190908 Sermon on Romans 10:8-17 (Trinity 12) September 8, 2019 The doctrine of election is the teaching that God has chosen who will be saved from death and hell from before the foundation of the world. God has known from eternity who his own people are. He has loved them even before they have done anything right or wrong. God says, “Jacob have I loved. Esau have I hated.” Jacob was to become Israel with his twelve sons. Esau was to become Edom, a nation that was not chosen as God’s own.The teaching of election easily brings to mind many difficulties for our reason. For example, if God is the one who chooses for salvation, does that mean that he also chooses who is going to be damned? If God is the one who chooses who will be saved, then does it not matter whatever else might happen through the course of history? Can those who are predestined sin all that they want and still be saved? Can those who are not chosen not be saved no matter what? Plus it can seem as though God is arbitrary and random—“I’ll take this one and this one and this one; the rest I leave behind.”Because of all the difficulties that our reason immediately throws up when it hears of this teaching, it is often neglected. I, also, tend to neglect this teaching. It seems more prudent to just leave this teaching be. It’s safer and easier that way. But that’s no good. The Scriptures clearly teach it, and I suppose that that’s enough justification for speaking about it right there. But there’s also the fact that the doctrine of election, the teaching that God has picked us for salvation, is quintessential to the Gospel. Why should you be saved? The Gospel says that God picked you. He foresaw you, predestined you, called you, justified you, and he is glorifying you. All these gifts are because of God’s good will towards you from eternity, without any reference to what you have done or left undone. God has chosen you and no one can take you out of his hand. If God is for you, then who can be against you?As for the difficulties that God’s election brings up for our reason, what we must keep in mind is that the doctrine of election has not been given to us to satisfy our curiosity. He has not revealed it so that we could master it with our reason and give our consent to God’s plans.  As the Scriptures say, “Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” God has revealed how he chooses those who will be saved in order that we can believe it and be drawn near to God with our trust in him. We should trust him, because he has said that he has chosen you.You might be wondering, “When did God ever say this to me? I’ve never heard him talk?” To the contrary! Of course you have heard God talk to you. It is true that he has not spoken to you directly. God doesn’t normally interact that way. He works through means instead of directly, but it is him doing it all the same. And so he has brought it about that you should hear of Jesus Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of the world, who has been sacrificed for you. You’ve been baptized. Baptism is God saying, “You are mine.” You have heard Jesus’s own words where he says that God has loved the world in this way, that he sent his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For Jesus did not come into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He is the Good Shepherd. His sheep hear his voice and they follow him. His sheep hear his Words in the Scriptures.  And there are also those holy and sublime words of Holy Communion, that are also Jesus’s own words. He says that this bread is his body, given for who? Given for you. And this cup is the new testament, the new arrangement between God and us, the new binding agreement. What is the nature of this arrangement? Jesus says that this blood is what has been shed for you for the forgiveness of all your sins. Wherever God’s revelation of salvation is made in accordance with the Scri