“The Choice is Yours”

Deuteronomy 30:11-20

1Timothy 6:11-16

February 5, 2006

One part of our discipline practice with our girls is to help equip and empower them to make right choices. As parents, we know that our children do not always make the right choice. They want to stay up later than they should. They want to argue over who gets to play with a certain toy. They want to do anything else but brush their teeth. They want desert when they have not finished their dinner. We know that children are governed more by their emotion than by reason. We know they are driven more by their wants and needs than by wisdom and foresight. We know this because children do not have the ability to see out in the distance beyond the moment. They do not have the ability to think through the consequences of their decisions, because their frame of reference is grounded in the present. Our job as parents is to help them see beyond the present into the future, to guide and instruct them along the way, to equip them with the ability to consider the consequences of their choices, and to empower them to make the right choice.

The reason parents spend so much time guiding and instructing our children and working so hard to equip and empower them to make the right choice is because we know that their will come a time when they will have to make a choice without parental supervision. We know that there will come a time when they alone will have to see out into the future, beyond the moment of their present, and consider the consequences of choices they are presented with. After all, this is part of what it means to grow into maturity and become an adult.

The apostle Paul once said to the Christians in Corinth, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child, but when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways” (1Cor 13:11). Paul understood that as one gets older, one must also grow in maturity, by putting an end to the ways of thinking and reasoning as a child, and begin to think and reason as an adult in order to make the right decisions, the right choices, especially when it comes to matters of faith. The letter to the Hebrews reminds us of the same thing saying, “…for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil” (5:13-14). In other words, those who are still infants spiritually, still need the basic guidance and instructions because they do not have the ability to make right choices. But those who are mature spiritually are able to make the right choices because they have been trained through practice.

Being mature in the faith, being mature spiritually, is not something we are born with, it is something we gain through the help and guidance and instruction of another, something we grow into through experience and practice, something we are equipped and empowered to be. But we know that even the most mature among us still struggles with making the right choice. As a pastor and police chaplain, I am painfully aware of how hard it can be for some adults to make the right choice, and one does not have to look far to find story after story in the news of adults making the wrong choice. We know how difficult it can be to make the right choice, because we live in a society and culture that presents us with numerous choices to make. Everyday we have to make choices, some not so significant, others hugely significant. We make so many choices that we have even come to believe we have a right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and choices. It is practically the American way.

But the choices we make are greatly influenced. They are prejudiced by society and culture, money and education, health and family history, and even our beliefs and convictions. And the list goes on and on. But there comes a time, when even we adults are presented with a choice to make that has eternal and cosmic implications. There comes a time when we must put an end to childish ways and look out into the future before us, beyond the moment of the present, and make a choice about which path we will follow and about who we will follow. There comes a time when are presented with a choice between life and death, blessings and curses, a choice which is ours to make and ours alone.

Through the long years of wilderness travel, the Israelites now find themselves on the boundary line between the present and the future, between what is and what will be, between the desert wilderness and the Promised Land. In his last words to the people, Moses confronts the Israelites with one of the most profound choices they will ever have to make, a choice with eternal and cosmic implications, a choice that will determine nothing short of Israel’s destiny. This choice is between life and prosperity or death and adversity, a choice between life with God, which will lead to abundance and fulfillment, or a life without God which will lead to disorder and chaos and ultimately death. It is a choice they must make and they alone.

But how glorious the Promised Land must have looked to them. The land flowing with milk and honey presented them with the promise of numerous alternative choices. In the Promised Land there were many gods to choose from, enticing systems of power and privilege, and all kinds of tempting pleasures of comfort and security. Things they did not have in the wilderness. No life in the wilderness was harsh. Many of those who first left Egypt never made it to the Promised Land. There was constant bickering and arguing during the journey. Leadership was not always trustworthy. Sure, they had depended upon God for their very lives. God had provided them with food and water. God had given the commandments to instruct and guide them in matters of faith, to show them how they were to live in relationship with the Almighty, and to direct them on the path of righteousness, but was all of that still needed. Is God still needed?

In the Promised Land, the Israelites could have anything they wanted. They could have all the possessions they ever needed and more. They could have any kind of life-style they ever wanted. They could make a life for themselves apart from God’s sovereignty and providence, apart from God’s grace and mercy. Yes, they could make a life for themselves however they wanted, by whatever standards they chose, by whatever ways they could get it. Maybe the question for us is, are we any different?

In the world’s number one super power, in the most prosperous country on the planet, in the land of opportunity from sea to shining sea, we American Christians, find ourselves standing on the boundary line also having to make a choice between a life with God or a life without God. Yet, here in America we have everything we could ever need, everything we could ever want. Do we really need God for a life of prosperity and fulfillment? Our culture and society continues to say, “No.” Our culture and society continues tells us to look our over the fruited plan and see the numerous alternative choices there for the taking, there to make you happy and fulfilled, there to give you the good life. Our culture and society tells us to choose to gauge the happiness and well-being of our lives by consumer confidence levels, the sizes of our portfolios, and unemployment rates. Our culture and society tells us to choose to allow our children to be billboards for clothing manufacturers, to do anything they want as long as it does not hurt anyone else, and to hang out with whoever they want to, after all they are just trying to find themselves. Our culture and society tells us to choose to find prosperity in possessions and the stock market, and to live by their standards and follow their ways. “After all,” they say, “you have already made the choice to take God out of public schools. You have already removed God from the public square. You have already chosen to put ‘In God We Trust’ on your god. What more do you have to lose?”

But, Moses’ words to God’s people is a reminder that in order to be God’s people a choice must be made. To enter into covenant with the Lord is to make a decision, is to make a choice for God, a choice to commit oneself wholly to God and God’s way. There is to be no gray area when it comes to choosing a life with God or a life without God. It’s either all or nothing. We cannot stand before God in the context of worship and hear the guidance, instruction, and promise of God’s word and step aside or put it away as if it is only information. There is only one God, only one God who is the giver of life and fulfillment and prosperity. There is only one God who has called us into existence, given us the breath of life, and set us on the path of righteousness. There is only one God who has promised to be our God and has made us to be God’s people. And there is only one God who has remained faithful and wants us to be faithful as well. This is what covenant is all about – choosing to remain faithful, choosing life and blessing through the power and provision of God Almighty, choosing the way of life marked by loving the Lord our God, walking in God’s way, and observing God’s commandments, and choosing to be God’s people even in the midst of a culture and society that says, “No.” The fruit of faithfulness is life and prosperity, but the fruit of disobedience and idolatry is death, disorder and chaos. The choice is ours to make and ours alone.

The life God offers is a life that does not happen automatically; it has to be taken, it has to be lived out and embodied in the lives of the faithful. We stand on the boundary line between what is and what will be, between the wilderness of the present and the Promised Land of the future. Like a loving parent, God has guided and instructed us along our journey, has helped us see beyond the moment of the present into the future that is before us, and God has equipped us and empowered us through the Spirit of the living Christ to make the right choice.

How we make the right choice is found in the ways in which we live out and embody what we have learned and been taught along the way: love for God, communal worship, knowledge of God’s word, purity of life, justice for the least, the lost, and the left out, love of neighbors, stewardship of God’s creation and all that God has given us, self-sacrifice, and a commitment to the peace and unity of the body of Christ and to God’s mission in the world, and many more. These are the fruits of making the right choice, the fruits of life and blessing that are found only in the God who gives life to all things.

And so let us grow into maturity of faith. Let us not fall into the temptation offered by the numerous alternative choices that make promises they cannot keep, nor let us become ensnared by the trappings of senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. Let us instead “pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness.” Let us fight the good fight of faith, and take hold of the eternal life, to which we were called and to which we confess. Let us bind ourselves to the promises of God in Jesus Christ and claim possession of the land that is before us, for as the Bible insists, there is really only one way to find life and good and well-being in this world and it is the Lord’s way. But as I said, the choice is yours, and yours alone. Amen.