CHOSEN TO BEAR FRUIT

For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has CHOSEN you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.

(Deuteronomy 7:6 ESV)

v. 13 It was YOU who formed my internal organs, fashioning me within my mother's womb. v. 14 I praise you, because you are fearful and wondrous! Your work is wonderful, and I am fully aware of it. v.15 My frame was not hidden from you while I was being crafted in a hidden place, knit together in the depths of the earth.

(Psalms 139: 13- 18 ISV)

v. 16 Your eyes looked upon my embryo, and everything was recorded in your book. The days scheduled for my formation were inscribed, even though not one of them had come yet. v. 17 How deep are your thoughts, God! How great is their number! v. 18 Were I to count them, they would number more than the sand. When I awake, I will be with you.

(Psalms 139: 13- 18 ISV)

Before I formed YOU in the womb I knew YOU, before you were born I SET YOU APART; I APPOINTED YOU as a prophet to the nations.

(Jeremiah 1: 5 NIV)

Why we were chosen by GOD?

I. To be a WITNESSv.10 "You are my WITNESSES," declares the

LORD, "and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.

v.11 I, I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior.

Isaiah 43:11

WITNESS - one who has PERSONAL

knowledge of something. - Merriam- Webster

Dictionary.

(Story of the DOG and the RAT)

II. To GO and BRING FRUIT

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to GO and BEAR fruit.

(John 15:16 a NIV)

GO and BRING are verbs (words of action).

FRUITa. Sanctification But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,

Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law

Galatians 5: 22 &23

FRUITb. Effectiveness in Evangelism - Matthew 13: 3-8 (Parable of the sower)

V.3 Then he taught them many things by using stories. He said: A farmer went out to scatter seed in a field. V.4 While the farmer was scattering the seed, some of it fell along the road and was eaten by birds. V.5 Other seeds fell on thin, rocky ground and quickly started growing because the soil wasn't very deep. V.6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched and dried up, because they did not have enough roots. V.7 Some other seeds fell where thornbushes grew up and choked the plants. V. 8 But a few seeds did fall on good ground where the plants produced a hundred or sixty or thirty times as much as was scattered.

FRUITNow I would not have you ignorant,

brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some FRUIT among you also, even as among other Gentiles.

Galatians 5: 22 &23

III. To be the vessels God uses to show the world who HE is.

God has chosen us to show the world how they SHOULD LIVE in GODLINESS and RIGHTEOUSNESS.

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

(Micah 6:8 KJV)

IV. To be a minister.

Let a man so account of us, as of the MINISTERS of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. (I Corinthians 4: 1 NIV)

MINISTER -an under-rower. An under-rower was the slaves that sat in the belly of the ships and pulled the oars to carry the ship across the water.

GOD is the Captain and His ship is the word of God, we are his ministers (slaves) to carry His word across the world.

To be STEWARD of the mysteries of God. The word steward means: overseer. The steward was always a slave, but he was placed in charge of the other slaves. (This does not mean that everyone will be a pastor, but everyone has charge over the word of God to ensure that it is delivered to the world).

** The mysteries of God. A mystery is not something hard to understand, rather it is something that has been hidden and kept a secret.

II Corinthians 4:3-4 says “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

How is the light or image of God going to shine?

Matt. 5:14 Ye are the light of the world.

It shines through the children of God.

We have been chosen to be the light of the world.