For Oct 25

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Sermon Notes: Choose This Day

Intro: Just think – only a few more days of those repetitious, mudslinging campaign commercials, text messages, and junk mail to help us choose the right candidate – if there even is one. Although the only endorsement you’ll hear from this pulpit is for Jesus, we are also faced with making Him the right choice, with eternal consequences.

 

I. Choices

A. A man dies and arrives at heaven’s gates, where he is met by St. Peter, who explains the choice he must make  He’d spend 24 hours visiting heaven, then spend the next 24 hours in hell. At the end of those two days, he’d choose where he’d spend eternity.

   So, in heaven he enjoys warm camraderie with joyful souls, finding refreshing peace. They have a really nice time and all too soon, the 24 hours are up. Then Peter puts him on the elevator that takes him to hell. The doors open and he finds himself on a lush, green golf course. He sees the clubhouse where his many friends are waiting for him, very happy and well dressed. They hug and laugh, reminiscing about their wild times on earth. They play a few rounds of golf, then dine on lobster, steak, and wine. Satan joins them, and actually seems very social, telling funny jokes. Soon, the time is up, and after a hearty farewell, the elevator returns him to where Peter is waiting. “Now that  you’ve spent a day in hell and another in heaven, where do you choose to live your eternity?"  Peter asks.                                                                                                                         

   The man thinks about it, then answers: "Well, although heaven was really great, I think I’d rather be in hell."

   So, Peter escorts him to the elevator that takes him down to hell. When the elevator door opens, though, he finds himself in a barren land covered with waste and garbage, fire and brimstone. He sees all his friends in misery, dressed in rags, picking through garbage as more garbage falls from above.

    Satan welcomes him, putting his arm around his shoulder as the man gasps, "I don’t understand. Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate, drank, and had a great time with friends. Now there’s just a wasteland of garbage and fire, and my friends look miserable. What happened?"

   Satan just smiles and says, "Yesterday we were campaigning. Today you voted."

B. From the beginning of Creation, God created humans with free will, the ability to choose among alternatives. In the context of voting, our choices can also be considered elections. So going forward from here, I will be using the terms chosen and elected interchangeably.

C. God has blessed this country with political freedom. We don’t have a true democracy, where everyone votes on every issue, but rather a republic, a modified form of democracy, in which we elect some leaders, as well as  representatives to a congress to pass and implement laws to determine how elected leaders will govern us, what can or cannot be done. Elections can vote government leaders in or out of office, from President down to local

leaders. Voting on those decisions affects our present and our future, and therefore very important to every citizen.

D. But the democratic form of government has evolved over centuries. Beginning with Israel being freed from Egyptian slavery, God chose Moses to be His representative leader to govern the people, which would be a theocracy. ‘Theo’, Greek for God; cracy, meaning rule. God established rules and direction that He transmitted through Moses. God would meet with Moses at the Tent of Meeting, set up in the midst of the people, to be a more present God to the people, as well make edicts from Mt Sinai, such as the Ten Commandments. Commandments, not voted on laws.

 

II. Joshua 24:14-24

A. Israel entered the Promised Land under God’s replacement of Moses with Joshua. After years of military campaigns, where Israel was often greatly outnumbered, but successful conquerors through God’s strength. Now, Joshua, in our OT lesson, is retiring. He’d been Moses’ aide during the Exodus, witnessing God’s power through Moses. As one of 12 sent to spy in Canaan, seeing the fertile land as well as very large Canaanites, he’d favored proceeding into the Promised Land under God’s leadership, but was greatly outvoted by the doubting people, until 40 years later.

B. And now, reminding the people of all that God had led them through since leaving Egypt, Joshua gives them a personal election decision: choose for yourselves whom you will serve, the Lord, or the false gods of your ancestors. Joshua’s vote emphatically states that he and his household would serve the Lord. And the people of Israel vote that they too would serve and obey the Lord.

C. The ensuing years of Israel’s government was a more relaxed theocracy, with each of the 12 tribes independently governing themselves, until a national time of crisis arose. Then a judge, a God chosen leader, would call to unite the tribes to meet the crisis. Still, each tribe would choose whether they’d join the nationalized army. The prophet Samuel would be the last judge for Israel, because then the people wanted a king, rather than a judge. Despite Samuel’s warnings of what a king might mean to Israel, God agrees to choose a king, electing him by anointing him as Israel’s king, shifting the government to a monarchy, but expecting the king to still be accountable to God.

D. The tall, handsome Saul is God’s elect, and Israel thrives for a time, but when Saul proves unfaithful, God removes him from office, filling the office by electing, or having Samuel anoint David as King. The process of choosing a king, not necessarily by God’s election, was often necessitated by death, assassination, or revolt, that continued over several more centuries. But prophets of God, particularly Isaiah, were continuing to prophesy about a special King to be sent from God, who would come for a short time, not as an earthly king, but would be killed, rejected as God’s own Son. He would return one day, but this time as God’s elected King to rule from David’s throne of God’s favor over God’s elect, His chosen, for eternity.

E. I’ve used the word elect here as applying to God’s having chosen certain people, Abraham’s descendants, Jews, for His special purposes. His elect. The word elect is often synonymous with predestination, which would imply that God has chosen, or elected, certain people to salvation. God refers to Israel as the elect, or His chosen people. In Romans 8:29-30, Paul writes: “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

F. This passage, as well as the term elect, has caused centuries of debate. Who are the elect? If the omniscient, or all knowing God already knows who will be saved, why exercise our free will to choose salvation? Is Israel the elect, His chosen people? If so, what does that mean for us Gentiles? If God already knows which of us are the elect, or His chosen, or knows who are not His chosen, what’s the sense of choosing our way of life?

 G. At the risk of oversimplification, at least as I read Scripture, His elect are those who have elected to follow Jesus. This is the first miracle of the Gospel. Through the atoning work of Jesus Christ, the grace of God has freed the will of the human race to elect to follow him, or not. It is His grace that paves the way—even before we have the first idea of who God might even be. John Wesley’s term for this is prevenient grace, the grace coming before we elect Christ as our Savior. The doctrine labeled as “free will” is in reality, “freed” will. 

H. God’s plan was to reveal His love and His Son first to a particular people, Abraham and his descendants. The Jewish race. Those people would in turn share God’s love and the Gospel message throughout the world. Just because God elected to use the Jewish people to reveal Himself, doesn’t mean that all Jewish people would elect, or follow Him. God didn’t offer unconditional election. Some of the Jews elected to follow God, some chose elected to follow other gods, some elected to follow their own desires.

I. But God’s plan has been revealed to all His people, His Creations. First to the Jew, then to the rest of the world. Jesus didn’t die on the cross for a select few. He even told His disciples to preach the Gospel throughout the world and make disciples of all nations. That’s the whole essence of Scripture. Election doesn’t mean that God elects just some to get saved and some to be lost. Election means that God has determined what will happen to those people who elect to accept Christ and to those who elect to reject Christ. Predestination does not determine who has been already elected to salvation. Predestination is God’s predetermination of what will happen for those who accept God’s offer of salvation.. As the Omniscient God, he may know who will or will not elect to follow Him, but He doesn’t predestine, or force it on us.

J. So then, how shall we respond to God’s election? Joshua told the people to elect who they would serve. He tells the people that, because God was a holy God, and as a jealous God, unwilling to share the love and glory due to Himself with other gods, He would not forgive their rebellion and sins. If they were to forsake him and serve other gods, he would bring disaster on them. That doesn’t sound like he would spare the elect, and only punish others. In fact, when the nation of Israel became so sinful, God used Babylon and Assyria to discipline the people, but later forgave Israel, and restored them to their land again. Isaiah would tell the people that even though a mother might forget her nursing child, He would never forsake them, although we may elect to accept, or reject Him. God has a predetermined plan to bring us safely through this life to heaven. It’s up to us whether we follow God’s plan

K. Earlier, we talked about the evolving form of God’s gift of government that began as a theocracy, God’s direct ruling, that evolved to having a king rule as a monarchy. Because of their election of sinful living, He allowed foreign powers to rule over them, electing to restore them when they repented and were willing to obey Him.

 

III. Romans 13:1-7

A. In our Epistle reading, Israel had been under the dictatorship of Rome before and during Jesus’ ministry. Prophecies had strongly pointed to the Messiah’s crucifixion on a cross, centuries before the Romans implemented it under their rule, so it appears God’s plan included Roman rule. Yet, despite the finality of His crucifixion death, He rose from the dead, showing God’s sovereign rule. So it might not seem surprising for Paul to write, in our Epistle lesson, that there is no authority except that which God has established, and that everyone should be subject to the governing authorities. That would apply to the Roman government as well as our current governments. Paul too was under Roman rule, even a Roman citizen, when he wrote his Epistle to the Church in Rome.  

B. But that doesn’t mean we are to be puppets of a government. God has given us a form of government where we can exercise our free will to elect our leaders, and the power to vote to change what’s not working, what’s not right, or to reinforce what is right and working. That’s our individual responsibility, not something we can pass along to others, or ignore. God gave each of us free will to choose our way, the freedom to use that free will constructively, and His Holy Spirit to help us discern that way. In government, in church matters, and in our personal lives.

 

Conclusion: But perhaps the most critical of any of our decisions,  is the choice of who you will serve by how you respond to Him. It’s estimated the average adult makes about 35,000 decisions each day (roughly 2,000 choices per hour or one every two seconds while awake), although around 95% of those daily decisions happen automatically or subconsciously. We don’t have to question whether we are God’s elect. He died to ensure that whoever believes in Him shall have everlasting life. We only have to determine whether we have elected Jesus as our Savior.

   The fact that you’re here this morning is a good indication that He has chosen you, and that you have chosen Him. Then our Christian living should reveal that we have decided to follow Jesus, and elected Him to be the One we will serve. Amen