The Choices We Make

A Calvinist dies and arrives at St. Peter’s gates and sees that there are two lines going in. One is marked “predestined,” and the other is marked “free will.” Being the card-carrying Calvinist that he is, he strolls on over to the predestined line. After several moments an angel asks him, “Why are you in this line?” He replies, “Because I’m a Calvinist, so I chose this line.” The angel looks surprised, “Buddy, you’re in the wrong line; if you ‘chose’ it, then you should be in the free will line.” So, our Calvinist friend, now slightly miffed, obediently wanders over to the free will line. Again, after a few minutes, another angel asks him, “Why are you in this line?” He sullenly replies, “Someone made me come here.” The angel replies, “Buddy, you’re in the wrong line; this line is for those who choose by free will.” And around and around it goes.

Sometimes we have fun with this idea of Calvinist predestination. This is for real: there is a coffee company called Reformed Roasters and their motto is “Reformed Roasters: the coffee that chooses you.” Of course, coffee cannot choose you. Perhaps we joke around a bit with this because we must admit that any of these theological ideas pressed to their extreme do not make sense. It does not make sense that somehow God has already chosen and predetermined every single little detail before us and we are then like robots being remotely controlled who have no choice but to do whatever it is that God has predetermined. That makes no sense because so much of our world is broken in sin; and a perfect and holy God would not predetermine and make people sin. There must be a place for the free will choice of people. Neither does it make sense that salvation, forgiveness, eternal life, and identity in Christ somehow all rests on my own free will to choose such a thing. As if somehow my salvation swings back and forth from moment to moment depending on how I feel about it. My eternal security in the salvation of Christ is not so fragile and fickle that it depends on how I happen to be feeling at the moment. The almighty and sovereign creator of the universe holds providential authority over his creation that supersedes whatever I happen to be thinking, or feeling, or choosing at any given moment.

These two things meet somewhere in the mix of our lives in this world. God divinely orchestrates paths in front of us guiding our steps in ways which—at times—we are completely unaware of. And at the same time God gives us choices which are ours to make. We do in fact have a free will; John Calvin himself—the namesake of Calvinism—affirms this in his own writings. Today I want to begin a new series by considering a passage from scripture that talks about the choices we make. This comes from the very end of the book of Joshua. The people of Israel have moved into the promised land of Canaan and every tribe has settled into their assigned territory. Joshua is very old, and before he dies he gives this instruction to the people of Israel about the choices they make.

Joshua 24:14–24 (NIV)

Joshua 24:14–24 NIV

14 “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. 15 But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” 16 Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods! 17 It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our parents up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. 18 And the Lord drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the Lord, because he is our God.” 19 Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. 20 If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.” 21 But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will serve the Lord.” 22 Then Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the Lord.” “Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied. 23 “Now then,” said Joshua, “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.” 24 And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God and obey him.”

faith practices are something that we choose to do to become better disciples

Last summer we as a church spent time working through a series focused on faith practices. We examined twelve different spiritual disciplines all within the idea that discipleship is something we can grow within. Faith practices are not the thing that makes us disciples of Jesus. Rather, faith practices are habits that help us become better disciples of Jesus. These habits and faith practices are something that we choose to do; they are a part of the choices we make from day-to-day and from week-to-week.

consider the choices that we make in our lives, and the impact those choices have upon who we are

More recently, we have been talking about a vision for what ministry looks like here at Fellowship Church using the phrase making room. In fact, as you can see, I am naming this series of sermons upon that idea of being a church that is making room in our lives. Again, this is something that we want to see resulting from intentional choices. That is where I want us to start today. Let’s talk about and consider the choices that we make in our lives, and the impact those choices have upon who we are.

we make room in our lives for things we consider to be priority choices

I am going to start with just a little bit more explanation of what the whole making room idea is all about. We are all people who have priorities of one kind or another in life. And the things in life which we hold as high priority require a space for focused time and attention. We don’t just stumble upon those moments accidentally; we make room in our lives for that which is important.

examples: physical exercise routine, attending (grand)children events

Let me give some examples. For those of you who keep a priority on healthy physical condition, you do not just randomly wait and see if there just might happen to be some time for exercising. No, you prioritize making room in your weekly schedule for times of exercise. It means maybe waking up a little bit earlier in the morning or saying no to some other activities. But if you are the kind of person who only did physical exercise randomly at moments when there just happened to be nothing else in your schedule to do, you probably would not be very physically fit (unless of course you are a person who happens to have a whole lot of free time with nothing else to do). If healthy physical condition is a priority, then you make room in your life for the habits that are necessary to achieve and maintain that healthy physical condition.

we allow room in our lives for things we consider to be marginal choices

my marginal example: Colorado Rockies baseball

Along with that, we all have some habits and routines which fall somewhere in between. I still vaguely follow the Colorado Rockies baseball team. If there is a night where I have everything else on my schedule for the day wrapped up by 8:00pm and the Rockies are playing, I’ll probably turn on the TV to watch some of the game. At times I will choose that over reading a book or watching something else. But at the same time, I do not plan and organize the schedule of my day around it to make sure I am in front of a TV whenever the Rockies are playing a ballgame. It is enough of an interest that I will let it fill some time in my day when it fits. But I do not block out and push away other things in order to intentionally make room for that interest. We all have things like that in our lives—things that fill open spaces when it happens to be there, but we get along just fine if it passes by and we miss it.

my priority example: cooking dinner for family mealtime

However, there are other interests I do not treat like that. They are priorities which I make sure fits into the rhythms and patterns of my life. At least four out of the seven nights of the week, I have a priority of being home early enough to be in the kitchen preparing a dinner to eat. When my kids were all younger and in school it was priority that the whole family would by home more nights than not to sit down together at the dinner table and share that mealtime with each other. It was priority and we made room in our lives for it. Making room in my life for family mealtime meals choosing to say no to anything else that pushes against it.

I like classical music and enjoy the Grand Rapids Symphony. That means I make room in my life for that interest. A portion of my entertainment budget is set aside for buying symphony tickets, which means there are other entertainment activities to which I have to say no. And several Friday nights are blocked in the calendar to go see the symphony perform, which means there are other Friday night activities to which I have to say no. making room in my life to enjoy classical music at the Grand Rapids Symphony means choosing to say no to other entertainment options on a Friday night.

the things that I make room in my life for as a priority choice tells you something about the kind of person that I am

Those are choices I make. And in some ways those choices form and shape the kind of person that I am. The same is true for every single one of us. We are all people who prioritize choices, choices which in turn make room in our lives for that which we hold as important. The things that I choose to make room in my life for tells you something about the kind of person that I am. You can figure out from the few examples I mentioned here that I am the kind of person who loves to cook and experiment with new recipes and food ingredients. You can figure out from these examples that I have learned to know about and appreciate classical music composers and can recognize different classical music styles.

Because these are priority choices, they form and shape certain aspects of my identity. Marginal choices also do that, but to a much lesser and different degree. I can tell you a handful of names on the Colorado Rockies roster, but certainly not everyone. I can tell you they have lost more games than they have won, but I do not know their exact record and I certainly could not tell you any stats about individual players. It’s just not that high a priority for me; not that much a part of who I am. That’s the difference between priority choices and marginal choices.

is my faith a marginal choice or a priority choice?

I was born into a Christian home and grew up belonging to a Christian church. There was never a time in my life when I would say I was not a Christian—I would tell you that I have been a Christian my whole life. But here is what else I would have to admit to you. That for many years when I was a younger person being a Christian was a marginal choice, not a priority choice. For many years in my life, faith was something that just fit in the margins if and where there just happened to be space, but I did not make room for it to be a priority part of my identity. I was not making choices that would allow my faith to form and shape my identity.

God has placed an identity on his people; and yet Joshua tells them, you also have a choice to make

This is what Joshua is telling the people of Israel in today’s passage. God has done all these things to claim his people and give his people an identity as who they are. You see that in this passage. He is the God who performed signs and wonders to free his people from slavery in Egypt; he is the God who kept his people safe through all the years of wandering in the wilderness; he is the God who went before them into the promised land and drove out the wicked nations before them. God has placed an identity on his people. And yet Joshua tells them, you have a choice to make. Are you going to make the kinds of choices that will embrace and strengthen that identity you have in God? Or are you going to make choices that will weaken and diminish that identity you have in God?

James K.A. Smith, You Are What You Love — our highest loves and greatest passions become our identities by the choices we make

it is NOT what you believe that shapes and builds your spiritual identity; it is what you choose to do that shapes and builds your spiritual identity

I have mentioned in the past the way in which Jamie Smith’s book You Are What You Love examines this topic. Smith writes about the ways in which our highest loves and greatest passions become our identities. And Smith’s whole point in that book is that those loves and passions become our identities not because we love them or are passionate about them, but because we make priority choices in our lives around them. We make choices in our lives. Those choices make room in our lives for those loves and passions. It is not what you believe that shapes and builds your spiritual identity; it is what you choose to do that shapes and builds your spiritual identity. We see this in James 2

James 2:19 NIV

19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.

James 2:24 NIV

24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.

This is exactly what Joshua is saying in today’s passage.

It took me a while in my life of faith to figure that out; to move from my faith being a marginal choice to a priority choice. And to be sure, the life of sanctification means that is journey that is still ongoing. The same is true for each of us. In the coming weeks we will dive in and consider with more specific detail what it looks like to embrace a life of faith that makes room as a priority choice.

vs 19 — Joshua tells the people they cannot success in choosing to serve the LORD

Let me make one final observation in this passage. It is curious how Joshua answers the people in a tone that almost sounds like rebuke. The people say to Joshua in verse 18, “we will serve the LORD because he is our God.” And Joshua responds to them in verse 19 by essentially saying, “no you won’t. You think that is what you are choosing, but you’re not actually going to do that.”

book of Judges illustrates this point

God makes a priority choice to keep his faithful covenant even when we fail — Jesus restore us to the covenant

Of course, Joshua is right. The stories of the Old Testament show this. In fact, the whole point of the book of Judges—the very next book in the Bible after Joshua—is to demonstrate the ways in which the Israelites fail miserably at keeping to the choices they promise here in Joshua. Yet, as we move forward in scripture and get to the gospels it becomes clear that it is the priority choice of God towards his people which brings about eternal salvation. The people are unable to perfectly keep a priority choice to live according to God’s standards of righteousness. And every single time God remains faithful to the covenant he has made. God keeps a priority choice on his perfect standard of righteousness. More than that, Jesus comes in our place to perfectly keep the priority choice of righteousness that we could never achieve on our own. Jesus takes our imperfections, our failures, our sins upon himself at the cross. And Jesus gives us the identity of his perfect righteousness to us.

even when I fail to choose loving God, God never fails to choose loving me

The failures of the people to choose God which Joshua points out here in the Old Testament pave the way for the love of God to choose us for perfect redemption and eternal salvation in Christ. The priority choices we make form and shape who we are. But the priority choice God makes holds our eternal security in the grasp of his gracious love forever.