Acts 1:12-26; 1 Peter 4:12-19, 6:6-11; John 17:1-11
The biblical teaching that God has chosen the people who will be saved rather than people choose to believe in God and be saved by that choice is not very popular in American Christianity. Part of the reason for this is that our culture has made choice into an idol. From abortion to homosexual marriage, we insist on our right to make choices on matters that God’s Word has firmly and clearly decided for us. Given our perspective that we should be able to choose in these matters, why would we embrace the idea that we have no choice in the most important matter of our lives? Even more than that, why would we subject ourselves to the choice of a God who insists that along with choosing us for salvation He has chosen for us the ways in which we will suffer in order to glorify His name? Clearly, this line of thinking makes everything about God and His choices rather than about us and our choices. How un-American!The problem we have with God’s choices isn’t unique to Americans. All people naturally resist God and His will. In our sinfulness, we desire to glorify ourselves rather than glorify God. We recognize (and even expect) this in those people who don’t know Christ. But it’s just as great a problem for Christians as it is for unbelievers. Even though we belong to Christ and confess our trust in Him, in our weakness we hesitate to follow Him into the glory that He has chosen for us. Instead, we seek out the glory that suites us — glory that looks strikingly like the glory that the world desires and exalts. We prefer and pursue a glory that comes without suffering rather than the glory that is found in suffering. But the glory we seek is neither what God has chosen for us nor is it His glory. It’s simply our glory dressed up as His.
Jesus knew that He would have to suffer in order to glorify the Father. He also knew that all of His followers — from the first disciples to us and those who will come after us — would have to suffer in this world to glorify Him. His desire as He resolutely embraced the Cross suffering through which He would glorify the Father and that we would glorify Him. He knew that such glory necessarily involves the Cross — for Him and for us. This is why He prayed for us and not for the world (John 17:9). We’ve been chosen to glorify God which invariably leads us into suffering for the sake of His name — and just as invariably leads us, after we have suffered for a little while, to His eternal glory.
Click here to listen to the sermon "Chosen to Glorify God" (or right-click to download the MP3 file).
