Deut 7:7+8, The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 
    	This morning, we find ourselves reminded of something that we need to have in the conscious awareness of our minds and hearts at all times. It is the reality that God is the One Who chose us because of His great love with which He loved us. It is never a matter of earning His love or His salvation. It is all unmerited and undeserved. There is nothing that we have done, can do, or ever will do to be worthy of His choosing us. It is all by His plan and His purpose from before even the foundation of the world was set into place.
	This was something that the Children of Israel and we need to have reinforced over and over and over again lest some sense of superiority over others infests our minds and pollutes our attitudes toward other people. That is what happened with the Israelites. They forgot that God was the One Who had chosen them for no basis in themselves. They began to elevate themselves as being something special, forgetting that it was all the work and the presence and the love of God that was their peculiarity in the world. 
	The psalmist kept the proper focal point set in the Lord as we read in Ps 115:1. Ps 115:1, Not to us, O Lord, not to us, But to Thy name give glory Because of Thy lovingkindness, because of Thy truth. 
	We dare never try to take away from the glory of God by putting anything of ourselves into the place of God and His Sovereignty. Whenever we think that we deserve to be recognized for anything that is simply the work and the majesty and the mercy and the grace of God, we will find that He will withdraw His Providential presence for a season. This will be until we return to Him with all our hearts and minds and beings. We need to reckon all that we have and are and ever hope to be is unto Him and because of Him, Alone. 
	All that mankind has ever done and accomplished is to put himself into the place of death and disaster. All that man does utterly decays with the passing of time into the dust from which it was taken. The very best efforts of human wisdom and ability are always shown as folly and fragile works of man’s hands which will disintegrate as the tide of time washes it all away. 
Only the glory of God withstands the onslaught of time. His work even shines brighter with each passing millennia until the endless ages of eternity will be filled to overflowing with the magnificence of His essence and being revealed in the complete and victorious work of Jesus Christ.
	The Prophet Isaiah so attests to the worthlessness of man’s consideration of himself completely set in fear and anxiety. This is in opposition to the redeeming work of the Lord on the behalf of those whom He chooses to save unto Himself. This is found in Isa 41:9-14. Please open to this passage and let us read it together. 
Here, the Lord, through Isaiah, reminds His people of the fact that God chose them simply because God wanted a people with whom to express His love. He showered upon them the redemption that He, Alone, can give to those unto whom He chooses to save.
	Isa 41:9-14, You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, And called from its remotest parts, And said to you, 'You are My servant, I have chosen you and not rejected you. 'Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.' "Behold, all those who are angered at you will be shamed and dishonored; Those who contend with you will be as nothing, and will perish. "You will seek those who quarrel with you, but will not find them, Those who war with you will be as nothing, and non-existent. "For I am the Lord your God, who upholds your right hand, Who says to you, 'Do not fear, I will help you.' "Do not fear, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel; I will help you," declares the Lord, "and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. 
   	In this passage, the Lord makes it very clear that He will safe-guard and protect His people. They are not to fear or to doubt Him. He is their Redeemer and their Savior. They need not fear the terrors of what could happen. They are simply to recognize and honor and obey the Lord God Almighty Who stands before them in battle and brings to pass all that He has determined from the very beginning to the very end of time.
	The Prophet Jeremiah also reinforced this truth in a very simple, yet all-encompassing manner in Jer 31:3. Jer 31:3, The Lord appeared to him from afar, saying, "I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness. 
Notice it is all the plan and purpose and action of God set upon the goal of showing His so great love to the ones whom He has chosen to draw unto Himself with all His lovingkindness. The key is that God, Alone, knows why He has chosen those whom He has called unto Himself. There is nothing within us that merits His divine favor and salvation! There is nothing that can earn it! Nothing that can buy it! Nothing that can develop any means of gaining it! It is all at the purview of God’s grace and mercy and lovingkindness.
	Our Lord Jesus Christ, in Luke 12:28-32, brings this to the forefront in detailing what both the Prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah voiced on the behalf of the Lord in telling us that we are not to be concerned with the cares and the elements of this age. Because of the fact that God has chosen us, He will provide for us. 
    	Luke 12:28-32, "But if God so arrays the grass in the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He clothe you, O men of little faith! "And do not seek what you shall eat, and what you shall drink, and do not keep worrying. "For all these things the nations of the world eagerly seek; but your Father knows that you need these things. "But seek for His kingdom, and these things shall be added to you. "Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom. 
    	Another key to remember in these words of the Lord is the fact that Our Heavenly Father… has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom. This is so very important because it shows the truth that God has made His kingdom ours with joy in His heart to do so. It is not a begrudging aspect or a matter of doing something for what He will get out of it. It is not buying our love through some bargain or quid pro quo arrangement. He wants us to have immediate access to His kingdom because He delights in our having that immediate admission. All that we need, He gladly and joyously showers upon us in order that we can fully enjoy the beauty and the sanctity and the benevolence of His so great love to us in Jesus Christ.
	The Apostle Paul, in Rom 9:15-21, once more puts, in very succinct terminology and example, the fact that God does what God chooses to do because He is God. We have no place to question the means and the motivation and the reasons behind the actions and the choices of Our Creator. Because He is God, He has put into place that which is ours to enjoy, and to cherish, and to appreciate in Jesus Christ. Please turn to Rom 9:15-21 so we can once more read this truth together.
	Rom 9:15-21, For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth." So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?" On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use, and another for common use? 
    	The Apostle Paul, later in Rom 11:6, again puts to an end any thought of the idea that we can earn or deserve that which God, Alone, chooses to do. It is all by the grace of God and His grace alone by which anyone of us enjoys the salvation which He has given. Rom 11:6, But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace. 
      	Then, in Eph 1:3-6, the Apostle Paul describes, in even greater detail, how God had purposed and put everything into place to so lavish us with His grace and mercy and love in full accordance with His choice to so bless us completely in Jesus Christ. Please open to this wonderful passage of God’s selection of us in His Only Begotten Son. 
	Eph 1:3-6, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 
   	The fact that we did not deserve to be so loved by God and so accorded everlasting life because of any merit or work of our own doing is fully reinforced later in this letter to the Ephesian Church. Please turn now to Chapter 2, verses 3-7, where the Apostle even recounts that we were enemies of God when He so chose to love us unto Himself in Christ Our Lord and Our Savior. 
	Eph 2:3-7, Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 
   	…(by grace you have been saved)… in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. This is the summation of the life that we have been given in Jesus Christ. It is all by God’s grace and by His foreordination and His divine Omniscience and Omnipresence and Omnipotence alone. There is nothing of value or merit or worthiness of our own making by which we deserved anything other than death. He saved us unto Himself for whatever reason that He, Alone, knows. 
	The Apostle, in 2 Tim 1:8-11, gives the practical outcome of this so great loving choice of us in Jesus Christ. Let us now read this passage together. 
	2 Tim 1:8-11, Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me His prisoner; but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher. 
    	Our lives are now His to use and to order as will please Him since He is the One Who chose us and gave us life in His Son. Accordingly, the life that we now live on this earth is to manifest, in our every moment to moment walk with Him through the storms and trials and daily struggles, the reality that we are His and His Alone.
	The Apostle John carries through with this truth as we will read in his first letter, if you would open to it. The first letter of John, Chapter 3, verse 1.
	1 John 3:1, See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. 
	We have the love of God bestowed upon us. This is the fact that God chose us and that He chose gladly to give us His Kingdom. This is all such an overwhelming manifestation of God’s love that we must honor Him with our whole beings. We love to express our love unto Him and to please Him and to obey Him in the lives that we now are called to live on this earth. Before we were so chosen by Him, we were dead in our sin and trespasses as we have seen. We were slaves to the realm of this earth as the Children of Israel were enslaved in Egypt. It is because God so chose to release us, to redeem us that we have so much more than just an existence on this earth as is so true of those who have no relationship with God. They go through the endless motions of daily life with no idea or concept of what it means to be made alive in Jesus Christ. 
	The Apostle John, in our final passage of this morning, makes it very evident in the way in which our lives are to reflect the love and the life that we have been freely given by God in Our Lord and Savior. Please turn to 1 John 4, and we will read together verses 10-19.
	1 John 4:10-19, In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has beheld God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. So be it!
The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Amen. 

	This morning’s benediction is Ps 103:19-22. The Lord has established His throne in the heavens; And His sovereignty rules over all. Bless the Lord, you His angels, Mighty in strength, who perform His word, Obeying the voice of His word! Bless the Lord, all you His hosts, You who serve Him, doing His will. Bless the Lord, all you works of His, In all places of His dominion; Bless the Lord, O my soul! Amen.