 When we read Romans 8.29 and says that those whom he foreknew God predestines, I think many of us, my friends, do a disservice in understanding this and not a disservice to us, but a disservice to God. When we think that if someone were to think that foreknowledge is necessarily God looking through the lens of time and then seeing that we on our own would choose him first and then he decides after or on the basis of seeing us choose him, then he chooses us, that is wrong. What it does is it puts us in the position of meriting salvation. We do not. It is not that God looks and sees that we choose or elect him. Then after that he chooses or elects us because we elected him or chose him first. That actually goes against the even even the purpose of using the word predestined. You're not predestined if someone has chosen you first. Predestined means to predetermine beforehand, to determine beforehand. And if we chose him, well, then he didn't determine beforehand. He simply would have just acknowledged what we did. But guys, you need to think about if that were the case. If foreknowledge is based on God looking through the lens of time and seeing us, what would God have seen? What would he have seen in us? What would God have seen in our hearts? I can tell you what he would have seen in our hearts. He would have seen an unrighteous heart. He would have seen, as he described, a heart that is desperately wicked or some version they say desperately sick. He would have seen someone who is not righteous, not one. He would have seen a heart that does not seek after him. No one seeks after none is good. That's what he would have seen. What he also would have seen in looking through the lens of time and looking at us who are clearly undeserving. He would have seen an opportunity, an opportunity for him to show his love. And that's exactly what he did. He took advantage of the opportunity to show his love to people who do not deserve it. And so what does he do? He chose people who are undeserving. I understand that it might bother some people. But if you can wrap yourself around this one concept, the fact that he chose you and you didn't deserve it, rather than trying to parse it out and figure out why that's not a right thing to do or that makes him unrighteous, which it doesn't because everyone that goes to hell rightly deserves to go. So as a matter of fact, everyone that goes to heaven rightly deserves to go to hell. And so if you can wrap your head around the concept that God shows his love to people who do not deserve it and such is one of you. Therefore, it should cause you to love him even more. So now think about the implications and I want you all to really, really, really think about this implication. If I'm wrong, then the only thing that I could be guilty of is minimizing myself and giving God too much credit. And I don't think there's a such thing as giving God too much credit. But if I'm wrong, that's all I would be doing, giving God too much credit in my salvation and minimizing my role in it. However, if I'm right and if someone who disagrees with me is wrong, then they would be guilty of minimizing God's role and then giving themselves too much credit. Which one do you think God is going to hold someone account before? The person who minimizes him and inflates their own role, the person who thinks more highly of themselves and they really ought to, or the person who gives God more credit, who thinks that maybe God, you've done too much. God is never going to have a problem with someone who exalts him, who brings him glory, who says, God, all that I have, I owe to you, including my salvation. God looked through the lens of time and saw me that I was unworthy, that I was filthy, that I was rotten and still chose me. Then I chose him, not on the basis of what I've done, how good, how much sense it made, how smart it was. No, because he loved me first. Then I loved him. Amen.