Who You Say I Am | I Am Chosen (March 31st, 2019) - Mike Armstrong

Welcome back to our series in Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

You can turn your Bibles open there to it now.

If you don't have a Bible with you or you don't have an app on your phone that's a Bible app, we've got some Bibles at the back table there.

If you would love to go grab one, go ahead and do that.

If you don't own a Bible, take it home with you.

It's our gift to you.

But yeah, we're in our series right now in Ephesians 1 where we're really identifying who we are as people according to God's word.

Right?

Like who does God say that I am?

Right?

Who am I really as a person?

I mean, that is that is a foundational question that all of humanity wants the answer to.

Right?

We all do.

Everybody longs to have that figured out.

We're all searching for our identity because I think sort of the way that this works, and maybe this is your experience a little bit too, is it's like we've got this kind of this inner subconscious kind of voice, this this inner monologue whispering, um, like kind of like a like a narrative of identity uh to our souls trying to get us to buy in.

It could be something like you're a failure.

Do you have that voice kind of whispering through your mind and your subconscious?

Maybe for you, it's it's like that voice that's saying, like, you really are that disappointment that your parents kind of subtly suggest, or your teachers or somebody always suggested that you were throughout your childhood.

And so for you, you've heard that, or that was implied to you, and now you've you've kind of latched on to that in your heart, and you've come to believe it, and and now you actually tell yourself that, right?

Like I am a failure.

That's who I am, and because of that, because this has wounded your soul, it's it's really got you paralyzed in life, and it affects everything, right?

From your your work and your vocation and how you handle all of that to your marriage and your leadership in that.

If you're if you're a man or your or it's maybe any of your relationships, or your involvement in the church, or again, this constant undercurrent of failure, for you maybe it's become your identity.

For others, that inner message that you're listening to is to find ultimate meaning and really find your identity through your achievements.

I've got to attain, and you've got that drive, and maybe you're a really driven person, and being driven is not wrong at all.

But but as a result of your your need, this drive for I gotta achieve, I gotta achieve, when you find success in your achievements, it kind of all goes to your head.

Right?

And and in those moments, what feels like security, and aha, I've I've achieved, I've attained, I've kind of made it here, and I'm feeling really good about myself, it feels like security and stability, and like you've got a strong identity and all of that on a soul level.

Really, it's just pride.

And it and it and it turns into arrogance, and really what's going on is just below the surface of all of that is an even deeper sense, and and and then it's gnawing at the back of your head, your mind and your heart all the time.

It's fear right and insecurity.

Because you know that that next time, if or when you don't achieve and you don't succeed, you know that you're just gonna fall apart inside.

Right?

And and it's like for you this internal crisis, because I failed.

I I didn't I didn't achieve the thing, attain the thing that I that I wanted to in work or in life, in my marriage, in in whatever it is.

And so for you, you get you get all down and maybe even despair about all these things.

And and so because your identity is is so tied to achievement, your identity just does this constantly.

It's roller coaster, it's up and down, and when you feel like you're doing well as you've defined it, or as the world defines it, or as someone has defined it for you, you feel pretty good.

And when you don't, you you don't feel pretty good.

It's because you've hitched your wagon to the wrong identity.

Are you starting to see this here as we've been talking about this over the last couple of weeks?

How how what you and I attach our identities to, what we look to for our identity, it's it's it's huge.

Right?

It's so, so important.

Now, thankfully, thankfully, praise the Lord, right?

He He does tell us precisely who you and I are.

He does.

And as Christians, then, it's about us kind of identifying what that is and what the components of all of those things are, realizing it, understanding it, and then choosing to believe it.

This is who I am, this is who God tells me I am, who I really am in Christ.

It's my true identity, so that by by grace we can begin to get to work through through prayer and over time and by the by the Holy Spirit's power and through encouragement from other believers, we we can begin to silence that that inner voice, that narrative, that that inner monologue that's going on, that that that inside or maybe even this outside message that's constantly pushing a false identity on you.

Instead, that we would learn to latch on to the rock solid identity that God gives us through Jesus Christ and through our salvation.

And so today we're gonna continue as we have been, kind of bit by bit here, just wading into these things, immersing ourselves in these things, and the specific component of our God-given identity that we're gonna talk about here today is that you and I are chosen.

We're chosen in Christ.

I am chosen.

That is that is our point, right?

That is the entire thing here today.

And so before we jump in, a lot to get into, uh let's pray, let's seek the Lord in these things, and that we would latch onto it, hold on to it, cling to it.

The Lord would press these things into our hearts and into our souls to join me as we pray, God.

Again, once again, we we look to you, we look to the scriptures.

Lord, we look to truth.

We look to who you say we are.

And God, we want to have such a clear picture of this, Lord, and and that that picture is clear to the scriptures, Lord.

Forgive us for pushing the scriptures aside and and going after worldly identities and and giving into the lives of the enemy, that that these false identities can bring us peace and bring us true, lasting joy and can define us, Lord.

They can't.

It all breaks down, it's a house of cards.

And so, God, would you forgive your people?

Would you would you forgive me for the times that I've chased after those things, those empty idols that that don't fulfill this week?

I've done that.

Lord, I pray that through grace, by the Holy Spirit, as we just open up a really crucial passage here today and look at who we are through the gospel and see, Lord, that that you have chosen us.

Lord, our salvation is entirely by grace.

And God, I know that as we try to understand a somewhat complex topic here today, Lord, I pray that you would you would open up our minds and our hearts to understand that we would just grow in greater love for you and the scriptures here today, Lord, that we would grow more stable and secure in the identity, that we are chosen by the one true God.

Lord, teach us these things.

Have mercy on us, we pray.

In Christ's name, amen.

Amen.

Well, again, in Christ, uh, I am chosen.

That's, I mean, again, we're gonna have a lot of stuff on the screen for you to jot down if you like, and different passages that we're gonna go to.

It's a little bit different than what we usually do in terms of our series.

Usually just like to focus on uh one passage and let's go after that and mind down into that.

And so this is a little bit more of a topical uh thing uh for us here today, but in Christ I am chosen.

Now let's look at this and what it says here in the passage, uh verse 4, Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

Read along with me here.

It says, uh, even as he chose us in him, right?

There it is, clear as a bell.

He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, huh?

That we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love, that's the motive, in love, he predestined us, all right, for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved.

And if you want to jump down to verse 11 here, it kind of continues this same theme.

It says, in him we've had we have obtained an inheritance, that's our salvation, having been predestined, there's that word again, predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things together, or all things according to the counsel of his will.

Now, I think it's pretty safe to say that there are some terms, there are some uh phrases there in those verses that we just read uh that kind of like raise some eyebrows.

Right?

I've been I've been chosen in him, in Christ, right?

Before the foundation of the world, like like literally before the planet was was created, pre predestined, it says that a couple of times in there, predestination?

Like, what's that all about?

Well, listen, I think um I think it seems like when you whenever you get into this topic here, and some of you guys have uh have heard this before and and you've waded into maybe the whole Calvinism, Arminian debate, and you've you know thought this through and your mind has just kind of gone in circles and you've you know thought long and hard about these things and searched the scriptures and listened to different people, and you know, your mind's getting tied into a knot, and there's like smoke starting to you know boil out of your ears as you're trying to put all of this together, and you know, as we you know, maybe get in you've gotten involved in debates before and discussions about you know God's sovereign election, right?

And and and predestination, and and all of that is in the hands of the Lord versus you know man's free will.

You know, and and and man has a choice and an ability to choose or reject God.

And you know, you've got all of these things.

Whenever you whenever you dive into these topics, it seems to get people all kinds of riled up.

Right?

It really does.

And I think even some of you right now are kind of got like the kind of the mentality of like the popcorn, I'm gonna eat this, and just like, what is the pastor gonna say?

Right?

Where do we stand as a church on all of this?

And it's like you you just you want to see this, and I think for so many of us, we tend to you know kind of land on one side or or the other on this, and you know, oftentimes it turns into people on on one side of the debate, you know, trying to one up the person on the other side of it, and and sometimes we can just be so condescending in our theology towards you know, people that have a little bit different or maybe different position than ours.

Right?

Oftentimes when we start to talk about these things, we we end up pushing people away instead of drawing people in and being gracious and seeking to understand.

I think we can often have a condemning attitude about this and be puffed up in our pride over our theological convictions.

What I'm trying to say here is Christians' inner jerk really comes out, I think, a lot when you talk about these things.

I think, I mean, I just want us to guard against that.

Can I say that?

I want to guard against that myself.

I want us to, I want us to be a church that's gracious.

I want us to be a church that, you know, aren't full of puffed up, self-righteous, so-called theologians.

Neither should we reduce this topic into merely uh an intellectual or merely an academic discussion or debate.

Why?

Well, because the truth that in Christ you and I are chosen, right?

We're chosen by God if you are saved.

Right?

That that is a profoundly awesome element to the gospel, to our to our salvation.

And and and and it's supposed to have, it's a the intended effect, is is a transformative one, right?

That's supposed to have a major impact, not just on our minds.

We're not just supposed to become, I've said it before, theological Bible fat heads.

That's not what we're going for.

That's not God's intention.

That's not what the church is to be about.

It is supposed to transform how we think, it is to give us greater knowledge.

Those things are very important.

But listen, it's also to have an impact on our hearts.

Let's not forget that Christ is going after that.

Christ is going after who you are, the center of who you are, your desires, your emotions, and from the heart come action as well.

Right?

As we think about these things like predestination, and as we think about our election and that we've been chosen, I mean, we should be greatly humbled.

Are you not filled with a sense of like who am I?

That God would choose me.

We should be filled with such gratitude and such joy in this.

We should also be filled with such security as we realize, man, this is this is who I am, this is my identity, the identity that God gives me.

Man, I am strong in Him because of this.

It's also supposed to produce a greater love for God.

There's nothing sadder than a Christian who is growing in greater knowledge, who whose fire and flame for the Lord is going out.

Right?

If if that's where you are, you're missing something.

Right?

All of this, all together, as the Lord is transforming us, our minds and our hearts and our action, our love, all of it.

It's a transformed life through and through.

That's what God's going for.

So listen, I would urge us to not just exercise our minds here today, or any day, or just grow in knowledge.

Or, like, you know, we're not just looking for ammo and a bunch of notes to jot down for my next conversation with my annoying brother-in-law so that I can, you know, one-up him in the theological conversation.

It's not about that either.

Rather, allow the truth of the gospel here and the stunning beauty of these of these amazing doctrines to stir up your stagnant soul.

That's where you are.

We get stagnant real quick, don't we?

Allow the Lord to just take the big stirring stick and start to kind of get the surface disrupted a little bit and get your joy going again and increase your affections for the Lord and for others and for the lost.

Now, back into the verse here.

Now that this text tells us here today, verse 4, take a look at again, that it tells us that God chose us in him before the foundation of the world.

That's verse 4, and then in verse 5 that he predestined us for adoption.

How awesome is that picture, right?

As sons through the purpose of his will.

Notice here, it's not talking about our our will.

And then you jump into verse 11 again.

Look at that.

It says having been predestined according to the purpose of him, right, who works all things according to the counsel of his will.

Right?

That these verses unapologetically present us with the idea that salvation is entirely a work of God predetermined before the world existed.

Okay, that who gets saved and who does not was decided by God in eternity past, according to his sovereign wisdom, okay, that the Bible teaches this shouldn't be a controversial thing for us.

Right?

It really shouldn't.

Now, we we may not understand all of it, right?

We may we may not comprehend how how how this all fits and how all of this works.

Maybe for some of you, this is the first time you're even kind of hearing about all of it.

But it shouldn't be controversial.

Maybe we just need to grow an understanding.

I think we're gonna try and get to a better place with all of that today.

Okay, but we should not be hostile to the doctrine of predestination, the doctrine of election, because the scriptures obviously teach it.

It tells it, it lays it out there for us, not just in this verse, but but in a bunch of verses.

In a bunch of passages all throughout the Bible.

And so let's look at some of these now, and so we can kind of see here that this isn't just a one-off passage that we should be ignoring or kind of passing off to the side, but but no, let's look at the doctrine of election.

We've got some verses, you can jot these down.

We're gonna go through them fairly quickly, but maybe just write down the uh the address there, and then you can look them up on your own time and spend some study in that.

But I mean, the one uh major other area that people think through in the Bible is Romans 8, uh, verse 29 and 30.

Here's what it says.

It says, for those whom he foreknew, okay, he also predestined.

Okay, so there's that word again.

He predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, in order that he might, that's Jesus, might be the firstborn and honored among many brothers, which you and I become, become part of his family, and those whom he, it says again, predestined, he also called.

Okay, through through the proclamation of the gospel.

As you hear the gospel preached, as you heard it preached, think about that.

You heard that at one point in your life, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ and it dawned on you, I'm a sinner that needs grace.

I'm a sinner that needs saving.

Oh, Jesus did all of that, He He went to the cross to pay the price for my sin.

Right?

That it says here in the verse, he those whom he predestined, he also called to the preaching of the word.

And those whom he he called, he also justified.

That's the moment that you got saved, right?

You're declared righteous.

That's your justification.

And those whom he it says justified, he also glorified.

Right?

Glorification, talking about that, you know, the new bodies, the you know, the perfection that we will experience in the next life in heaven.

It talks about it as a as a as a done thing, glorified.

Right?

It means it's it's guaranteed, it's happening, it's a done deal.

Romans 8 clearly clearly shows it.

How about this next one here?

The doctrine of election.

We see it in 2 Timothy 1, verse 9.

2 Timothy 1:9

Okay, and we've got it on the screen as well, and this is referring to God, God who saved us and what's the word?

Called us.

He called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace.

This is what he wanted to do.

He saw fit to do what he wanted to.

And then it says there, which he gave us in Christ Jesus when?

Before the ages began.

He did this before Genesis 1.

He determined all of it.

Paul continues a chapter later, 2 Timothy 2, verse 10.

2 Timothy 2:10

Here's the next passage.

Therefore, he says, I endure everything for the sake of the elect.

Right?

God has elected you.

If you're a follower of Jesus, you are the elect.

That they may also, or they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

This is a doctrine of election right there.

How about Acts 13, 48?

It says this, and when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed, appointed to eternal life, believed.

They were appointed by God before the foundation of the world.

How about 2 Thessalonians 2 13?

This is Paul again.

He says, but we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, beloved by the Lord, because God chose you.

And he chose you as first fruits to be saved.

That's what he chose you.

He chose you to be saved, to know him.

And it says through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.

Colossians 3 says, put on then as God's chosen ones.

Chosen.

Holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.

Right?

You see it there.

And then lastly, finally, here, and again, we're just scratching the surface.

There's all kinds of different places in the scriptures where we see this, but John 6, 44 says, No one, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

And so you understand that the Lord Himself is drew you to him.

He called you.

It's this irresistible grace that he drew you to salvation in him.

Now, some of you here might be might be kind of thinking, like, man, election and and and and predestination, all of that, that sounds kind of unfair to me.

Right?

Like, what's up with this?

Like some get saved and and and some don't.

It's all just kind of in God's hands and he decides before I was even born or anything like that.

Like, what, like, what's up with what's up with all of this?

We gotta remember, very importantly, that no one deserves salvation.

Right?

No one deserves it.

What would actually be fair is if we all went to hell.

Well, Pastor, that's a little strong.

No, it's not.

It's the truth.

And God would be perfectly just in sending us there.

He would.

I mean, think about Romans 6.23.

The wages of sin is death on a free pass into heaven.

You didn't earn anything.

You don't deserve anything, you deserve death.

The wage that your sinful rebellion against the God of the universe, the wage that you deserve, that he should be handing you, is death.

That's what you get.

That's what we all deserve.

And apart from Christ and his finished work, that's what we've got coming to us.

Listen, the only thing that was that was truly unfair is that Jesus Christ suffered and died.

That's it.

He didn't deserve it.

He was perfect, sinless, spotless lamb.

I mean, kind of put it this way, I heard this kind of illustration before.

Imagine that there was a man standing, you know, out in the snowy parking lot right now, and he was waiting for us, and you know, as soon as church is done, we all kind of walk out into the parking lot and go to our cars, and as we were handing uh going home, he's got a stack of$100 bills.

And he starts handing these out to some of us, but you know, a few of us, you know, we don't we don't get them.

Now, the the those of us who didn't get the$100 bills, would we be upset about that?

Yeah, possibly, but you could hardly say it's unfair.

Right?

The man has a right to do with his money whatever he wants to do.

Right?

I mean, just read that, jot down Romans chapter 9 and go back and read that later this week.

Romans 9 · chapter mention

Right?

That is a passage that will get up in your kitchen, right?

It gets in your face, right?

And it shows you, it shows you that God has the right to be God.

Right?

He has the ability and the and and and the wherewithal and the right to do what he wants to do.

And in that, we need to know as we look at all of scripture, we know that God is never wrong.

God is never sinful in his choice, he's never wrong in his motives or anything.

So we cannot, we gotta be really careful that we we don't charge God with being unfair or charge him with wrongdoing.

Don't go down that road, church.

Now, the other, I think, really burning question that we have on our hearts, and some of you guys have been thinking this all through it, and you're like, yeah, but, yeah, but, yeah, but you're that guy.

I see what the Bible says there when it comes to election.

I see that he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.

That's what verse 4 tells us.

We've we've been predestined according to the purpose of him, that's verse 11.

Okay, so all of that being true, how does man's will and man's choice come into play?

Right?

That is a phenomenal question.

Right?

Because if you think about this, I I'm pretty sure that I'm not some kind of robot where God is like up in heaven, like kind of working the joystick, you know, making me kind of do whatever I want.

I have zero, you know, choice or or will or anything like that.

God's not, I'm not like a puppet and God's the puppet master, just kind of pulling strings and I'm doing kind of whatever.

I'm pretty sure that's not our experience.

I don't think so.

I can make choices, you can make choices too.

I can I can choose to do good things, I can choose to do wrong things.

I have I have like free will, I have, you know, or at least a will that operates somehow within God's sovereignty, somehow.

Right?

The Bible certainly teaches that that we're responsible for our for our actions and our sinful choices.

Right?

So I mean let's just look at a couple of verses here.

Man's choice.

We see this taught as well in the scriptures.

You and I can and even must make decisions regarding God and our salvation.

And we're presented with options.

We have to make choices.

I mean, that's just a fact of the matter.

Take a look at John 24, 15.

Look what it says.

Choose this day whom you will serve.

You can't get any more blatant than that, right?

Choose to follow God, choose him, or or don't.

Right?

It literally says it.

How about Romans 10 verse 9?

Romans 10:9

Because if, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

If, if you choose, if you decide, if you if you confess with your mouth, salvation will be yours.

A couple of verses later in Romans 10, 13, it says this for everyone, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

You have to choose to call on his name.

It's an act of your volition.

How about this one?

We've never heard this verse before.

John 3, 16.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes, you gotta believe.

Make that decision.

Whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Again, we all got a decision to make here.

Will you believe?

Will you choose to receive the salvation that that that God offers you through his son?

It's a decision we're all faced with.

All over the scriptures, we're we're told to choose godliness over evil.

Put on the new self.

It talks about in Colossians, right?

That there's there's no denying that God holds us responsible for our thoughts and for our actions.

Now, when you kind of put everything that we've been talking about here this morning kind of all together, I think here's where we essentially land.

We got a quote here, you can get this up on the screen.

I don't actually know who said this, I'm not claiming it to be my own, but here's what it is.

God predestines who will be saved, and we must choose Christ in order to be saved.

Both facts are equally true.

Do you smell burnt toast yet as your brain is just frying?

Now, if you're wondering, like, how on earth do I reconcile these two truths?

The answer is you can't.

You don't.

It's a paradox.

Do you understand that?

We we live, us as Christians, as Christ followers, we live in the tension of these two truths.

The scriptures affirm both.

Excuse me.

But but listen, our limited and our very finite minds simply do not have the capacity, simply do not have the ability to completely 100% uh understand and explain exactly how God's sovereignty and my responsibility, how all of that fits together.

I personally just love how John MacArthur puts it.

He's like, believe both truths completely and leave the harmonizing of those truths in the hands of the Lord.

That's the role of a Christian.

Leave it up to the Lord.

Understand both, affirm both completely.

Don't try and find some middle ground where we've kind of dumbed down both truths and we've weakened both, and now we're on we're on kind of shaky ground in all of that.

Don't do that.

Believe both entirely.

Understand that you're not gonna figure all this out, be okay with that.

Trust that your incredible Heavenly Father has all of this ironed out in his mind.

It's all logical to him, it's all it's all completely good.

You and I can get by without knowing all of those details.

The Lord has given us both of these things, and even the scriptures don't entirely reconcile them for us.

Be okay with that.

Listen, listen, do not go into the ditch on this.

It's so easy to do, and so many Christians, so many churches, so many denominations don't stay on the path.

They don't stay between the rails.

They can kind of go one way or they go the other, and they and they get themselves into all kinds of problems.

Well, what are some of those common ditches?

Well, let's look at a couple of them here.

First one, ignoring election.

Ignoring election is a ditch.

Okay, well, I you know, I'm kind of uncomfortable with this, and you know, I don't I don't really understand it, and you know, the scriptures seem like above and beyond my capability to even remotely understand, and so I'm just gonna kind of ignore that.

I'm gonna I'm gonna push that aside.

Listen, do that to your own peril.

What are we talking about today?

We're talking about how the fact that we are chosen is our identity.

You need to know who you are.

I'm telling you right now, your heart is already trying to figure this out.

It's attaching itself to all kinds of wrong things.

We talked about that a bunch.

God tells you who you are.

You ignore election, you're you're a big part of who you are disappears with it.

And you'll just you'll fall deeper into idolatry.

Your your your peace will just be you'll erode.

Your effectiveness in God's hands falls apart.

Your security, your stability mentally, emotionally, your effectiveness in his hands, all of it disappears.

Don't ex don't ignore election.

Chosen is who you are.

Listen, if you don't understand this, listen, I get it.

Trust me, I poured over that this week.

And we gotta read.

I would encourage you to be a Berean.

Like, what's that all about?

Well, it's in Acts chapter 17, verse 11, the Bereans, it says, now these these were Jews who were who were more noble than those in Thessalonica.

Acts 17:11

They received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

Take like what we're talking about here today, and then jump in yourself and dig into the scriptures and and wrestle with these things.

Don't just don't rely on pastors and don't rely on Christian leaders to inform what your theology is.

Hopefully, we're helpful in that.

Not all of us are.

Go to the scriptures, wrestle with it.

Don't ignore it.

That's one ditch.

A lot of people do that.

How about this ditch?

Explaining away election.

There's so many people though, that's what they do.

They explain it away.

Oh, well, that one kind of rubs against my sensibility.

And you know, I like to feel like we're we're such control freaks, right?

And I I want to be, I'm in control of my salvation.

I choose God.

I could reject him if I want to.

And so they get, well, but we but I can't exactly ignore it.

They feel uncomfortable doing that.

So I've got to like do verbal gymnastics and kind of explain it all away.

The the main one that I often hear is well, maybe election is more like, you know, God predestined those who he knew would ultimately choose him.

That's a common one.

That's just not it.

That's not what the Bible teaches.

We try to explain it away or we dumb it down or we even change the meaning of it.

It's so dangerous, right?

Oftentimes so that we can feel more comfortable, so we can feel in control in terms of our knowledge and where we're at.

J.I.

Packer, I don't have this on the screen for you, but this is what he says about that.

The desire to oversimplify the Bible by cutting out the mysteries is natural to our perverse minds.

And it is not surprising that even godly men should fall victim to it.

Be good with the mystery.

Rejoice in the mystery.

Don't explain it away, accept it as it is, face value, understand it.

Here's a third ditch that we fall into: minimizing man's choice.

All right, all the reform people in the crowd are like, yeah, sovereignty of God.

Right?

I love that too.

But don't forget you've got some responsibility, bro.

Right?

Don't forget that, okay?

Sometimes we go we go so far the the other way that we're like, ah, God does everything, and I guess that means I can be kind of lazy about it.

I can I can put my faith into autopilot.

Right?

Guess I don't need to evangelize because you know God's worked it all out in eternity past.

And if I don't evangelize, whatever.

You notice how the Lord still says, share the gospel?

That's what he says.

That's our responsibility.

Leave who gets saved up to the Lord.

Okay, but don't forget you have a responsibility.

If your theology is all ironed out here, you can preach the gospel and then leave the results in the hand of the Lord.

If if if if people don't turn to faith in Christ when you preach it, that's okay.

You can sleep at night.

I sleep great at night.

Because you know that it's it's up to the Lord, it's not up to you to convince somebody and change somebody's heart.

But that being said, you have a responsibility.

You really do.

It's not it's not the response here is not to be passive and lazy in your walk.

Your walk requires action, it requires effort.

How does this all fit with God's sovereignty and grace and all I don't know?

It just does.

There's a lot of tension in the scriptures.

Don't minimize man's choice in this and the responsibility that you have to repent.

Here's the last one that I can think of here.

The last ditch is spiritual pride.

Right?

This is huge for people as we talk about this.

Referenced it a little bit already, but so oftentimes we, you know, we we grow in our theology and we kind of see the scriptures and we start to understand it, and it immediately goes to our heads.

And there's like this elitism that we sometimes feel, and we align ourselves with certain theologians, and we carry a certain kind of Bible and we go to a certain kind of conference, and you know, it's just kind of all puffed up, and we're and when we're smug about it, that is so backwards, that is so wrong.

Right?

If your theology is not softening your heart and giving you a love and appreciation for the Lord, if it's not humbling you and giving you a heart for the lost, you need a new theology.

None of this, I know the Bible awesomely, and I know the Bible better than them and that crowd.

Right?

You know who was like that?

The Pharisees.

That's how they were.

Jesus had some things to say to them, I think.

So listen, if if all of this here is how we don't want to respond, okay, and the ditches we got to be careful of not going into, what is the response?

Right?

What is it for us as we embrace that we are that we are chosen by such an amazing God?

We'll look at our passage again, starting in verse 4, and you begin to see it in there.

It says, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.

Looked at that now, this that we should be holy and blameless before him.

Right?

You see, there is still some responsibility here for us.

We should be holy.

We just sang that that song, right?

Then that that should be our heart's desire.

I I want to be holy as as he is holy.

Lord, would you do this work in my life?

I want to be blameless.

I don't want to let sin, you know, rule the roost of my heart.

Be holy.

That's a that's a clear response here indicated in the text.

We live lives of holy devotion to him.

Does no good if we claim to hold on to the right beliefs, but we don't actually grow in holiness and greater commitment to Christ.

Where the idols of our hearts are are loosening and disappearing and breaking down.

How about this?

This is a response too in verse 5.

In love, it says, in love, that's that's God's motive, that's his heart for predestination for predestination, saving us.

In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself.

Adoption.

How amazing is that?

Well, if we could unpack that for a while.

How amazing is it when families adopt children.

It's such a picture of the gospel.

It's what Jesus has done for us.

He adopts us.

Man, that could turn into a second sermon.

It says, in love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will.

Here it is, to the praise of his glorious grace.

We're to worship him.

That's the result of this.

If you're not growing in fervency in worship, there's a problem.

It may be just going in one ear and out the other.

To the praise of his glorious grace.

He gets glory for this.

He is to be glorified.

We stand in awe of God's great love for us as seen through our election.

You know, I think as you think about all of this and you're putting all this together, I think we really resonate with what Paul said in Romans 11, 33.

Oh, the depth and the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God.

Are you just blown away?

How unsearchable are his judgments, and how inscrutable his ways.

We're talking through what's our response here?

Look what it says.

It says, In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined here, according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.

Okay, so our response then is to be comp is to completely trust him.

Right?

Trust his will, trust his purposes uh in your life.

However, that is working itself out.

I mean, why wouldn't we?

Right?

God's got this, right?

He chose you, he chose me.

We've been we've been adopted again into his family as as sons.

We have the privileges of being a brother with Christ.

That's your identity now.

Proclaim this to yourself.

Do you do that?

You talk to yourself a lot.

Do you realize that?

What's the message that you're telling yourself?

That you can find a serviceable identity in what the world offers?

All of our hearts are whispering that, like I said before, all of our hearts are going after that.

We need to proclaim who we are according to the scriptures.

Pray this into your soul, as I've said.

Pray that this becomes the narrative flowing through your heart, the the voice that's shouting at you.

Because that is what will make you strong.

That is what will make you secure.

That's right, where your identity is found.