FBC Morning Light – March 22, 2023

A good Wednesday morning to you. Today we're reading in Deuteronomy 7 and 8, Luke 14, and the 58th

Psalm. Today I want to talk a little bit about one of the more controversial doctrines of the scriptures.

Some people hate that idea, the notion of what we would call election, divine election.

That is, that God, in his purposes and for his grace, chooses a people for himself.

Now, whatever you think about that doctrine, you can't get around it. I mean, it's scripture.

You see it in Deuteronomy, in chapter 7, where the

Lord says in verse 6, he says to the people of Israel, he says, you are a holy people to the

Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth.

I mean, you can't get around that. The Lord said, you have been a chosen people.

Now, if you know the history of Israel, especially up to this point in Deuteronomy, these people haven't been particularly pristine.

God didn't choose them because they were going to be perfect people. What's interesting about that verse that I just read in Deuteronomy is that Peter employs the same terminology, the same kind of language in 1

Peter 2, verse 9, speaking of New Testament Christians. Listen to what he says.

Peter says, you are a chosen generation. He's speaking of Christian people. You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

So the Old Testament saints were a chosen people of God. New Testament Christians are a chosen people of God.

Now here's the thing. Some who don't like the doctrine of election say, if you believe the doctrine of election, it's just going to make you proud.

You're the chosen. You're the chosen ones. Therefore, you're just going to be arrogant.

If that doctrine is true, you're just going to be proud. No. Because a proper understanding of the doctrine of election realizes that God didn't choose me because of anything that he saw in me.

In fact, after God told the people of Israel, you are a chosen people, that God has chosen you to be a people for himself, a special treasure above all the people of the earth, he goes on in verse 7 to say, the

Lord did not set his love on you or choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all the other people, but because the

Lord loves you and because he would keep the oath which he swore to your fathers. And earlier in the book of Deuteronomy, or maybe it's coming later,

I can't remember exactly, I'm just remembering off the top of my head, the Lord says, I didn't set my love on you,

I didn't choose you because you were more noble, more worthy than any other people.

You are a stiff -necked people, in fact. The point that Moses, the

Lord through Moses, is making to this people, chosen people, this special treasure of the

Lord's, is that he did not choose them because of anything special about them.

He chose them and set his love on them because he chose them and set his love on them. In other words, because he wanted to, because he chose to.

That's the same that is true in the New Testament as well. Same idea carries over.

You were dead in trespasses and sins. There was nothing in you that God looked down the future corridors of time and said, oh, that person will be particularly holy, that person will be better than anybody else, that person will be a great asset if I take them unto myself,

I'm going to choose them. No, that's not what God did. God chose whom he chose because he chose to choose them.

That's the only way you can go about this. You can't look at any merit in yourself.

Those of us who really believe the doctrine of election, it's a humbling thing.

I think to myself, why would God choose me? Why would

God choose me? Who am I? What am I? I am of no asset to him.

I just read earlier in my Bible reading today where Jesus said in the

Gospel of Luke, if you're like a servant who does everything that he's been told to do, you don't deserve any particular praise, you've just done your duty.

Even if I were to be able to be completely, perfectly obedient to everything

God expects of me and asks of me to do, I would just be doing my duty.

There's nothing good in me. I don't deserve to be saved. I don't deserve to be chosen of God.

I am an unworthy one. This was the response the people of Israel needed to have at this announcement.

Your Lord has chosen you to be a people for himself, a special treasure above all the people of the earth.

Their response needed to be, why? What is so special?

What is he seen in us? Who are we? We're nobodies. We're nothings.

We're a small group of stiff -necked people. But God in his grace chose that small group of stiff -necked people, just as God in his grace and for his purposes has chosen you if you have come to faith in Christ.

Be grateful, humbly grateful for the grace of God.

Our Father and our God, we do thank you and praise you for your sovereign, marvelous grace.

We don't understand it. We can't put it all together. We can't even comprehend it. But it's there.

We accept it. We believe it. We're grateful for it. Bless these thoughts to our hearts today, we pray.

We ask it in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. All right, well listen, have a good rest of your