For I am not ashamed of the Gospel

Romans 1:16-17

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, [1] as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” (ESV online: http://www.esv.org/)

These verses are the entrance to some of the deepest, most clear and compact, chapters on the meaning of Jesus' gospel. The apostle Paul is indisputably the instrument that Jesus used to write the book of Romans. He was probably the most unlikely human on the face of the planet that you would have expected Jesus to choose, save, and consecrate to preach the Gospel. Paul,who was previously known as Saul before he met Jesus on the Damascus road, by his own testimony in scripture,stated that he sought letters of authorization from the Jewish council in Jerusalem, to capture and bring to judgement, the new followers of the crucified carpenter from Galilee. These followers of that crucified carpenter named Jesus, believed that Jesus was their Messiah, that he had risen from the dead, and were going every where preaching Him to be God's Son. Saul, later to be renamed by Jesus Paul, was a trained leader of the Jews, a pharisee of pharisees, blameless according to Paul's testimony of breaking the Law, as it was taught by man. He was consumed with passion and zeal for the traditions and beliefs of his fathers. But Jesus, changed all that when He sovereignly called Paul, to be an apostle to the Gentiles and preacher of the Gospel to them.
The conversion of Saul on the Damascus road (see Acts 9:1-31), demonstrates that the sovereign choice of God is not dependant on our works, our own goodness, or the current state of our spiritual journey. The newly converted Paul, obviously had a history of the vilest and most cruel treatment of the new sect of people who were claiming that Jesus was the Messiah, and that He was alive. He sought to utterly destroy this new sect. He pursued them with the official sanction of the high priest. The scripture itself testifies that Saul was present at the stoning of Stephen. He watched the garments of those that were doing the stoning (Acts 7:58).
Every believer is chosen, not based on their works, not based on their goodness, or even on their talents, they were chosen while in a state of rebellion. In Ephesians chapter 2:1-10 it reads:
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobience- among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved-and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindest towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before hand, that we should walk in them. ESV

God chooses us. It is not in any way based on our earning His favor, impressing Him with our knowledge, wisdom, or understanding, it is fully based on His prerogative as the Sovereign God. We are simply dead in our trespasses and sins, before He regenerates us, we are absolutely in rebellion to Him. In fact, you can not argue that it is based on what we may do in the future. There is no way that a spiritually dead sinner can do anything to please God. Without the sovereign intervention, regeneration, and sanctification of God, His Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, we would never change. We would continue in our sin, and never do anything for God's kingdom. Only after He chooses us, regenerates, and sanctifies us, are we ever going to do anything that brings Him glory. So, with that argument stated, we can not infer He chooses us based on future good. There would not be any good on our part without His Sovereign grace, forgiveness, and the gift of new life in Jesus.
I will write more in later posts about God's sovereign election.