Deuteronomy 7:6-9			Romans 8:28-39			Matthew 13:44-52

Have you heard the term “predestination”?  It’s the Christian teaching that, from the beginning of time, God has chosen believers for salvation.  This teaching comes from the Bible.  Over and over again, God tells his people that he chose them.  Several passages even explicitly use the word predestination.  

The problem is that this is a difficult topic for us to understand.  God chooses?  Aren’t we the ones doing the choosing?  We certainly choose things all the time in our daily lives.  We make small decisions like what we’ll have for lunch or which movie we’ll see.  We also make large decisions like what we’ll do for a career or who we’ll be in relationships with.  

Aren’t I choosing God?  Haven’t I decided to give my heart to Jesus?  The Bible says “no”.  He chose me.

Even though this is a difficult topic, all our readings for today suggest that we should talk about it.  May God bless our discussion to our benefit and to his glory.

Our reading from Romans 8 is one of the two passages that Christians most often quote when talking about predestination.  The other is Ephesians 1:3-7
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love  he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will — to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace

So as believers, we are chosen by God “before the creation of the world”.  God is the chooser, and through Christ, we are made holy and blameless, and we are adopted into God’s family.  

What about free will?  Don’t we have the power to choose between right and wrong?  Well, that’s the thing.  Before God came along, I didn’t have free will.  If it were up to me to “have faith” or to choose God, I would remain an unbeliever.  Even as a believer, I make terrible choices all the time.  Imagine what it would be like without having help from the Holy Spirit.  Life would be a series of un-chosen actions.  Ephesians 5:18-19
They [people without God] are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.

It doesn’t sound like a very good life.  But with God, I am freed from my sinful self.  Now I truly do have a free will. Now that God has chosen me, I can choose to follow Jesus.  John 8:36
If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Ephesians 2:1-5 explains this whole idea well.  It’s as if we were dead and God, by choosing us, has brought us to life.
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.

So being chosen or predestined by God really does not take away our free will.  It gives us free will.  I now have a choice to not sin.  That wasn’t true before I knew God.

The other difficulty in discussing predestination is a logic problem.  If God chooses some people to have faith and to go to heaven, doesn’t it also mean that God chooses the other people to go to hell?  The Bible says the answer to that question is “no”.

2 Peter 2:9
 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

1 Timothy 2:4
[God] wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.

God clearly wants everyone to be saved.  He does not choose people to go to hell.  He loves them so much that he sacrificed his own Son for the sin of the whole world.  

But if God chooses people to have faith, and God wants everyone to go to heaven, then why does anybody go to hell?  Why doesn’t God choose everyone?  That’s where we have a logic problem.  And that’s where we must continue to turn only to Scripture for answers and to trust in God’s goodness.  

So what does Scripture say?

Scripture says that we are saved by faith – faith that is itself a gift from God.  If I am saved, it’s because God chose me.  God gave me the faith to hold on to the promise that Jesus died and rose again for my sin.  Ephesians 2:8-9
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast.

Scripture also says that God loves the world – the whole world, and that he wants all of humanity to be saved.  John 3:16-17
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Scripture also says that not everyone will be saved.  Matthew 25:41
Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’

God wants all to have faith.  God chooses who will have faith.  Some people don’t have faith.  We can’t explain this seeming contradiction in a satisfactory way, but we accept it anyway.  It’s like other Christian teachings that we have trouble understanding – things like the nature of the Trinity, or what eternity is, or what heaven is like.  We will have to wait until heaven to fully understand.

If the topic of predestination is so difficult, why would God tell us about it anyway?  Let’s look at context.  When the Bible mentions predestination, the hearers always already have faith.  In all three of our readings for today, the original recipients of the message are believers.

Deuteronomy 7 is part of a larger speech that starts in chapter 5.  Deuteronomy 5:1
Moses summoned all Israel and said:
Hear, Israel, the decrees and laws I declare in your hearing today. Learn them and be sure to follow them.

The book of Romans is addressed like this:  Romans 1:7
To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

In Matthew, just before our reading, we see who Jesus is talking to when he tells these parables.  Matthew 13:36
Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”

In all three readings, believers are the ones hearing the message.  And in all three readings, the believers are facing uncertainty.  Israel is just about to enter the Promised Land.  The Romans were facing persecution because of their faith.  The disciples had seen the negative response to Jesus’ ministry.

What does a believer take from the message that God has chosen them to be his own?  Great comfort!  God gives us encouragement through the teaching of predestination.  It’s not up to me to work for God’s favor or to choose him or to work faith in my own heart.  God overcomes my stubborn sinful nature.  He chooses me and gives me strength.

Talking about predestination is not about excluding people or drawing lines of division.  It’s about comforting someone who is worried their faith is weak.  It’s about helping someone who is facing crisis or doubt.  It answers a person who is wondering how God can even love them.

Hear the encouragement in today’s readings again:

Deuteronomy 7:7-8
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. But it was because the Lord loved you
In Deuteronomy, God says to Israel (and us) what he has been saying all along and what he will continue to say – “I chose you because love you”

We hear today’s parables in Matthew and often think the person who finds a treasure and a pearl of great value is us, and that the treasure is our faith.  But in all the other parables in Matthew 13, God is the person doing the action.  He is the sower and planter and net-caster.  Wouldn’t it make sense that he is also the person finding the treasure and pearl?  Matthew 13:44
The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
If God is the man who found the treasure, then what is the treasure?  For what did God give his all?  For us!  We are the treasure!  God joyfully calls us his own!

The encouragement in Romans 8 quite obvious, and if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to read the entire passage again.  They are some of the sweetest words ever written.  Romans 8:28-39
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 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.
What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.  Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God chose you, Christian.  He loves you, and nothing can change that.  Amen!