When We Choose

Deuteronomy 30:15–20 ESV

15 “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. 16 If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. 17 But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, 20 loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Life is full of choices. According to multiple sources on the Internet, the average amount of remotely conscious decisions an adult makes each day equals about 35,000. In contrast, young children only make about 3,000 decisions each day. Oh, to be a child again, but we can’t go back, can we?

Fortunately, most of the choices we make don’t greatly affect us or anybody else. It doesn’t really matter what color socks wear, or foods we like. It doesn’t matter whether we choose a ham or turkey sandwich, except, of course, to the pig and turkey.

Embedded in those daily 35,000 decisions, however, are some very important ones. The Bible has a lot to say about important, life changing, destination determining decisions.

Well, as we continue our series on the testing tree, today I want us to look at the issue of “When We Choose?” As we’ve seen over the last few weeks, life is full of tests. The so-called testing tree is often placed in our path. It may pop up in our homes, our work place, in a Walmart parking lot, at the checkout counter at Kroger's, or even in a restaurant.

Whenever and wherever the tree shows up, we are faced with choices. And the choices we make can make all the difference in the world both to us and to those affected by our choices.

Before we look at our text, which is found in , want us to better visualize the testing tree and the good and bad fruit that comes from making good and bad choices in life.

(Set Testing Tree Out)

On one side of the tree are good fruit and on the other side we have bad fruit.

Most, although not all, of the bad fruit that comes our way does so because of the choices we make along life’s journey.

In our text this morning the Jewish people are warned about the choices that lie ahead of them and the consequences of those choices. We also see in our text the key elements that can help us make right choices and the benefits that come with them.

Let’s read

Our text points out some of the choices before us. Let’s look at these choices.

I. The Choices Before Us

God has made us rational creatures. We have the ability to make rational decisions. We can choose between good and evil, truth and falsehood, obedience and disobedience, generosity and greediness, humility or pridefulness, patience or impatience, kindness or hatefulness, life or death, and God or self.

Look at the words of our text. In verse 15 we see the choice between life and death and that of good and evil. We also see in verse 16 that the factor that will determine whether the Israelites choose life and good over death and evil, is that of choosing whether to obey or disobey God’s commandments.

It goes without saying that choosing whether to obey or disobey God is the direct result of choosing whether to love or not love God. Jesus made this clear in His teachings. He said in  & 24, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.

Loving or not loving and obeying and not obeying God are major choices that are made by each one of us. By choosing rightly in the area of love and obedience, we also choose the blessings of God, for the latter part of verse 16 states, “by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.”

But then verses 17 and 18 also warns them about making wrong choices. They read, “But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess.”

The danger of making bad choices is clearly stated, not just here, but throughout the Bible. Bad choices bring about bad consequences for us and others. Bad choices prevents us from being the light of the world and salt to the earth that God has called all Christians to be.

So I ask you, when you choose, when you make those important, life changing, monumental impacting choices, what do you base your choices on? How do you go about making said choices? What factors do you include when making such choices? What do you look at before making these kinds of choices.

The first thing we each need to consider are the key participants involved.

II. The Key Participants

Our choices are not totally our choices. There are often others involved in our choice making processes. In our text we see the Israelites themselves, as well as God who is warning them about the importance of their choices and the consequences of them.

The New Testament sheds further light on who may be involved in our choice making process. The Israelites of the past, and we of the presence, must consider the sinful flesh that is always with us. Our flesh will not seek the long term best for us. It will always focus on the immediate and short term gratification that can be had by bad choices.

The world and hallmark, tell us to listen to our heart and go with our heart. But the Bible tells us, 9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9).

9  The heart is deceitful above all things,

and desperately sick;

who can understand it?

The apostle Paul details the problem we have with the flesh when making choices. He writes in , “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

The apostle Paul details the problem we have with the flesh when making choices. He writes in , “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

Our sinful nature urges us to make the wrong choices. It’s focus is on the short term, in contrast to God’s focus, which is on our long term well being.

In addition to God and our sinful flesh, there’s also Satan, who is God’s and our arch enemy. Peter writes these words of warning, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” ().

And Jesus put it this way, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” ().

Satan works overtime to get us to make bad choices. In my devotional reading from Dr. Charles Stanley’s book, Every Day In His Presence, one from this week reading stresses the way Satan involves himself in our decision making. Dr. Stanley writes, “When we try to make a decision quickly or without asking God for direction, Satan will be right there saying, ‘Go ahead! You’ll be fine! Don’t worry!’ But he conveniently leaves out any mention of consequences. This is because Satan wants you to fail—his ultimate goal is to destroy you.”

We must not be ignorant of the role and the influence Satan plays in our decision making. If we are unaware of his presence and efforts, we will be greatly and disastrously influenced by him.

But how do we reject his influence? How do we go about making the right choices. It begins with making sure we make the right key choice. In other words, we must focus on one main or key or pivotal choice. If we get this one right, the others will simply fall into place.

III. The Key Choice

So what is the key? The Key is to choose God above self and above all other Gods. God tells the Israelites this in our text. He says in verses 15 & 16, “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. 16 If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.”

If we choose to love God and put Him above everything else in our lives, the other choices will fall in place. Loving God means obeying God. It means obeying His commandments, and walking in His ways. It means putting His will above our own. It means living by the truth of God’s Word, instead of the desires of our hearts and the emotions of the moment.

Above all else we are to be people of truth, God’s truth. As Jesus said in His Sermon on the Mount, if we seek Him first all the rest will fall into place,  “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.“ ().

But putting God first and keeping Him first in our lives is not as easy as it sounds. This is easily seen in the marriage and divorce situation occuring in our nation. Let me explain. Prior to any wedding I do, I require 6 premarriage counselling sessions. At the beginning of those sessions I ask the future bride and groom to write down why their marriage will not end up in divorce. I always get similar answers, such as, “We love each other.” “We don’t believe in divorce.” “We’re committed to one another.” I then point out the number of marriages that fail each year and that the vast majority of those couples said the same thing before getting married.

Couples don’t go into marriage not loving one another. They don’t go into marriage expecting to get a divorce. They don’t go into marriage not committed to one another.

And the same is true for believers who accept Christ as their Lord and Savior. They don’t expect to turn their backs on God, or stop loving God, but it happens because just as married couples fail to do the things necessary to keep their love alive for one another, so do we fail to do the things that keep our relationship with God alive and well.

Instead of just being committed to our spouse or dedicated to God, we need to be committed to the key factors that strengthen our relationships with our spouse and our Lord and Savior. It takes work to build and maintain a quality relationship of any kind.

IV. The Key Factors

A relationship is made strong not by will power or self-determination, but by doing the little things faithfully and consistently. In our relationship with God these things are known as spiritual disciplines. If practice these disciplines faithfully, God will stay first in our lives. If we keep God first, we will make right choices when the testing tree shows up.

Each discipline is important. Some are interrelated. While we don’t have time to examine each one fully today, let me share about a few of them, and hopefully, we will look at each of them later on in detail.

The first key factor is the Scriptures. God will never be where he needs to be in our lives unless we give due diligence to Bible.

A. The Bible is an extension of who God is. We can no more keep God first in our lives while neglecting His Word than we could keep our job while neglecting to show up for work. It just doesn’t work that way.

The reading, obeying, memorizing, and mediating on the Word is essential for the Christian life. The Psalmist said, “I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you” (Psalm 119:11).

that I might not sin against you.

B. Another one is Prayer. The line of communication must be open to God at all times. Jesus gave us an example to follow by constantly going to His Father in prayer, sometimes all night long.

Jesus’ prayer life stood out, to such a degree, that His disciples asked him to teach them how to pray. When Jesus needed direction before choosing His twelve disciples, He prayed all night long. When He needed strength before going to the cross, he went apart and prayed several hours by himself.

C. There are many others such as serving, giving, worship, evangelism, fasting, and meditation, but for now let’s close focusing on the one thing that everything else revolves around. Let’s just think about God.

The most important thing in life is God almighty. It’s not our jobs. It’s not our careers, It’s not our political leanings. It’s not whose president of our nation. It’s not our health. It’s not even our family. God is the creator of the universe. God is the sustainer of the universe. God is the center of the universe. But is He the center of your universe?

God is the sustainer of the universe. God is the center of the universe, but is He the center of your universe?

The key to making right choices in life is to first make God the center of your universe. Once we’ve done that all the other pieces fall into place. So I ask you, have you done that?

In case you’re not sure what that means and how to go about it, it means making Christ your Lord and Savior. It means surrendering your will and life to Jesus. It means loving the Lord your God, walking in His ways, and knowing and keeping His Word.

God, walking in His ways, and knowing and keeping His Word.

Conclusion: So “When We Choose?” What’s the key factor in determining our choices? What will determine whether we choose bad or good fruit? What will determine whether we choose blessings over curses, obedience over disobedience, generosity over greediness, humility over pridefulness, patience over impatience, kindness over hatefulness, and life over death.

The answer is simple. Our first and key choice determines all our other choices, and that first choice is simply whether we choose God over self, or self over God. As our text says in verses 17 & 18, “But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods serve them, 18 I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish.

Today would be good day to choose God over self. Today would be a good day to choose Jesus as your Lord and Savior.