"DECISIONS, DECISIONS…" The last several weeks we’ve been in this series based on five life principles. We said you need five things. You need people to live with, you need principles to live by, you need a profession to live out, you need power to live on and you need a purpose to live for.
We’ve spent a couple of weeks on people to live with and how to get connected to others and last week we began spending a few weeks on principles to live by. Bill Gee talked to us about how to get into – get a grasp on – your Bible. Five ways to get into God’s word. We talked about:
Hearing the Word Reading the Word Studying the Word Memorizing the Word Meditating on the Word
Today I want to take the things we talked about last Sunday take them a step further. The next two Sundays we will examine how to use your Bible to make decisions.
There’s no doubt about it. Today we’re faced with more decisions than ever before. A multiple-choice culture is what we live in. The problem is that sometimes a seemingly insignificant or trivial decision has a major life changing impact on your life. Sometimes little tiny decisions, like a giant door swings on a small hinge, sometimes some small decision in your life can completely change the direction of it.
“When you come to a fork in the road...take it.” —Yogi Berra
I did a little research on some really bad decisions in history.
Sam Phillips sold a small recording company to RCA records in 1955 for $35,000. It included an exclusive contract with a young man named Elvis Presley, so he unknowingly forfeited royalties on more than one billion records. Bad decision.
Tom Sellick turned down the role for Indiana Jones. Bad decision.
In 1936 Joe Schuester and Jerry Segal sold the rights to Superman for $65 each. Bad decision.
Recently a South African hang gliding instructor saw a beautiful woman sun bathing on a roof below his flight pattern. He decided to make an obscene gesture at her. The woman’s husband appeared with a sub-machine gun and blasted the birdman out of the sky. Bad decision.
A thief in Boston attempted to steal two live Maine lobsters and he decided to stick them down his pants. Bad decision.
In Germany a bank robber pulls out a gun and demands money. The teller says she needs to see his I.D. So he pulls it out, takes the cash, and leaves the I.D. behind. Bad decision.
Three prison guards were fired for giving the prisoners a trampoline during exercise break because they were jumping over the fence. Bad decision.
I asked some other people this week for some bad decisions in history.
There was the high school girl that told Bill Gates, “It’s either me or the computer!”
The Lakers signing Dennis Redmond for team unity. Bad decision.
Selling Wal-Mart stock to buy K Mart stock. Really bad decision.
The Pinto.
Putting the intern office in the White House. Bad decision.
Pausing briefly before answering your wife’s question, “Do I look fat in this?” Really bad decision.
What is the key to making wise decisions? Listen to God. Proverbs 2:5 & 9 “If you want better insight and discernment, learn the importance for reverence for the Lord and of trusting Him. He shows how to distinguish right from wrong and how to find the right decision every time.” If you want to make good decisions, listen to God. This morning I have a very practical message for you. We’re going to look at three practical Biblical ways to test a decision.
Parents, you need to teach these to your kids. These are how you figure out what God wants you to do. There are more than these in the Bible but these are six that are at the top. Lets look at three of them.
1. THE IDEAL TEST
The ideal test is, is it in harmony with God’s word. What I'm about to do does God say it’s ok to do in the Bible. Always this is the very first test you want to look at. What does God have to say about it? In life you have to decide what’s going to be your ultimate authority. It really boils down to two choices – God’s word is going to be your authority for life in which you base your decisions. Or the world is what you’re going to base your decision on. The word or the world. What God says or what other people say.
If you base your life on popular opinion of what is currently the in-thing to do, you’re always going to be out of date because it keeps changing every day. What used to be in yesterday will not be in today and what’s in today will not be in tomorrow. So the opinions of the world change quite frequently. You have a very shifting foundation. You do not have principles to live by. If you base your life simply on popular culture, political correctness, or opinion polls you will be like a leaf blowing in the wind.
On the other hand, if you base your life on God’s word, the truth never changes. Truth is always true. So if God says something was wrong 10,000 years ago, it was also wrong 5000 years ago, it was wrong 500 years ago, it’s wrong today and it will be wrong 1000 years from today. I don’t care what opinion polls say. I don’t care what political correctness says. I don't really care what is given to us on television or the media. If God says it’s wrong, it’s wrong. It always has been and it always will be. If God says it’s right it will always be right. So you can either build your life on a shaky foundation that’s constantly changing (the opinions of the world) or you can build your life on what God says which never changes which gives you a solid foundation while everything else is up in the air.
God has set up the universe with certain laws. There are physical laws. We know these – like the law of gravity, a law of the universe. What goes up comes back down. There are moral laws and there are spiritual laws. God built the universe around these laws not because He’s a capricious God who arbitrarily said, “I'm going to make these laws up.” They’re all for your benefit.
When you cooperate with the principles in this universe you succeed. Life is easier. If you reject, rebel, disobey, ignore God’s principles you’re the one who gets hurt. You don’t ever break God’s laws. They break you. If I go up on top of a building and jump off, I don’t break the law of gravity. It breaks me. The same is true with moral laws and spiritual laws. You cannot just thumb your nose at God and get away with it. There’s inevitably a reckoning. Anytime you violate God’s principles you’re asking for trouble.
So the first question, obviously, in a decision, is what does God say about it. If God says it’s ok then I’ll do it. If God says no then I don’t do it. It doesn’t matter what anybody else says or thinks or if 99% of the people are doing it, if God says no, I’m not going to do it.
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.” It is the flashlight for life, the owner’s manual for life. It’s life’s big instruction book. The Bible says it’s there for your benefit. So you ask, is what I'm about to do in harmony with God’s word?
Let’s be honest. Sometimes understanding God’s principles is very difficult. From a human standpoint it doesn’t make sense. This week I was talking to somebody that said, “Why does God say sex is only for marriage? You should not have sex with someone you’re not married to?” I could give you nine or ten good reasons for that one. There are many principles, like why does God say the first ten percent of all we make goes back to Him in a tithe?
Let me give you a secret. You don’t have to understand God’s principles to be blessed by them. You just have to follow them. You don’t have to understand why God says what He does. God is God and you’re not. He can make any rules He wants to because He’s the creator and you’re not. But if you cooperate with them even when you don’t understand them, and you obey them, you’re going to get blessed. I do not understand electricity. I don’t understand how it works. But that doesn’t stop me from taking advantage of it. I turn on lights and listen to CD’s and television. I get all the benefits of electricity without understanding it. I don’t understand internal combustion and the physics of that. But it doesn’t keep me from driving a car. You don’t have to know why God has said what He has said in the Bible to benefit from it. All you have to know is, “If I follow it, He did it for my benefit and I'm going to be blessed as a result. If I ignore it, I'm going to be the one that gets hurt.”
The oldest temptation known to man is the temptation to doubt God’s word. Whenever we find something in the Bible that we don’t like or we think is a little restrictive or outdated or antiquated, old fashioned, then we start to doubt God’s word and we start saying, “Does the Bible really say you can’t do this? Did God really say…? Did God really mean …?” Anytime you start thinking that question, you have fallen for the oldest trap in the world. It was Satan’s original temptation, the one he used on Adam, the very first human being.
One day the devil comes to Adam and said, “Did God really say you shouldn’t eat of this tree?” What is he doing? The oldest temptation is the temptation to doubt God’s word. Whenever you doubt God’s word you’re getting in trouble. Whenever you doubt God’s word you’re doubting His love. “God, I don't think You love me. I don’t think You know what’s best.” And you’re headed down a very slippery slope.
So when making a decision the first test is, What does God say about it?
2. THE INTEGRITY TEST
For the second test you want to ask yourself the question, “Would I want everyone to know about this decision that I'm making?” If you’re making a decision and you worry that other people are going to find out about this decision that you’re making, then it’s most likely a very good indication that it’s a bad decision. Because bad decisions always lead to secrets and those kinds of secrets always lead to pain in our lives
Proverbs 10:9 “The man of integrity walks securely but he who takes crooked paths will be found out.” Notice it doesn’t say “might be found out” or even “there’s a high probability that you’re going to be found out.” You will be found out! So when making decisions you have to have the integrity test.
We’ve all seen how this happens. You’re about to make a bad choice. You know it’s a bad choice, you know it’s probably not the choice you should make, but before you make the choice you think to yourself, “I’ll go ahead and do it because no one will ever know.” Immediately, the moment you make that choice, you start thinking, “Somebody’s going to find out!” and you feel the fear that comes from that. That’s when you’ve violated this integrity test.
The test of integrity is that your public life and your private life match. What’s in your heart and what’s in your life are the same thing. That your walk and your talk, what you say and what you do, are in harmony with each other. The truth is, when it comes to integrity, even if you can fool everyone else, you can’t fool yourself. And if you violate your own conscious you have to pay for that.
James 4:17 “Knowing what is right to do and then not doing it is sin.” Even if I know the right thing to do and violate my conscious and choose not to do it, it is sin. So one of the questions to ask yourself when making any decision is “Can I do this with a clear conscious?” Because every time you violate your conscious it’s a big mistake.
Sometimes we think this way. We know we’re about to do the wrong thing. We know we shouldn’t do it. But this thought comes to our mind. “Even though it’s wrong, I know I'm doing the wrong thing, but I'm going to go ahead and do what I think because I know God will forgive me. He’s a forgiving God.”
What kind of fool do you think God is? That I could go ahead and make a decision to do something that He says is wrong and that it’s not going to have consequences in my life. That’s the very reason He doesn’t want me to make that decision. It’s because He loves me and not because He wants to keep me from having fun. There are consequences to every decision. And every bad decision always leaves scars in our lives. There are some of you this morning that have fallen into the habit of doing certain things that you know are wrong yet you continue to do them.
Can I just ask you today to stop and quit presuming on the grace of God? Can I just ask you to stop and think about the people around you that you are influencing with your sinful choices? Think about your family. Your children and others who are looking on.
Some of you are still dabbling around with drugs or sexual sin and you know it and everybody else knows it but most of all God knows it.
Over and over again as a pastor I have seen people who have made decisions, they knew they were wrong and they found that the Biblical law and the natural law, whatever you sow you’re going to reap, happened once again in their lives. That’s the way it works in life.
Does this mean that God does not forgive us for the wrong things we do? Of course He forgives us. He’s a forgiving and gracious God. But that forgiveness does not free us from the pain and the consequences that come from bad decisions. You can be forgiven and still have the regrets. You can be forgiven and still face the pain. You can be forgiven and still struggle with a low self-esteem from that decision. You can be forgiven and still have the broken relationship because you made that decision.
When we think about things that we know are wrong, it’s easier than with the gray areas. How do you decide with these gray areas and the integrity test? There’s a Bible verse for that too. Romans 14:14 “If someone believes that something is wrong then he shouldn’t do it because for him it is wrong.” This verse very simply says that when in doubt, rule it out. It’s a violation of the integrity test. Whatever is not from faith in our lives is sin.
The third way to test a decision is what I call…
3. THE IMPROVEMENT TEST
Will it make me a better person? The Bible talks about this in 1 Corinthians 10:23 “Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial and not everything is constructive.” Notice the freedom we have here as Christians. Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial and not everything builds you up – is constructive.
He’s saying some things are not necessarily wrong, they’re just not necessary. They’re not essential. It’s not a matter between good and bad. It’s a matter between what’s good and what’s the best. Most of the choices you make in life are not really between really good and really evil. You don’t get up in the morning and say, “Shall I read my Bible or shall I become an international terrorist?” Those kinds of things do not even cross your mind. “Should I pray or become a drug addict?” Those aren’t issues with you.
The issue is what’s really best in your life. A lot of things aren’t necessarily wrong, they’re morally neutral. But they’re just not necessary. You need to go to a higher standard and ask, Will what I'm about to do make me a better person? That’s the improvement test.
One pastor wrote recently, “I remember many years ago when my wife was nursing our babies and our babies would always get hungry about noon and so she would sit down to feed them and she would turn on the TV. What’s on TV at midday? Soap operas. So she started watching a soap opera as she fed the baby. Evidently these soap operas run into each other. One leads you on to the next one. Pretty soon she was watching two. After a while, three. And those babies were getting fat!
After a while she said she realized she wasn’t doing this for the babies anymore. She was actually rearranging her schedule to make sure she could see those shows. She’d start figuring out ways like, “I’ll do ironing at this time” or “I’ll clean up the kitchen” or wherever the TV was. She actually got connected to the lives of fictional people. All of a sudden she became intimately interested in the lives of people who didn’t even exist. She said one day it hit her like a ton of bricks. She said, “I am wasting my life! This is a total waste of my life and my time! This does not make me a better woman. This does not make me a better mother. This does not make me a better wife. It has no redeeming value. I'm caring about people who don’t even exist when there are many who could be cared about who do exist.”
I realize I'm treading on thin ice right now but I'm going to say it anyway. Some of you, your lives revolve around certain TV shows. And you are wasting your life. You know more about some fictional characters on TV than you do about Paul and Peter and the disciples and Jesus and what God wants to do in your life. You are wasting your life. It is not making you a better person. For the life of me I can’t figure out how Christ followers have come to enjoy entertainment that is absolutely contrary to God’s word and His principles yet we just sit and take it in.
There is a life principle that I hope that you will remember. You are what you watch and you are what you read.
Some of you are reading trashy novels that you have no business reading and you’re filling your mind with all kinds of junk. Some of you are reading novels that aren’t trashy they’re just stuffing. You spend hours and hours in a world that does not exist, that does not make you a better person in any way, shape or form. Or you read magazines. It is amazing to me how many Christians know great things, trivia, about celebrities. They read all these celebrity magazines and people magazines and they know who’s dating whom and who went to what show with whom and what she wore and on and on and on. These people live very shallow lives and you’re investing your life reading about it instead of making your life matter. It’s a waste.
I know some of you guys are saying, “Get ‘em, Pastor” Ok, guys, some of you couch potatoes out there, from the moment you get home on Friday until Monday morning are glued to ESPN. You know more about Chris Berman than you know about your wife. And you are wasting your life.
Are these things evil? No. Are they bad? No. Are they a waste of time if you spend too much time on them? Absolutely! Will they make you a better person? Absolutely not! In no way, shape or form do they make you a better person. You are giving your life for something that is a second class cause.
Many activities in life are morally neutral. They’re not right or wrong. It’s just that they’re not helpful. They’re unnecessary. You say, “There’s nothing wrong with it.” You’re right but that’s the wrong question. The question is not, is there anything wrong with it? The question is, is it making me a better person? Am I making something of my life?
I want to warn you. None of us approach the Bible neutral. When we come to read the Bible we always read it from our bias. From our background, our temperament. We like to read into the Bible what we want it to say instead of letting it just speak to us. Rather than coming to God’s word with a humble attitude and say, “God, You know what’s best for me, You know what’s right for me and I'm going to do what you say to do whether it makes sense or not because I want to be a better person.” You humbly submit to what He says.
What God is saying to you today through this message may be that you have made some really poor decisions. You are living with the consequences of those decisions. God cares. He longs to connect or even reconnect with you. Why are you trying to do it on your own.
If some of you took this message seriously it would turn you life upside down. No let me rephrase that it would turn it right side up.
By college, Michelle [Akers] had become an All-American soccer star, earning ESPN's woman athlete of the year in 1985—the same year the United States formed its first women's national team, with Michelle a starter.In 1991 the U.S. team won the first-ever Women's World Cup and Michelle scored 10 goals in five games, including the championship's winner. She signed an endorsement deal and became the first woman soccer player to have a paid sponsor. She played professionally in Sweden. Michelle's drive and tenacity were beginning to pay off. She even tried out as the place kicker for the Dallas Cowboys: her longest attempt reached 52 yards.
But just as her star was rising, Michelle's health was declining. By 1993, the woman who used grit and determination to make life happen found her life unmanageable.
"Each day I felt like I had flown to Europe with no food or sleep, then flown right back and trained for hours," Michelle says.She suffered from Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome (CFIDS), a debilitating disease affecting more than a million adult Americans. "When it was really bad, I couldn't sit up in a chair. The racking migraines stranded me at home, unable even to get up to brush my teeth or eat."
For the first time, Michelle could no longer count on her old friends—strength and hard work. She had to find a new way to cope."I couldn't bear not to be the best in the world, not to be the one who could bounce back from any injury," she says. "It was the only me I knew." When her marriage of four years broke up in 1994, Michelle had reached the end of herself."I was so sick I couldn't take a five-minute walk without needing two days on the couch to recover. I was forced to spend a lot of time thinking about who I was. I didn't like what I saw."
Michelle had put her trust in Christ as a high-school student, but ignored God in college and after graduation. Now sick and alone, Michelle reluctantly accepted an invitation from a strength coach to attend his church, Northland Community Church in Longwood, Florida. Although she couldn't articulate it at the time, in retrospect Michelle says she knew she "needed to get things right with God.""Looking back," she explains, "I think God was gently, patiently tapping me on the shoulder and calling my name for years. But I continuously brushed him off, saying, 'Hey, I know what I am doing. I can make these decisions. Leave me alone.' Then I think he finally said, 'Okay,' crossed his arms and looked at me sadly—because he knew I was going to make a lot of mistakes by ignoring him. He knew I would be hurting in the future.
"It took total devastation before I would acquiesce and say, 'Okay, God. You can have my life. Please, help me.' " Citation: Judith A. Nelson, "Michelle's Higher Goal," Christian Reader (March/April 2000), pp. 20–22
What kind of decisions have you been making?
2004/02/15
Sermon Reources available here...
Content goes here
Content goes here
Content goes here
Content goes here
Content goes here
Content goes here
Content goes here
Sermon Reources available here...
Content goes here
Content goes here
Content goes here
Content goes here
Content goes here
Content goes here
Content goes here
"DECISIONS, DECISIONS…" The last several weeks we’ve been in this series based on five life principles. We said you need five things. You need people to live with, you need principles to live by, you need a profession to live out, you need power to live on and you need a purpose to live for.
We’ve spent a couple of weeks on people to live with and how to get connected to others and last week we began spending a few weeks on principles to live by. Bill Gee talked to us about how to get into – get a grasp on – your Bible. Five ways to get into God’s word. We talked about:
Hearing the Word Reading the Word Studying the Word Memorizing the Word Meditating on the Word
Today I want to take the things we talked about last Sunday take them a step further. The next two Sundays we will examine how to use your Bible to make decisions.
There’s no doubt about it. Today we’re faced with more decisions than ever before. A multiple-choice culture is what we live in. The problem is that sometimes a seemingly insignificant or trivial decision has a major life changing impact on your life. Sometimes little tiny decisions, like a giant door swings on a small hinge, sometimes some small decision in your life can completely change the direction of it.
“When you come to a fork in the road...take it.” —Yogi Berra
I did a little research on some really bad decisions in history.
Sam Phillips sold a small recording company to RCA records in 1955 for $35,000. It included an exclusive contract with a young man named Elvis Presley, so he unknowingly forfeited royalties on more than one billion records. Bad decision.
Tom Sellick turned down the role for Indiana Jones. Bad decision.
In 1936 Joe Schuester and Jerry Segal sold the rights to Superman for $65 each. Bad decision.
Recently a South African hang gliding instructor saw a beautiful woman sun bathing on a roof below his flight pattern. He decided to make an obscene gesture at her. The woman’s husband appeared with a sub-machine gun and blasted the birdman out of the sky. Bad decision.
A thief in Boston attempted to steal two live Maine lobsters and he decided to stick them down his pants. Bad decision.
In Germany a bank robber pulls out a gun and demands money. The teller says she needs to see his I.D. So he pulls it out, takes the cash, and leaves the I.D. behind. Bad decision.
Three prison guards were fired for giving the prisoners a trampoline during exercise break because they were jumping over the fence. Bad decision.
I asked some other people this week for some bad decisions in history.
There was the high school girl that told Bill Gates, “It’s either me or the computer!”
The Lakers signing Dennis Redmond for team unity. Bad decision.
Selling Wal-Mart stock to buy K Mart stock. Really bad decision.
The Pinto.
Putting the intern office in the White House. Bad decision.
Pausing briefly before answering your wife’s question, “Do I look fat in this?” Really bad decision.
What is the key to making wise decisions? Listen to God. Proverbs 2:5 & 9 “If you want better insight and discernment, learn the importance for reverence for the Lord and of trusting Him. He shows how to distinguish right from wrong and how to find the right decision every time.” If you want to make good decisions, listen to God. This morning I have a very practical message for you. We’re going to look at three practical Biblical ways to test a decision.
Parents, you need to teach these to your kids. These are how you figure out what God wants you to do. There are more than these in the Bible but these are six that are at the top. Lets look at three of them.
1. THE IDEAL TEST
The ideal test is, is it in harmony with God’s word. What I'm about to do does God say it’s ok to do in the Bible. Always this is the very first test you want to look at. What does God have to say about it? In life you have to decide what’s going to be your ultimate authority. It really boils down to two choices – God’s word is going to be your authority for life in which you base your decisions. Or the world is what you’re going to base your decision on. The word or the world. What God says or what other people say.
If you base your life on popular opinion of what is currently the in-thing to do, you’re always going to be out of date because it keeps changing every day. What used to be in yesterday will not be in today and what’s in today will not be in tomorrow. So the opinions of the world change quite frequently. You have a very shifting foundation. You do not have principles to live by. If you base your life simply on popular culture, political correctness, or opinion polls you will be like a leaf blowing in the wind.
On the other hand, if you base your life on God’s word, the truth never changes. Truth is always true. So if God says something was wrong 10,000 years ago, it was also wrong 5000 years ago, it was wrong 500 years ago, it’s wrong today and it will be wrong 1000 years from today. I don’t care what opinion polls say. I don’t care what political correctness says. I don't really care what is given to us on television or the media. If God says it’s wrong, it’s wrong. It always has been and it always will be. If God says it’s right it will always be right. So you can either build your life on a shaky foundation that’s constantly changing (the opinions of the world) or you can build your life on what God says which never changes which gives you a solid foundation while everything else is up in the air.
God has set up the universe with certain laws. There are physical laws. We know these – like the law of gravity, a law of the universe. What goes up comes back down. There are moral laws and there are spiritual laws. God built the universe around these laws not because He’s a capricious God who arbitrarily said, “I'm going to make these laws up.” They’re all for your benefit.
When you cooperate with the principles in this universe you succeed. Life is easier. If you reject, rebel, disobey, ignore God’s principles you’re the one who gets hurt. You don’t ever break God’s laws. They break you. If I go up on top of a building and jump off, I don’t break the law of gravity. It breaks me. The same is true with moral laws and spiritual laws. You cannot just thumb your nose at God and get away with it. There’s inevitably a reckoning. Anytime you violate God’s principles you’re asking for trouble.
So the first question, obviously, in a decision, is what does God say about it. If God says it’s ok then I’ll do it. If God says no then I don’t do it. It doesn’t matter what anybody else says or thinks or if 99% of the people are doing it, if God says no, I’m not going to do it.
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.” It is the flashlight for life, the owner’s manual for life. It’s life’s big instruction book. The Bible says it’s there for your benefit. So you ask, is what I'm about to do in harmony with God’s word?
Let’s be honest. Sometimes understanding God’s principles is very difficult. From a human standpoint it doesn’t make sense. This week I was talking to somebody that said, “Why does God say sex is only for marriage? You should not have sex with someone you’re not married to?” I could give you nine or ten good reasons for that one. There are many principles, like why does God say the first ten percent of all we make goes back to Him in a tithe?
Let me give you a secret. You don’t have to understand God’s principles to be blessed by them. You just have to follow them. You don’t have to understand why God says what He does. God is God and you’re not. He can make any rules He wants to because He’s the creator and you’re not. But if you cooperate with them even when you don’t understand them, and you obey them, you’re going to get blessed. I do not understand electricity. I don’t understand how it works. But that doesn’t stop me from taking advantage of it. I turn on lights and listen to CD’s and television. I get all the benefits of electricity without understanding it. I don’t understand internal combustion and the physics of that. But it doesn’t keep me from driving a car. You don’t have to know why God has said what He has said in the Bible to benefit from it. All you have to know is, “If I follow it, He did it for my benefit and I'm going to be blessed as a result. If I ignore it, I'm going to be the one that gets hurt.”
The oldest temptation known to man is the temptation to doubt God’s word. Whenever we find something in the Bible that we don’t like or we think is a little restrictive or outdated or antiquated, old fashioned, then we start to doubt God’s word and we start saying, “Does the Bible really say you can’t do this? Did God really say…? Did God really mean …?” Anytime you start thinking that question, you have fallen for the oldest trap in the world. It was Satan’s original temptation, the one he used on Adam, the very first human being.
One day the devil comes to Adam and said, “Did God really say you shouldn’t eat of this tree?” What is he doing? The oldest temptation is the temptation to doubt God’s word. Whenever you doubt God’s word you’re getting in trouble. Whenever you doubt God’s word you’re doubting His love. “God, I don't think You love me. I don’t think You know what’s best.” And you’re headed down a very slippery slope.
So when making a decision the first test is, What does God say about it?
2. THE INTEGRITY TEST
For the second test you want to ask yourself the question, “Would I want everyone to know about this decision that I'm making?” If you’re making a decision and you worry that other people are going to find out about this decision that you’re making, then it’s most likely a very good indication that it’s a bad decision. Because bad decisions always lead to secrets and those kinds of secrets always lead to pain in our lives
Proverbs 10:9 “The man of integrity walks securely but he who takes crooked paths will be found out.” Notice it doesn’t say “might be found out” or even “there’s a high probability that you’re going to be found out.” You will be found out! So when making decisions you have to have the integrity test.
We’ve all seen how this happens. You’re about to make a bad choice. You know it’s a bad choice, you know it’s probably not the choice you should make, but before you make the choice you think to yourself, “I’ll go ahead and do it because no one will ever know.” Immediately, the moment you make that choice, you start thinking, “Somebody’s going to find out!” and you feel the fear that comes from that. That’s when you’ve violated this integrity test.
The test of integrity is that your public life and your private life match. What’s in your heart and what’s in your life are the same thing. That your walk and your talk, what you say and what you do, are in harmony with each other. The truth is, when it comes to integrity, even if you can fool everyone else, you can’t fool yourself. And if you violate your own conscious you have to pay for that.
James 4:17 “Knowing what is right to do and then not doing it is sin.” Even if I know the right thing to do and violate my conscious and choose not to do it, it is sin. So one of the questions to ask yourself when making any decision is “Can I do this with a clear conscious?” Because every time you violate your conscious it’s a big mistake.
Sometimes we think this way. We know we’re about to do the wrong thing. We know we shouldn’t do it. But this thought comes to our mind. “Even though it’s wrong, I know I'm doing the wrong thing, but I'm going to go ahead and do what I think because I know God will forgive me. He’s a forgiving God.”
What kind of fool do you think God is? That I could go ahead and make a decision to do something that He says is wrong and that it’s not going to have consequences in my life. That’s the very reason He doesn’t want me to make that decision. It’s because He loves me and not because He wants to keep me from having fun. There are consequences to every decision. And every bad decision always leaves scars in our lives. There are some of you this morning that have fallen into the habit of doing certain things that you know are wrong yet you continue to do them.
Can I just ask you today to stop and quit presuming on the grace of God? Can I just ask you to stop and think about the people around you that you are influencing with your sinful choices? Think about your family. Your children and others who are looking on.
Some of you are still dabbling around with drugs or sexual sin and you know it and everybody else knows it but most of all God knows it.
Over and over again as a pastor I have seen people who have made decisions, they knew they were wrong and they found that the Biblical law and the natural law, whatever you sow you’re going to reap, happened once again in their lives. That’s the way it works in life.
Does this mean that God does not forgive us for the wrong things we do? Of course He forgives us. He’s a forgiving and gracious God. But that forgiveness does not free us from the pain and the consequences that come from bad decisions. You can be forgiven and still have the regrets. You can be forgiven and still face the pain. You can be forgiven and still struggle with a low self-esteem from that decision. You can be forgiven and still have the broken relationship because you made that decision.
When we think about things that we know are wrong, it’s easier than with the gray areas. How do you decide with these gray areas and the integrity test? There’s a Bible verse for that too. Romans 14:14 “If someone believes that something is wrong then he shouldn’t do it because for him it is wrong.” This verse very simply says that when in doubt, rule it out. It’s a violation of the integrity test. Whatever is not from faith in our lives is sin.
The third way to test a decision is what I call…
3. THE IMPROVEMENT TEST
Will it make me a better person? The Bible talks about this in 1 Corinthians 10:23 “Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial and not everything is constructive.” Notice the freedom we have here as Christians. Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial and not everything builds you up – is constructive.
He’s saying some things are not necessarily wrong, they’re just not necessary. They’re not essential. It’s not a matter between good and bad. It’s a matter between what’s good and what’s the best. Most of the choices you make in life are not really between really good and really evil. You don’t get up in the morning and say, “Shall I read my Bible or shall I become an international terrorist?” Those kinds of things do not even cross your mind. “Should I pray or become a drug addict?” Those aren’t issues with you.
The issue is what’s really best in your life. A lot of things aren’t necessarily wrong, they’re morally neutral. But they’re just not necessary. You need to go to a higher standard and ask, Will what I'm about to do make me a better person? That’s the improvement test.
One pastor wrote recently, “I remember many years ago when my wife was nursing our babies and our babies would always get hungry about noon and so she would sit down to feed them and she would turn on the TV. What’s on TV at midday? Soap operas. So she started watching a soap opera as she fed the baby. Evidently these soap operas run into each other. One leads you on to the next one. Pretty soon she was watching two. After a while, three. And those babies were getting fat!
After a while she said she realized she wasn’t doing this for the babies anymore. She was actually rearranging her schedule to make sure she could see those shows. She’d start figuring out ways like, “I’ll do ironing at this time” or “I’ll clean up the kitchen” or wherever the TV was. She actually got connected to the lives of fictional people. All of a sudden she became intimately interested in the lives of people who didn’t even exist. She said one day it hit her like a ton of bricks. She said, “I am wasting my life! This is a total waste of my life and my time! This does not make me a better woman. This does not make me a better mother. This does not make me a better wife. It has no redeeming value. I'm caring about people who don’t even exist when there are many who could be cared about who do exist.”
I realize I'm treading on thin ice right now but I'm going to say it anyway. Some of you, your lives revolve around certain TV shows. And you are wasting your life. You know more about some fictional characters on TV than you do about Paul and Peter and the disciples and Jesus and what God wants to do in your life. You are wasting your life. It is not making you a better person. For the life of me I can’t figure out how Christ followers have come to enjoy entertainment that is absolutely contrary to God’s word and His principles yet we just sit and take it in.
There is a life principle that I hope that you will remember. You are what you watch and you are what you read.
Some of you are reading trashy novels that you have no business reading and you’re filling your mind with all kinds of junk. Some of you are reading novels that aren’t trashy they’re just stuffing. You spend hours and hours in a world that does not exist, that does not make you a better person in any way, shape or form. Or you read magazines. It is amazing to me how many Christians know great things, trivia, about celebrities. They read all these celebrity magazines and people magazines and they know who’s dating whom and who went to what show with whom and what she wore and on and on and on. These people live very shallow lives and you’re investing your life reading about it instead of making your life matter. It’s a waste.
I know some of you guys are saying, “Get ‘em, Pastor” Ok, guys, some of you couch potatoes out there, from the moment you get home on Friday until Monday morning are glued to ESPN. You know more about Chris Berman than you know about your wife. And you are wasting your life.
Are these things evil? No. Are they bad? No. Are they a waste of time if you spend too much time on them? Absolutely! Will they make you a better person? Absolutely not! In no way, shape or form do they make you a better person. You are giving your life for something that is a second class cause.
Many activities in life are morally neutral. They’re not right or wrong. It’s just that they’re not helpful. They’re unnecessary. You say, “There’s nothing wrong with it.” You’re right but that’s the wrong question. The question is not, is there anything wrong with it? The question is, is it making me a better person? Am I making something of my life?
I want to warn you. None of us approach the Bible neutral. When we come to read the Bible we always read it from our bias. From our background, our temperament. We like to read into the Bible what we want it to say instead of letting it just speak to us. Rather than coming to God’s word with a humble attitude and say, “God, You know what’s best for me, You know what’s right for me and I'm going to do what you say to do whether it makes sense or not because I want to be a better person.” You humbly submit to what He says.
What God is saying to you today through this message may be that you have made some really poor decisions. You are living with the consequences of those decisions. God cares. He longs to connect or even reconnect with you. Why are you trying to do it on your own.
If some of you took this message seriously it would turn you life upside down. No let me rephrase that it would turn it right side up.
By college, Michelle [Akers] had become an All-American soccer star, earning ESPN's woman athlete of the year in 1985—the same year the United States formed its first women's national team, with Michelle a starter.In 1991 the U.S. team won the first-ever Women's World Cup and Michelle scored 10 goals in five games, including the championship's winner. She signed an endorsement deal and became the first woman soccer player to have a paid sponsor. She played professionally in Sweden. Michelle's drive and tenacity were beginning to pay off. She even tried out as the place kicker for the Dallas Cowboys: her longest attempt reached 52 yards.
But just as her star was rising, Michelle's health was declining. By 1993, the woman who used grit and determination to make life happen found her life unmanageable.
"Each day I felt like I had flown to Europe with no food or sleep, then flown right back and trained for hours," Michelle says.She suffered from Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome (CFIDS), a debilitating disease affecting more than a million adult Americans. "When it was really bad, I couldn't sit up in a chair. The racking migraines stranded me at home, unable even to get up to brush my teeth or eat."
For the first time, Michelle could no longer count on her old friends—strength and hard work. She had to find a new way to cope."I couldn't bear not to be the best in the world, not to be the one who could bounce back from any injury," she says. "It was the only me I knew." When her marriage of four years broke up in 1994, Michelle had reached the end of herself."I was so sick I couldn't take a five-minute walk without needing two days on the couch to recover. I was forced to spend a lot of time thinking about who I was. I didn't like what I saw."
Michelle had put her trust in Christ as a high-school student, but ignored God in college and after graduation. Now sick and alone, Michelle reluctantly accepted an invitation from a strength coach to attend his church, Northland Community Church in Longwood, Florida. Although she couldn't articulate it at the time, in retrospect Michelle says she knew she "needed to get things right with God.""Looking back," she explains, "I think God was gently, patiently tapping me on the shoulder and calling my name for years. But I continuously brushed him off, saying, 'Hey, I know what I am doing. I can make these decisions. Leave me alone.' Then I think he finally said, 'Okay,' crossed his arms and looked at me sadly—because he knew I was going to make a lot of mistakes by ignoring him. He knew I would be hurting in the future.
"It took total devastation before I would acquiesce and say, 'Okay, God. You can have my life. Please, help me.' " Citation: Judith A. Nelson, "Michelle's Higher Goal," Christian Reader (March/April 2000), pp. 20–22
Today I want to take the things we talked about last Sunday take them a step further. The next two Sundays we will examine how to use your Bible to make decisions.
1. THE IDEAL TEST
2. THE INTEGRITY TEST
3. THE IMPROVEMENT TEST