06/11/2023 - Part 2 - Life Choices – Life’s Choices

Grace Place Atlanta COGBF 4700 Mitchell Street Forest Park, GA 30297 Website: atlantacogbf.org Email: info@atlantacogbf.org Phone: (404) 241-6781 Wayne D. Mack, Pastor / Pastor Wayne D. Mack Sermon Notes June 11, 2023 Life Choices – Life’s Choices Part 2 Luke 6: 46-49 Build on the Rock “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say? 47 Whoever comes to Me, and hears My sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like: 48 He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. 49 But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.” 46 GMGP This Sunday we are back for Round II of a dose of encouragement on the importance of facing our choices and in many cases to reexamining the choices we have made in our life time as well anticipating the choices we will make. Currently, the fallout and aftereffects of the pandemic have left many people, including God’s children, confused, drained, empty, distanced, and disconnected. Life’s problems and challenges are enough by themselves – even without a pandemic. So, today’s message, entitled Life Choices – Life’s Choices, is intended to increase our discernment of how the choices we’ve made and/or are making are either hurting us or helping us. [A major objective of this message is to steer church goers away from blaming the church for their present struggles and dilemmas. Life Choices are the choices we’ve made. Life’s Choices are the choices available to us. This lesson is a pause point for all of God’s children to stop, recall, and own the choices they’ve made in their lives – good or bad. Did you know that even a neutral position, a so-called non-choice, is a choice. So, this message is encouragement and a challenge to all of us to pull off the freeway for a pitstop and take inventory of the choices we’ve made in life (and are still making). It’s a good time to do that so as to ensure our choices are wiser and the path we’re on is a good one, -- a better, brighter one. Here's a word to the wise – get off the denial blame path and get out of the blame game regarding the choices and decisions you’ve made and are continuing to make in life. Look at your outcomes and the results of your choices. How are they serving you? If they aren’t rewarding you, maturing you, or causing you to see God’s good hand in your life – then get off the insanity highway. You know the saying: To keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome or result – that’s insanity. Although it’s always a good time to assess or evaluate your choices – past, present, and future -- as we should often do . . . YET, it doesn’t always feel good to do so. We’re often reluctant to face the music on some critical choices we’ve made. Evaluating helps us step up to the plate, be accountable, own our choices, and take responsibility. [Caution: Watch your blind spots – they’ll cause you not to see yourself, your shortcomings]. There’s something to be learned from all the varied choices we make – whether they’re good, bad, or ugly. We should take inventory of the good and the bad. Can anything be learned from the GOOD? Yes. Can anything be learned from the BAD? Equally - Yes! However, initially, facing poor choices often makes you miserable because you know where you went wrong. And yes, in the near term, there’s seemingly nothing much you can do about it. But reviewing it, can do 4 or more things: • It can make you wise not to repeat a bad decision again – feel the present consequence. • It provides you a contrast to learn from a risky decision; cause you to apply God’s Word (lean not to your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him . . . and He will direct your path. • Reviewing helps elevate you to new thinking – trust God for a turnaround outcome. • It builds hope . . . a better, new day will come. Proverbs 13:12 says: Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life. Where does the need to make choices come from? If you said LIFE you’d be only partially right. But the origin of making choices comes from God. God gave it to us – to every human being. It is found in that little-big thing called FREEWILL. Freewill is the capacity to exercise choice with no strings attached; the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion. Genesis 2: 16 & 17 says . . . 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.” 16 Wait a minute – you might say -- these two verses speak of freedom and freewill but there’s a “BUT” which seems to indicate constraint. “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. Here God is illustrating or instructing on how to apply freewill. Truth be told, the freewill God has designed into us is without constraints. An individual can do whatever he or she wants within their will. God will not hold you back. You can use your freewill for good, for bad, or for God! In Genesis 2: 16 &17 God is showing us the purest example of freedom and freewill which was established in the Garden. It is the ability and authority to exercise our will within the parameters God establishes. Although we have freewill, we are not wise enough to use it in its intended or optimum capacity. Because 9 times out of 10, when left to ourselves to operate in freewill, we very likely will do our own will and cater to our own fleshly interests – and choose to disobey God. And guess what, that’s permitted by God – but it won’t pay off favorably in the end. Preferably God would have us to understand that under His authority is where we find maximum freedom. God doesn’t impose rules just for the sake of having rules. It was His desire that His creation experience the joy of freedom, and He knew that could happen only under His care. We should want our decisions to be in alignment with God’s will because that gives us the assurance of God’s covering and protection and maximum peace. The one thing we can learn from Adam and Eve’s experience is that sin, not God, robbed them of freedom. So it is with us. Contrary to what some people have surmised, God is not hung up on rules. Rather, He is a God of freedom and freewill. [He primarily gave man freewill to choose to love and serve Him on their own volition or accord – and to not be robots without a choice. So, with man’s freewill, he can choose to honor God or ignore Him.] In a world that was exactly like God wanted it, He had only one rule. There was only one “thou shalt not,” and it was put there to establish His authority over human beings. Again, let me say: God knew that under His authority alone is where we find maximum freedom. Freewill with parameters and boundaries doesn’t seem like freedom to us. Every day we are offered the same lie offered to Adam and Eve: things like: “Maximum freedom is found outside the boundaries” or “Try it just once,” or “You’re missing out.” We are tempted to reach for something that doesn’t exist – freedom to do whatever we want to, whenever we please, with zero consequences. We often have to learn the hard way that real freedom lies in obedience to God’s truth. Life Choices – Life’s Choices