Being Chosen

Opening Question:

Do you choose your friends or do your friends choose you? Why?

I would side with the comment, “your friends choose you”. Naturally, you choose certain people you want to be friends with. However, if they don’t accept you or want to be friends with you, you won’t be friends with them. Therefore, your friends choose you.

Well today, we are going to talk about how 1 person choose and accepted us. We are going to look at what He did and how that model should be the model we use in the way we look at others and choose our friends.

So, let’s get right into it.

Scripture

Read Romans 5:8
- What did this say?
- How does God communicate his love and acceptance of us?
- How does this action relate to friendships?

God communicated his love and acceptance of us by having Christ come down from heaven and die for us – even though we were unworthy of it.

God didn’t say, “Oh, they don’t wear the right kind of clothes, I won’t save them” or “Oh, they don’t have lots of money, I won’t save them” or even “Oh, they aren’t the popular people, I won’t save them”.

No, God sent Christ to die for us despite all our inefficiencies. I hate to tell you all, but none of us are perfect. Just because we look a certain way or hang with certain people, that doesn’t make us any different from the people who don’t.

We all have crud in our lives that we aren’t proud of. But that didn’t effect God’s desire to be in a relationship with us. He loves every one of us the same.

Not only did Christ accept and love us for who were, He goes even further.

Read John 3:16-17
- What does this communicate about God and his desire to be with us?

Christ came into the world because of God’s love and desire for a relationship with us. God chose us to spend eternity with Him!!!! That, despite our sin and crud in our life, he still wanted to be with us!?! Talk about the ultimate display of acceptance! If having his one and only son come down here to sacrifice his life for us wasn’t enough, he invited us to spend eternity with him too!


Despite what you may think or what you may have heard, God doesn’t care what you look like or what you have done in your past. He just wants a relationship with you. He cares about you so much and wants to spend eternity with you. He didn’t have to. In fact, he probably shouldn’t have, but he chose too. He took an interest in us.

Application

So, because Christ chose us, despite our crud, how should we respond?

Everyone wants to be accepted. Everyone wants to be chosen. It is a need we all have to be liked and cared for.

Think for a minute, are you accepting of others? What determines who you accept and reject? Clothes, popularity, sense of humor, sports teams?

This week, pick at least 1 person in your life – at school, at home, in your youth group – and accept them this week the way God accepted us. Reach out to someone you haven’t to before - take an interest in them, ask them questions about their life and their interests, call them to see how they are doing.

If you are struggling with who you should pick, ask God to tell you and make it clear. He will.

I bet, if you legitimately took an interest in other people this week, you can have a tremendous impact on others. I hate to bring this up, but I wonder if those Columbine kids would have done that horrible thing, if more people would have taken an interest in them and accepted them for who they were, not who they weren’t.

You can make a difference in people and build some pretty good friendships by simply accepting others for who they are, who God made them to be.

This week, let’s take an interest in others, choose and accept them as God would. Remember, Christ accepted us despite all our junk, we can do the same for others. The love of Christ compels us to.

Pray