Life has\nbeen described by many as a series of choices. That’s partly true. Obviously\nthere are times when our lives are impacted by things we don’t choose. We can\nbe sitting at a red light, and someone can slam into our car. We have little\nchoice about the consequences of that. Sometimes disease impacts our body, and\nwe have little choice about those consequences. But when it comes to the\nresponsibility that we have to live life and to do what life asks us to do,\nit’s probably true to say that life is a series of choices. When we’re younger,\noften those choices are made for us. Our parents tell us when to go to bed and\nwhat to eat and what to wear. They decide how we will be educated and how we\nwill live. They also decide how they will motivate us to do those things.\nBut the older we get, the more choices that are placed before us, and every day\nwe are faced with a myriad of decisions. We also recognize that as we make those\nchoices, we often make the same decision time after time until it becomes\na habit. Whether they’re habitual or spur of\nthe moment decisions, we often live with consequences.<\/p>\n\n
Some time\nago I decided I would live by the fact that the early bird catches the worm. If\nyou really want to get ahead in life, you’d better be prepared, and you’d\nbetter do it ahead of time. That makes it somewhat difficult when you’re a\npastor invited to a church supper. You’re not supposed to go to the head of the\nline; you’re supposed to show humility. But I recognize that if I wait for the\nback of the line, all that’s left is green bean casserole. The early bird\ncatches the worm, and therefore I like to edge my way as close as I can to the\nfront.<\/p>\n\n
There are\nsome benefits to being first. If you can get to the front of the line, you can get the chicken\nbefore everyone else takes it. But there are also some problems. You tend to be\nexcessive and compulsive. People get frustrated with you. And\nsometimes when you’ve decided to do something, something else comes along later\nand you can’t do it. But that’s a decision you’ve made. We all live with those\ndecisions. Sometimes the decisions we make are good decisions, and we live life\nwell. Other times the decisions we make are not good, and we live life poorly. One\nof the problems counselors face is that often as they talk to people who are hurting, they begin to \nrealize those people had made poor decision after poor decision. That’s why I want to talk about one of the most fundamental\ndecisions we have to make. In fact we’re faced with this decision day after\nday.<\/p>\n\n
To see what\nthis decision is, I would like us to look at a very familiar Bible story. If\nyou’ve been raised in Sunday school all of your life, you will have heard at\nleast the first half of this story. In fact, that’s the problem. Often we\nknow only the first part but fail to see that this story was put together to\ngive us a contrast of an old man, who had made some poor decisions and lived\nwith the consequences, with a boy who had made some good decisions. As a\nresult, the old man lived with the consequences. The old man, of course, was\nEli. He was elderly and going blind, but he was a priest in the tabernacle. The\nyoung boy was Samuel, and Samuel loved this man who had become a father to him. One night as they were sleeping, Samuel heard someone call,\nso he ran to Eli and said, “Eli, I’m here. What can I do for you?” The older man replied, “It’s not I who called.” Three times this\nhappened, and finally Eli realized that it was God calling Samuel. He instructed, “Samuel, the next time you hear that voice, you say, ‘Lord,\nspeak, for your servant listens.’ “<\/p>\n
Samuel hears a message that’s very unpleasant. The\nman he loves and respects is a man under God’s judgment.<\/p>\n\n
Eli was a\npriest. He knew God’s word. He knew God’s instructions. He knew as a priest\nwhat he was supposed to do, and had probably always done it.\nNow his two sons were taking over the priestly role. Those\nof us who are parents can perhaps identify with Eli. You recognize that there\nare some things children do wrong over and over again. You get tired of correcting. You get tired\nof trying to change them, and finally you give up. Apparently, that’s what Eli had\ndone with his sons, since they were taking home and eating meat that\nshould have been burned to the Lord. Finally, Eli\napparently said, “I’ve had enough, boys. Go ahead and do what you’re going\nto do.” Also recognize Eli had a lot invested. His sons were taking\nover his position. We have seen this in businesses and ministries, where a father has built a great empire or had a great ministry, and he appoints\nhis sons to take his place, whether they’re ready or not. Eli could\nnot bring himself to say to his boys, “Sons, you must find another career.\nI will appoint someone else to take your place.” Because Eli failed to take the Word of God seriously and obey it, even though it would cost his sons’ careers, God was going to\njudge him.<\/p>\n\n
That’s the\nchoice we have every day: to obey God’s Word and honor it, or to be like Eli and\ndisobey. God says if we don’t honor his Word, there’s judgment. That’s the\nconsequence of an unwise choice. Perhaps we face the same problem that Eli\nfaced as a father. The world says to us today, “We must listen and hear\nabout children’s rights. We must learn about the ego of the\nchild. And we must be careful that we don’t damage the psyche.” Sometimes there is truth in what the world says, but often the world’s instructions defy what the Bible teaches. The Bible essentially says a child is a fool, and the parent is charged with making a child wise. The only way you can produce wisdom in a fool is to\nbring discipline. Children are fools. You can sit down before them a nice, warm\nplate of vegetables and a dish of chocolate ice cream, and they eat the ice cream. You can say to children, “Go outside and\nplay,” and generally they’ll play in the street rather than the back yard,\nbecause they’re not wise. God says we have a choice to make as parents, either to\ndiscipline the foolishness out of them or to be concerned about children’s\nrights and and ego.<\/p>\n\n
I’m not talking about child abuse or about being so negative and\npessimistic that the child grows up with a distorted view of not only his\nparents but of God. I am saying this: Children can not be allowed to manipulate their parents. If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, spend a\nSaturday afternoon in the mall, and you will realize the guards have lost control in\nthe asylum. The children know how to throw tantrums and get parents to\ndo what they want them to do. The problem is, sometimes the halls in the mall\nare no different than the halls in our churches. Because we’re concerned about\nour children, God says we have a choice to make: Do we honor the Word of God\nand do what it says? If we don’t, we’ll face judgment. One of the things I’ve\ncome to learn—since my son is now 6′ 4″ and outweighs me—is that the only control I have over him is the control I\nestablished when he was three, five, seven, eight, and nine. If we decide\nto choose what the world says about raising our children as opposed to what the\nWord of God says, we can live with the same kind of judgment Eli had.<\/p>\n\n
Another example of what the world tells us is that we need to advance; we\nneed to be better; we need to have more. Though it is good to achieve things in this life, God also says that we’re to be\ncontent with whatever we have. The world says, “We deserve more. We\ndeserve breaks. Don’t be content.” For a number of\nyears I drove a ’72 Plymouth Duster. In 1972, a Duster was a good car. But in\n1982, ’85, ’86, it was not the best kind of car to drive. When you pull into\nsomeone’s driveway for a party, and all around you are brand new\nBuicks and Chevrolets and sometimes even a Porsche or a BMW, it’s like\nyour car lights up and says, “Loser. Loser. Loser.” And when your kids\nsay, “Dad, I don’t want to ride with you. I’ll take the bus,” you\nknow the car says, “Loser. Loser. Loser.” The world comes along and says,\n“You can have more. You can have better.” But the Word of God says, “Be content.”<\/p>\n\n
We’re faced\nwith a decision. Most of us decide not to believe the Word of God. We believe\nit’s not the best way to live. We do it in our marriages. The\nBible says, “Husbands, love your wives. Wives, submit to your husbands.\nCare for one another.” We men don’t look at marriage that way. Marriage is another contract. It’s another business deal. It’s\nanother mountain to climb. It’s another goal to reach. My wife says to me,\n“You know before we were married, you were so patient.” Yeah, I was\npatient. I had a goal. I had to woo this girl. I had to get her to like me. I\nhad to get her engaged to me. I had to convince her parents to let her marry\nme. And once we got married it was time to get on with life! I have a career to build. A wife looks at marriage and assumes that six months or a year after her\nwedding, her husband will still come gliding into the house after work,\nsweep her off her feet, and kiss her passionately. But soon she starts to think, That’s not the way it\nis. He’s got other things to do. He doesn’t care about me.<\/em> So she chooses not to obey the Word of God. She says instead, “I’m\ngoing to find my fulfillment in my friends. I’ll find it in work. I’ll find it\nin the children.” The Bible says, “Husbands, love your wives.\nWives, submit to your husbands. Care for one another.” We say, “I\ndon’t want to live that way. I don’t want to make that choice.” God says:\nFine. I’ll let you live with the consequences. We wonder why there\nare so many divorces even among Christians. We wonder why married people live\nas singles under the same roof—why there’s arguing and fighting and straining.\nIt’s because people choose not to obey the Word of God. God said to Eli,\n“You don’t honor me; you can live with the consequences. You don’t honor\nmy word; I will judge you.”<\/p>\n A man had served God almost 90 years, yet God said, “Because you\nhave chosen not to honor my word, there’s judgment.” Samuel is also faced with a difficult decision. Verse 15: “Samuel lay down until morning and then opened the\ndoors of the house of the Lord. He was afraid to tell Eli the vision.” It\ndoesn’t take much imagination to wonder why Samuel was afraid.<\/p>\n\n When I was at college, I had the responsibility of calling a man in and saying,\n“You haven’t been fulfilling your task. We’re going to have to let you\ngo.” It was my responsibility to bring bad news—news that would impact a\ncareer and a family, news that would in essence said to this man, “You have failed in this task.” That responsibility was a very difficult one for me. I think for Samuel it was far worse. Here was the man who had loved him and mentored him and cared for him. Now\nGod said, “Samuel, take this message to Eli. Tell him I will judge him. In\nthe process he and his sons will be killed.” It’s no wonder Samuel was\nafraid. But notice what Eli commanded Samuel in vrse 17: “‘May God deal with you, be it ever so severely, if you hide from me anything he told you.’ So Samuel told him everything, hiding nothing from him. Then Eli said, ‘He is the Lord; let him do what is good in his eyes.'”\nNotice what the writer says immediately: “The Lord was with\nSamuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground. And all\nIsrael from Dan to Beersheba recognized that Samuel was attested as a prophet\nof the Lord. The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh. And there he revealed\nhimself to Samuel through his word. And Samuel’s word came to all Israel. <\/p>\n\n Samuel\nhonored what God asked him to do: he delivered a horrible message to\nEli. Because Samuel honored God’s word and chose a tough path, God\nsaid: I’ll honor you, Samuel. I’ll make you a great prophet. I’ll make\nyou a great leader. <\/p>\n\n When we honor\nGod’s word, he sees fit to honor us. Most of us don’t believe that. I look at\nthose instructive passages in Scripture: Don’t put yourself first. Don’t\neven put your family first, neither husband or wife or mother or child or son\nor daughter. Put me first. I say, “God, if I put you first,\nthat’s going to cost. That’s going to bring suffering.” But when we honor God, he will honor us.<\/p>\n\n There are many people involved in ministry at many different churches. Those people may be just like you. They\nhave diseases, they have pains, but there’s one thing they have that many\nChristians don’t have: a sense of fulfillment—a sense that they can do\nsomething eternal in people’s lives. Sports heroes are\nforgotten in a few short years. Movie stars are forgotten in a few months.\nPoliticians are forgotten as soon as they resign from the campaign. But we can\ndo something that lasts for eternity. We need to realize that ministry\nis required of us by God, but it is also that which gives us fulfillment, happiness, and peace, because we’re no longer focusing on ourselves.<\/p>\n\n We often\ntalk about the personal disciplines of the Christian life. Sometimes I feel like I don’t even have\ntime to read the paper, let alone the Bible. Prayer can also be difficult when we’d rather not take the time to be still before God. Giving? I look at the thousands of\ndollars that go through my checkbook every year and I say, “God, I can’t\nafford to give you this.” Such activities are disciplines. They’ve got\nto be cultivated; they’ve got to be developed; they don’t happen overnight. But\nif you do them and take God’s Word seriously, he will honor you. Does that mean you’ll get wealthy? Does that mean\nGod will necessarily put your marriage back together? No. Maybe you’ve had the\nexperience of your employer giving you a task to do, and you’ve worked hard at\nit, you’ve put in overtime, you’ve spent long hours. Finally you bring it in,\nand your employer says, “Good job. Well done.” Inside you feel good,\nbecause you not only did good work, but you also labored hard to do it. God\nsays that when we come to him—when we spend that time each day in prayer and\nreading the Word, when we share the gospel when we have the opportunity and\nwe’re faithful in our giving, at the end of a day we feel a deeper peace. You feel that feeling only God can give. He says, “If you honor\nmy Word, I will honor you.”<\/p>\n\n When I was\ngetting my driver’s license, my father tried to give a short lecture on car\nmaintenance. He said one sentence that still bugs me: “There’s one gauge\nyou never have to worry about—the fuel gauge. If you run out of fuel, the car\nstops.” That bugs me, because I’m so obsessive compulsive that it’s\nthe only gauge I’m going to watch! I can’t let it get past half. It seems\nstupid to me to run out of gas. And yet my\nfather said it’s the one you don’t have to watch. Why? What he meant\nwas that if you run out of oil, you’re in deep trouble. If you run out of water,\nyou’re in deep trouble. I had a decision to make as to \nwhether I would listen to my father or not. My first car was a ’51 Studebaker, twenty miles\nto the quart. I decided never to worry about anything except the gas gauge.\nThat’s probably why, a year later as I was going down the freeway, the back\nwheels locked. They never did come unlocked again. I hadn’t honored my father’s words; I didn’t choose wisely, and I had to live with the consequences. But that ’72 Duster\nwent 186,000 miles, because I changed the oil, and I changed the water, and I\ntook care of it.<\/p>\n\n God’s Word\nsays, “My words are true.” You and I have the decision either to do\nwhat they say or not—every day. Our decision will affect how we raise our children, relate\nto our spouse, deal with our checkbook, relate to our employer. Every day we are faced with a series of choices. If we obey God’s word and honor it, he will honor us, and we can avoid the consequences of living under his judgment.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[306],"tax_ctp_authors":[2645],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[170],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_sermon_series":[],"tax_ctp_tags":[3572,3592,3661,3677,3746,3802,3817,4482,4552,4596,4893,5199,5202,5277,5291],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-33563","sermons","type-sermons","status-publish","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-paul-borden","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-choice","tax_ctp_tags-christian-life","tax_ctp_tags-conduct","tax_ctp_tags-consequences-of-sin","tax_ctp_tags-decision","tax_ctp_tags-disobedience","tax_ctp_tags-divine-judgment","tax_ctp_tags-mistakes","tax_ctp_tags-obedience","tax_ctp_tags-parenting","tax_ctp_tags-scripture","tax_ctp_tags-truth","tax_ctp_tags-unbelief","tax_ctp_tags-will-of-god","tax_ctp_tags-word-of-god"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"\nGod blesses\nus when we are willing to pay the price and honor his Word.<\/h2>\n\n