God Chose Us:Deuteronomy 7:1-11

“For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6, NASB).

Who are these people that are assembled “across the Jordan in the wilderness, in the Arabah opposite Suph, between Paran and Tophel and Laban and Hazeroth” (Deut. 1:1)? It is in the “land of Moab” (v. 5). They have defeated kings that would not allow them to travel through their lands as they made their journey to a land that they have never seen. They are going to a land that the Lord their God had promised their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that He would give to their descendants. These were a multitude of nobodies being led by a disgraced prince of Egypt who told them that their God, the Lord, the God of their forefathers had promised that they would take possession of.

As these people are waiting in preparation to invade the Promised Land, their leader gives them statues and laws that they are to live by after they have taken possession of the land. Who are these people? These are God’s chosen people. In this article I want to focus on the fact that they are chosen. This is important because throughout the Scriptures, God reminds His people that they are His chosen people. This means that the only reason that they exist; live and move, and have their being is because God chose them.

Now, I come from a large extended family. Up until the COVID pandemic our family met every year for a family reunion. We celebrated the accomplishments of family members. We enjoyed meeting family members that we had never known before. It was a time of eating together, fun and games, and recognition of the different branches of the family tree. At the end of the celebration, we had a memorial services. The emphasis of this service was to recognize that our continued existence was because God had chosen our family to bless it and to keep it. We are not our own. We belong to the Lord because of the death of Jesus Christ. We, like many other Black Americans would live in poverty and suffer adverse effects of racial discrimination and injustices except the Lord chose us. We are much like the Israelites that were camped in the land of Moab waiting for God’s signal for them to enter into the Promised Land.

As I stated before, I want to focus on the word chosen. When we study the history of these people we can understand that they were chosen. This means that they had no merit in what they were about to accomplish. These people had not chosen God to be their God so that He could give them everything that they wanted. Rather, God chose them so that they could serve him for His own purposes. God chose them because through them God would make Himself known to the nations. Through His chosen people a messiah would come into the world to do the will of God. The Messiah would save people from their sins by emptying himself of His divinity. He would come into the world as a man and die a vicarious death on the cross. Everything that would take place in the life of the children of Israel was orchestrated by God so that His plan of redemption for humanity would become a reality. Who are these people/ let us review their history.

In Genesis 12:1-3 Abram is just an ordinary man married to his wife Sarai. They live in the land of Ur of the Chaldeans (Genesis 11:28). The Scriptures tell us that Abram hears the voice of God telling him to leave everything that he knows and owns. He is to go to a land that God will show him. God will give this land to him and to his descendants. So, Abram believes the Lord and makes his way to the land of Canaan. In Canaan Abraham is a sojourner. He is not a citizen of any of the nations that live in the land. He has no legal rights. He cannot depend on the peoples that live in the land. He is at their mercy and he is totally dependent on the provisions of God. His name is changed to Abraham and he dies without ever personally receiving any land.

Abraham’s son Isaac and his grandson Jacob also live as pilgrims in a land that they have no claim to. In time Jacob’s son Joseph is sold by his brothers into slavery to traveling merchants. They take Joseph to Egypt and sell him as a slave to an Egyptian official named Potiphar. Joseph is falsely accused of attempted rape, and He is sent to prison. God is with Joseph. When the king of Egypt has a disturbing dream, Joseph interprets the dream. Pharaoh makes Joseph second in charge in Egypt because Joseph instituted a feeding program that saves Egypt from starvation. Joseph saves Egypt and during the famine Joseph brings his family to live in Egypt. Jacob and his family move to Egypt to survive. However, God chose them and God had told Abraham what would take place in the life of Abraham’s descendants.

Some years pass by and another Pharaoh rules Egypt. He knows nothing about Joseph. Pharaoh is afraid that these foreigners living in Goshen will ally themselves with the Canaanite to the north and overthrow Egypt. He makes these Hebrews slaves for Egypt. They will be slaves in Egypt for 430 years suffering hard labor and abuse. These Hebrew are without country having no rights of citizenship. They hear stories about the God of their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but they have no personal knowledge of this God of their fathers. They only hear stories that say that this God will send a deliverer to free them from bondage in Egypt. They do not know God. They never see Him and they never hear His voice. They have no tangible sign that gives evidence to His existence. Their bondage is severe. They cry out because of their misery, but they do not know whether or not God hears their cries. They are not certain that God will indeed deliver them.

These are a people without a culture. They have no religion of their own. They are slaves to a people that worship many gods. None of these gods are the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Egyptian had statues of their gods. They can carry with them small statues of their gods wherever they go. The Hebrew has no God that they can see. They cannot touch and feel the presence of their God. There is no tangible evidence that the God of their fathers exist. They can only hope and cry out to a God they do not know.

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a promise keeping God. God is sovereign. He does things in His own time for His own purpose. Since God is sovereign, God does not need to explain Himself to anyone. There is no power that can prevent the Lord from doing what God wants to do. God chose to allow the Hebrew people to serve as slaves in Egypt for 430 years. We do not understand His purpose, but God told Abraham His purpose. His descendants will live in Egypt for 430 years. In Egypt they will increase from a small family of seventy-two members into a nation of millions of people. Seventy-two people cannot defeat the Canaanites. The land of Canaan is too large for seventy-two people. The wild animals will devour them if they take possession of the land too quickly. A second reason is that God will allow time for the peoples of the land to turn to Him. Thus, these were God’s chosen people waiting on God’s time.

In God’s own time, He raises up Moses to lead them out of Egypt; to journey to the Promised Land. God chose Moses, but Moses does not know it. He is born a Hebrew. The daughter of Pharaoh rescues him from the river. She defies Pharaoh’s edit that all Hebrew males are to be killed. She adopts him and Moses is raised as an Egyptian prince. God had chosen him and in the palace Moses learns leadership skills. He knows what it is like to live as one favored by the gods. He learns the thinking of people that worships the gods. When God calls him, Moses is reluctant to go in the name of the Lord, but God shows him on the mountain that He has powers that none of the god of Egypt possess. Moses obeys God. He leads the people out of Egypt. He leads them as they wander in the wilderness for forty years. Now it is time for Moses to give the people final instructions before they invade the land of Canaan.

First, Moses tells the people that God chose them. They are to serve the Lord their God only. God has not chosen them based on conventional human wisdom. They must always remember that they had started out as a people smaller in number than any other people. They had nothing to offer God. They could do nothing without God. When they invade the land they are not to rely on their own strength and wisdom. They are to obey God’s commands if they want to be successful. By obeying God’s laws they will have success. They will defeat the might armies of the nations living in Canaan. Their success will be the results of God’s choice of them. Their success will be a testimony to the power, authority, justice and righteousness of God

Today, we that belong to the Lord are His people because of His choice. In Romans 3 Paul tells us that all people are separated from the Lord regardless of any human status. God chose us. We did not choose God. We did not look for God. God chose the Hebrew people and he chose us because he loved us. God keeps his promise. The promise that God made to Abram in Genesis 12:1-3 has been kept throughout history and even until this day. We must always remember that our standing with God is secure because God chose us.