“YOU DID NOT CHOOSE ME…”
LUKE 6:14-16

I. Introduction
Men and women are fallible. But that fact doesn’t keep us from demanding our right to make choices about everything we think pertains to our happiness and well-being. So if and when someone else makes a choice for us, we tend to rebel. We don’t like it. But we readily forget that some of our choices have led us into errors, mistakes, and various and sundry problems for ourselves and our families. The simple fact is that there are times we’d be a lot better off if someone else did make a choice or two for us.

But our human pride doesn’t want to admit that. We don’t want to admit that we often pick the wrong course for our lives, or make mistakes or poor choices about all sorts of things. Then after we have done so, there are even times when we refuse to turn back or alter our course, even when we know full well we’ve made a mistake. We simply don’t want to admit we are fallible. We like to think we are wise and fully capable of always choosing the best options for ourselves.

Another thing we surely don’t want to admit is that we’re sinners in need of salvation. Such an admission is the ultimate blow to our egos. I believe that pride, more than any-thing else, is at the heart of the struggle to come to grips with the biblical doctrine of the sovereignty of God in the affairs of men. I am convinced that the failure to recognize God’s sovereignty is at the very core of the demise of orthodox Christianity today.

Theologian after theologian, denomination after denomination, church after church, and pastor after pastor continually drift further and further away from that fundamental and essential truth. Why? I think it is because man has such an inflated view of himself that he really believes he is in control. It isn’t hard to see why such thinking is polluting and weakening the Church of Jesus Christ today.

People are too often told just what they want to hear. They are told that just as they make their own choices and decisions about everyday things, so too they make their own deci-sion about becoming a Christian. In other words, they can choose Christ. Again, people are told what they want to hear. “You’re in control, you decide, you choose. You walk this aisle, you say that prayer, you come to this altar, you say these words, and, voila, you’re a Christian. It’s all up to you.”

So too many modern churches feed the ego, massage the pride, and make each individual person the final arbiter, the final determining factor, as to whether or not they will be saved. In this most important event in which human beings could ever be involved, the salvation of their eternal souls, far too many churches teach that, God is not sovereign in the affairs of men. On the contrary, when it comes to an individual’s salvation, too many in the modern church teach that man is sovereign in the affairs of God.
So the church feeds the ego at the exact moment in a person’s life when the ego must be starved. It constructs pride at the exact moment in a person’s life when pride must be torn down. So people are told that since they decide and they choose, they need to “make a decision for Christ.” But there is a serious problem here.

The Bible teaches that man in his natural state, that is, unsaved, is completely incapable of making a choice for, or “deciding” for Christ. There are a number of reasons for this.
• The unsaved person is spiritually dead in his or her sin.
Ephesians 2:1-2
1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world…

• Because the unsaved person is spiritually dead, he is utterly helpless and cannot come to God of his own volition.
John 6:44, 65
44 “No one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent Me draws him…
65 “…I have said to you, that no one can come to Me, unless it has been granted him from the Father.

• Because the unsaved person cannot come to God of his own volition, neither can the unsaved person please God.
Romans 8:7-8
7 …the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so;
8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

• Because the unsaved person is unable to come to God, it logically follows that no one can. It’s a decision, a lost person cannot make. Therefore, no one does.
Romans 3:10-12
10 “There is none righteous, not even one;
11 there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God;
12 All have turned aside, together they have become useless; there is none who does good, there is not even one.”

• Because of all of that, when unsaved people hear the gospel, they reject it, because left to their own devices, they possess no ability to accept it.
1 Corinthians 2:14
14 a natural man does not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolish-ness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

Because of all these things it has been said rightly, that asking a non-Christian to make a decision for Christ is like asking a corpse to dance. Divine intervention is necessary or no one could ever be saved. But despite these biblical truths, we constantly hear that the lost must decide, they must make a choice, they must “make a decision for Christ.”
And even though a command to “make a decision for Christ” is not found in Scripture, millions continue to do so. They walk the aisle, go to the altar, say the prescribed prayer, and they’re told they are saved. This is why churches are filled with people who think they are Christians but are not. They’ve made a decision to accept Christ. That’s it!

But what about God’s decisions? What about God’s choices? Are they irrelevant? If you and I are the final arbiters, if you and I make the final decisions about our salvation, then God’s choices are irrelevant. This is the problem with today’s popular evangelism. In every area of life today we are encouraged to believe and to say, “It’s my right, it’s my decision, it’s my choice. After all, am I not the captain of my soul?” It isn’t hard to see the damage done to the gospel as this mindset seeps its way into the church.

William Ernest Henley lived from 1849-1903. He was a godless man who is best remem-bered as the author of a poem entitled “Invictus,” which is Latin for “unconquered.” Listen to human pride.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

Into the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horrors of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how straight the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate
I am the captain of my soul.

Henley mocks the existence of any god, claims that he cannot be beaten, (conquered), says he has absorbed life’s blows but still stands on his own strength, has no fear of death now and will have none in the future, makes light of Scripture’s warning about a hell to come, and finally says that he is in control of everything.

Few professing Christians would ever say they agree with Henley’s position. But that’s precisely what we do when we say that we’re in control, that we’re the captains of our own souls. That’s precisely what we say when we assume that we make the choice to be saved. But the truth is this. Unless and until someone recognizes that God is sovereign and they are not, they cannot even come to the point of salvation, let alone be truly saved.
This is because, when we are left to our own devices and told that we decide, our pride takes over and we forget just how fallible we truly are. It’s why, when an infallible God, incapable of sin or mistake of any kind, makes His choices, when He elects those whom He chooses to save and use for His purposes, fallible men and women don’t like it. They have the audacity to question their Creator.

One reason for this is that they think God is somehow unfair. The same people who think it’s all right to choose what they will do and when they will do it, do not think it’s all right for God to do the same thing. They say, “Well then, if what you say is true, God is not fair, He is unjust.” But what did Jeff read to open the service?
*Romans 9:14-16
14 What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be!
15 For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. (repeat v. 16)

An infallible sovereign God makes the final decision about who will be saved. Try as we might to reconcile that truth with what we like, think is right or wrong, say is just and fair or unjust and unfair, we can’t escape that fact that that is precisely what the Bible teaches.
*Romans 9:18
18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.

Someone asks, “But how does God decide whom He will save?” (Turn to the John’s gospel.)
*John 5:21
21 “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes.”

And, despite any and all arguments to the contrary, God’s choices are absolutely holy, righteous, perfect, and eternal. Look with me at just a few of the many verses and pas-sages that teach these truths. See if you can find any hint of “making a decision for Christ” in any of them.
*John 13:18
13 I do not speak of all of you. I know the ones I have chosen…

*John 15:16, 19
16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain…

19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

*Ephesians 1:4
4 …He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him.

*Colossians 3:12
12 …so, as those who have been chosen by God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience…

*2 Thessalonians 2:13
13 But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation…

*1 Peter 2:9
9 …you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession…

Well, what’s the point of all this today? Aren’t we going verse-by-verse through the Gospel of Luke? Yes we are. What I’m doing is setting the stage for our study of the apostles, the twelve men whom Jesus chose for the purpose of teaching and mentoring them so that they might carry on His work after He was crucified, resurrected, and returned to heaven.

Jesus’ choice of these twelve men was perfect. He chose the right ones. Why would we think otherwise? Jesus is infallible. He is God’s Son. He is perfectly united with His Father. He always does His Father’s will, even to the point of going to the cross.

I want to us be fully convinced that whether Jesus chooses to raise up an apostle over two thousand years ago, or whether He chooses to save you today, His choice is not only per-fect, it is infallible. And I want us to understand that just as He made His choice for the twelve apostles, completely independent of their personal choices, so too, He made His choice for you, Christian, completely independent of your personal choice.

Does that “go against your grain”? It sure goes against human pride. Listen, please. If you are not a Christian, it is not because you haven’t chosen Jesus. It is because you haven’t received Him. And this is also true. If you are a Christian it is not because you have chosen Him either. It is because you have received Him. (repeat)

The reason we think we chose Him is that He supernaturally prepared us to do so. The Holy Spirit prepared our minds and hearts in advance to receive Him when, at the precise time and predetermined moment, He chose to call us. Christians must grasp this truth!
*John 1:12-13
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become child-ren of God, even to those who believe in His name,
13 who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Over the next few weeks we will learn about the twelve apostles. We will see who they were, what God made of them, what we can learn from them, and just how much you and I are like them – sinners, whom God chose, called, saved, and prepared to honor and glorify Him.
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II. Review
We have come to Luke 6:14. It is a pivotal moment in the gospel. Jesus has told the reli-gious leaders that He is the promised Messiah of Israel, the Son of God. He has broken and then ridiculed their man-made laws regarding the Sabbath day. Their response has not been to recognize the truths that Jesus has told them and repent. Instead, they have responded with overt hostility, and they are beginning to plan and plot His murder.

It is at this point that Jesus goes before His Father in prayer. He prays all night and seeks God’s wisdom for whom He will choose to teach and mentor for the next two years all the way to the cross.
*Luke 6:12-13
12 And it was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God.
13 And when day came, He called His disciples to Him; and chose twelve of them, whom He also named as apostles:
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III. Text
In these verses Luke simply names the men Jesus chose that morning. They had all been among the crowds that followed Jesus and now, after a night of prayer, He called them.
*Luke 6:14-16 (Stand with me in honor of reading God’s Word.)
14 Simon, whom He also named Peter, and Andrew his brother; and James and John; and Philip and Bartholomew (aka Nathanael);
15 and Matthew and Thomas; James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot;
16 Judas (aka Thaddaeus) the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

Let me just say a quick word here about Judas Iscariot. If you or I were making the deci-sion, doing the choosing that morning, it’s safe to say we wouldn’t have chosen him. But never forget that Jesus’ choice of Judas the traitor was no more a mistake than His choice of Peter or any of the rest of the apostles. It served God’s eternal purpose in ways that only the Lord Himself could even begin to understand. We’ll talk a lot more about Judas in a few weeks, but I thought we should get that out of the way right now.

As I said before, these were ordinary men until Jesus got hold of them. But He would make them into something that they could never have imagined before they met and received Jesus. Did you receive Christ as an adult?
Think about this. God is in the process of making you into someone you probably would not have recognized before you were saved. Am I right?

But whether you were saved as a young child or as an adult, God is making you into a man or a woman for His glory. He is making you holy and fit for heaven. The process by which He is doing that is called sanctification. The twelve apostles are proof that God can do extraordinary things with ordinary people. That should be a source of encourage-ment to all Christians who sometimes wonder if God can really use them.

We know the apostles were ordinary and because of that, we sometimes forget just how significant they were. That is, just how significant Jesus made them.
• They received revelation from God which no one else has received since or will again. Either they or their close associates – Luke, Paul’s friend and companion, John Mark, Peter’s young protégé, and James, Jesus’ own half-brother – are the ones who wrote the NT.

• They founded, built, taught and edified the early church.

• They led exemplary lives. Ephesians 3:5 calls the apostles “holy.”

• They were given miraculous power to heal and raise the dead.

• They were greatly blessed by God. One way that can be seen is found in Revela-tion where their names adorn the heavenly city.

Revelation 21:14
14 …the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb (of God).

Jesus took men such as these and welded them into a group that would not only connect with Israel’s past but lay the foundation for the church. He took men who were entirely different, in some cases complete opposites, with vastly different backgrounds, temper-ments, and personalities, and who, by His power, proceeded to change the world.

Consider Peter, who was an optimist, and Thomas, who was a pessimist. Jesus used them both. Then consider Simon the Zealot, who hated the government, and Matthew, who was a government official. Jesus used them both. Or consider James, who was bold and direct, an extrovert, and Philip, who was quiet and had a gentle heart, an introvert. Jesus used them both. I think you get the point.

This church is made up of exactly the same kind of people – optimists, pessimists, bold and outgoing, quiet and introspective, introverts and extroverts – every one of us created by God, chosen by Him for salvation, and called to be used for His glory. Never forget that. Just as He loved the twelve apostles to the end, so too does He love you.

How are you and I to respond to that love? Well, we are to obey Him, first and foremost.
We are, above all else, to serve Him as our Lord and Master.
As you live your life in Christ, take time to look around you. Do you see the masses of people and their needs? I’m not talking about their physical and temporal needs, even though we are to help in those where we can. I’m talking about their spiritual and eternal needs. They need to receive Jesus. If you don’t tell them about Him who will?

You say, “But you’ve just said that Jesus chooses those whom He desires to choose. If He chooses them, why do I need to tell them?” Here is the first and very best reason. God commands it! You don’t know who He has chosen, do you? Think about it? The day before you were saved you had no idea you were among the chosen, did you? But were you any less chosen? No! And did you need to hear the gospel? Yes!

So we tell them because God has told us to tell them. In His infinite wisdom and master-ful plan for the salvation of lost sinners, those whom He has chosen from eternity past, the gospel must be heard. Our infallible and sovereign God has designed it that way. It is His choice, but it’s our job.
*Romans 10:13-14
13 “Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”
14 How then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?

So the chosen must hear. The chosen must believe. The chosen must call upon the Lord. Then the Lord will save the soul of each and every one He has chosen. What marvelous and awesome truth! But, you say, “I don’t understand.” That’s all right. I don’t either. We need to humble ourselves and concede that we, finite creatures that we are, cannot plumb the depths of the mind and the wisdom of our infinite God.
Isaiah 55:8-9
8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.
9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

God has chosen, but we must tell them. I don’t get it. It defies human logic. But God’s ways and thoughts are not rooted in human logic. They are so much higher than ours.
*Romans 11:33-36
33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!
34 For who has known the mind of the LORD, or who became His counselor?
35 Or who has first given to Him that it might be paid back to him again?
36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.
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IV. Conclusion
The eternal salvation of the chosen is only possible because…
• God planned it
• God designed it
• God provided it
• God made it possible for His chosen to believe it
• God predestined His chosen ones to receive it
• God called them to it
• God justified those He called
• God prepared them for heaven
• God, in His own good time, will take them home.

He did it all. Then He made it so that you and I must tell people about His Son. You say, “Well, that’s a real good plan right up until the last part. What if we don’t tell them?”

There’s an old legend that is certainly not found in the Bible. I don’t know if the story comes out of the Protestant Reformation or if it goes even further back in time than that. But wherever it comes from, it does illustrate a biblical truth about God’s plan for those whom He has chosen, and how they must hear the gospel.

The story says there was a conversation between the angel Gabriel and Jesus after the Lord’s ascension into heaven. They talked about what Jesus had done on the earth – His birth, His life, His ministry, His death, and His resurrection.

Gabriel took it all in and asked, “Lord, how will the people of earth get to know all about you and what you have done?” Jesus answered, “There is a little company of twelve men whom I have chosen and taught. They are My friends. I have asked them to tell others.”

Gabriel thought for another moment and then asked, “But Lord, what if they let you down and fail to do it?” Jesus answered him, “I have no other plan.”

That’s just a story. But here is the truth. At LIGHTHOUSE BIBLE CHURCH Jesus has a little company of Christians whom He has chosen and is now teaching. They are His friends. He has no other plan.

~ Pray ~