Chosen Before the World: Grace That Sends Us

God crosses the boundaries of divinity and moves to humanity. You know, God is divine. We are human. So God moves from divinity. God breaks the boundaries and moves to us, human being. A theologian says, God does not stay in heaven and wait for us to go there, but God comes to us. God crosses over to us, to humanity. [00:54:08] (38 seconds)  #GodCrossedToHumanity

Paul continues to tell us we were chosen before the foundations. Before before, not leave alone the countries. Now now leave alone the states, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, whatever. All the names before they were formed. Before the countries were formed, America, Canada, name it. Before the continents were formed, Africa, America, Asia. Before we were created, men, women. You see the divisions that we have? You see the boundaries that we have? Before those foundations were laid in place, God had already chosen us. God chose us and therefore because and therefore that we are all chosen and we are chosen without boundaries, it means we all belong. No one is disposable. [00:55:05] (68 seconds)  #ChosenBeforeCreation

So grace of God set us free from the systems that, you know, trap us to to to, you know, being exploit exploited, being dehumanized, and humanizing others, seeing others like, you know, they are not equal. Grace gives us freedom from, you know, punishment and dominion of exclusion. You know, I don't belong. I'm excluded. I don't count. You know? Anyway, do I matter? [00:58:43] (41 seconds)  #GraceFreesTheOppressed

Paul continues to say that God ultimate plan is to gather us up in Christ. What does it mean to gather us up to Christ? It means to reconcile us. To reconcile each from one from to with the other, to reconcile men and women, young and old. Those classification that has been made to be reconciled together, to reconcile human and nature, that we don't fight with the nature but take care of it to make us value that which we live among us. [00:59:29] (43 seconds)  #GatheredAndReconciled

And Paul continues to say that we are sealed and sent. You know, when we think of being sealed and sent, we think of salvation as insulation. We are insulated. I, you know, I belong to God. I am insulated from all evil. And then when we get sick, we start complaining. Why am I sick and I love God? Salvation is not insulation. Salvation is not insurance. [01:00:32] (37 seconds)  #SealedSentNotInsulated

So in this, John means that God is, you know, as has been and is and will be always actively present with us, doing something. But now the question is, what are we ourselves doing? John continues to say that light shines in the darkness and darkness did not overcome it. I thought of this and I was like, you know, when the light is somewhere, you cannot you cannot hide it. Light will never be covered by darkness. [01:03:02] (32 seconds)  #LightShinesInDarkness

Their politics, oh, we don't want to talk. We are neutral. Their economic disparities, we are neutral. We love the neutrality. We love to be you know? We don't want to be blamed. We don't want to be quoted. We don't want to be attacked. We love peace. So we remain neutral. Christ never remained neutral. Christ stood and challenged the systems, and that's why Christ was rejected. And if you see yourself not rejected, know that you are not challenging the systems. [01:09:40] (35 seconds)  #FaithNotNeutrality

as we are here and God has moved inside us and God is light, the question is, are we shining? Are we speaking for God? What are we doing? What is our purpose in this choosing and setting apart and sealing? What is our purpose? What are we doing as individuals, as church, as families? What are we doing? [01:10:24] (25 seconds)  #ShineSpeakServe