Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Word of the Lord which engages us this morning comes from our Epistle lesson (Ephesians 1: 3-14). ����������������

We've all had the experience of being chosen in our normal lives. Especially as children, most of us had the experience of being chosen for games on the schoolyard. A few were chosen early, most of us chosen in the middle, a few chosen toward the end. I was personally never chosen first or second on any athletic team in my life � until I turned 40 and played on the seminary's intercollegiate tennis team. That year there were no outstanding tennis players at the seminary, only 6-8 pretty good players. The coach concluded that I was slightly better than the other 6 so I was chosen to play number one! Laura will tell you that I spent the next 3 days sometimes just bursting out in laughter, amused by the fact that at my age I was playing number one. When I was 20 years younger I had never been more than the 3rd to 5th best player on a college team. Now at this ripe old age, I was chosen as the best. I was beaming. I knew I was going to lose frequently to other teams best players, players quicker, taller and younger. But I was excited to be chosen as number one for the very first time in my life. ����������������

Our Epistle lesson reveals a wonder, a mystery to us. We who are blessed with faith in Jesus Christ are chosen! Paul reveals this marvel "For he chose us in [Christ] before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will�" We are chosen. We can walk through this life beaming, amazed at what our God has chosen us to be! ����������������

Our human minds always want to search for an answer to the question "WHY?" Why did God choose me? When I was chosen to play Number One on the seminary tennis team, I asked "Why?", but there was a logical human answer. That year I was just a teeny bit better from day to day than the other team members. But the question "WHY did God choose me, choose you?" has no logical human answer. If we seek comfort in human logic, we'll often be dismayed. But if we seek comfort from God's Word, we will always be satisfied. "God made the conversion, righteousness and salvation of each individual Christian such a high personal concern and intended to remain so faithful to it that 'even before the foundation of the world" [Eph. 1: 4] he resolved and 'according to his own purpose' [2 Tim. 1:9] He preordained how he would bring me (and you) to salvation and preserve [us] in it." (from The Formula of Concord, 1580, paragraph 45 of the Solid Declaration). Luther once said "God's Will has no 'Why?' We don't trust in our own understanding of His hidden mysteries. "Since God is God, his purpose and activity have no ultimate cause outside his own being" (FF. Bruce, NICOT Commentary on Ephesians, 1984, p. 257). We simply stand before Him, praising him that He has predestined us, because of his love, to be adopted as His sons. ����������������

How do you know if you are chosen? That knowledge and its assurance does not come from some unique sense spirituality. Again, that knowledge comes from God's Word. Listen to Paul as he describes the chosen ones in 1 Corinthians 1(27-29): "But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the things that are of no account� so that no one may boast before him." Do you want to be sure you are a chosen, elected, heaven bound saint? Then check to see if you fit God's description of the chosen. ����������������

Are you a fool? Do you measure your wisdom not in terms of diplomas and degrees and success, but in the knowledge you possess of God's faithful Gospel? Are you 'foolish' enough to leap into the jaws of death armed only with this simple conviction: by the merits and miseries of Jesus Christ of Galilee, I'll be happy eternally." Are you a fool like that? Are you foolish enough to hear God's Word and believe it? Then you are one of God's chosen. ����������������

Are you a weakling? Is your spiritual strength centered in the conviction of your own spiritual weakness? Are you strong only because you trust in forgiveness and riches of God's grace he has lavished upon you? Are you so weak that you have to be carried over the gorge between heaven and earth by someone else, by Christ? (The last 3 paragraphs are modified from a sermon by L.D. Hempelmann published in the Concordia Journal in May 1979, p. 116) ����������������

A crowd gathered to watch a famous tightrope walker walk across a cable strung across Niagara Falls. Before he walked across he asked them "Do you believe that I can walk across this cable without falling?" The crowd chanted back "We believe, we believe." And he did it. He then picked up a chair and asked the crowd "Do you believe that I can walk across this cable while carrying this chair?" The crowd chanted back "We believe, we believe." And he did it. He then asked the crowd "Do you believe that I can walk across this cable while carrying another person in this chair?" The crowd chanted back "We believe, we believe." And he asked them, "Who then will be my volunteer to sit in the chair?" And a great hush fell across the crowd. Are you so weak that you have to be carried over the gorge between heaven and earth by Christ? Are you so foolish that you will trust in Him and Him alone to sit in His chair to carry you to heavenly life? Will you trust in His cross and His resurrection for your eternal life? Are you that foolish and weak? Then you are one of God's chosen. ����������������

Are you lowly and of no account, a pauper standing before God? Do you live in the humble awareness that your best prayed petitions, your holiest moments of worship, your most consecrated behavior are still filthy rags of righteousness before our Holy God? As you stand before God, do you have only the open, receiving hands of a child? Or are you one of those confused adults who tries to give God something with one hand, while holding out the other to receive? It cannot be emphasized strongly enough that gifts are always from God to you and never the other way around. ��

The only thing we give God is glory for having given us everything � from salvation in Christ to the water we'll drink for lunch today. Are you lowly and poor? Then you are one of God's chosen (paragraph modified from Hempelmann, 1979). ����������������

This loving, choosing God has chosen us poor fools and weakling to be in Christ, to be in His Body the Church. He has chosen to make known to us the mystery of His will according to his good pleasure, which he has revealed through Christ crucified and resurrected. ��

He has chosen to make this saving knowledge plain to us through his Word. He has chosen to seal us through Baptism, making us publicly his own through the promised Holy Spirit. In His election we find great comfort. Just as I walked around for 3 days amazed that I was chosen the best tennis player, we can walk through this life amazed and comforted that we are chosen by God.

Because of our human predilection for sin, it could be easy for us to let that comfort become complacency. It could be easy for us to think "Oh, I can get by with this sin or that sin without repentance, because I'm one of God's chosen. But we who are his chosen, who go through life being constantly amazed that He has loved us that much to give His only Son Jesus for us, we are called by that same Word of Scripture to live holy and godly lives, constantly growing in faithfulness, goodness and brotherly love (2 Peter 1: 7). Peter encourages us with these words (2 Peter 1: 10-11) "My brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." He continues us in our election through the mystery of faith constantly strengthened by His Word and Sacraments. ����������������

We've all had the experience of being chosen� not for a sporting event, but for eternal life. This happened not by the impulsive choice of another 12 year-old on the schoolyard, but by the eternal God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ from before time began. He loves you so much that before the first Eden was ever created, He foresaw you with Him in the 2nd Eden, brought there by our Lord Jesus Christ. "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ." Amen.

Note: Biblical teaching about God's foreknowledge and predestination does fly in the face of earthly logic. Anyone wishing to more fully understand God's revelation to us about His Eternal Foreknowledge and Election are encouraged to read Article XI of the Formula of Concord in the Book of Concord. The collection of documents (including Luther's Catechisms) which makes up the Book of Concord were compiled in 1580 and clarify Lutheran teaching and understanding of the Scriptures on numerous difficult articles like Election. This is available in English either in the Tappert edition (1959) or the more recent Kolb/Wenger edition (2000).