Richard Ellis Talks

Richard Ellis: God doesn't just think things about you, God feels things about you, and whatever He has set into motion, He finishes. I don't care how messy it is, if you are a child of God, God still has a plan. He still has a purpose. If you will get with that plan, with that purpose, then God can do extraordinary things through your life.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Richard Ellis Talks with Richard Ellis. Richard's style is unlike anyone else's, where he shares the life-changing message of the Gospel in a way that's real, refreshing, focused, and fun. We know that life is pretty challenging these days, but these talks will help you meet those challenges head-on with biblical truth, encouragement, and direction.

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Richard Ellis: The title of today's message is "Picked." Go to Deuteronomy chapter seven. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Old Testament. I'm not sure who or how many people this is for today, but I'm going to tell you something. If you're listening, and I've never, ever said this in a message, do not turn this off, because God may be trying to get through to you and say something.

Deuteronomy chapter seven. Let's jump in at verse one. "When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you go to possess, and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you, and when the Lord your God delivers them over to you, you shall conquer them and utterly destroy them. You shall make no covenant with them nor show mercy to them.

Nor shall you make marriages with them. You shall not give your daughter to their son, nor take their daughter for your son. For they will turn your sons away from following Me to serve other gods, so the anger of the Lord will be aroused against you and destroy you suddenly. But thus you shall deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images, and burn their carved images with fire.

For you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth." Now, you say he's speaking to Israel. Just remember, when we get to the New Testament, these verses. "A special treasure above all the people on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all people.

You were nobody. But because the Lord loves you and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of bondage from the hand of Pharaoh, King of Egypt. Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments, and He repays those who hate Him to their face to destroy them. He will not be slack with him who hates Him. He will repay him to his face."

Simply put here, when God says something, He follows through. He keeps His word. The reason it is so amazing and so important to read the scriptures and find out what it says is that if you can find something that God says and personalize it and realize contextually you've got to make sure you can personalize it. But as we read these scriptures today, you're going to discover God doesn't just think things about you, God feels things about you, and whatever He has set into motion, He finishes.

I don't care how messy it is, how messed up you are right now, if you are a child of God, God still has a plan. He still has a purpose. If you will get with that plan, with that purpose, and get engaged with that, then God can do extraordinary things through your life and in your life. You say, "Well, I'm still struggling." You may struggle until you hit the finish line, which is the arms of Jesus, but don't quit because He doesn't quit.

Now turn to another passage. Isaiah 41. Here, Isaiah refers to what we've just talked about a little bit and gives them a name here. Isaiah 41:8. "But you, Israel, are My servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the descendants of Abraham, My friend." Now, if you track all this back, God basically picks one guy: Abraham. Sometimes God picks one guy, one woman, one man.

They can mess it up, they can not believe, they can doubt, but when God cuts a deal with somebody, He sticks to His deal and He backs you up. Verses like He will never leave you or forsake you. If you are a Christian, you cannot be abandoned. The dangerous thing about some churches out there, some theology out there, is they'll tell you you can become a Christian and then God leaves you. I do not believe you can find that in scripture.

Who can pluck us out of His hand? Once you're in the hand of God, He has got you. You say, "Well, how is it that I can go live like hell and supposedly be connected to heaven?" That is a really good question, isn't it? How is that possible? It is His kindness, it is His gentleness, the scripture says, that leads us to repentance, to say, "God, I'm wrong, You're right. I'm back." You say, "How long will He allow for that?" Sometimes it takes 50 years and somebody finally goes home.

"But you, Israel, are My servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the descendants of Abraham, My friend. You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth and called from its farthest regions and said to you, 'You are My servant. I have chosen you and have not cast you away. Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. Yes, I will help you. I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.'"

Now, if you read stuff like that, how can you be discouraged? The only way you can be discouraged is to not believe it, because if that's true, then it's true. You say, "Well, He's not coming through for me." He may not be coming through the way you want Him to come through, but that doesn't mean He's not coming through. "Behold, all those who were incensed against you shall be ashamed and disgraced. They shall be as nothing, and those who strive with you shall perish.

You shall seek them and not find them, those who contended with you, those who warred against you shall be as nothing and as a non-existent thing." They won't exist anymore. "For I, the Lord your God, will hold your right hand, saying to you, 'Fear not, I will help you.'" Now, if you actually read this stuff and imagine you're Isaiah or anybody in the Bible hearing this stuff from God, writing it down, believing it.

You say, "Weren't they afraid, too?" They might have been afraid at some point, but you cannot believe the scripture and live in fear all the time. It's not possible. If you actually believe things like "Greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world," then there's nobody in the world greater than the one that's in me. No weapon formed against you will prosper. All these verses, you can't just be thinking these verses. You've got to go, "God, this is real. This is true, isn't it?"

If it is true, then that'll change my life. It'll change the way I feel, I think, it'll change everything. Go to Matthew chapter four, verse 17. Let's jump down there. Now Jesus is on the planet. He's 30 years old, it looks like. "From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.

Then He said to them, 'Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.' They immediately left their nets and followed Him. Going on from there, He saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in a boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets. He called them: 'Follow Me.' And immediately they left the boat and their father and followed Him." What are the ramifications of Jesus Himself looking at you and saying, "Follow Me"?

If you're a Christian, you got picked. Jesus walks along and says, "I choose you. I pick you. That's who I pick." I didn't know that I had gotten picked for a long, long time. Then someone helped me understand that God had chosen me. You say, "Does He choose everybody?" He chooses everybody He chooses. You say, "I don't know why He picked me." Well, you might need just find that out. That's probably something you ought to think about.

You say, "Well, I'm divorced. I don't know why He picked me. I got married and got divorced. I cheated on my wife. I cheated on my husband. I abandoned my children. I'm a drug addict, I'm a sex addict, I'm a whatever addict you are. I'm an alcoholic. I waste money." You can come up with all the stuff you want to. If you're a Christian, He picked you. Now, what are you going to do about that? You can just say, "Woe is me," the rest of your life, or are you going to look in the mirror one day and go, "You know what? I've got to deal with something."

If this God loved me enough to send His Son Jesus to die for me, be buried, raised from the dead, and then come after me and give me faith to even believe, or I couldn't believe, then why did He do all that? Why did He come after me? You say, "I know why He came after you. You can preach and do all that." You know what? There is no difference. You've been issued abilities and gifts and passion and heart and power to overcome the stuff that's overcoming you.

You just don't believe this stuff. "Oh, but if I got up and said something, somebody would laugh at my past." Tell them about your future. Tell them about hope. Tell them, "Yeah, you're right about all that past, but that's been buried, that's been dealt with. I'll tell you by who, and it can happen for you." Right? I don't know these guys yet. I barely know Jesus very well, but I think it's going to be very fascinating to sit down and chat with these brothers, these four men, two sets of brothers.

What was that like to be just minding your own business, doing your job, and God Himself comes along and picks you and says, "Follow Me"? You say, "Wow, that must have been cool." That's what happened to you. Out of nowhere, just picked you. Now, the other thing that's going on is some of you have already been picked and you just haven't agreed to being picked yet. He died for you, too, and you're fighting it. You've got every reason in the world to say, "God, I hear You talking. I sense something going on."

My grandmother, my mother, everybody, I've got friends, I've got co-workers, I've got strangers praying for me, talking to me about Jesus. I get on a bus, somebody says something. "You've got to get away from me, God." But I can't get away from You. So I'm getting the feeling You are kind of calling me to Yourself, like You're trying to get me on Your team. I don't want to be on Your team because then I have to give up all this. Exactly what is it you're going to have to give up?

I had a conversation this week with some guys about being hungover, having a big time partying. You know, I am yet to hear someone come to church and say, "I just want to praise the Lord. I got wasted last night. I feel so good today. I did some coke last night. My nose just feels so clear. My arms, look at my veins. Look how healthy these veins are. I can shoot up all the heroin I want. Look at my veins. Praise the Lord for these veins." I don't hear anybody saying that.

More verses. Matthew 22. I am going to read this whole little section for one verse. "And Jesus answered and spoke to them again by parables and said, 'The kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son, and sent out his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding, and they were not willing to come. Again, he sent out other servants, saying, "Tell those who are invited, 'See, I've prepared my dinner, my oxen and fatted cattle are killed, and all things are ready. Come to the wedding.'"'"

But they made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business. And the rest seized his servants, treated them spitefully, and killed them. But when the king heard about it, he was furious. He sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. Then he said to his servants, "The wedding is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy. Therefore go into the highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding."

So those servants went out into the highways and gathered together all whom they found, both bad and good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests. But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment. So he said to him, "Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment on?" And he was speechless. Then the king said to his servants, "Bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Why? "For many are called, but few are chosen."

The people who were called didn't even come. Others that were called that came weren't dressed properly. What does that mean? You say, "So now you have to get dressed a certain way?" You have to put on His righteousness, not your righteousness, or you're not going to make it. You can't go waltzing into heaven naked or with whatever you've got trying to cover it up. Your little fig leaves aren't going to cut it in heaven.

So you say, "I thought God was calling me." If you are chosen, you'll know it because you are protected, you are covered by the blood of the Lamb. You're not getting in without Jesus. People say, "Well, that's too narrow. All roads lead to God." Let me tell you something: all roads do not lead to God. Jesus said, "I am the way." That's it. You say, "Well, that's too narrow. I don't want to be in a church like that." Well, there are plenty of other churches that don't believe that. Again, you won't have a hard time finding one.

Go to Mark chapter three, verse 13. This church is pretty intensely involved in discipleship. There is a reason for a relational approach to discipleship where it is time spent. It's not a seminar. It's not eight weeks and you're done. We've got some stuff like that that we offer, but discipleship takes time. Mark 3:13. "And He went up to the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted, and they came to Him. Then He appointed twelve that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach."

And to have power to heal sickness and to cast out demons. Then He lists them right there, all these guys. He appointed twelve that they might be with Him. It is going to take time. When Jesus picks you, He picks you not just to say hello, how are you, and then get rid of you. He picks you to spend time with you. You are not going to get to know anybody without spending time with them. You say, "Well, I'm reading about Him in the Bible." You don't have to just read about Him. You can talk to Him.

You say, "How do I know when He's talking back to me?" He is talking a lot more to you than you think. It's just He's not saying what you want to hear, so you don't think it's Him. It's funny how you ask Jesus a question, and when it comes back something you don't—that's not the answer you were looking for, you go, "Oh, I think I must have eaten something. I need some Pepto Bismol or something. I've got indigestion." No, that may be the Holy Spirit saying no. The answer is no.

It's relational. It's us spending time together. When God picks me, He picks you, that means He picks us and He puts us together and picks us to be His body, to be His hands, His feet, His eyes, His ears, His mouth, where He lives in and through us in this world. He doesn't pick you to sit on some bench. I love watching soccer games. Every once in a while in a soccer game, I saw one the other day where a guy scored a goal. He went up to head the ball in the goal and collided with another guy, a defensive player's head, and it knocked them both out.

And this one poor guy's laying there, he made the goal, and his thumb—it looks like he's having a seizure, like he's paralyzed, laying there on the ground. And he finally starts to come to and they're going to put him in a stretcher. No, he gets up, he's walking off the field, he is pushing people off of him. You know what? He wants back in the game. He's not, "Oh, I'm glad I got hurt. I'll go lay on the bench over there. That's why I came out here today."

Now, if he's really injured, you say, "Okay, the guy, he went down, he's out, so we're going to let him rest." I got that. But when you have been in the game, you want back in the game as soon as possible. All you've got to do is go to rehab facilities for our military. Guys who have got both legs blown off, they're trying to re-up. Why is that? You know, dude, you've got medals, you can quit. It's very hard for a soldier to quit, and they don't really quit, they just make choices because sometimes you're supposed to be with your family, sometimes you're supposed to be here and not out there.

There ought to be some "in the game" chip in you if you're a believer. Coach, put me in the game. Now, why would that be? Because you got picked to play on the team. A few more verses. John chapter 15, verse 12. "This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends."

"For all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me." This is Jesus speaking. "You did not choose Me, but I chose you and I appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you." That's the deal. You say, "Well, I chose to follow Jesus." You didn't choose to follow jack. Until He chooses you, you don't choose Him. You don't even have the faith to believe until He gives you the faith to believe.

Why is it that way? Because He's not sharing. He is not sharing the glory, the credit for this. Now you can respond to that faith, you can act out of faith and say, "God, I get it. I see it now. I believe." But you can't be saying, "I picked God." The danger with that is you say, "I'm just not ready now. I will choose later." You know what? There may not be a later. "You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit." So He picked you to do what? That you should go and bear fruit. Are you doing that?

"And that your fruit should remain, that whatsoever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another. If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would have loved its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." You're going to have to get over people not liking you.

"I want to be cool, I want to fit in." You're not going to fit in. You start talking Jesus smack, somebody's going to smack back. You cannot go out there with Jesus and—you say, "No one's pushing back." That might be evidence of a problem. If you are bearing fruit, if you're living like God picked you, like you're His child, like you're bearing any kind of fruit, somebody's going to push back and disagree. It's okay. They hated Him. They hated Him so much they got Him killed.

Now, I'm not saying you have to be hateful, you have to be rude and mean and angry and all these things, but if you speak even the truth in love, someone is going to push back. Ephesians 2:8, 9, and 10. "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God." So God goes, "Look, I picked you. I pick you. So this is how this is going to work. I'm going to give you some faith so you can believe that I picked you. So here's you some faith."

You're not going to generate this faith, you're not going to generate this belief. "I'm going to give you faith and then you're going to use that faith to believe that I picked you. Not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." God has planned and prepared us to live the life that He intended. What I got backwards was I was trying to do good works to get God to love me instead of understanding God loved me.

And out of that relationship, the good works would come. So if you're trying to perform for God and go, "Look, God, I did this, I did this for You," He's not interested in what you can do for Him. He's trying to do something through you, where it's His power, it's His glory, it's Him doing the work. Go to Philippians chapter one. "Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."

"I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making mention for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ." He's going to finish. So God does not pick you and say, "You're going to be my project." Then He gets halfway in the project and goes, "Well, that didn't work out too good. Let's just throw this guy away. Get rid of her, she's a flake."

He finishes it. He completes it. You say, "Well, I don't want Him to finish it." Even if you don't want Him to finish it, He is going to finish it. You say, "He can't do that against my will." Claude used to tell me God won't make you do anything, He'll make you wish you had. So you can stiffen your neck up all you want. As a child of God, God loves you enough to discipline you and He has tools. He has skills, and He knows what'll get your attention.

You say, "Is God going to bring something bad on me?" If that's what it takes to bring something good on you, He will bring something bad on you. It just depends on what your tolerance for pain is. All right, last one. 1 Peter chapter two, verse one. "Therefore, laying aside all malice, all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and all evil speaking, as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby, if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men."

And now look who else got picked. Jesus Himself. "But chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore it is also contained in the Scripture, 'Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he who believes on Him will by no means be put to shame.' Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, 'The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone,' and 'A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.'"

"They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they also were appointed. But you are a chosen generation." Now, this is not Old Testament. "You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light, who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy." So did you get picked? And what are you doing about that?

You say, "I don't think I got picked by anybody, but I'd sure like to be." When I was 14, I was about 5'2" and, again, my dad was 6'9" and he was 6'5" when he was 14. When you're 6'5" and you're 14, you play basketball, you get picked first. When you're 14 and you're 5'2", you don't even get picked sometimes, because they say, "We already got our teams, dude. You can't even see the boards," whatever. So I may be laughing now, but I wasn't laughing then. I know what it feels like not to be picked. But I know now what it feels like to be picked. Not by some goofy boy picking teams, but by a great God.

Guest (Male): Richard will be back in a moment to wrap up today's talk. But first, I want to share a couple thoughts with you. Let's be honest: real life isn't about living some highlight reel for others to see. Most people have deep hurts, questions, and struggles. We get it and want to help you in any way we can. So, let's keep this conversation going. Give us a call at 855-6-RICHARD or connect with us at our website, richardellis.com. You can even put in your prayer request right there on the prayer wall so others can pray for you as well. Call us at 855-6-RICHARD or online at richardellis.com. And now, let's get back to Richard with a final word on today's show.

Richard Ellis: You say, "Well, preacher, good for you. I just can't believe all that." And that ain't going to work out very good for you. Let Him love you. We could go row by row and give you all the reasons in the world why God would reject us because we've got a room full of rejects, right? If in that moment you had a thought, "I don't know who he is thinking about, I am not a reject," you know what? Being sophisticated, being intelligent, being whatever you are, that ain't going to cut it. At some point you realize I am nothing. Without Him, I am nothing. I can do nothing. I've got nothing.

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