Larry has been leading us through a study of the book of Romans. During this study we’ve seen how ugly and sinful humanity can be. We’ve seen how God didn’t leave us there in our filth, but He made a way for us to be reunited with Him. God has lavished on us His mercy and grace, promising us that absolutely nothing will ever separate us from His love. Now Larry obviously isn’t here today so I thought it would be interesting to delve a little deeper into an area that most people don’t even want to bring up. Now I’m going to warn you right up front that we are going to wade into some pretty deep stuff this morning. In fact I might even cause some hackles to rise a bit, but I promise that most of it is for effect and everything will be OK. Part of studying the Bible is coming up against things that aren’t easy to explain and chewing on them until we either understand them or realize that we need to come back later when when we have more information. So let’s dive in.

Many a good book begins with the idea of the main character having a destiny to fulfill, some path that is already marked out before them which they may or may not be able to discern clearly, they may not even be aware of it at all. As the story unfolds they willingly or unwillingly walk that path as if guided by unseen hands. By the end of the story they have fulfilled their destiny and become who they were destined to be, even though they may have never thought it possible. It makes for good, if not predictable, story material, but we really wouldn’t expect that sort of thing in real life. After all, we’re free beings, we make our own choices, we aren’t subject to destiny, are we?

Rom 8:28-30 And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose, because those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.

In these verses it clearly says that God has foreknown some of us and predestined us to be like His Son. These chosen will be or have been called, justified, and glorified.

We see this same idea in Eph 1:3-6 Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ. For he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we may be holy and unblemished in his sight in love. He did this by predestining us to adoption as his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure of his will - to the praise of the glory of his grace that he has freely bestowed on us in his dearly loved Son.

In these verses we see that God chose us in Christ before He founded or laid the foundation for the Earth. That thought right there should blow your mind. The Creator of the Universe decided that you were one that He wanted. Not only that, but He decided that you should be holy and unblemished. Oh, one more thing, He did all that before He made the Earth. I don’t know about you but if I was the one getting ready to create a planet, with all of its laws and systems, all the stuff that has to work correctly or else it completely destroys something else, I would tend to focus on that until I had finished what would seem to be the larger more difficulat part of the picture. If it were me I still would be stuck somewhere in the periodic table of elements.

No, this planet, this solar system, this galaxy, this whole entire universe is merely the backdrop for what God thought was most important to Him. You and me. Think about that, people spend entire lifetimes studying the curtains on either side of the stage that God has set. How amazing is it that we are the focus of the Creator before He starts creating. And one more thing, He not only decided that He wanted you, but He did that after He knew you completely. Did you catch that? Before God made the Earth He knew you. Before you were born He knew all your days and even wrote them down. God knows you, individually, all of what you think of as your good qualities and all of your bad. More importantly, He doesn’t gasp and recoil like we think everyone else would if they all knew the truth about us. No, He knows us personally and completely, and has chosen us to be His companions for all of eternity.

Psalms 139:13-16: Certainly you made my mind and heart; you wove me together in my mother's womb. I will give you thanks because your deeds are awesome and amazing. You knew me thoroughly; my bones were not hidden from you,

when I was made in secret and sewed together in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw me when I was inside the womb. All the days ordained for me

were recorded in your scroll before one of them came into existence.

Have you ever even considered where your mind and heart came from. No not your brain and blood pump, you, the real you, the one that commands this vessel of flesh to move and it moves? God made you. You weren’t just some chemical physical reaction taking place in the womb. You were intentionally created, the physical and spiritual parts of you were woven together by God in your mother’s womb. When I read truths like these in the Bible I immediately want to know how God knew me before He made the Earth. How was God able to record all my days before one had happened yet? And beyond the how, I long to know the why. Why was I chosen and others were not? Well, we need to remember who we are trying to explain here. This is God we’re talking about, you know, the One that made all we’ve ever known. We need to realize that there are just some things that we can’t explain because of who He is and who we are, like the way God can speak things into existence for example. On top of that, we don’t even experience all of reality yet! Who are we to think we can explain everything when we aren’t even aware of everything yet. It is a bit like a blind man trying to describe Mt. Rushmore. Does it mean we shouldn’t try? No, of course not, we might learn something along the way.

When I took down my 2 1/4 inch wide copy of Erickson’s Christian Theology and attempted to find the chapter on the foreknowledge of God, I failed. The index listed only a few references of the subject sprinkled through the work. In fact, we believe in the foreknowledge of God because of its use in four verses (Rom 8:29, 11:2, Acts 2:23, 1 Pet 1:2) and verses that contain the concept that God knows all that is able to be known.

Psalms 147:5: Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite.

Job 12:13: "With God are wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are his.

Job 21:22: Can anyone teach God knowledge, since he judges those that are on high?

Job 37:16: Do you know about the balancing of the clouds, that wondrous activity of him who is perfect in knowledge?

Proverbs 2:6: For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

Romans 11:33: Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how fathomless his ways!

Isaiah 41:4: Who acts and carries out decrees? Who summons the successive generations from the beginning? I, the LORD, am present at the very beginning, and at the very end - I am the one.

We have an all knowing God who apparently can know us completely before we are created. This same God has chosen some of the people He has created to be conformed to the image of His Son, pure, holy, blameless. Ok, that all sounds great, but there are other people that obviously are not getting chosen, what about them?

Romans 9:14-21: What shall we say then? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not! For he says to Moses: "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." So then, it does not depend on human desire or exertion, but on God who shows mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh: "For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may demonstrate my power in you, and that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth." So then, God has mercy on whom he chooses to have mercy, and he hardens whom he chooses to harden. You will say to me then, "Why does he still find fault? For who has ever resisted his will?" But who indeed are you - a mere human being - to talk back to God? Does what is molded say to the molder, "Why have you made me like this?" Has the potter no right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special use and another for ordinary use?

Well, there you go. We have just bumped up against an understanding wall with God. There is something here that causes God to give us the holy “Because I said so!” It reminds me of Job when he went through about as close to hell as you possibly could while still here on Earth. If you are not familiar with that book, all of Job’s children are killed, he loses all his income, his body is covered with scabby oozing sores, and even his wife tells him to give up on his God. Job had a bone to pick with God and was just yearning for a chance to ask some pointed questions, number one on the list would probably be, “Why me?” Well, he got his chance, but when he realized he was in the presence of God he realized just how foolish it was for a human to think that he could question the Almighty. Job never got his questions answered, but he did learn a very important lesson. Job learned that this all powerful God answers to no one for His decisions or His actions and that He is good and fair. God didn’t leave Job groveling in the dust, He once again pours out mercy and grace and Job ends up with twice as much at the end of the experience than he had at the beginning. But anytime you have a bone to pick with God it is a good idea to start reading at Job chapter 38.

There are many things about God and what He does that you simply cannot explain. For instance, how could God create light before He created the sun? How could there have been enough water to cover the entire Earth during the flood, the tallest mountains, and where did it all go? How could God take a clay figurine, breathe on it, and have a living human being a moment later? How did God cause the Sun to stand still and even move backwards in the sky without everything on the surface of the Earth flying through the air at 1070 mph? So too, we are not told why God, the potter, makes some vessels for wrath and some for glory, He does and that is that. We serve a mighty, powerful, and untamed God. No matter what He does, it is right, simply because He is holy and just and pure. Now we may not understand it and we may not have chosen to do it that way, but He did, and if He did it that way I am absolutely certain it was the best way.

Now I don’t know about you, but at this point I am feeling just a bit confused. You see, I was under the impression that we were the ones that did the choosing. You know, God sent Jesus to die for all the sins and now anyone who chooses to believe in Him and trust in what He did can go to be with God forever when they die. But now we have these verses that are saying that before I was ever made God had already decided who was going where.

Now we are getting to heart of the matter. This whole foreknowledge, predestination, election thing is all about control. Who is in control? More importantly who is in control of my life? Is it God or is it me? Naturally we assume that we are in control of our life. We choose what we do, we choose what we think, and we choose what we say, sometimes not very carefully. We control this body of flesh that we currently reside in, at least we try to. Maybe it better to say that we fight with this body of flesh that we reside in for control. But are we really in control of our life? Think about how fragile we really are. Think about how little it would take to completely change your life forever. One earthquake, one fire, one car accident, one blood vessel. The Bible tells a slightly different story about who is in control.

Daniel 2:21: He changes times and seasons, deposing some kings and establishing others. He gives wisdom to the wise; he imparts knowledge to those with understanding;

Job 17:4: Because you have closed their minds to understanding, therefore you will not exalt them.

I Samuel 2:6-9: The LORD both kills and gives life;

he brings down to the grave and raises up. The LORD impoverishes and makes wealthy; he humbles and he exalts. He lifts the weak from the dust; he raises the poor from the ash heap to seat them with princes and to bestow on them an honored position. The foundations of the earth belong to the LORD, and he has placed the world on them. He watches over his holy ones, but the wicked are made speechless in the darkness, for it is not by one's own strength that one prevails.

Proverbs 16:4: The LORD works everything for its own ends - even the wicked for the day of disaster.

Proverbs 20:24: The steps of a person are ordained by the LORD - so how can anyone understand his own way?

Is it hopeless then? Are we really just a bunch of toys that God made and then plays with on this Earth? If all that is true aren’t we just a bunch of robots going through the motions of what has already been chosen and ordained for us? Well, yes and no. We obviously have these verses that show God as a very knowledgeable, path deciding, life directing God. But we all know that we have free will, the ability to choose to do what we want to do. We can even choose to do what God hates. This is the truly amazing part of this whole discussion. God didn’t make a race of robots. He took the biggest risk in all of history by creating us with the ability to choose to do what we want to do, even if it goes against His wishes. You know I often wish I were in God’s shoes. I would definitely do things a bit differently, and what a mess it would be. But think about how it must be for Him when He creates someone who He knows will choose to be with Him forever. I’m sure there is joy and anticipation at that moment. Now think about what He must experience when He creates someone who He knows, because of His foreknowledge, will not choose to accept His offer and instead chooses a future of wrath. It can’t be easy. I think about my kids and my strongest desire for them is that they choose life, that they will be there in God’s presence with me for eternity.

Alright, here is your life preserver in this sea of predestination, election, free will, and control; it is all a matter of perspective. The perspective from which you view these issues makes all the difference. From God’s side of things He can see and know all there is to see and know. He is all powerful and can somehow direct our lives when necessary in ways that we may or may not be able to detect. From humanity’s viewpoint all we know is that God loves us all, wants us all to be with Him, and has made a way for that to happen. We have a limited amount of information and limited view of reality, beyond that we must choose to trust Him and what He has already done for us, or to trust ourselves and face the consequences. Whether we believe in Him or not, whether we are aware of it or not, our entire existence is totally dependent on His good will.

It’s a little like the movie the Truman Show. In this movie you have this guy that is born on the set of this TV show. He grows up never leaving the set and never knowing that he is the star of a TV show that millions of people tune into just to watch him live his life. Everything that Truman thinks is real is just a shadow of what is actually real. His world is a giant set made to look like a small town. We are alot like Truman and the Earth is alot like his set. Everything seems real to us, but we are told it is all just a shadow of what is real. Like Truman we make our choices believing that we are 100% completely in control of our own life, barring anything happening that is beyond our control. And like the Truman Show there is actually a script, a destination, a plot that is carefully nurtured and exposed a piece at a time that we aren’t even 100% aware of.

The bottom line is this: God is in charge and we are not. At the same time God has allowed us to play a major part in our own destiny. He isn’t expecting us to have everything all figured out, He only expects us to respond to what He reveals to us. We can’t know who is predestined and who is not. We honestly can’t know who is a believer and who is not. The only person we can be sure about is ourself. Every person in this room will stand before God. There will be very little that matters in that moment, but I can guarantee you this, if you are a sincere believer in what Jesus did for us all you have nothing to worry about and everything to look forward to. If, however, you have everyone down here fooled into thinking you are a believer I can promise you that you are not fooling the Lord and you have everything to be worried about and nothing to look forward to. Fortunately we have a God who is good, who is full of mercy and grace, and it is never too late to change your mind.

You and I are part of an amazing story. We have an amazing destiny. We have been chosen to be the eternal companions of the greatest being that ever was or ever will be. He has promised to see us through this difficult part of the journey where we must learn to trust Him. After that He has promised us an eternity that is far better than we could ever ask for or imagine.