Chosen

THE CONFIDENCE OF BEING CHOSEN

      What does it mean to you to be chosen? Do you remember being chosen to be in the class play, or to bat first on the softball team? Maybe your class project won a prize. It could be that your abilities and desire to serve caused you to be chosen to head up a committee, or lead a ministry in the church. It feels good to be chosen to be someone’s friend, or what about the time you were chosen by your future spouse. There is something about that word “chosen” that causes us to think about being valuable, needed, and having a quality that is special to another person. It singles us out and gives us a chance to feel good about ourselves, and what we have to offer to God and to others.

      In 1Peter 2:1-10, we find some interesting metaphors to describe Christians and their relationship with God. The Apostle Peter is writing to the churches in five Roman provinces in what is now the modern country of Turkey. In his letter to them, he expands on this notion of being chosen. Peter uses words like “chosen race,” “holy and royal priesthood,” “living stones,” and “God’s possessions,” to describe the members of the early church family. Peter is trying to tell those folks how valuable they are in God’s eyes. How once they were “nobody,” but now they are “somebody,” not by anything they had done, but because of the mercy of God through the saving action of Jesus Christ.

      Because of what Jesus can do in your life, you can go from being a “nobody,” to a “somebody.” Not in a prideful, better-than-anyone-else attitude, but in a life-changing way that makes you different. Once a person has allowed Jesus to be Lord of his/her life, there is a pronounced difference in the way that person looks, thinks, and acts. There is an outward change in attitude and spirit—a change that is a reflection of a deeper heart change. Knowing that we have been chosen, knowing that we have accepted our “chosen-ness,” gives us confidence and assurance that we did not have before    

      It is interesting that Peter talks about Christians being “living stones.” God calls each of us for a particular ministry for him. He chooses very carefully each “stone” that he uses to build his kingdom. I have watched stonemasons as they pick up each stone, turn it over and over in their hands, hold it up to the wall, beat on it with a hammer, and shape it for where they have chosen for it to be placed. Sometimes after working with a stone for a while, they will toss it aside, only to pick it up later to be used in a different place on the wall. Peter says, “You are being built like living stones into a spiritual temple.”

      We are not building the structure, this kingdom, God’s church, as much as we would like to think that we are. This is critical to understand. We are being built into it. The builder is the Spirit of God who is at work always and everywhere. The mission is God's. We join it; we participate in it; we are swept along and enlivened in and through it, but we do not make it. God does.

      Jesus said, “I have chosen you even before you were born, when you were in sin, when you were struggling against me, I chose you. I chose you to make a decision to serve me, love me, and to give yourself completely to me. I have forgiven you and have a place for you in my kingdom as a “living stone,” and I am waiting for you to choose me. I need you to be a holy priest, to stand as my witness to those who have not chosen me. I can give you the assurance and the confidence that you are my people—my chosen people, if you are willing.”

      Do you have that assurance that you are a chosen person? Do you have the confidence that you have chosen Jesus?

Rev Tim McConnell, Long’s Chapel UMC, June 23, 2013