Choices
Genesis 13:5-18 Luke 9:18-27
In order for us to have arrived here today, we all had to make choices. A choice to get up. A choice to get dressed. A choice to leave the house. A choice to take a certain route. A choice to enter the building. A choice to take a seat and a choice to remain here. Right now we’re making choices to either listen or to tune out. The thing about choices is that it’s hard to tell when a choice is small and insignificant and when it’s not.
The choice to stop and get a bag of chips at the convenience store could be nothing more than you picking up a bag of chips and going on about your business. Or it could become a life changing event if the person behind the counter is love at first sight, and you marry the person. It could be equally life changing if you happen to walk into a robbery that’s taking place, and you’re shot and left paralyzed. How many of you have said, if only I had waited 5 more minutes or left 5 minutes sooner.
When it comes to choices, we are all going to make some really good ones, and there are going to be times we make some bad ones. On the tv program Let’s Make a Deal, the tv host would often give a person a wad of money and say, you can keep the money or you can have what’s behind door number 1, door number 2 or door number 3. Usually what was behind one of the doors would be worth 5 times the amount of cash given. But often behind one of those doors there was something worth less than the amount of money you traded in. Your desire for more could leave you with a lot less.
Most of us want to make the right choices. We want to make choices with the ability to see into the future. Nobody wants to marry the wrong person. Nobody wants to go to the wrong school. Nobody wants to buy the wrong car. Nobody wants to prepare for the wrong career. Nobody enters high school wanting to be a drop out. But these things happen because of choices that we make. Sometimes choices seem to take on a life all their own? Have you ever looked at your situation and said, “how on earth did I get myself into this mess?” It all started with making just a few simple choices.
When we look in our homes, we can see the tension that is produced by the choices that we make. Some of us produce unnecessary strife and tension in our homes over own pet pieves we have, because of choices that we made. In our home growing up as kids, when it came to Christmas decorations, they had to be down by January 1.
I don’t know what would happen if they were not, but obviously something would, because we made sure they were down. My wife’s family did not even know such a rule existed. Do you know how much stress I caused in our home for years over getting rid of the Christmas stuff before New Year’s Day. Here she was trying to enjoy the holiday spirit as long as possible, and there I was trying to end it on time.
Now I was making a choice to cause the stress, but was blaming my wife for trying to hold on to the decorations. You know what I discovered. My choice was a stupid one. I was destroying a relationships for the sake of holding on to a rule that did not matter one way or the other. This year I was so liberated from that rule that it was February before I put away the final decorations away.
Some of us are making choices in our family that are producing stress, resentment and anger, and we’re blaming the wrong person. Say to your neighbor, “you know I just might be causing part of the problem.” Some of the things we insist must be done right now, really could wait until later. Some of them do not need to be done at all. A good part of life is knowing what battle to fight and the choice to simply let something go. You’ve got a choice on how much stress you’re going to produce in your home. Each one of us is either choosing to add stress to our family or we are reducing it. Our way is not the only way for something to get done.
In our Old Testament reading we came across an uncle and a nephew who had both become very wealthy. Wealth then was not measured in terms of stocks and bonds, but sheep and cattle. That’s where your food came from as well as your designer clothes. Abraham and Lot had so many sheep and cattle, that the there was not enough land for the animals to feed and drink. When Abraham’s servants found some water to drink, Lot’s servants would try to muscle in and take over the well for their animals. When Lot’s servants found some fresh grazing area, Abraham’s servants would try to put their animals their first. The choices they were making was causing a lot of friction and tension between the servants.
The tension worked itself up to Abraham and Lot. Abraham made a choice to speak directly to Lot about the situation. Sometimes we make a choice to speak to everyone except the person we need to speak to in a given situation. The result is a lot of backbiting and gossip starts to take place. Now God had called Abraham to this area of the country and had made a promise to Abraham to give him the land. Lot had just come along for the ride. Even though Abraham was in charge, he gave Lot the option of choice. Abraham said, “Look it’s not worth damaging our family relationship over the issue of money,” if you want the land to the right, take it and I will go to the left. If you want the land to the left, take it and I will go to the right.
Abraham made a choice to value the relationship over the issue of money. When you hear family members say, “it’s not about the money”, you can believe the money has something to do with the rift. When Jesus “a new commandment, I give to you , that you love one another as I have loved you” , Jesus was giving us an assignment that involved making a choice. The hardest thing to do is to genuinely and consistently love someone who’s not very lovable at the moment.
It’s not easy to love your parent, when he or she just told you that you can’t go somewhere you really wanted to go with your friends. It’s not easy loving your teenager when you have caught them lying to your face for the 5th time this week. It’s not easy loving your husband, when he’s been harsh in his attitude or to love your wife when she only gives you one or two words answers and says nothing wrong. It’s not easy loving your supervisor when you were overlooked for a promotion you deserved. Love in these situations calls for a choice.
Here is where a relationship with Jesus comes into the picture. Jesus says inLuke 9:23-24 (NIV) 23 Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. Okay, so you’re angry and upset at this person and you really would like to give the person a piece of your mind. But instead you make the choice to follow Jesus, and Jesus says deny yourself.
Give up the right to the feeling you have. You see, we may enjoy that feeling of anger or of rage because we are justified in it. Abraham could have told Lot, ‘boy you didn’t have much of anything before you hooked up with me. I made you wealthy, Now get your behind and your servants out of my face before I do some serious damage up in here.”
Our call as Christians is to put relationships ahead of things and situations. That’s going to call for some denials to ourselves even when we might be right. Okay so your mother was wrong in the way she handled the situation, what’s your response going to be as a Christian. Your child was wrong. Your spouse was wrong. Your boss was wrong. Nobody denies the wrong was done, but what is your choice going to be. You can become rude and angry and even self righteous, or you can become Christlike and forgive in a spirit of humility. It’s your choice.
Abraham knew that he was going to follow God no matter which route Lot was going to take either to the right or to the left. As a church, we face the choice of choosing to stay in the denomination or to leave the denomination. The ultimate issue isn’t whether we stay or not, the real issue is are we going to be faithful in serving God regardless of the path we choose.
If we leave, will we allow God to make us more loving to the people in our homes. One of our greatest problems in our church is family members not loving and getting along with each other. If we stay, are we more likely to allow God set us free from our hidden sins. It’s not just sexual sins that grieve the heart of God. It was murmuring and complaining that kept the people from going into the promise land. Our place of position, is nowhere near as important as making the choice to individually opening out hearts to be changed by the Spirit of God.
God specifically told Abraham to leave the land of Ur. Yet God does not tell Abraham whether he should go to the right or to the left in this situation with Lot. He allows Abraham to choose. There are some things in our lives that God has a definite plan and purpose for with a given assignment. There are other things in which God provides us with the option of choice. God allows us to choose our course, but our calling in the choice remains the same which is to be faithful to the Word of God. We have been through a seven month period of discernment on our relationship to the denomination.
Although God has revealed to us the truth of His Word concerning the issues we face, In our times of prayer, the Lord has not appeared and said leave the denomination. Therefore we are facing the second kind of decision of choosing to go to the right or to the left. No doubt God can use in either direction. What makes our church unique, is that we do seek to discern the leading of the Spirit and we change course if changing course becomes necessary.
Having to make choices is one of the ways by which we learn about our faith in God. The choice is not nearly as important as the motivation behind making the choice. Is the motivation to be drawn closer to God.? To get married or to stay single is a choice. Each has its own strengths and difficulties. To go a large college or a small college is a choice, with each forcing you to make other choices. Have you made up your mind to be in a church on Sundays whatever the college.
Our calling is to be faithful to Christ, denying ourselves on a regular and consistent basis so that God can be at work in our lives. It’s not a place that makes us more faithful. Some of us have done things right here at the church that led to sin. It is a choice to live for Christ and follow him no matter that produces true disciples.
When lot made the choice as to which section of land he wanted to take, he didn’t think about Abraham at all. He only thought what was best for me. He looked for the best of the land, with the greenest grass, and the most water. He said I will take this land. The grass really looked greener in the direction that Lot chose to go. That’s where we get the phrase, “the grass looks greener on the other side.” Sometimes our choices are based on what looks greener only to discover that it was greener because it had more weeds in it.
Almost every Christian thinks it would be easier to live for God somewhere else. That leaves to envy and a whole lot of “if only’s” and “what ifs.” We are where we are. God calls us to make the choice to deny ourselves and to be faithful to Him right where we are today. There is never going to be an event that is going to make us want to serve the Lord more. It’s the little choices we are making everyday that are either leading us toward God or further away from what God is calling us to be. Tomorrow, examine the choices you make about how you spend your time and your day and ask which choices made me more like Christ and which ones made me less. Then ask yourself, how willing are you to change those actions and activities which made you less like Christ.
One of the interesting things about being a Christian is that you cannot complete the process with any one event and you can’t graduate without literally dying. For we are called to make the choice to take up our cross daily. Our cross is our willingness to say yes to God and no to me. How many of us have crosses with time limits on them. If you do that one more time, I’m going to put down this cross and give you a piece of my mind. In other words, I’m going to say no to God and yes to me.
Jesus renews the time limit on each cross each day, and its set to last for exactly 24 hours. Jesus said for us to take up our cross daily. That means everyday is a potential day for completing blowing out witness and falling into sin. It also means everyday is potential day for God to use us in a might way. How many of you know it takes a conscious decision to go and pick something up? How many of you know if you do something enough number of times, it starts to become a part of you so that it begins to happen without thinking about it. That’s how we grow in Christ. We get so use to yielding to God’s word so many times that it becomes second nature to us.
We know in advance what choices we are going to make in a given circumstance, because our choices are to be in line with God’s word. The bible says the steps of a good person are ordered by the Lord and God delights in His way. Even if the person makes a choice and stumbles and fall, the person shall not be cast down, because God upholds him with His Hands.
Lot was within his right to choose the best looking land for himself. But his motivation was trying to get ahead in the rat race. How could he get more for himself to satisfy his own desires. Jesus warned us against making the choice to make sure we always come out ahead of others. There is a price to pay if we have to win all the time. Jesus said, Luke 9:24-26 (NIV) 24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. 25 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very soul?
Lot’s choice seemed like a good one at the moment. But that choice led to the choice to hang out with the brothers from Sodom and Gomorrah. That choice led to the decision to move inside Sodom and Gomorrah. Sodom and Gomorrah were known as two of the most wicked cities in the Bible. Every sin and evil you can imagine was happening in Sodom and Gomorrah.
At first Lot’s soul was tortured by having to live with all the sin around him. But then he made choices that helped him to get use to it. Some things quit bothering him altogether. When God decided to destroy the city, an angel had to nearly drag his family out of the city. It wasn’t the choice to choose the greener grass that led to Lot’s downfall. It was the choice to let go of the things of God that he had learned from Abraham that was his ultimate downfall.
Abraham’s choice to be faithful God no matter what added only further blessing to his life. After Lot was gone, then God showed up again. God says to him, “I know you feel like Lot may have done you wrong, but don’t worry about it. Look as far as you can to the north, east, south and west because I’m going to give it all to you and your descendants.” Sometimes we just need to allow the Lord to fight the battle for us.
God kept his promise and Abraham prospered greatly. Lot died a poor man hiding in some cave somewhere. It may look as though the other person or the other side has the upper hand. Just remember to make the choice to be faithful to God no matter what. God does not settle all accounts in a day nor on this side of life.
