply because God chose.

So let's go back to choosing teams.

Let's go back to choosing teams. And this time it's Jesus, and

he's picking teams. And Jesus, Jesus, I want you, I

want you, I want you. I want you, I want you, I want

you, I want you, I want you. God.

He points to all of us. Doesn't matter what color our

skin is, doesn't matter what our nationality is, doesn't matter

what our economic status is. Does not matter what our gender

is. Does not.

None of those things matter. God just says I want you.

Well, why? Because I'm God and I pick you

because I'm special. Because I'm better.

Stop. No, because I picked you.

That's why you get to be in the Kingdom.

There's so much more security in that than having it be because

of assigned value or merit. If it's assigned value, what

happens when the values change? If it's merit, what's happens

when I can't? The only way I get to be in the

Kingdom of God is God's mercy and God's grace.

That's the only way I can guarantee you I haven't earned a

spot on the team. I had an uncle, played football

at WVU. This was a long time ago.

Did well, was a good football player by all accounts.

And he decided he wanted to try out for the Dallas Cowboys, and

he did. He became a hog farmer in West

Virginia. Yeah, because he wasn't good

enough for the Cowboys. It wasn't good enough, wasn't

big enough, wasn't strong enough, wasn't fast enough,

wasn't good enough. We made some good bacon.

We never have to worry about not being good enough for the

Kingdom of God. We never have to worry about not

being good enough for to be chosen by Jesus.

We never have to worry about not being the right skin color.

We never have to worry about not being the right gender.

We never have to worry about not being the right nationality.

All of those things matter to human beings, but not to God,

not in that way. They matter to God.

And the God values folks in all of those categories, not in a

hierarchy, but for the beauty of their differences.

It's God's choice and we can be thankful for that.

In Jesus name, Amen. Amen.