You Are Chosen, Holy, and Loved
- Message Excerpt by
- Scripture: Colossians 3:12 Topic: Adoption
Audio Transcript
Before the foundation of the world, God — according to Ephesians 1:4 — chose you for his own, before you ever existed. If you’re a Christian, he chose you. If you’re not a Christian, become a Christian and you will prove to be chosen.
Now, Paul loved this truth. It thrilled him. Do you remember the words from Romans 8:33? “Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?” You see what it did for him? “I’m chosen. No charge can stand against me.” It should have that emotional effect on you. It’s a thrilling doctrine that God moves on his people and he chooses them for himself. He makes them his own such that if they resist that truth, they resist being loved. Isn’t that sad? To find fault with the doctrine of election is to find fault with being loved.
And not only are you chosen, but you are holy. Put on a certain kind of behavior and heart disposition because you are holy. You are holy, so become holy. Do you see this? I’m talking to you and you are chosen, you are holy, and you are loved. Now become compassionate, kind, humble, meek, and patient — and a good way to describe those is holy (Colossians 3:12).
“To find fault with the doctrine of election is to find fault with being loved.”
So what is this? Holy means God chose us before the foundation of the world that we should be holy, set apart for him, no longer common, no longer unclean, his own special possession (Ephesians 1:4). Or 1 Peter 2:9 says that we are a chosen people, a holy nation. That means not first that we’ve become good. We’re becoming something, but we are holy in that he took us out of the mob and he claimed us: “Mine — my chosen, my loved ones, my family, my bride.”
And then he tells us how to dress ourselves, and the dressing — mercy and meekness and patience and kindness — that doesn’t make you holy in this first sense. You are holy. Become what you are. There’s the genius. There’s the mystery of the Christian life. We are taken, put into Christ, his righteousness is ours, we are holy in him, and now the question is, “Well, what do I wear? What do I wear?” And the answer is put on these garments that Colossians 3:12 describes.
And you are also loved. “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Husbands, your main job is to feel this: chosen, holy, loved — chosen by God, holy unto God, loved by God.
The main job of a husband is to know this, feel this, live in this, get hope from this, be changed by this, be thrilled by this, live out of this. That’s the structure of the Bible. You are chosen. You are holy. You are loved. I’m going to tell you now how to dress in your marriage — what kind of clothes to wear in your marriage.
Wives, the same thing goes for you. This is your life. “I am chosen. I am holy. I am loved.” That’s the way a wife lives if she’s a Christian.
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