St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church – Watertown, WI
Pastor Mark Gartner
Sermon for Easter 5 – April 25^th and 28^th, 2002

Dear chosen people of God,

Today we are going to focus in on the word "chosen." What does it mean to be chosen? Webster Dictionary defines chosen in this way, "selected or marked for favor or special privilege or one who is the object of choice or divine favor." Maybe we can tell a life story to emphasize the word chosen. Imagine for a minute back to your youth to the time when your friends were going to pick teams for a certain game, such as baseball, basketball or any other game. You all lined up and two captains picked members for their team one player at a time. Wasn't it wonderful when the captain chose you for their team? It made you feel like you were special. It made you feel good. That is what it means to be chosen. For us as adults we might think of the times where we were up for a promotion. Were we chosen for the new position? Did we get the new job, or did someone else get chosen before us? If we were chosen for the new job promotion, we felt wonderful. We felt like we were special. There are many other words and pictures that we can use to describe the word "chosen."

But this morning we are going to look at this word from our view as Christians. We are believers and one of God's chosen children. There is a big difference, between being chosen by your friends to be on a team, or being chosen for a new job, and that of being chosen by God to be one of his special people. Being chosen by God makes us very special. Being chosen by God makes us happy and it changes the way we feel and act. That is what we want to focus on this morning as we use the theme:.

What is the big deal about us being one of God's chosen people as Peter writes, "But you are a chosen people"? Why do we want to spend a whole sermon speaking about such a seemingly small word? As we look at being one of God's chosen people, we begin to see that it is a very big deal. Just consider our lives without God having chosen us. Just think where you would be right now if God hadn't chosen you. We would be wandering around the world lost in our sin. Just think of the kind of life you would be living, if God hadn't chosen you. We would be living lives aimed at fulfilling all our earthly desires. We many times take for granted the fact that we are Christians. We many times forget the great truth that God has chosen us to be one of his children. We don't always show our thanks and praise for lifting us out of the depths of sin to the heights of being a chosen child of God. Being chosen by God is a big thing. In fact it is the biggest thing to ever happen in our lives. Nothing can be of greater importance. Not our jobs! Not our birthday's. Not our anniversaries. Not our first child. Not our first grandchild. Nothing whatsoever.

We know through the eyes of faith what it means to be a chosen child of God. It means as we said before, that God has chosen us and called us to faith. This means only one thing for us as people who were formerly lost sinners. Before God came into our lives, we were lost and condemned. After he came into our lives we are special through faith. All this is ours because of the gift of God. We were not chosen, because God saw we were so good. We were not chosen, because we stood out as a good person. We were not chosen, because our parents were good Christians. We were chosen out of the complete grace and mercy of our heavenly Father. As Peter writes, "Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." This is the focal point of our whole existence. This one passage from Peter tells it all. All we can now do is expand on this wonderful passage of assurance. It was the grace of God, which sent his Son, whom our text calls "the Living Stone." The living stone which is Jesus Christ was chosen by God to come down to this earth to fulfill all the requirements of the Law for us, and to pay for our sins on the cross. This living stone is the foundation for all Christians.

We are shifting gears a little. We started by stating that God chooses us and called through faith in the living stone of Jesus Christ. Now we want to see the firm foundation that we as chosen children are based on. God willing we are not based on the foundation of our human reason. God willing we are not based on the foundation of a person or tradition. We are based on Jesus as Peter says, "See I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame." I'm not a builder. I have never seen what a cornerstone does. I have been told many times by other people that the cornerstone or capstone is the one piece of the building that brings the whole building together. It is the one piece that holds all the other pieces in place. Without this stone all the others would not hold up. This describes very well what part Jesus plays in the lives of his chosen people. He continues this picture to tell us that we are now being built into spiritual houses, "you also like living stones are being built into a spiritual house."

How are we being built into spiritual houses? It is a beautiful picture which describe our lives as Christians. First of all, God is the one that has given us the sure foundation of his Word and the capstone or cornerstone of Christ. God is also the one that is building our spiritual houses. We are not building this house ourselves. We are being guided and led by the Ultimate Builder – namely Jesus Christ. The ways that we live each and every day show what kind of house we have. Do we have a solid house, or do we think we can do it on our own?

Let's each take an inventory of our spiritual houses. Where is our house strong and where is our house weak? Do any of us have perfect houses? Do any of us have a house, which looks good on the outside, but on the inside it is a dump? Do any of us have houses, which should be condemned because of all of the problems? Do some of us have houses in which the cornerstone is missing or almost gone? Just think of these pictures of our spiritual houses. Our spiritual houses may start out small and simple as our faith in Christ is still in its early stages, but as we grow spiritually there are more things added to our houses. Sometimes we as Christians don't look to God for repairs on our house. We try to be the home repairman and end up botching up the job. We forget that our spiritual houses need nothing but the original builder to help repair and fix it. God the Holy Spirit working through the powerful Word of God knows exactly what we need. But above all we as sinners need to remember where everything comes from and where we need to look for help. We need to look to our firm foundation of Jesus Christ.

Now we have the firm foundation of Jesus Christ, but it extends far past this foundation. Now we want to tell others about our nice spiritual house. We want others to see what a great blessing God has given to us. The foundation or Living Stone of Christ is just the beginning. Peter tells us what it means to be a chosen child of God. It doesn't mean to sit back and relax. It means that our faith will be active. Active in our faith! Active in telling others! Active in praising God with our daily sacrifices! Peter says, "But you are a chosen people....that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." And Peter also writes. "and you...are being built into spiritual houses to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." In both of these references we can see that God has two distinct purpose for us as chosen people. First we are to declare praise to God for calling us out of darkness, and we are to let our lives be sacrifices to God. Both of these show that we are to let our love show itself in all that we do.

How many times have we personally said a prayer of thanks to God for calling us and choosing us to be one of his children? We all know it is true, but how often do we express a true thanks for it. Let's take a couple of minutes of quiet time right now while we are thinking about it to say thanks for all God has given to me. How many of our neighbors know that we are Christians, and know why we act as we do? How many of the people we work with can see that we are different, and we are sure to let them know that it is Jesus that makes us special? How many people truly believe that we are all priests in a spiritual sense, which means that each and every one of us as Christians is to let others know of Jesus?

We are special, but this doesn't mean that we can act as we please. We are God's chosen children, but we cannot only be a Christian when it suits our needs. Peter goes to great lengths to let us see what it means to be a Christian. This sets the tone for us and also reminds us why we act as we do, "But you are chose people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God." We are special in so many ways. But above all we belong to God. We are not special on our own. We are not special because we give a lot of money or our time to church. We are not even special because we are at church or Bible class often. We are special because God has chosen us. We have not chosen him. He came into our hearts.

As we focus on the unique love and mercy that God showed to us by choosing us, we begin to see a small glimpse of some of the love of God. There is no way that we can ever fathom what it means that God has saved us. About all we can think of is what God has promised to those who have rejected Jesus, the cornerstone. He tells us that they have fallen and will be destroyed forever in hell. Imagine where we would be if God hadn't come into our hearts. We would be lost. We wouldn't be in church this morning. We would be living as we please. We would not know of Jesus and eternal life in heaven. God sent Jesus. Jesus is the living stone, which is the cornerstone for us and our spiritual houses. When our spiritual houses are in need of repair from our lives of sin, let us immediately call to Jesus for help and forgiveness. And as we let the blessed Word of the Gospel of Christ sink further into our hearts, let it move us to praise God in all that we say and do. We all know it is a lot easier to be a Christian on the inside. There is not as many distractions. But God wants us to take the next step and be priests who are eager to let out love shine out into the world. That is why we were chosen so that we declare the praise of God who called us and chose us. We don't deserve this privilege of telling others, but God has given it to us. Do not let it slip through our fingers, but let it excite us and move us as live on this earth. Amen.