A Chosen Community

May 16, 2010

Background Scripture: Colossians 3
Lesson Passage: Colossians 3:1, 2, 8 – 17

Christians are the elect of God. The elect of God are those who were chosen by God in Christ before the foundation of the world. As such, we should conduct ourselves accordingly. We did not choose God but instead, he chose us. This fact was made plain to us through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When we accepted Jesus, we merely accepted what God had already done through him on our behalf. We did not choose to allow Jesus to do something for us; instead, we accepted what he had already done for us—in spite of us. We were chosen before Calvary and Calvary took place before we were born so that the work of redemption could clearly be shown to be of God and not of those to whom redemption was provided. Our part as the elect of God then is to allow the love of God to be readily expressed through us, the redeemed. Love holds it all together. God first loved us and then we reflect the love of God into the world. This is who we are. Love is the mark of Christians. We walk in the love of God and do so by loving others. Christians walk in peace because God makes peace available to us. God calls us to peace through Jesus Christ. Christians have been chosen by God to be in Christ. Christ in us is the assurance of our calling. There is nothing greater one can possess than the indwelling presence of Jesus. Christ is above us all and yet in us all.

Christians are admonished to choose according to our calling or in other words, we should make decisions based on God’s expectation of us. This is one of the special gifts that all Christians have been given. It is the power of choice. We have been chosen by God and called to make right choices. Before we accepted Christ as our Savior, we lived and behaved according to our sinful nature. Being born again changed all of that. With salvation comes choice. We now have the privilege, the obligation, and the power to choose between the new nature of Christ in us or continue to be subject to or enslaved by our old nature which we are admonished to put to death. We now have a choice. It is often a difficult decision for us because we have misplaced affections. We continue to set our hearts on the wrong things. We can more readily exercise our power of choice by changing the object of our affection. We must learn to love the things of Christ which are not of this world. We can appreciate the things of this world without adoring them or setting our hearts on them. But we should set our hearts on the things that are above. The things above are those that our new spiritual nature is attuned with. In order to align our hearts with our spiritual nature, we need to renew our minds to bring about the fullness of our spiritual transformation. To be born again is to become a spiritual creature; however, we can’t walk in that newness without being transformed to become non-conformists with the world. This requires the renewing of our minds so that we can know and live out God’s perfect will for us in this world. Then we will demonstrate that we are a chosen community.

Robert C. Hudson
May 6, 2010