Bautista Service
Devotion 1: Love Chose
Ephesians 1:4
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
You’re driving down Speedway. You eventually need to get up to Grant, but you’re a strategist, so you watch the traffic patterns and keep an eye out for the slow drivers. You profile the drivers ahead of you by the type and age of vehicle and whether you get a glimpse of the driver on their phone (!). So, you drive along assessing vehicles and watching for traffic to get heavier, and then in a split second you decide. You pick just the right moment, just the right street to turn north on to minimize both your time driving and your frustration. Some decisions are made quickly, on the spot.
Other choices are simply routine left sock, then right sock, then left shoe, then right shoe. Putting them on in any other order, of course, is madness it would make the whole process feel awkward! You likely made the choice without ever thinking much about what you were doing—and you don’t think much about it now either.
Here’s something the Apostle Paul wrote about God and a choice he made: For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. This sounds a lot different than a spontaneous decision or one made with no thought, doesn’t it? No, this sounds quite intentional.
Look at how this one sentence is stuffed with divine truths and teachings and how those reveal the love God. It begins with the truth that God chooses us. It’s not the other way around. I know there are a lot of people who feel that a person makes a choice to believe and follow Christ. This is not only inaccurate and unbiblical, it is impossible. There are SO MANY places in Scripture where God expresses and explains the truth that we who have faith in Jesus have it as a result of God choosing us because we cannot choose him.
As you hear what God has made you, you realize what you were not before God made his choice. God chose us…to be holy and blameless in his sight. We were not those things. We were the opposite of those things. Instead of holy, we were sinful. Instead of blameless, we were guilty before God. That is a spiritually dead condition. The Bible explains that this is the natural condition of each person, and since that is the case, people are unable to reach out to God and, in fact, have no desire to do so because they are enemies of God.
So, if we were to be close to God, something dramatic would have to be done. And our loving God did it. His love prompted him to make a calculated choice. It was impossible for us to come to him, so he decided he would come to us!
Here’s another mind-blowing aspect of this: he made his choice before we even existed! Even more mind-blowing: he did this before he created anything! In eternity, God was thinking about you. Out of all the people who have ever or will ever populate this planet, God saw you coming and with a love undeserved, he picked you out to be holy and blameless before him. Before God said, ‘Let there be light,” or “Let us make mankind in our image,” he was thinking about you; he chose you.
This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
“Do you love me?”
“Of course! I agreed that we should buy you a new car, and we did that. You wanted to go see your mom for a week, and I had no problem with that.”
She was looking for something different for him to actually say the words, “I love you,” to have meaningful conversations, to share hopes and dreams, hugs and handholding. These were the ways she showed love, and she was looking for those things in return. His way of showing love was providing for her and supporting her in things she wanted. He was expecting her to know that he loved her because of these things.
Sometimes there is a disconnect in our relationships because we don’t express our feelings and expectations and intentions. This leads to misunderstandings and hurt feelings.
When it comes to God’s love, he leaves no question about how he feels about us. He had the Apostle John write it down so that every person from then on could know about his love for them. He wanted there to be no misunderstandings about his love for us. These are those words: This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
This is God saying, “I love you.” He says what he did and why he did it and what it means for us. He is very clear so that we can understand and believe and feel that love a love greater than any other we can have in our lives.
God wanted us to not die eternally because of our sins and natural rejection of him, which would be the end result for sinners. So, in love, he sent a solution. That problemsolver was his Son. Jesus came and lived a perfectly God-pleasing life and offered that perfect life as a sacrifice to his Father all to make up for or atone for our sinful lives: an atoning sacrifice for our sins
This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us. When it comes to our relationship with God, it is God who expressed it first. He reached out to us by sending his Son to be our Savior, bringing forgiveness and the hope of eternal life in heaven with him. His grace. His love. Sent to us.
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.
The signet ring has a long history, going back to at least ancient Egypt. It was a ring that typically had a custom engraving on it. One use was to press that engraved top into warm wax that had been dropped onto the overlapping part of an envelope or scroll. It sealed the document, leaving its impression so that anyone could see by whose authority it was sent. There were other common uses, but perhaps we think most of how kings and others in high positions of authority would use them.
It’s possible that you remember Pharaoh slipping his signet ring on the finger of Joseph, conferring authority on him when he installed him as second-in-command in all of Egypt (Genesis 41:41-42). Whenever Joseph used that ring, it was the same as if Pharaoh was using it, and whoever saw the seal on a letter or box or whatever would know that this was from Pharaoh. Signet ring created a seal that showed ownership and authority.
The highest authority that exists, of course, is the holy, almighty, eternal God. He uses something much greater than a signet ring to put his seal on what is most precious to him. You are what is most precious to him. Remember, in love, he chose you before Creation. In love he sent his Son to save you. And in love, he sent the Holy Spirit to give you faith when you heard the true words of the gospel.
In words from Ephesians chapter 1, we hear that the Holy Spirit who is living in you now is like a seal that the Highest Authority uses to show that you are his. God has marked you as his own: And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit.
Later in our service this morning, we will sing Amazing Grace. Some of you know that hymn pretty well. “Amazing grace how sweet the sound that save a wretch like me! I once was lost but now am found…” We were lost in sin, nowhere near God, but what did his amazing grace, his amazing undeserved love do? It moved him to find us, to save us, to mark us with the seal of Holy Spirit, which he later says is like a deposit that guarantees the inheritance that is eternal life with him.
How comforting is that?! Without God we had no hope, and now we have the certainty that we are God’s children and guaranteed to be with him in heaven when our days here are done all because his love found us and he marked us with the seal of the Holy Spirit
“Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
You open the front door and before you can even walk through it the smell hits your nose and your mouth responds immediately: “Oh, my!” Fresh baked bread, and it smells amazing! You walk into the kitchen smiling. Maybe for you it’s the smell of the beautiful roses he bought for you that does it…or the citrus tree blossoms as you sit outside…or the meat on the smoker in the backyard. The happiness that comes from a pleasant aroma is different from person to person.
What is it that has that kind of pleasing effect on God? Listen to these words and you’ll find two things: “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
His Father’s will was that Jesus enter this world to save us from sin and eternal death. Without him all people would be lost. So, when Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice, it was like the most pleasant smell to the Father. It was perfect, and accomplished exactly what God wanted and what we needed. This love of Christ that pleased his Father is is right in front of us on the pages of God’s true and trustworthy Word.
We hear about that love and trust that love and what do we want to do? What does knowing that God loves you and has set free from guilt cause you to do? What does knowing that Jesus’ love has opened the gates of heaven for you cause you to do? Well, we want to thank him, to return love for love.
A little child learns from a parent that a hug is an amazing and powerful thing that stirs their emotions. They feel loved. And they come to figure out that they can bring joy and feelings of love to someone else when they stretch out their little arms and offer a hug of their own. They learn love from mom and dad, and they imitate that love when they imitate their actions. We’re like that when we imitate the love Christ has shown us.
The Bible tells us of people who responded to the love of God with love of their own. They serve as examples for us. God tells us that when Noah sacrificed to him after coming off the ark, it was a pleasing aroma—and he meant the loving heart of Noah that offered it (Genesis 8:21). The Apostle Paul complimented the Philippians on the support they gave to him, calling their support of the gospel ministry a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God (Philippians 4:18). To the Corinthians, he characterized people who live for God and share the gospel as the pleasing aroma of Christ (2 Corinthians 2:15).
It is the same with us. When we imitate the love of Christ by living a life of love toward God and others, we also send up to God a pleasant aroma. May the Holy Spirit continue to work in our hearts as we hear his Word so that our lives continue to be a fragrant offering that pleases God as we return love for love. Amen.