Shabbat Shalom all,
Tonight I want to briefly discuss what it truly means to
be a chosen people! And so in a
short message tonight called, “THE
CHOICE OF THE CHOSEN!” I want us to be encouraged and equipped in the Good
News of us being a chosen people, and the responsibilities that come with being
chosen! I have no central or theme passage that I will be working from tonight,
but will be utilising various verses from Scripture in order for us to grasp
the concept of being chosen!
Deḇarim/Deuteronomy
7:6 “For you are a set-apart people to יהוה your Elohim. יהוה your Elohim has chosen you to be a people for
Himself, a treasured possession above all the peoples on the face of the earth.”
This verse is referred to by Kěpha in his first letter,
as he reminds us of this very fact that we are a chosen people, in:
Kěpha Aleph/1
Peter 2:9-10 “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,
a set-apart nation, a people for a possession, that you should proclaim the
praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light, 10 who once were not a people, but now the people of Elohim;
who had not obtained compassion, but now obtained compassion.”
SET-APART – CHOSEN – TREASURED POSSESSION!!!
While we all may know and be able to recite these verses,
I often wonder how much we actually understand what this means and entails for
us! Once we were ‘nobodies’, and now we are not just simply a ‘somebody’, but
rather, we are the chosen people of
Elohim! A people He has chosen and called out of darkness into His marvellous
Light – but for what purpose some may ask? To be a people for Himself!!! He
does not want to share us with another, and so He chose us for Himself. So much
so that we are totally different to the world and those who still walk around
in darkness, for we are a set-apart people! The Hebrew word for ‘set-apart’ is קָדוֹשׁ qadosh –
Strong’s H6918 meaning, ‘consecrated, set-apart’ –
and a Set-Apart nation implies just what it says – we are to be in a
league of our own – so different from the world that it is clearly seen!!! This
can only happen if we actually hear-guard and do all Elohim has commanded us to
do, without debating and reasoning why we should not - as the world does! The
Greek word for ‘set-apart’ is ἅγιος hagios – Strong’s G40 and its fundamental idea is one of ‘separation, consecration, and devotion to the service of Elohim’,
sharing in Elohim’s purity and abstaining from the defilement of the flesh, by
being clothed in and walking in righteousness, that is from Elohim!
To ‘consecrate’ means ‘to make or
declare to be set-apart and be devoted to a purpose with the deepest
irrevocable dedication’. We as a chosen, set-apart and royal
priesthood unto Elohim, declare and make our lives solely devoted to the
purpose of serving and worshipping יהוה our
Elohim, and as we have certainly learnt through the Torah portions of ‘drawing near’ to Elohim, that we can
only do so by the Blood of Messiah as we are continually being set-apart in Him
through an on-going process of being
sanctified as a people for a possession.
Tas’loniqim
Aleph/1 Thessalonians 4:3-7 “For this is the desire of
Elohim: your set-apartness! – that you should abstain
from whoring, 4
that each one of you should know how to possess his own vessel in set-apartness
and respect, 5 not in passion of lust, like the
gentiles who do not know Elohim, 6
not to overstep and take advantage of his brother in this matter, because the
Master is the revenger of all such, as we indeed said to you before and
earnestly warned. 7
For Elohim did not call us to uncleanness, but in set-apartness.”
The Hebrew word
for ‘treasured possession’ is סְגֻלָּה segullah – Strong’s H5459 meaning ‘valued possession or property’.
This could also be expressed as “My uniquely
valued and guarded treasure above all the nations”! How awesome is
that!!! A hearing, guarding and doing people are the uniquely valued and
guarded treasure of יהוה’s; that
is to say that He holds us firmly in His hand and never takes His eyes off of
us; and He guards us continually so as to never let us go, for we are extremely
valued and precious to Him. When outsiders look at us they may see it as being
locked away in a box, thinking that we ‘have to do’ things that are not
required by them and claim erroneously that we have lost our rights and are
‘under law’ so to speak – but it is not so – we are kept secure and safe and
are a prized possession.
True overcomers in Messiah are His ‘segullah’!!!
In the Greek the word used for ‘a possession’ is περιποίησις peripoiēsis – Strong’s G4047 which means, ‘purchased possession, preservation, acquisition, peculiar,
property’. We, as a set-apart people unto Elohim,
have been sealed with Set-apart Spirit of promise, who is the pledge of our
inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession! Peculiar and
set-apart – that is to be completely different to the rest! How different are
you to the rest of the world?
What makes us
set-apart and a peculiar treasured possession, is that we have been chosen by
Elohim to be His own.
The Hebrew word
for ‘chosen’ is בָּחַר
baḥar
– Strong’s H977 and means, ‘to choose, choicest, selected, preferred’,
and this word is used to express that choosing which has ultimate and eternal significance. We
see in Scripture how יהוה chooses a people, certain
tribes, specific individuals, and a place for His Name; and in all these cases
service and obedience is at the heart of the choosing. Thus יהוה chose Yisra’ĕl to be set-apart and thereby to serve as
His witness among the nations. His
choosing us has eternal significance!!! His choice is forever!!! The expected
response of the chosen is loving obedience and complete commitment in
uncompromised service to the One who has chosen us!
Yoḥanan/John 15:16 “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, so that whatever you ask the Father in My Name He
might give you.”
יהושע makes it very clear to us here in Yoḥanan/John 15 that we did not choose
Him, but He chose us – and our acceptance to His choosing implies that we
understand and acknowledge our needed response, which is to obey, and in doing
so we relinquish and forfeit all ‘choice for self’ – simply because we accept
our choosing and realise that we are no longer our own, but rather belong to
Him who has purchased us with His own Blood – hence we are called The Chosen!
While this
may seem fairly obvious at first glance, and it should; what we do find is that
many do not recognise the consequence of their acceptance of the great choosing
of Elohim upon their lives, for they simply continue to make ‘bad choices’ that
render their garments defiled before the One who has chosen us and clothed us
with His righteousness!
יהוה’s ‘choosing’ of Yisra’ĕl was not because of being bigger and better
than other nations!
Deḇarim/Deuteronomy 7:7-8 “יהוה did not set His love on you
nor choose you because you were more numerous than any other people, for you
were the least of all peoples, 8 but because of יהוה loving you, and because of Him guarding
the oath which He swore to your fathers, יהוה has brought you out with a
strong hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of
Pharaoh sovereign of Mitsrayim.”
יהוה’s loving-commitment to His oath that
He swore to Aḇraham, Yitsḥaq and Ya’aqob is what has caused us to be a people
that are ‘chosen’ in the Beloved!
Deḇarim/Deuteronomy
10:14-16 “See, the heavens and the heaven of heavens
belong to יהוה your Elohim, also the
earth with all that is in it. 15 “יהוה delighted only in your fathers, to love them. And He
chose their seed after them, you above all peoples, as it is today. 16 “And you
shall circumcise the foreskin of your heart, and harden your neck no more.”
Because of His great love for our fathers, He chose their
seed – that is us, and because of His choosing us, He expects us to walk humbly
before Him and cut away the foreskin of our heart, rolling away the reproach of
wickedness and sin that breeds therein; and be stiff-necked no more!
Because of His lovingly-committed choice for us, we too
must respond by making the clear choice to serve Him and cling to Him with our
all:
Deḇarim/Deuteronomy
30:19-20 “I have called the heavens and the earth as
witnesses today against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing
and the curse. Therefore you shall choose
life, so that you live, both you and your seed, 20 to love יהוה your Elohim,
to obey His voice, and to cling to Him – for He is your life and the length of
your days – to dwell in the land which יהוה swore to your fathers, to Aḇraham, to Yitsḥaq, and to
Ya’aqoḇ, to give them.”
We, the chosen,
are called to choose life! The Torah is our life! And in choosing
life, we choose to love, obey and cling to Elohim by guarding His Torah that
leads us in the Way of Set-Apartness!
Deḇarim/Deuteronomy
32:45-47 “And when Mosheh ended speaking all these
words to all Yisra’ĕl, 46 he said to
them, “Set your heart on all the words with which I warn you today, so that you
command your children to guard to do all the Words of this Torah. 47 “For it is not a worthless Word for you, because it is your life, and by this Word you prolong your days on the soil which
you pass over the Yardĕn to possess.”
The Words of this
Torah is not worthless – it is our life! The Living Word – The Word made flesh
- יהושע Messiah - is our life!!! In
Speaking of יהושע Messiah, Sha’ul tells us in:
Romiyim/Romans 10:6-7 “But the righteousness of belief speaks in this way, “Do not
say in your heart, ‘Who shall ascend into the heavens?’ ” – that is, to bring
Messiah down; or, 7 “ ‘Who shall descend into the abyss?’ ” – that is, to bring Messiah
up from the dead.”
Sha’ul was quoting from:
Deḇarim/Deuteronomy
30:11-14 “For this command which I am commanding you
today, it is not too hard for you, nor is it far off. 12 “It is not in the heavens, to say, ‘Who shall ascend into
the heavens for us, and bring it to us, and cause us to hear it, so that we do
it?’ 13 “Nor is it beyond the sea,
to say, ‘Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it to us, and cause us to
hear it, so that we do it?’ 14 “For the
Word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart – to do it.”
יהושע Messiah is the One who came down, and
He is the One who came up from the dead and He has made His Word – His Torah –
alive in us, in order that we, the chosen,
can live set-apart lives unto Him!
יהושע Messiah is our life – and we choose Life!!! That being said, we must
recognise the clear consequences of such a choice – for by choosing יהושע Messiah, we are in fact choosing to love, obey and cling to His
Torah!!! Sadly there are many who do not understand this, and think that they
have a choice not to obey! While Yisra’ĕl, being chosen, did not cling to יהוה and His Torah, יהוה’s loving commitment to His oath stands
firm forever and after a new generation had passed over the Yardĕn, Yehoshua
called for this chosen nation to make a choice, as he says in his closing
speech:
Yehoshua/Joshua 24:14-15 “And now, fear יהוה, serve Him in perfection and
in truth, and put away the mighty ones which your fathers served beyond the
River and in Mitsrayim, and serve יהוה! 15 “And if it seems evil in your
eyes to serve יהוה, choose for yourselves this day whom you
are going to serve, whether the mighty ones which your fathers served that were
beyond the River, or the mighty ones of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.
But I and my house, we serve יהוה.”
The call is clear – fear יהוה and serve Him in Truth, however
if you think that it is evil to do so, then choose today who you are going to
serve! The ‘choice’ to serve who you
want to, is given to those who have not fully accepted the ‘choosing’ of Elohim! For those who have
fully accepted and responded to the clear ‘choosing’
of Elohim, are called to fear Him and serve Him in perfection and truth, and in
that acceptance the responsibility is clear – put away all falsehood and
idolatry, that leads to death! What I am trying to make clear here is that when
we have understood the clear ‘choosing’
of Elohim, there is actually no more ‘choosing’
that we get to do, when it comes to fearing and serving in perfection and
truth!
In our understanding of the difference between ‘good’ and ‘evil’, we have discussed in the past that the difference between
the two is the difference between being ‘functional’
or ‘dysfunctional’.
The Hebrew word for ‘good’
is טוֹב toḇ – Strong’s H2896 and carries the meaning, ‘pleasant, good, agreeable, beautiful, to be pleasing,
done well’. In the true understanding of this word טוֹב toḇ we can see that it may best be
translated in most cases as ‘functional’,
for when יהוה said in Berěshith/Genesis
1:31 that when He saw all that He had made, that He said it was very good. What He saw was His creation functioning properly and working the
way it should and this is why it was ‘good’.
The opposite to טוֹב toḇ (good) is
evil which is Hebrew is רַע
ra
– Strong’s H7451 meaning, ‘bad, evil,
wicked, harmful’. The
tree of knowledge in the garden was of טוֹב toḇ (good) and רַע ra (evil)!
Just as we understand that טוֹב toḇ
represents that which is ‘functional’,
we can then see that רַע
ra represents that which is ‘dysfunctional’, which simply put speaks
of that which reveals and abnormal and unhealthy lifestyle that is not
functioning as it should.
We may often think something is good,
yet if it is not ‘functional’ according to the plumb line of the Torah
of יהוה, then we
had best be careful to consider our steps!
Understanding this then further helps us grasp the
reality of how so many make their own choices to do as they please, especially
when true obedience and the serving of יהוה in perfection and truth is seen as
dysfunctional in their eyes!!!
We have
heard people say that the keeping of Sabbath ‘will not work for them’ as it is
inconvenient, and therefore they choose to follow an inherited system of lies,
deception and dysfunction over the Truth! This simple reveals that they have
not fully acknowledged nor accepted יהוה’s ‘choosing’!
By our acceptance of His choosing us, we by default clearly ‘choose’ to ‘pick up the Torah and guard to do it’!
Shemuʼěl Aleph/1
Samuel 17:40 “And he took his staff in his hand, and
chose for himself five smooth stones from the wadi, and put them in a
shepherd’s bag, in a pouch which he had, and his sling was in his hand. And he
drew near to the Philistine.”
With Dawiḏ being unarmed in the worlds eyes, he went and
picked up five smooth stones from the wadi and drew near to Golyath. This is a
powerful picture of how we are able to be more than overcomers in Messiah, as
we face great and dangerous battles on a daily basis. We too, with the staff in
our hand – symbolic of the Authority of Messiah, have by our acceptance of His
redemption over our lives, chose on
the day we called on Him for our deliverance, to guard to do all He has
commanded us – and this is our armour in which we stand firm, being dressed in
His clear instructions of righteousness, to be worn by His set-apart and chosen
forever!
Deḇarim/Deuteronomy
6:25 “And it is righteousness for us when we guard to
do all this command before יהוה our Elohim, as He has commanded us.”
Tehillim/Psalm
119:142 “Your righteousness is righteousness forever,
and Your Torah is truth.”
If righteousness is forever (which it is as is written),
and if it is righteousness for us to guard the commands (which it is as is
written), and the Torah is Truth (which is it as is written) – then we are to
walk in the Torah forever!!! How can it be done away with – sadly many have chosen to serve falsehood, for it seems evil in their
eyes to serve יהוה.
Tehillim/Psalm
25:12 “Who, then, is the man that fears יהוה? He teaches
him in the way he should choose.”
The one who truly fears יהוה
meditates upon His Torah
day and night and is taught in the way He has chosen to walk!
Dawiḏ proclaims in:
Tehillim/Psalm
119:30 “I have chosen the
way of truth; Your right-rulings I have held level.”
Tehillim/Psalm
119:173 “Your hand is a help to me, for I have chosen Your orders.”
When we have firmly accepted His choosing of us, we are
able to understand how His Hand is our Help and by choosing Him, we see how His
right-rulings keep us level headed and able to stand firm!
Mattithyahu/Matthew
22:14 “For many are called, but few are chosen.”
The Greek word for ‘chosen’
is ἐκλεκτός eklektos – Strong’s G1588 which means, ‘chosen, elect, favourite, picked out’.
The Greek word for ‘called’ is κλητός klētos – Strong’s G2822 and means, ‘called, invited (to a banquet)’, and so we
are able to see how the wedding invitation has gone out to many, yet as in the
Parable of the Wedding Banquet, יהושע
Messiah tells us how many are too busy with their own agendas, and were found
not worthy. The command was then given to go and find whoever they could. The
banquet was full and when the Sovereign came in, the one who was not properly
dressed was thrown out!
Today there are many who simply refuse the invitation and
acceptance to the choosing of
Elohim, while some hear the call, yet refuse to acknowledge the expected
requirements of being dressed in Righteousness, as they have hated the
instructions of Elohim and cast His words behind them – they shall be cast out
– all because they ‘chose’ for
themselves that serving Elohim is evil!!!
The choice of the chosen is clearly made upon the acceptance
of His choosing! This being said, it is then very clear that our ability to
choose how we are to serve is not optional. The only choice we are given after
our being chosen, is to choose to serve another, if fearing and serving Elohim
is evil and dysfunctional in our eyes!
I wonder how many people who claim to fear יהוה and serve Him in perfection and
truth, still think that they have a choice in how they are to serve Him?
Think about it for a moment:
Being chosen,
do we have a choice on ‘how’ we
obey? NO!
Being chosen,
can we choose to ignore His dietary
requirements on what we can or cannot eat? NO!
Being chosen,
can we (as men) choose to shave our
beards just because we may prefer a smoother look? NO!
Being chosen,
can we choose on how or when we feel
like tithing? NO!
Being chosen,
can we choose not to forgive others?
NO!
Being chosen,
can we choose not to gather on יהוה’s Appointed Times? NO!
I could go on and on, yet what I am trying to point out
here is that by us being a set-apart,
chosen and treasured possession of Elohim, we who desire to love, obey and
cling to Him and serve Him with our all, have no choice in deciding whether we
want to do what is commanded or not – our choice to obey was made the day we
accepted His choice for us!
The choice of the chosen has been made! Have you changed
your mind? Have you found yourself in a situation where you have chosen to
compromise? Have you found yourself reasoning away obedience by claiming a
right to make your own choices?
NOW HEAR –
YOU CHOSEN SERVANTS OF יהוה
– be
faithful witnesses of His Truth as you guard to do all He commands us; and walk
in righteousness as you walk in His Torah, meditating on it day and night; and
as you walk in and stay in Him – walk as יהושע Messiah
did.
He who has ears let him hear what the Spirit says! Are there any
forms of idolatry in your life that needs to be destroyed? Are there some
things that you have fashioned with your own thoughts and choices, only to find
that you have been chasing after that which is as ‘the feeding on ashes’, and
is worthless and empty? Hear the urgent call to hear the One who formed you and
follow Him and serve as a chosen one should!
יהוה bless you and guard you; יהוה make His face shine upon you and show you favour; יהוה lift up His face to you and give you Shalom!
