You're God's Favourite: Chosen Before the Foundation of the World

Sermon outline

By grace God handpicked you in Christ before the foundation of the world, so you are His elect, His favourite and a word from God, chosen for greatness, and nothing can stop what He has already seen finished.

1. Blessed and surrounded with favour

   If you serve Christ you are the righteousness of God, not by works or merit but by God's love and grace. 'Blessed' means empowered, so God empowers the righteous to prosper and surrounds them with favour like a shield. Keep your eyes open for His favour: it comes in doses, then multiplies the more you become aware of it. The law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

   “Keep your eyes open for the favour of God. It will come in doses.”

   • Psalm 5:12
   • John 1:17

2. Chosen in Him before the foundation of the world

   God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing and chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world; the Amplified says He actually picked us out for Himself. It was no mistake that you were born again. Before your parents conceived you, you existed in the mind of God. God always starts with the end in mind, so He relates to you already as a success, and the devil fights you because he fears what you will do once your potential is unleashed.

   Illustration: Like someone choosing the nicest fruit and vegetables on a display, God picked you out, even if others don't see what He sees.

   “God doesn't start at the beginning. God always starts at the end.”

   • Ephesians 1:3-4
   • Jeremiah 1:5

3. God chooses without needing a reason

   Teams and employers choose people for their qualities, but God chooses because He wants to. God was made visible in human flesh, and He has chosen the foolish, weak and despised things of the world to put the mighty to shame, so that one day you will say of your success, 'It's just God'. Because He knew you from the beginning, stop asking 'why?' and know that all things are working together for your good.

   Illustration: He says the church was a success before it began, so he is not afraid it will fail.

   “How did you achieve what you achieved? It's just God.”

   • 1 Timothy 3:16
   • Romans 8:28
   • Romans 8:14
   • 1 Corinthians 1:27-29

4. You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you

   We say we got saved on a certain day, but Jesus said we did not choose Him; He chose and ordained us to bear lasting fruit, and whatever we ask the Father in His name He will give. Some people dislike you simply because your fruitful life convicts them. The Greek eklegomai speaks, he says, of kindness, favour and love: God chose you with them and walks in you with them, just as He called Jesus 'My beloved, chosen Son'.

   “If He chose you with kindness, favour and love, then He walks in you with kindness, favour and love.”

   • John 15:16
   • Luke 9:35

5. God's elect: My favourite

   Jesus is the Word, from the beginning, made flesh and full of grace and truth, heaped favour toward us. We were chosen in the pre-incarnate Word, not for what we have done but because of His glory and love, so when the devil lays a charge against God's elect, Jesus says 'not guilty'. Eklektos, elect, also carries the sense of 'my favourite'. God knows you intimately, down to the hairs on your head, and He wants you to know what He knows so that you can walk together in agreement. You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, called, chosen and faithful.

   Illustration: When God says 'you're my favourite', we answer with excuses and what people are saying about us, and God replies, 'They don't know yet, but I know.'

   “From all the people God encountered, He looked at you and said, my favourite.”

   • John 1:1
   • John 1:14
   • 1 John 1:1
   • 1 John 5:7
   • Revelation 19:13
   • Romans 8:33
   • 1 Peter 1:2
   • Amos 3:3
   • Matthew 10:30
   • 1 Peter 2:9
   • Revelation 17:14

6. You are a word from God wrapped in time

   Christ existed before the foundation of the earth and wrapped Himself in flesh and time to relate to us; Mary wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, but God related to Him eternally, and death could not hold Him. In the same way you were a thought in God's mind before anything was created and are now tabernacled in a body, so leaving this earth is not the end but a continuation. God sees you as light and salt, more than an overcomer, with the mind of Christ, so nothing can stop you: not the devil, circumstances or people who hate you. Parents, don't stress about your children; they too are words from God.

   “Our parents didn't decide our existence. They played a part in it. God decided it.”

   • 2 Timothy 3:16
   • Luke 2:7
   • John 20:27
   • Matthew 5:13-14
   • Romans 8:37
   • Philippians 2:5
   • 1 John 4:4