Why not you?

Story time:

(ME) In everyone’s life at one point, we’ve seen all seen people who get chosen last for something. Maybe it was for kickball, a project at school, Or to lead worship. In our opinion maybe it’s for good reason. Maybe their a bad singer, baseball player, reader. Etc.

One of my favorite examples of this is from the movie Pretty Woman starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere. This classic movie from back in the 1990’s was about a wealthy man, Edward Lewis, on a business trip in Beverly Hills who falls in love with a prostitute, Vivian Ward. Edward wants Vivian to attend some of his business functions throughout the week, so he gives her some money (as in thousands of dollars) to buy some conservative, less revealing, clothes. In her “working clothes” Vivian walks into an upscale store where the employees won’t sell her anything and asks her to leave. Rejected, she returns to the hotel. The next day, the hotel manager takes her to a different store and gets her outfitted in some beautiful clothes. As she is walking back to the hotel, dressed in one of her new outfits and carrying several bags with different Beverly Hills store logos on them, she stops back into the store that asked her to leave. She asked the salesperson if she remembers her from yesterday. She reminds her, and then comes the famous line from the movie: “Big mistake. Big. Huge! I have to go shopping now.”

(We) We’ve all seen movies, like this, where people misjudge people and are unkind. They pass people over for promotions or friendships. They ignore people because they don’t “Click”. Maybe that’s even you, maybe you’ve been nasty to others because of difference or bad judgement. And as Julia Roberts said “BIG! HUGE. MISTAKE! Although God forgives us and it’s something we can give to God to workout in the process of sanctification, that’s not the perspective we’re looking at tonight.

(GOD) You’ve probably been told at one point in your life, that God has a plan for your Life! Which is TRUE! You may have been told that God wants to use you in mighty ways! Which is TRUE! But what may also be true, because of things you’ve heard about sin & your own thoughts about qualifications of being used by God or growing deeper in your faith, is that you shouldn’t even try. Or maybe its that youre not sure where to start . Tonight we’re looking at ways we can hold ourselves up from experiencing God in new ways to us & where to start.

Chosen Nation

Go w/ me to Exodus 19:5-6 “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.””

According to scripture what does it mean to be a holy nation? It means protection, it means, guarded, It means relationship.

Why was Israel Chosen? It’s to show his love, his Justice (Proper discipline of his children), Worship.

Sometimes we get caught up in being special even our faith. But we have a purpose even outside of the things that make us special. It all displays who God is. We’ve seen & experienced Yahweh’s power & rescue for ourselves.

Chosen Jesus

I’ve told you guys before I’m out of the house generally no later than 5:15am for work. Usually the porch light is on, but it gets darker the further away you walk from the porch. So just about every morning I’m walking to the car, I turn on my flashlight on my phone to give me the light I need to see further into the darkness, so that I don’t trip and fall.

I like how in John 8:12 “Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

There is a reason Jesus came to live a whole life die and resurrect. Jesus was chosen to shine a clear path as to how we are to serve, how we are to worship, how we’re to suffer for the Glory of God.

Isaiah 42:6 ““I, the Lord, have called You in righteousness, And will hold Your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, As a light to the Gentiles,”

It shows he was chosen to hold our hand through to righteousness, to be a light to us. If he doesn’t light the path for us, there’s nothing we can do but be dark. We’re stuck. Because he’s the only one that’s light.

Chosen Everybody

For so many of us we have 1 and or 2 problems. We believe that we have so many issues that we aren’t able to pursue God w/ experiencing a gotcha moment, or we feel like if we can’t be perfect at pursuing intimacy w/ God, we may as well stay surface in our commitment level to him. Or we maybe in an arrogant place because we feel like we’re good enough because we don’t break a lot of rules. We’re not wildly disrespectful. We kind of work hard. We work well w/ others, we love people. So that should be good enough.

(YOU) But God wants your whole LIFE! Romans 12:1-2 “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

He wants your struggles w/ pride, he wants your struggle to be kind, your struggle w/ lust, your talents of math, your talent of sports Romans 6:1-17 “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that …”

We see all throughout Acts that tons of people’s struggles & spiritual giftings are used for the Glory of God. Throughout the bible, sicknesses & diseases God works through to bring people to repentance. Speaking in tongues, Glory brought.

So the question that we have to ask now is. How will that truth change my life? Not that I’ve heard it, I’m responsible to it. The prayer I want you to pray for the next 7 days is this:

God I need you