Embracing Our Chosenness: Living in God's Grace

### Quotes for Outreach

1. "So what I want to encourage you as we worship God by singing together this morning, by praying, by looking at his word this morning, is lift up your heart, lift up your gate, lift up your door, that the king of glory may come in." [22:50] (12 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "When someone invites you to a party, a wedding, a birthday party, anything like that, they chose to do it. They didn't have to. They chose to. And that's what feels so good when we know that we've been chosen to be part of whatever. Their celebration is in the same way that it means a lot when someone chooses to invite us to a party. The scriptures tell us that God chooses us. God chooses me and God chooses you." [36:10] (24 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "Imagine the difference it makes in your head and in your heart and in your entire life if you go through life believing that you're chosen, a beloved child of God with purpose and intention versus if you think you're a mistake or if you think, you know, if your identity is that you're a child of God, that I'm a loser or I'm a bad person or this. Imagine the difference it makes to go through life with good, healthy self-esteem versus thinking you're terrible." [45:54] (27 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "Hope will do amazing things for people. When they believe that there's a possibility for something to happen, better, people do better. There's an old study from Washington, D.C. where they took a high school that almost none of the kids graduated high school. I think they had like a 25% graduation rate. Some super rich dude came in and said, I will pay for college for anyone who graduates. You know what happened in the next few years? The graduation went to like 80%. When kids thought it was a real possibility they could go to college because someone was going to pay for it, all of a sudden they did better. Hope does amazing things." [49:23] (34 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "Knowing that you're chosen should elevate your self-esteem. It should be a fundamental part of how you think about yourself. It should elevate that self-esteem. It should also, and this is a really interesting bit about the way the chosenness works in Scripture. Because the temptation then is to do the mistake I talked about earlier. Elevate your self-esteem and then you push everybody else down. But the way it's talked about in Scripture is a little bit different. The way Scripture talks about it, chosenness should elevate our self-esteem but it should also keep us humble." [50:34] (36 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


### Quotes for Members

1. "The scriptures tell us that God chooses us. God chooses me and God chooses you. And when we understand the implications of that and all that it means, it has a way of lifting us up in a way. And when we put our identity in that and we think of ourselves as someone who's chosen, it is a beautiful and wonderful thing." [36:10] (22 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "You are chosen but you didn't do anything to earn it. That's what the Scripture says, right? That's what verse 4 said. If you want to go back, Ephesians chapter 1 verse 4. It says this, He chose, He chose us in Him, in Christ, before the creation of the world. Think about that. You weren't even born yet. How could you have earned it? How could you have done anything to deserve it? You were chosen before the world was even created. So it should raise your self-esteem. You're valuable in the eyes of God but it should also humble you because you didn't do anything to get there." [51:05] (44 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "Imagine how your reaction to people would be different. How your reaction to someone who's mistreated you might be different if you started with the belief that I'm chosen. I'm a chosen child of God. Imagine how it would impact you when you talk to your boss or your customers, your spouse or your kids. Your neighbors. Think of all the negative thoughts and behaviors that you could avoid if you just started with, I am a chosen child of God." [52:35] (31 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "How would it change if we believe that about ourselves? And how would it change the way we interact with others if we believed it about them as well? I want to close just by saying that if there's anyone here who doesn't know, you're chosen. You're beloved. God chose you before you were even born. God has a purpose. You're not here by accident. You're not a loser. You're not a failure. You may have failed at some things, but you are not a failure. You're chosen, predestined, a glorious creation of God, our Heavenly Father." [54:29] (47 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "Lord, we live in a world and at a time where we are constantly being told we are not enough. We are labeled as failure. We are labeled as the person who got fired. We are labeled as the person who, you know, didn't take care of their parents. The person who disappointed us. The person who never gets the answer right. The person who's an addict. The person who, you know, did this or that wrong. Lord, we live in a world where we are often labeled by the things that have gone most wrong in our lives. And yet over and over again in the scriptures that we revere so deeply that we believe are a gift from you that are holy, inspired, useful for all things. We are told over and over again that our primary identity ought to be as people who are chosen by you, beloved by you, people with dignity and honor created in your image." [55:17] (61 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)