Our Choice, The Holy One Of God

Theme: Our choice, the Holy one of God

Text: Jos. 24:1-2, 15-18; Eph. 5:21-32; Jn. 6:60-69

There is a poem with the title “The Road not taken”, in which the author, Robert Frost, describes how he discovered two roads during a walk in the woods. He knew he had to make a choice as he could only travel on one, but he told himself that someday he would have the opportunity to travel on the other road. He knew in his heart that he might never return and have the opportunity of exploring the other road. The poet, however, was talking about something much more important than a simple choice of paths in a wood. He was talking about the choice of paths in a person’s life. Choosing a road symbolizes a choice between alternatives that appear equally attractive but lead to entirely different destinations. Whether we arrive at the right destination or not depends on the choices we make and our priorities determine which road we will travel. For most people today their main priority in life are wealth and possessions. Life consists of far more than just possessions and we are called to make a choice. It is a choice between Christ and the world. It is a choice between accepting and rejecting Christ. Each of us has to make a decision. There is really only one decision and that decision is to make our choice, the Holy one of God.

If you were asked today how you can find peace with God, how you can have forgiveness of sins, how you can find meaning and purpose in life, or how you can have everlasting life what would be your answer? You will be surprised how many different answers people give. The only way we can meet these needs is to come to Jesus Christ. Only Jesus Christ can meet these needs. We either choose to believe in Christ or we choose to reject Him. By rejecting Christ we reject God’s offer of forgiveness for our sins and have to pay the penalty for it. Accepting the Holy one of God is to receive forgiveness and eternal life. Peter makes this clear when he also had to make a choice. He and the other ten apostles, everyone except Judas, chose to believe and trust Jesus Christ. Everyone who makes the choice to accept Christ as Saviour and Lord pledges to honour and please Him and accepts that He is all-sufficient. When we believe this we will spend a lot of time with Him in prayer and in the reading of His Word. The more time we spend with Him the more we will think as He thinks, see as He sees and hear as He hears. It is only then He can use us to fulfil His divine purposes.

Life depends on the choices we make. The first human being, Adam, made a choice that still affects us today. He was given the choice to obey or disobey God – to choose spiritual life or death. He had the choice to eat from the "tree of life" or from the "the tree of knowledge of good and evil." While both trees produced edible fruit their effects were completely different as Adam’s choice revealed either his obedience or disobedience. This was the real issue. By eating the forbidden fruit Adam openly expressed his rebellion against God and His authority. Obedience or disobedience to God is demonstrated in very simple ways as the example of Adam shows. His disobedience led to spiritual death and only the work of God in regeneration, the new birth, can bring sinners to know spiritual and eternal life. Belief in Christ and repentance makes the abundance of God’s redeeming grace available to us. It procures for us perfect righteousness and eternal life. But God does not force this on us He gives us a choice.

We need to know the truth about salvation. We need to hear the truth rather than what we want to hear. We are not saved by what we do but by God’s grace. Christ has done all that needs to be done but we need to make a choice. We need to make a choice by accepting Christ as our Lord and Saviour. This is the only way to have a personal relationship with Christ. In the time of Christ many people were following Christ who had no personal relationship with Him. They were more interested in what they could get from Him than in whom He is. The situation is still the same today. A great many people are following Christ just for Him to meet their needs. They have no personal relationship with Him. A personal relationship with Christ will always result in the desire to please Him. How can we please Him when after confessing Christ to be the Son of the living God we then look to other sources to meet our needs? Some of us will leave Church only to go and seek spiritual help somewhere else. We who know Christ can only please Him when we rely on His sufficiency to meet our needs.