DECISIONS
Part 2
“Decisions Determine Your Destiny”
Deuteronomy 30:19 “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live;”
Joshua 24:15 “And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve…but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
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These are passages about CHOICE.
God has given us the power of choice, particularly:
I. The freedom to choose which way in life we will go
Way back in the beginning, God gave Adam and Eve a choice:
Gen. 2:16-17 “16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
So God gave them a crucial choice, the same one Moses gave Israel—the choice between life and death, blessing and destruction.
And we all know how that went!
Adam ate and, “Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men…”—Ro. 5:12
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And likewise, the choices we make will decide our quality of life, our character, our tomorrows, and ultimately our destiny.
Every decision, big or small, plays a part in shaping who we become and where we land in life.
Our choices can lead us down a path of success and fulfillment, or regret and disappointment.
Every decision we make has a starting point, and an endpoint—life or death, blessing or not.
As we saw last time, Jesus himself said we all face the choice of which path we will travel down in life—the WIDE road leading to destruction, or the NARROW road leading to life.
The POWER OF CHOICE is such that all of us are where we are today primarily through the choices we have made.
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Every decision we make is like a seed we sow into our future—
—there is the sowing time, and there is the harvest time when we reap (either good or bad based on the nature of the decision).
We make all kinds of decisions each and every day—
financial decisions,
relationship decisions,
moral decisions,
business decisions,
spiritual decisions—all kinds of different types of decisions.
We make good ones or we make bad ones!
Some of the decisions we make result in habits, both good and bad.
For instance, you can decide to spend time each day in God’s word and in prayer and that one decision becomes a holy habit that serves you well for the rest of your life!
One good, wise, godly decision can change and bless your whole life, particularly the decision to follow Christ Jesus!
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Conversely, you can make the decision to dabble in
drugs,
or pornography,
or alcohol,
or some other unwise activity,
and eventually you realize that, what at first you CHOSE to do, now you HAVE to do.
So before you make that decision think—what will the harvest be from this choice?
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Second,
II. Our choices flow from our values
Values are the beliefs we hold based on what we have decided is true…
And our values dictate our behavior and shape our lifestyle.
Your values reflect what you most prize.
We have moral values,
ethical values,
spiritual values,
financial values,
martial values,
relationship values, and so on.
—For instance, because I believe the Bible is truly God’s word I highly value it above all other books—so honoring and respecting the Bible is a value I hold.
Yet others don’t believe it’s God’s word and have no problem shunning or even burning it.
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Again, because I believe LIFE is sacred, I value children in the womb and am totally opposed to the abortion industry—God given life is a value I hold.
While others don’t value life as a gift from God, so abortion to them is simply another way to make money.
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Again, I highly value above all else the name and Person of Christ Jesus so I would never use Christ’s name as a swear word.
While others don’t value Him, so routinely abuse His name.
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Bottom line: We all have values that guide our life and behavior!
And we get our values primarily from…
teachers,
TV,
movies,
the books we read,
the people we hang with,
the music we listen to,
and the culture we live in
All of these are chalk full of values-messaging we are urged to adopt—especially if we want to be accepted!
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Here’s the thing—We live today in an unprecedented world of constant, aggressive messaging, and the messaging is filled with worldly, unbiblical values.
For instance, 4.89 billion people use social media worldwide.
And there’s a huge potpourri of sites to choose from—
Facebook,
TikTok,
Instagram,
YouTube,
Twitch,
Vimeo,
Tumblr,
X…and so on.
Take Tik Tok for example:
—167 million videos are viewed on TikTok every internet minute!
Over 90% of TikTok users engage with it EVERY DAY.
92% of Tik Tok users take action on the videos, meaning they respond in one way or another.
So TikTok alone has a minute by minute outreach of over 100 million people!
And TikTok is loaded with messaging on VALUES!
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And many social media users have huge followings, and they are called INFLUENCERS.
Influencers are those that generate large followings of enthusiastic, engaged people who pay close attention to their views.
So influencers may not only persuade you to buy a product, they also influence you with their VALUES.
—So the times we live in require great discernment on WHO or WHAT we’re going to allow to influence us with their VALUES!
—As Christians we are commanded NOT to fall under the influential sway of the world and its values, or way of thinking.
Romans 12:2 Amp: “And do not be conformed to this world [any longer with its superficial values and customs], but be transformed and progressively changed [as you mature spiritually] by the renewing of your mind [focusing on godly values and ethical attitudes],”
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Values are more caught than taught.
Most people whose values are being influenced and changed don’t even know its happening.
Their attitudes toward godly values as taught in Scripture slowly begin to shift.
They begin making Decisions they would once have never considered.
We’ve all seen young people raised their whole life in the Christian faith that go off to college and when they come home for Christmas they’re not the same child.
At school their Christian values came under immediate assault, and their biblical values shifted.
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Question:
Who’s influencing you right now?
Where are you getting your values from?
Who is teaching you about morals, ethics, finances, relationships, marriage, gender, sexuality?
Is it God’s word?
Or is it some celebrated, worldly influencer?
Because whichever source of influence wins the day will also influence the decisions you make in life.
Joshua said, “Choose this day who you will serve, but as for me and my house, we choose to serve the Lord!”
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—So we’ve all been given the freedom of choice,
—the decisions we make will flow from the values we hold,
—and Finally, our the choices we make will:
III. Shape our character
Think of the decisions you make as PAINT BRUSHES, and your life is the CANVAS.
Every decision you and I make adds another brush stroke to the portrait we become—both inside and outside!
What do you want your character, you as a person, to look like one year, five years, ten years from now?
God has already decided what He wants our portrait to look like!
Romans 12:3 EB “God knew before he made the world who would come to Him, and he chose them to be like [molded to the pattern of; conformed to the image of] his Son.”
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Every time you make the decision to be truthful,
or to walk in purity,
or to spend time with God,
or to walk in integrity,
or to serve others in Christ’s name,
or to give up a certain sin,
Those decisions are like the hammer and chisel in a sculptors hand fashioning and shaping you into the image of Christ!