Why us? Part 2

Posted : Sunday August 12, 2007 |

Last week we saw three myths that we come up to explain why God would have saved us. This week, let’s look at some solid, God-centered, joy-filled reasons for why God did indeed choose to save a people for himself. All come from Deuteronomy.

First, in 7:8, we read, “But it was because the Lord loved you.” The reason God chooses to save you and to bless you is because he delights to love you. “But why?”, you may ask. Because he wants to. Unlike us, God doesn’t need to see anything in you to motivate him to love you. You can never do anything to get him to feel something in his heart for you. God doesn’t date you because you put on a good first impression. God’s love comes from within himself. His love is the kind that is not dependent on what you do, who you are, or how nice you can be. It’s a love that comes purely from his own unchanging nature!

Second, in 8:18 we read, “so he confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers.” Another reason God chooses to save you is because he freely made a promise to save a people for himself. He is a faithful and covenant keeping God. He is a God of his word. Your deliverance has nothing whatsoever to do with you. It’s all about God keeping his word to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It’s ultimately about the integrity of his name.The joy that you get from being saved is a side-benefit of God’s desire to be faithful to his own covenant.

Third, in 9:5 we read that the reason God was giving the Israelites the land was not because they were righteous, but because of his own plan to glorify himself as the just and holy God of the universe. “But on account of the wickedness of these nations.” God was going to be just in punishing the sinfulness of the Canaanites, and the Israelites were going to be the instrument God would use to punish them. Their deliverance was part of a larger story. In effect, your salvation is not a random choice that God made. And it wasn’t based on who you are. It’s about a larger story. It’s about God doing something amazing in history. God plans to glorify his justice and his mercy. And he’s chosen you as a way through which that will be accomplished.

Notice that all these reasons are God-centered. They’re about his own joy, his honor, and his plan. It’s not about your giftedness, your greatness, or your goodness. Now if salvation is God-centered, that means that the cause for your salvation is not in you, but in God. It means that, as one of my mentors puts it, God’s grace is God’s choice.

Now some of us may think that if someone is chosen, then that means that they were somehow better than others, or they had some measure of goodness in them. But we just noticed that God’s grace is not only God’s choice, but that God’s choice is only by God’s grace! In fact, election is that one doctrine that will make grace really mean something. If God saves me without my works, then he must choose me apart from my works as well. We tend to choose our leaders on the basis of their track record, but God chooses us in spite of ours!

Next week we’ll look at some of the blessings of knowing that we are indeed chosen by grace!

Pastor Suler Acosta