Deuteronomy 10:12-21 12 And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, 13 and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?14 To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. 15 Yet the Lord set his affection on your ancestors and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations—as it is today. 16 Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. 17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. 18 He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. 19 And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt. 20 Fear the Lord your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name. 21 He is the one you praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes.
Verse 15 of our text says God chose the Israelites to be His special people. Now, if I was going to choose someone to be in a special relationship with me, I would choose carefully. I would be picky. I would look for people of the highest character. I would look for people who would add value to my life. I would seek out people who would be easy to be with, who would go along with my vision for life, who could join me in a purposeful and fruitful partnership. I would want to be with someone who had a good personality, someone who was fun to be around. None of that describes the Israelite nation, and yet we read in Deuteronomy 10 that God CHOSE them!
Let me describe them to you using descriptions from Scripture. Here is the gist of Deuteronomy 9:12-13
The Israelites were corrupt.
The Israelites were disobedient to God’s commands.
The Israelites made an idol to worship instead of worshipping the God who brought them out of Egypt.
They were stiff-necked. That means they were stubborn, obstinate, pigheaded, bull-headed, mulish, opinionated, unyielding, and strong-willed. They sound like a party waiting to happen, right? Not. These were the people God chose.
If those descriptors aren’t enough to give you a clear picture, how about we move down a few verses to Deuteronomy 9:23-24? 23 And when the Lord sent you out from Kadesh Barnea, he said, “Go up and take possession of the land I have given you.” But you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. You did not trust him or obey him. 24 You have been rebellious against the Lord ever since I have known you.
In addition to the list we have already established, Moses tacked on that they were rebellious and not trusting of God. He went on to say that the Israelites had been rebellious against the LORD ever since he had known them. God had literally been holding good things out in front of the Israelites as they walked to the Promised Land and they grumbled and complained or did the exact opposite from God’s commands as if to say, “We don’t care about your opinion.” I think I could conjure up a more disgusting word than “stiff-necked” to describe that attitude. I would probably dump their ungrateful selves in the wilderness and say, “Sayonara Suckers! You are on your own.” But not God. God never left them. Ever. Why didn’t He leave them? Because He chose them. It’s almost too much to grasp.
Look at the last verse of Deuteronomy 9:29, “But they are your people, your inheritance that you brought out by your great power and your outstretched arm.”
God had bound Himself by oath to ungrateful, self-serving, short-sighted, disobedient, hard-to-deal-with, wishy-washy people.
Back up this train to chapter 7 of Deuteronomy where we read in verse 6 and following:
6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. 7 The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 But it was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
What? God chose Israel because He loved Israel. Does that blow anyone else’s mind? Is that a love that you can identify with? Is that a love that you can find anywhere on earth? God loved them because He loved them and had made a promise to always be their God.
The closest illustration we have on earth for this kind of love and commitment is pictured in the marriage covenant between a husband and wife. When a man and a woman leave their father and mother and become united physically and become one in spirit and in purpose, they continue to do so day after day because they make vows, they make promises to remain true to those commitments. Their words reflect a choice that they make, a choice intended to span a lifetime.
Thom and I will be married 25 years this November, and we are going to have a big shindig to celebrate. Y’all are invited. It is on November 5th at 1 pm. I figure anyone who can put up with me for 25 years deserves a party. Now, when I married that handsome hunk of a guy over there, I was expecting him to live a chosen life. Living chosen is very different from living the way he had been living. The guy had been keeping his options open, and y’all, he had a lot of options. Thom Pratt played the field. He had a lot of girlfriends, maybe not all at once, but one right after the other. (Not all at once, right, Babe?) But I chose him, and he chose me, so I expected him to walk away from previous patterns and to pursue an entirely new way of life with me. I expected him to stop playing the field and to live chosen.
You see, I chose him to be my forever love. I chose him to be my life partner. I chose him to be my best friend. I chose him to be my prayer covering. I chose him to be a counselor for me. I knew he had chosen me to be all those things as well. Him choosing me changed me and changed the way I lived.
I was no longer pursuing my goals and dreams, but together, we were creating a whole new life. My identity became tied to his identity. I had a desire to avoid doing things that would embarrass him or bring reproach to his name, the name I took when we married. Thom expected me to live a married life, not a single life. There is a difference! I expected him to live a married life, not a single life. I have worked to serve him. I have done my best not to offend or annoy him. We can get into the weeds on how well I’ve done that, but the point is, there is an extreme shift in your life when you recognize the implications of having been chosen.
God had chosen the Israelites, but they didn’t get the implications of that, and they didn’t live chosen. Oh, I think they were glad to have escaped their slavery in Egypt, for the most part, but I don’t think they embraced the chosen life, at least not in a way that recognized that they had received, comprehended, and truly appreciated the love of God.
Unlike the marriage relationship where both parties have an equal status in the relationship, when God chooses a people for Himself it isn’t because He needs something they provide. It isn’t because God is better off with them by His side. God chooses people because He can’t help Himself. He is compelled by love to love us. He is love. God loves because He loves. Make no mistake. He is the Giver in the relationship. He is the Protector. He is the One who has sacrificed it all just so we can be in a relationship with Him, just so that we can benefit from a relationship with Him.
Imagine a child who receives gift after gift for his or her birthday. Picture that child never acknowledging the givers of any of the gifts, never saying “thank you,” never appreciating what has been done for them. Imagine the child tossing the gifts aside and never using them or imagine the child using them in ways that are destructive. Can you visualize a kid taking what someone thoughtfully picked out and paid for and throwing it up against a wall or smashing it on the ground? Imagine that same child, when they break what was given to them, something that was their own fault, returning to the giver and demanding more gifts as if the giver owed it to them to replace it?
That child wasn’t grateful or humbled by the expressions of love he or she received. That child wasn’t motivated to become a giver to others. That child didn’t find joy and fulfillment as was intended when the gifts were purchased. He or she wasn’t impacted or changed by the generosity of the givers. Something that was to have made the child feel special, celebrated, and loved, instead caused them to feel entitled.
Believers, we have received the greatest gift that could ever be given. God’s grace is beyond comprehension. His generous love is completely undeserved, and yet it is freely given. Salvation from sin came at the highest price and receiving salvation by grace through faith should wreck us in a good way. It should move us to daily gratitude and service to God and others. It should transform our character and change the way we live every day. It should change our desires and give us an appetite for righteousness. It should inspire us to obedience to God. I believe it should lead us to a place where we feel indebted to God, like even though we could never repay Him for all He has done and continues to do, we should live our lives trying. It should also make us want everything God has for us because if He has provided salvation as such an extravagant gift and says, “I have even more for you if you will just walk with me,” why are we not sprinting toward the more that awaits? Why do we treat our spiritual lives like a casual walk instead of an intentional sprint to take hold of all God can provide? Why do we sometimes have a “so what” attitude when it comes to the call and privilege to live as citizens in the Kingdom of God?
I have a deep concern that many believers have received God’s extravagant grace, but fewer are being changed by it.
I’m not sure we are always conscious of the gravity of our sin. Maybe we don’t understand the weight of what we have been rescued from. Perhaps many don’t understand what God had to do to Himself so that we could live chosen. Sin kills us. Death, physical and spiritual death, came into the world when Adam and Eve sinned. That is a huge problem that we could do nothing about. Jesus came in the flesh because our sin was killing us. It hurt God so much that our sin was killing us that He allowed it to kill Him instead. The least we could do in acknowledgement of such a great sacrifice is to live like we are thankful to have been chosen to receive such a grace. What does the chosen life look like?
- Living Chosen means living free from sin. I fear many Christians are counting on
the grace of God to cover them taking great liberties to indulge in sin because they think forgiveness is easily obtained. God does liberally offer forgiveness, but it is offered to those who pray with a repentant heart. God doesn’t respond in forgiveness to empty words. When someone says, “Please forgive me,” all the while intending to continue in that sin, those words won’t be met with forgiveness.
Acts 3:19 says, “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out.”
II Chronicles 7:14 says, “If my people who are called by my name, will humbled themselves and pray and seek my face and TURN (repent) from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” II Chronicles 7:14
Repentance means desiring to change. Jesus didn’t take our guilty verdict just so you could make it to Heaven. He took our sin so that we could be free from both the penalty of sin and the presence of sin in this life.
If you are a professing believer who loves to sin, that’s a problem. It means God doesn’t truly have your heart. Deuteronomy 10:16 that we read says, “Circumcise your hearts.” God wants to captivate our hearts with His amazing love. He has always been after the hearts of His chosen people. He is pursuing our hearts right now. We would all much rather hear about the generous grace of God than our need to respond to it with a desire to stop doing the things which put Jesus on the cross. Grace isn’t a license to sin. It is the motivation, and subsequent power to stop sinning.
II Peter 1:3 says, His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
Everything we need, including the power to stop sinning. Just as when I chose Thom and he chose me, as we married and I expected him to stop pursuing other women, to stop living the single life, so too, when we receive our chosen status in Christ, there are old patterns that must be stopped and new ones that must be established. If we are growing in grace, we won’t prefer sin, but we will prefer God’s glory and goodness through holiness and God will enable us to live that way.
- Living Chosen means a fruitful life. John 15:16-“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit-fruit that will last-and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.”
God tells us that we have been chosen and appointed to bear Kingdom Fruit. You know what fruit that will last is? Helping people get right with God. Sowing seeds for eternity. Serving in ways that will go beyond your lifetime. Investing in others for Jesus’ sake. Building up the Kingdom. That is how you live chosen.
And we read that there is a direct correlation between living for God and having access to His resources and power. Are your prayers being answered? This passage tells me they will be if you are living the Chosen Life.
This thought came to me as I was preparing for this message, “I’ll bet one reason we are to bear fruit is because desiring to bear fruit will keep us connected in relationship to God.” I mean, earlier in the chapter we read that God is the vine and we are the branches. Right? Fruit grows on the branches, but fruit can’t grow on the branches if the branch is disconnected from the vine. Do you see that? Like, God doesn’t really need us to accomplish anything for Him because He has all power and authority, but He commissions us to do His work, in part, so that we stay in a relationship whereby we are dependent upon Him to help us fulfill our mission. Why? Because He chose us. Because He wants to be with us. Because He wants to fulfill us. Because He wants to bless the world through us.
My thought was corroborated when I looked at John 15 again. Verse 4: Remain in me, (live chosen) as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
We are to continuously acknowledge that we are in Christ and that He is in us. This is a relationship that not only changes the way we live, but it is supposed to change other people through us because we are connected to Jesus. All of John 15 is stunning. Perhaps the pinnacle verse for me, at least today, is verse 9: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.”
Maybe we could translate it to say, “Remain in love with Me.” 25 years later, I am still in love with my husband. I think he would say the same about me. We have worked to make each other a priority. We have worked to live in ways that protect the exclusive nature of our relationship. We have been faithful to each other. We’ve grown together. We’ve grown as people. His love has changed me. Being devoted to him has changed me. I’m different, in a good way, because I hitched my life to his almost 25 years ago. Sometimes I truly can’t believe he chose me. He didn’t have to. There were plenty of other girls who would have loved to have been his wife. They were literally lined up, y’all, but out of all the other girls who were vying for the title of Mrs. Pratt, he chose me. As that reality set in, early in our marriage, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life devoted to my husband because I had been chosen to be the one to get to love him.
Y’all, Jesus is the best thing that has ever happened to me, even above my relationship with Thom. Jesus is the love of my life. He is my daily priority and preoccupation. With God being my helper, I have looked to Him to satisfy me instead of the sinful things of this world. He has my heart. Don’t get me wrong. I still sin, but no part of my heart wants to. I am humbled to have been chosen to be His child, to be His Bride. That’s what we are, you know, the Bride of Christ. I want to spend my life living like I am glad to have received this incredible status, this awesome privilege, this sacred responsibility. What will you do with your chosen status today?
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