I
remember back when I was kid in school at recess, when we would line up against
the fence and the teachers would choose two captains. Then the captains would
choose who they wanted to be on their kickball team. You would stand there and hope you were not
chosen last because being chosen last meant that no one wanted you on their
team to begin with. But here in
Ephesians chapter one verse 4 Paul tells us; “long
ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be
holy and without fault in his eyes.” Let
us think about this for just I minute, what are we saying here? God chose us, we didn’t choose God? Many times people like to believe that they
choose God, that the church was created by man to honor God. No, it’s the other way around. This is a wonderful truth of the gospel, but
it also means we need to stop patting ourselves on the back and saying look I
chose to follow God. Before you chose to
follow God, God chose you. God chose
everyone to come and be a part of His family.
Let
us try to understand what this means for us, according the J. Vernon McGee it
means: ” “According as” is a connective which
modifies the preceding statement in verse three. The spiritual blessings which
you and I are given are in accord with the divine will. All is done in perfect
unison with God’s purpose. This world and this universe will operate
according to the plan and purpose of Almighty God. “According as” looks back to
the three-in-one blessing of the last verse. There are actually and ought to be
three ins in verse three. There is, first of all, “in all
spiritual blessings,” which are then wrapped “in the heavenlies,” and
finally put in the larger package of “in Christ.” The whole thought is:
Open your gift and see what God has done for you, and then move out in faith
and lay hold of it and live today on the high plane to which God has brought
you. He’s made you a son and blessed you with all spiritual blessings. We need
to live like that in the world today. The
source of all our blessings is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He
carries our mind back to eternity past to make us realize that salvation is
altogether of God and not at all of ourselves. You and I are not the
originators or the promoters or the consummators of our salvation. God did it
all.”[1]
Let’s
try to break this down into two categories, the first being personal salvation,
God chose to save each and every one of us.
His Son dyeing on a cross, then defeating death three days later. That means all of the things we do after
accepting the love of God, we do to bring Him honor and glory. All the things we have, we are to realize it
is because God has chosen us to receive them for His glory. Many don’t like to hear that because they
want to do what they want to do and live
how they want to live without being told what to do. While others like to believe all they have is
because they worked hard and it is theirs to keep. For we read in Colossians 1:9-11, “ So we have
continued praying for you ever since we first heard about you. We ask God to
give you a complete understanding of what he wants to do in your lives, and we
ask him to make you wise with spiritual wisdom.
Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and you
will continually do good, kind things for others. All the while, you will learn
to know God better and better. We also
pray that you will be strengthened with his glorious power so that you will
have all the patience and endurance you need. May you be filled with joy,
always thanking the Father, who has enabled you to share the inheritance that
belongs to God’s holy people, who live in the light. For he has rescued us from the one who rules
in the kingdom of darkness, and he has brought us into the Kingdom of his dear
Son. God has purchased our freedom with his blood*
and has forgiven all our sins”
Second
part of being chosen is, the church as a whole, God has chosen His Church to be
the body, for which we come together and worship Him. We like to think that we have chosen the
church but it is God who chose the church.
Notice how McGee describes the church, “Now all this was according to
His plan. God the Father planned the church, God the Son paid for the church,
and God the Holy Spirit protects the church.”
God chose us to be His church, that means you and me, we are His church
no matter how big our small the church is, it is His. We as the church need to be in prayer for the
Glory of God to be seen through us, we need to pray that God will grow His
Church and we need to know that God hears our prayers and is answering
them. John tells us in 1st
John 5:13, “13 I write this to you who believe in the Son of God, so
that you may know you have eternal life. 14 And we can be confident
that he will listen to us whenever we ask him for anything in line with his
will. 15 And if we know he is listening when we make our requests,
we can be sure that he will give us what we ask for.”
[1]McGee,
J. V. 1997, c1981. Thru the Bible commentary. Based on the Thru the
Bible radio program. (electronic ed.). Thomas Nelson: Nashville
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