Paul makes the point in Romans chapter 9 that God chose Jacob rather than Esau even before they were born and before they had done anything good or bad. According to Paul, He did this specifically to show that His saving of Jacob had nothing to do with anything Jacob or Esau did and was wholly because it was God’s good purpose to do so.

Why did the Lord choose us to be His people? Is it because of something we did, something He did, or maybe a little bit of both? Today, Barry Cooper shows that the Bible’s answer to this question is abundantly clear.
It began one day in late 1991, when a student worker called Tony invited me to meet him for coffee one afternoon in his study at St. Ebbe’s Church in Oxford. To be honest, I didn’t really see the point. Even after we’d met, I still wasn’t sure I saw the point. Pretty much all we did was look at a short Bible passage together. He threw out some questions to make sure I understood what I was reading, asked me how he could be praying for me, and that was it. Then we’d doggedly repeat the process a week or so later. Poor man, I thought to myself. He’s obviously lonely.
By the time we reached Easter 1992, I realized when I sat down in Tony’s overstuffed armchair that I wasn’t doing it for his benefit. I had been introduced to Jesus Christ.
There’s much more I could say, but the question I want to focus on is this: Why did all this happen? Why did God choose to write my name in His book of life? Was it because of something I did, or because of something He did, or perhaps a bit of both?
The answer to this is tied up in the biblical idea of predestination, the fact that God determines everything in advance, including who will be saved. Historically, it’s been a very big deal, and Martin Luther even called it “the heart of the church.”
You see the concept of predestination across both the Old and New Testaments. Listen, for example, to Ephesians chapter 1:
“In love [God] predestined us for adoption. . . . In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.”
In other words, God predetermines, or pre-destines, those He will adopt into His family, to know and enjoy Him forever.
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At the very core of God’s design of humans is his intention for us to order, shape, exercise dominion over ourselves and our surroundings. In a world where reaching nearly every worthwhile goal requires careful thought and planning, why would we assume that accomplishing God’s mission for our lives would be any different? The starting point for overcoming a disordered life is becoming convinced that God’s design for every human is that our inner private world govern our outer world of activity.

Today, we begin a new series entitled, Don’t Waste Your Life: Rule It for Jesus. Paul taught that God perfectly designed Christ-followers for their specific mission, which he called, good works. In Ephesians 2:10, after he clarified HOW we are saved, i.e. by faith, he then explained WHAT WE ARE SAVED FOR. He continues, For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Not only does God have a specific mission for you in 2023, which Paul summarizes as good works, but that mission is so important that God specifically designed you for it—to have your specific place and responsibilities in your family, your natural gifts and vocational calling, your specific spiritual gifts with which to contribute to the Body of Christ, and your specific relationships with the lost. God designed both YOU and THE SPECIFIC OPPORTUNITIES YOU WILL HAVE IN 2023 to impact your world for Christ. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to get to the end of 2023 and look back at all the opportunities that God gave me that I missed. I don’t want to waste my life. This episode looks at how to overcome a disordered life, so that I can stay focused on Christ’s mission for me—and so bring him honor in 2023.
For most of us, our lives in 2022 are well described by Kevin DeYoung, in his book, Crazy Busy.
You’ve got car repairs. Then your heater goes out. The kids need to see a doctor. You haven’t done your taxes yet. Your check book isn’t balanced. You’re behind on your thank you notes. You promised your mother you’d come over and fix the faucet. You’re behind on wedding planning. Your boards are coming up. You have more applications to send out. Your dissertation is due. Your refrigerator is empty. Your lawn needs mowing. Your curtains don’t look right. Your washing machine keeps rattling. This is life for most of us.
It is ironic that our society’s historic level of fabulous wealth, which has provided so many labor-saving devices and conveniences, has left us so out-of-control busy. But technological growth doesn’t just lead to convenient, labor and time-saving devices; it also leads to endless opportunities. Today, in one week, a human can encounter more information via the Internet and his cell phone than most humans have encountered in their lifetime. The endless opportunities of our technology combine with a particular component of human nature to make our lives crazy-busy: NO ONE WANTS TO MISS OUT ON OPPORTUNITIES. Who wants to be out of the loop on the latest Facebook post that has gone viral? Who wanted to miss out on the latest conversation about the World Cup? Who wants to miss the latest text from friends, or Facetime call from loved ones? Who wants to miss the latest podcast that could hep him be better at his profession? The result of this resistance to missing out is that when we finally do have a little free time at the end of the day, we are too exhausted to use it productively. Life is often like being on a raft rushing down a raging river with no rudder. We just bounce off whatever is in front of us and move on. But if we choose to live life that way in 2023, it will cost US and OUR FAMILIES. Here is a glimpse of some of the costs of a disordered life.
The Cost of a Crazy Busy Disordered Life
A. The crazy busy life can mask the erosion of our soul. Busyness, itself, robs the soul of joy. When our lives are frantic and frenzied without space for soul renewal, we are more prone to surrender to the enemies of our soul, anxiety, resentment, impatience, irritability, discontent. Busyness keeps us so distracted that we don’t realize the toll it is taking on our inner, spiritual life. But God never intended us to be able to cope with life apart from renewing our INNER STRENGTH. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me…. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. Gordon MacDonald, in his book, Ordering Your Private World, observes:
Our public worlds are filled with a seeming infinity of demands upon our time, our loyalties, our money, and our energies.  And because these public worlds of ours are so visible, so real, we have to struggle to ignore all their seductions and demands.  They scream for our attention and action. The result is that our private world is often cheated, neglected because it does not shout quite so loudly.  It can be effectively ignored for large periods of time before it gives way to a sinkhole-like cave-in.
B. The second danger of being CRAZY BUSY is that less important matters take center-stage and shove the most important matters to the periphery. The GOOD THINGS around us gobble up our most precious possession, time, cheating us out of the BEST THING—accomplishing the mission for which our LORD created us, because we don’t default to thinking about our mission. Praying about and planning how best to: 1) love my wife, 2) shepherd my kids, 3) reduce my spending so I can give more to kingdom advancement, 4) build a relationship with my next door neighbor, 5) winsomely express the biblical worldview on current topics at work—these important tasks that are essential to accomplishing Christ’s mission for me don’t have to be done today, or even this week. These activities can usually wait. But often the most visible but less important tasks call for immediate response–endless demands pressure every waking hour. No matter where we are, our phone pings with the latest email, text, or social media notification) THE APPEAL OF THESE DEMANDS SEEMS IRRESISTIBLE, AND THEY DEVOUR OUR ENERGY. But in the light of eternity their momentary prominence fades. With a sense of loss, we recall the important tasks that have been shunted aside. We realize that we’ve become slaves to the demands of the visible, audible world. 
Perhaps the greatest tragedy of living a disordered life is that our wives and children suffer. The outer, visible world can so consume men with good things, that they don’t invest in praying for their wives’ and children’s spiritual battles. Tremendous power is made available through a good man’s earnest prayer (James 5:16). In Exodus 17, so long as Moses’ arms were lifted up in prayer for those under his care, the Israelite warriors prevailed over the Amalekites. But when his prayer arms were lowered, the Amalekites prevailed. When combined with NT teaching, there is no doubt that this text is a physical picture of spiritual reality. Our family members down in the valley fighting the Evil One will win spiritual victories if we pray for them that they will lose if we do not! Even wonderful visible things can devour our time, pushing aside the most vital things.
C. The third danger of the CRAZY BUSY life is investing our life in what doesn’t really matter. Socrates famous statement, “The unexamined life is not worth living” is true. Someone has said, “If we are going to hear, ‘Well done good and faithful servant’ from the Master, we need to well do.” If we want to hear the Lord’s commendation for accomplishing the mission he gave us, we need to stay focused on that mission, as Jesus did his mission.
On the night before he died, Jesus made an astonishing claim. He said to his Father, “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do” (Jn 17:4). We wonder how Jesus could have talked about a completed mission.
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The two men also taught theology. They were both well learned in the Scriptures and the writings of the church fathers, and followed the literal (vs. allegorical) interpretation of the Bible taught at Antioch. Though faithful to the pope and to the decisions of the western councils, Theodore brought some wisdom from the eastern church fathers, such as the Cappadocians. And both Hadrian and Theodore stood firm against heresies and deviations from orthodox Christian doctrines.

Sharing a passion for learning and teaching, Hadrian of Nisida and Theodore of Tarsus partnered together to create a school that brought new resources, methods, and inspiration to England.
For those who think a scholar’s life is bound to be boring, this team will change your mind. In fact, reviewing Michael Lapidge’s Biblical Commentaries from the Canterbury School of Theodore and Hadrian[1], scholar Michael M. Gorman envisions their lives as an action movie, starring Sean Connery as Theodore and Peter O’ Tool as Hadrian[2]. I would concur, except, since Theodore was from Turkey and Hadrian from Libya, I would choose actors from those regions.
From the Mediterranean to the North Sea
These men’s lives were eventful from the start. Both of them traveled to Italy, most likely as refugees during the Arab conquest of much of North Africa and today’s Middle East (644-645). It was a time when hundreds of Christians were fleeing those areas.
Hadrian was born around 637 in North Africa – probably in the Roman region of Cyrenaica, which he described in his writings. He was then only a child during the Arab conquest, and might have continued his education in Italy.
The only thing we know for certainty is that he became the abbot of a monastery in the island of Nisida in the Bay of Naples. This area, a place of luxury resorts during the Roman Empire, was still a popular region for those who wanted to escape the hot summers of Rome. There, Hadrian might have met Pope Vitalian, who was so impressed by the young man’s wisdom, erudition, and linguistic abilities that he chose him as an interpreter during at least two imperial embassies.
In 664, when Deusdedit, archbishop of Canterbury, died, the British bishops sent his elected successor, Wigheard, to Rome to be ordained by the pope. But the plague which was raging in the area was no respecter of titles, and Wigheard died in Rome in 667.
Not wanting to wait for the long process of having a new archbishop elected in Britain, Pope Vitalian offered the position to thirty-year-old Hadrian, who declined but suggested a chaplain named Andrew. But Andrew’s health was too poor for such an appointment.
Then Hadrian proposed a monk named Theodore of Tarsus, who lived in Rome. Theodore was rich in knowledge and experience. Born in Tarsus (now in Turkey) in 602, Theodore had been educated in the important scholarly centers of the East, such as Antioch, Constantinople, and Edessa.
Vitalian was at first hesitant. Brought up in the Byzantine Empire, Theodore had probably absorbed many customs of the eastern church. In fact, his head was still entirely shaven, after the habits of the Greek monks.
The pope finally agreed to the appointment, but added two conditions: Theodore was to be tonsured after the manner of western monks (shaving just the top of his head), and Hadrian was to accompany him to England, expressively to keep him from importing Greek customs into the western church.
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