Do We Choose God or Does God Choose Us?

There are deep convictions and disagreements regarding the issue of predestination and free will.  Are we confronted with the Gospel and then are allowed to choose whether or not to follow Jesus?  Or did God pick before creation who would be a Christian and does our salvation depend entirely and solely on being born as one of the elect?  My friend Jon Vinter, who has recently "converted" to a reformed position, challenged my to look at Romans 9 and to consider it for our You Asked For It series.  Jon's embracing of Calvinism has given him a renewed passion for the Gospel and ministry and for that I am thankful.  I decided to take him up on his challenge.

As Jon reminded me, Paul's thought process runs from the end of Romans 8 through to Romans 11.  But I decided to start with the bigger context.  The church at Rome began with Jewish Christians.  All Jews were forced to leave Rome in 50 A.D. because of the edict of Claudius.  This left the few gentile Christians to rebuild.  They built a thriving gentile church and then a few years later the original Jewish Christians returned creating conflict on both sides.  Both groups felt superior to the others.  This is what Paul is responding to in Romans.  What I see in Romans 9-11 is not a discussion on how individuals are saved but on God's choice to have first of all Israel and then the Christian Church as His people and as His presence on earth.  Neither of these choices of people were based on how great they were.  Certainly the Church has messed up enough over the centuries.  But God unconditionally elected Israel and the Church.  This is talking about peoples and not persons.  As Paul makes it clear in this section, we are saved by the confession of the mouth and the faith in the heart, not in the lottery of election.  We must choose God and put our faith in Jesus.  Then we become a part of God's chosen people.  In this way, we both choose God individually and are chosen by God as the people of God.  This study of Romans 9-11, rather than converting me to Calvinism, actually made me take even more seriously the role of choice and faith.  If you are interested, for the next couple of weeks the text and audio of this sermon can be found at www.meafordbaptist.ca.