Choose Life

Every day, you and I make a lot of choices. You chose what to wear, unless your parents told you what to wear. For my wife, choosing what to wear is a remarkable, complicated process. A lot of times, she's dressed to go someplace, and I'll say, oh, you look nice! And ten minutes later, she has something totally different on you. And I say, wow, that looks really nice! After maybe three changes, she's back to the first change.

Of course, I get to choose what to wear, except if I come out in the suit, and I get asked this question quite often, you're really not going to wear that tie with that suit, are you? And of course, I say, no, no, I was just trying to be like a clown. Okay, I didn't, I'm not going to wear this. No, no, no, this was just to get you to laugh. We decide what to eat every day, and it can be good for us, or it can be bad for us.

We decide how to get along with other people. We usually pick our friends, whether in the neighborhood, at work, at school, at church, we pick our friends. You pick what to do with your spare time. We make all kinds of moral decisions every day, too. All the time, we make moral decisions, even if we're not thinking that it's a moral decision, a decision between right and wrong.

Will I cheat on a test? Will I lie in order to get something I want? At work, will I be willing to be dishonest? Will I work on a Sabbath or do something fun on the Sabbath that I know I shouldn't do, but it's because I really want to do? And then there are many things we don't get to choose. You didn't choose your heredity. I mean, I don't care when I was younger, because now I'm just lucky to walk, but when I was younger, I could train and train and train, and I could not dunk a basketball.

It was impossible. And never was I going to be asked by my friends to sing in one of their rock bands, okay? Even if it was the Rolling Stones, I wasn't even that good. Some of you old enough to know who the Rolling Stones are. So we don't have our abilities, our limitations, and everybody has different abilities, right?

I mean, some of you have abilities in things that – mathematics, or singing, or all these different things – that others don't have. And we don't have our choice in that. We're born with certain abilities, and we're born with certain limitations. We don't get to choose what society we're born into. There are people keeping the Sabbath day the way we do, who love God, who live in countries where they live in absolute poverty. Poverty beyond anything we understand here. Because even the poor in this country has more than some of the middle-class people in other countries.

They're born into poverty. They don't choose that, and yet they can't get out of it. We don't choose our family. I'll ask how many of you would choose a different family if you could, but we won't ask that. We don't choose our physical appearance. My wife still teases me after 45 years of marriage. I was going to marry a tall man. It just comes out of nowhere. I'm not sure whether she's teasing me, or it's something she still regrets. I'm not sure. There's one thing we did not choose, any of us.

We were born into this world. We were not born in Eden. We were born into a world in which our great, great, great, way back parents, because we all had the same parents when you go far enough back, our parents were kicked out of Eden, and Satan became the god of this world.

So all of us were born into a world we did not choose, and we would not choose. I mean, it's a wonderful place in so many ways, and yet underneath of it, it doesn't really work. In the daily lives of the 8 billion people on the face of this earth, much of their lives don't work. It doesn't produce what they want to produce in life. We're going to look at why we are told to choose life or death, and then we're going to spend a lot of time looking at how we choose life or death.

How do we do that? Why? Mr. DeCampo has talked about in his Bible study, and I'm going to sort of pick up. I mean, he laid the foundation where I want to talk about, so I'm going to pick up where he left off and just talk about that a little bit, and then we're going to go into the how. We're born into a world in which human beings were thrown out of the direct presence of God unless He calls them.

The world is outside the direct presence of God unless He chooses them. Now, that doesn't mean God doesn't interact with other people. He interacts with whoever He wants to whenever He wants to. And there's been many people call out to Him that don't even know who He is, and He'll do something for them. But when we get down to this, a personal relationship with God, the shocking truth is, is most people in the world throughout history have not been chosen by God to have a personal relationship.

So He makes a choice. We did not choose to be born into this world. We did not choose to be twisted by this world. We did not choose that Satan is the God of this world and that every single one of us struggle every day because deep inside this nature there's something wrong. Oh, wow. I thought this would be some good sermon, you know, positive sermon. The good news makes no sense until you understand the bad news.

And the bad news that is deep inside every human being, something's horribly wrong. Something doesn't work. Something isn't right. And if you ever spend time alone a little bit and think about it, you know it. You can feel it. It's there. Something isn't right. No, it's not. It's because we were kicked out of Eden and Satan's been the God of this world and every one of us has been affected by that.

We didn't choose to be born here. We didn't choose to be born here. It's dysfunctional. It's a mixture of good and evil, and you can't have a mixture of good and evil. Evil destroys good. Good destroys evil with power. But when you mix good and evil together, you get something that really doesn't work. And all of us are a mixture of good and evil. It's a world that's dysfunctional.

It's wonderful in many ways. I mean, life is still amazing to me. I get up every day and think, they're just amazing things about life. But it wouldn't be near as important to me or real to me if it wasn't for the realization that God is the one who makes it amazing. God is the one who makes it amazing. Because what's sad, and you don't realize it until life goes on, everything you know dies.

First time a pet dies, you figure out what happened, right? What happens? My grandchildren, I say, are you going to die? I don't plan on today. It's not something I'm planning on, but it's going to happen. Sooner or later, I won't be here. But you'll see me again. So we have this choose life or death. And what does that mean? Let's go to Deuteronomy 30. Once again, this was read. It's been mentioned already here in services today. Deuteronomy 30. And I want to read some of the surrounding verses here to put it in context what ancient Israel is being told. Verse 15. See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. And there's the connection. Only good can produce life. Evil eventually produces death.

And you and I are a mixture of good and evil, which means that we continue, we reach a certain point in life and we start to deteriorate. So how does that change?

And then he says to them, verse 16, and that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments, His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. He says to those people, if you will obey me, if you will love me, God says, it's not just about, oh yes, I obey Him because He's going to punish me. No, if you love me and you do what I say, and here's why, He's the creator of everything. He's the creator of life. Only the creator of life knows how life works. The problem is, every one of us, deep inside, think we know how it works. And then we can't figure out why eight billion people are creating chaos all the time.

Because you have eight billion people thinking, I know how it works. And the truth is, only the creator of life knows how it works. And He tells them, you do this and I'm going to put you in this land and I'm going to give you a pleasant life and you're going to have a good life. He even tells them in the next few verses, if you don't do that, you will not have a good life and you will die.

And then verse 19 says, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today, that I accept before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life that you and your descendants may live. And He goes on and talks about it. I'll give you this land. You're going to have a good life.

Okay, choose life. Choose God. Choose His ways. And you have a good life. But there's an automatic dilemma in that, isn't it?

Every day there's something that goes bad in your life. You mourn. You get depressed. You sin.

Okay, if I could just run faster for God, if I could just do everything more perfect, everything in my life could work out to be perfect.

But why do, is it true, that people who keep the Ten Commandments experience a car wreck?

Why are there people who tithe their whole lives, lose a job? I've known people that tithe faithfully all their lives and live in poverty.

How can that be? If they tithe, won't they have lots of blessings? A new house, a new car? Isn't that what God will give to them?

I mean, that's what it says in Deuteronomy. Well, not a new car, maybe a new chariot. How come, okay, you obey the physical health laws, and you end up with some disease, some sickness.

How come a couple who truly love each other, who have been absolutely faithful to God's laws of asexuality, get married, have a baby, and the baby has a birth defect? How can that be true when the promise is, you obey me, you go into the land, and it's going to be good?

The reason why is because that's not the promise God has made to you.

What He gave to ancient Israel is part of what He gave to you, but that's not at the core of what God has given to you.

The promise God has given to you is greater than the promise He gave to them.

It's much greater than the promise He made to them. It still chews life, but what is it that He's offering in that?

Listen to what I have to say. This next statement is really, really important to really understand the promise.

When I say promise, God actually makes a promise to you. When you make a covenant with God, and in baptism, you make a covenant with God. If you're not baptized yet, God is preparing you for that covenant. It's not like you're outside what God is doing. He's preparing you for that covenant. He's saying, I choose you, now you choose me. He's already chosen you. Now the question is, will you choose Him? That's your question.

He's preparing you for that covenant. And that covenant, here's what it's all about.

Christianity isn't about, or just about, God taking mean, bad people and simply making them into nice, good people and giving them physical blessings. That's not the covenant God's offering.

See, sometimes we think, well, how can God, this person here, not be loved by God, and they're a really good person. God loving them is not the issue. Understand that. The question is, are they in a covenant relationship with God? Well, they're a good person. They just happen to be a Hindu. I've met lots of nice people and good people that I can be friends with. That's not the saying as what God is offering you.

His purpose isn't taking bad people and just turning them into good people and then giving them physical things. That's not what God's purpose is. Here's God's purpose. Christianity is about God taking a morally corrupted, hopeless, dying people and changing them to His eternal children in His family. That's the promise.

Now, there's physical things you get along the way, too, but He never promises you not to get sick. He never promises you to have a nice house. He doesn't even promise us a land.

He does promise us the kingdom, which is everything, but we don't get that right away.

There's lots of promises that we have now and in the future.

Choose life. Choose life for you is different than choosing life before going into the physical promised land for the ancient Israel.

Because what He's offering you is so much more.

How many of you were either born in the church or came into the church as a very young child? Raise your hand and keep it up for a minute. Look around. That's a lot of you.

Well, okay. Good. I won't ask you how many of you is life is perfect.

Because if you put up your hand at it, say, well, I'm sorry, you're lying. But I'm obeying God. I'm keeping the Ten Commandments.

Let's go to Mark 10. Mark chapter 10.

This is for all of you that raised your hands.

Mark 10 and verse 17.

What was expected of ancient Israel was to obey the laws of God.

What's expected of those who are called now are to obey the laws of God.

End. End. The promises are greater. The requirements are greater.

The requirements are greater.

Let's look at verse 17.

Jesus said to him, why do you call me good? No one is good but one. That is God. He said, do you realize who I am? I mean, you're saying good. Only God is good.

You know the commandments. Makes sense. You want to be happy in life? You have good things in life? You know the commandments. Do not commit adultery. Do not murder. Do not steal. Do not bear false witness. Do not defraud. Honor your father and your mother.

And he answered and said to him, teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth. Now, the question he asked him wasn't, how can I have a happy life? How can I have a life without problems? That's not the question he asked. He wanted something greater than that.

He's real close to understanding the promises made to those who were followers of Jesus Christ. He's real close to, what do I do for eternal life? Keep the commandments. Well, I've kept all the commandments. Now, you think, well, Jesus said, well, you hypocrite. You haven't kept the commandments. You haven't really done what you should do. That's not what happens here. Because in a very letter of the law sense, he had, this man probably had never worshipped an idol. He had probably never committed adultery. He had never had a lot of people. He had probably never committed adultery in the letter of the law. He probably had never stolen from anyone. He kept the Sabbath his entire life. He was a Jew in Judea. He would have kept the Sabbath his entire life.

So what does Jesus say to him? Because this is what, for those who have kept the commandments your whole lives, this is the next thing you have to understand in what God is promising you.

He says, verse 21, Then Jesus looked, looking at him, loved him. Understand. Jesus loved him. Jesus said, you know, you're not far from it. You're not far, but you're not there.

He loved him and said to him, one thing you lack, go your way, sell whatever you have, and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come take up the cross and follow me. He says, if you really want it, if you really want eternal life, remember what he's asking for. If you want what I can give, only I can give, because the promises made to ancient Israel were not, you go into the land, obey my laws, and you get eternal life. That promise wasn't made to them. He said there would have to be a new covenant that would offer that. And this man says, I want, I want that extra in my life. I keep the Ten Commandments, but there's still something incomplete. He says, okay, get more blessings. Make sure you... right? What was the promises made to them? He says, go sell it all.

You want to understand what the promises are now, what your eternal life is. Give up everything you have to give up in order to be there. That's a little different promise, isn't it? But wait a minute. You said I could have a good house. You said I had lots of food. And you'd say that I have nice clothes, and I would have good crops, and I wouldn't get sick. And he said, give it all up. Give it all up to be where I'll take you. Choose life. Choose life. Not just this life, but something beyond this life that doesn't have the problems this life has. Something beyond the corrupt world we live in. Something beyond the fact that all of us are damaged or damaged because of our own sins or because of other people's sins or because of Satan. Something that heals all that. You want that? Okay. He sells this man. Go sell everything you have.

Wait a minute. I choose life. I don't choose to sell everything I have now. I'm not saying go out and sell everything you have. I'm saying the point he's making to this man. You do not understand. To have eternal life. There is a price that you don't even understand. You kept the commandments in the letter. Of course, he would go on to explain you have to keep them in the Spirit, which is a whole different thing. But also, you have to be willing to pay the price for eternal life. You have to be willing to pay the price for eternal life because there is a price to pay.

And that's why we talk so much about you start obeying. You understand there's God. You understand Christ. You start to obey by keeping the Ten Commandments. But you still don't have a covenant with God. You're justified. You have a relationship with God. God's opened the door for you. But you still don't have a covenant with God. The only way the covenant happens is when you repent, you're baptized, have hands laid on you, and receive God's Spirit.

You are now in a personal covenant with God, and when He promises you, if you stay in this covenant, I will make it happen. If we stay in the covenant, the promise is, I will give you eternal life. I'll make this happen. Mr. DeCampos talked about it in the Bible study.

He all comes down to faith. Sometimes we're not doing well spiritually because we don't believe He can make it happen. God can't do that with me. Even I'm bigger than God. I'm so bad, God can't even work with me. And that's what he said. He says, I will make a covenant with you, and you will repent, and you will receive my Spirit, and I will make it happen if you let me. I mean, He doesn't take away our free will.

God allows us to say, no, I don't want this anymore. But we can fall down and get up a hundred times because He's going to make it happen. Sometimes He drags us, and we're kicking and screaming. Come on, child! We don't want to go. And He's dragging us along. Come on, I will make this happen. This is the promise. Choose life and let God make it happen. The amazing thing is if this makes sense to you, that means God's already choosing you because you and I can't choose God unless He chooses us first. The gulf between us and Him is too great. What are you going to do?

Do you have a ladder high enough to get up into heaven? How do you get there? How do you connect to God? He chooses us, and then we have to choose Him. This is our choice, life or death. Only He can even show us what the choice is. You're here today because He chose you for Him to say to you, I want you to choose life. That's why you're here. I want you to choose life.

Now that's a dilemma because choosing life is okay. I choose it. Now what do I do? And does that mean there's no physical blessings? Well, no, there's physical blessings. Matthew 6, part of the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 6, verse 25. He's talking about choosing here in terms of our physical lives. When Christ is giving the Sermon on the Mount, He's talking about choosing in relationship to our physical lives. Therefore, I say to you, do not worry about your life. What you will eat or what you will drink or about your body, what you will put on, is not life more than food and the body more than clothing.

He's saying, okay, you may not have all the food exactly what you want. You may not have all the clothing exactly what you want. But remember, the promise made to you is not, I give you the land. The promise made to you is, I give you the kingdom of God. They don't even compare. They don't even compare. I give you the kingdom of God. I give you eternal life. This is what I'm offering you. And you know, sometimes you don't get what you want when this is your priorities.

Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor they gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you of much more value than they? Now, once again, we say, well, then when are you going to feed us like birds? The point he's making is, God loves animals. He made them. And God loves us so much more that it's not even comparable. That's not even a comparison. He says, oh yeah, that's a sparrow. A sparrow dies. It's not the same reaction as what a human being does.

You're made in the image of God. But you know what you're like? You're like a statue made in the image of God. Someone came with a hammer and just beat it all up so it didn't even look like the image anymore. You say, what is that? That's us. That's what Satan did to us. That's what the world we were born in did to us. And God says, you still have value to me because you're made in my image.

So his point is, Jesus says, if God loves animals, which He made, yeah, He loves puppy dogs. He laughs when kittens do silly things. He does, just like we do. He likes to see dolphins jumping out of the water. He loves the things He created. But that's nothing compared to us. That's there for us. He says, which of you, by worrying, can add one cubit to his stature?

My God, because He did it. And don't ask me why. I don't know. Well, I do. It says, because you were the small of the world. Right? That's what Paul said. Don't be surprised. Let me tell you why God called you. Because you're really the little of the world. We're the small of the world. And that humility has to always be there with us. God chose us to make us into something, not because we were already there. God didn't choose us because we were already there. He said, well, God can't use me. I'm a failure. Well, welcome to the club. Oh yeah, but I sin. Welcome to the club. Welcome to who we are, chosen by God to come out of this mess, to choose life, to choose life. That's why he says, verse 32, for after these things, the Gentiles, such as the nations. This is what all people seek, right? What's everybody living every day for? More money, more screen time, more...you know, everybody wants something to keep their minds going, to have more things, to have a better car, to have a better job, to do this, to do that. You know, sometimes what we've done, we're addicted to dopamine. We're literally addicted to dopamine. We have to have a jolt of dopamine. I'm affected by that, too. I used to be able to sit and read a book for two hours. Now I get about 45 minutes in, and I find myself turning on YouTube to watch some video, you know, to get my little jolt of dopamine. That's not real healthy sometimes. I guess I stop this. What am I doing? No, it's okay. I mean, dopamine is a natural... It's what makes us feel happy. But if you're addicted to that, you've got to have it all the time, or you're depressed. And so what we do is we actually create an environment which we're addicted to the dopamine rush. And the problem is, changing a baby's diaper at three in the morning does not produce a dopamine rush. But you know what it does? When you're done and you tie it up and she looks at you and smiles, it's like, oh wow, this is great! Okay? But 20 minutes before... It always took me a long time to change a baby's diaper, and she would, the next day, usually re-change it whenever she came in the room because I could never get those things on. But you know, then the baby looks at you and it's like, oh, this is worth it, right? But it's not worth it in the time that you do the work. There's life for you. A lot of what's important in life, the happiness, comes after you do what it takes to get to the happiness. Or you're producing artificial happiness, and that's what screens do to us. It gives us the ability. I mean, some days I will not carry my phone around. Because if I do, here's what I'm doing every five minutes. Goodbye. Bye, Miss Lager. Right? I'm not living life. I'm looking at a screen. So sometimes I just... people say, why didn't you call me? They didn't have my phone with me. I mean, I'll look at it a couple hours later. If it's an emergency, I'll take care of it. Otherwise, I find myself, and you know, come on. A lot of you are doing that all the time. You're addicted to the dopamine rush of the immediate response on that phone. Choose life. That's part of life. There's nothing wrong with a phone. There's nothing wrong with looking at things. There's nothing wrong with texting and sharing with people on social media. That's not the point. Being mentally addicted to it is not good. It's not life.

You are not measured by God by how many friends you have on a social media platform. On YouTube, I have 2700. There you go. It doesn't change my life one bit. In fact, I don't even know who half of them are. That doesn't change our lives. If our value comes from that, we're in real trouble. Our value comes because God chose you and said, Are you tired enough of this mess for me to help you through it, to get you out of it? And it's going to be a long, hard process. Christianity is hard because it's God taking, remember, morally corrupt, hopeless, dying people and turning them into His children to be in His family forever. That is a work of creation that surpasses every other work of creation. Because you and I have to participate in it for it to happen. We participate in what He's doing. That's choosing life. Choosing life is participating in what God's doing. I've seen so many people give up because, well, I'm so evil, or I went back to this sin, or I have that sin. And the point is, okay, you have it. That's because you still have a corrupted human nature. You're in the process, and the process requires something.

So, I'm not trying to say God doesn't give us physical blessings. He does. He's given me lots in life. But you know, there's times you don't have a physical lesson.

And that's not because He's thrown you away. It's because we live in this life in order to get through it to where He's taking us. Now, that makes this life worth living, by the way.

You say, oh, wow, that's sort of sad. I'm 16 years old, and you're telling me I'm just waiting to die so I could be in the kingdom? No, no. This adventure, there's no better way to live life than this. But I'm not going to pretend that it's easy. But you know, it's hard not to live this way.

Here's the choice you have. You either live this messed up life with God, or you live this messed up life without God. There's your choice.

That's your choice.

You live it with God or without God. It doesn't change the fact that you and I were born into a messed up world.

We all were.

And we have to accept that. Let's go to Romans 12, because there are sacrifices you and I make in order to live this life. It is actually a life of sacrifice.

Romans 12, verse 1. You've all heard this before.

In fact, all the scriptures I'm using today, for the most part, you've all heard too many times. We're not careful. They become cliches.

They're cliches.

Romans 12, verse 1. Paul writes, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, because you and I were chosen by God by His mercy, not because He said, well, there's a good one. That's not why. It's by the mercy of God that He comes into our lives.

By the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

That's an oxymoron.

A living sacrifice. How can you be a living, dying thing at the same time?

You are living, and part of you is dying.

And He doesn't mean this is physical death. He means the part that's inside of you that's been developed by living in this world, the part that's inside of each of us that's been developed by Satan, the selfishness, the pride, the pull to do wrong things. That is dying, and it dies every day. You're baptized, and it dies. Nope.

I received God's Spirit. Boy, I was perfect after that.

Or I have people, well, I can't get baptized because I'm not perfect. Well, then you never will be baptized.

We can't obtain perfection except through God's Spirit and a lifetime of sacrifice.

What are we sacrificing?

We're sacrificing ourselves. You present yourself as a living sacrifice.

Choose life as a price. Remember the man that went to Jesus? I keep the Ten Commandments, and it says Jesus loved Him.

By our standards of good and bad, He was a good one.

And He loved Him and said, Good, fine, sell all you have and come follow Me, and He said, The price is too high. I'll just live God's way so I can have a good life.

But it isn't a good life without the future good life.

The future is so much greater that this life is preparing us for that.

And there's a price to be made.

And you have to accept that price if you're ever going to do it.

You become a living sacrifice for God.

And you think, well, what is He sacrificed for me?

Read the book of Matthew.

What did Jesus Christ do for us?

There's no greater sacrifice than that.

He's not asking any of us to give up our divinity, or set aside our divinity, as Paul says, and come down and become a human being in all this mess and live in all this mess. And as it says in John, on that last night before He died, He actually begged God, Please take me home.

This is a bad place to be with all these messy children.

Take me home.

But think of the price He had to pay to go home.

But He didn't have to. He paid the price for us. So we can't argue about any sacrifice that God has us do. Now, I say that, but believe me, I have argued with God about sacrifices He's asked me to do. Oh, come on, God. You wouldn't ask that of me.

Surely not.

I hate to confess, but I've done it.

And then you realize, Wait a minute. Christ did this for you.

So you could be in a relationship with me.

So I could be in your life.

Well, you go out in the world, if you want to, be out there without me. What's different? Not much.

Except you don't get. A lot of the blessings we get from God, from living His way, is in here. It's inside of us. That's where the blessings happen.

And we're missing all those blessings that live in the world.

No amount of money is worth that. No amount of, you know, going out on Friday nights and Saturday nights and getting drunk and having sex with different people. Nothing you can gain from any of that is even beginning to be worth what God does inside of us. What God does inside of us.

And this is what He wants you to choose.

This is what He's offering you to choose.

It's a change in an inner person that happens in a hundred sacrifices a day.

It's a change in who we are in a hundred decisions we make. And you know what? We still make a lot of bad ones.

But when you make a good one, you know it's good. And when you make a bad one, deep in here, you know it's wrong. You know this is not what I'm supposed to do.

And then God says, make some more choices.

And sometimes God does say, that was a bad choice. I'm going to make you pay a price for that one. You know, most of the time He doesn't. You know what God says? That was a bad choice. Oh, is that going to hurt? I'm sorry. Because our bad choices produce bad results by themselves. Because the Maker of the Universe knows what good and bad is. He made this to be good, not evil. So every time we make an evil or bad choice, we end up with a bad consequence.

And sometimes He erases those consequences for us, which we can be thankful for. And sometimes He doesn't.

He says, but I'll help you through it.

Okay, you made a mistake. You made a sin. I will help you through it. Let's get started on this. This is God's viewpoint because He has an endgame.

The covenant He makes with us has a goal that He created that goes way beyond what we can be, or what we can do, or what we can ever achieve.

Way beyond it! Because you and I can't go where He's taking us.

How do you get there? How do you resurrect yourself?

How do you cleanse the fact that sometimes you feel so dirty because of your sins, or bad because of your sins? How do you receive forgiveness? Only He can give that to us. How can we receive healing from the damage? Maybe because you were born, what, in a bad world, right? Because of friends? Maybe your family? Wherever you were born, the way other people treated you. And so you got scars. How do you heal from that, God?

Because they have them overnight.

It's a lifetime of decisions. A lifetime of decisions every day. It's a lifetime of sacrifices every single day. As verse 2 says, in Romans 12, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove was the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

He says, at doing this transformation and making these decisions, you'll start to get more and more sensitive to what is right and more and more sort of rejecting what is bad.

Which is not natural for us, but that will happen as time goes on.

It is not conversion is an event. Conversion is a process.

And once you enter it, God says, I'll get you there. Son, daughter, I'll get you there. All you have to do is hang on. But it's not going to be easy.

Because you have to make decisions all the time. Maybe you choose not to lie and you sacrifice a friend.

Maybe you choose not to do something where you work. And you know if you do, you can get a promotion and make a whole lot more money. And you do what is right and you get fired. I've seen that happen to people.

Maybe you do so much to try to take care of your health and then find out you have cancer. And now you have to decide, do I trust God? It always comes down. Everything is a decision. And they happen a hundred times a day. And it's in those sacrifices that this happens.

This is what Christianity really is. It's more than just deciding not the sin. Obviously we have to decide not the sin.

But it's because we are replacing that through God's help and God's Spirit. We're replacing those sins with virtue.

Remember what Jesus said?

You hear that it's wrong to murder. I'm telling you it's wrong to hate somebody and want them murdered. Want them hurt. So every time you choose, when someone does something bad to you and you choose not to hate them and you sacrifice, because you know what? Hating them is natural. You have to sacrifice a piece of yourself not to hate them. When you sacrifice a piece of yourself not to hate them, you're one step closer. You're choosing life. You're choosing life.

He says it's wrong not only to commit adultery, but to commit adultery in your mind. I listen to a Jewish man who's well versed in Jewish religion. He's a Jew, a practicing Jew. He recently said Jews don't believe that in modern Judaism. He said because adultery is an actual act. It can't happen in your mind. He said Jesus didn't teach what Judaism teaches. No, he didn't.

He's not talking about possessing a physical land.

He's talking about the kingdom of God.

And he says, so you cannot only act as wrong, but when you fantasize about somebody else. That's what makes pornography so wrong. That's why it's such a struggle for so many people. But that struggle has to go on and on until it's gone because that's what God requires of you. That must be sacrificed from your life.

I don't care what sin is you're struggling with. Hatred, envy, gossip, you know, they're all the same thing. It's a struggle to sacrifice yourself. That God wants you. He's going to help you sacrifice. So that you become something very, very special.

You know, I've heard people say, well, I wish God wouldn't have called me now. So I could just sort of have fun and then call me later.

That's because you don't understand. You don't understand the consequences of all your bad choices. Your bad choices pile up and pile up and pile up.

I've been with numerous men in prison who talked about how one simple crime led to another crime led to another crime. Each one, they think, every time they commit a crime, they're getting more freedom. I had more money. I had better clothes. I had a nice car. I'm getting more and more freedom. And not realizing every crime they committed took away freedom. And one day they're in a little cell by themselves with no windows.

And a minister's coming in to sit down and talk to them. And they're in there for 20 years.

They have no freedom at all.

None whatsoever.

When they're out of their cell, they can't even go to the bathroom without permission.

Sin leads us to lose all freedom. We just don't know it until we've lost it. So God has called you to make these daily sacrifices, to learn virtue.

Keeping the Tearings from Ammon is just your first step.

And the promises, though, are so much greater.

What does the Great Promise actually mean?

What does the Great Promise actually mean?

1 John 3. Now, this was read in the Bible study, and I was glad it was, because I think we can't stress this enough this weekend.

Your Christianity is based on what God is doing and taking, morally corrupt by very nature, hopeless, dying people, which is what every one of us is.

He's changing us and to His children to be in His family forever. That's what He's doing.

That's why sometimes we get upset with, why God do you let me suffer so much now?

I don't understand. I go to God many times. Especially, I see other people suffering. Why do you allow that much suffering? And the only conclusion I can come to, why do you see with what I've done?

Why do you see what I do with that person when I'm finished? Why do you see who they become? Why do you see them in my kingdom? Just wait.

1. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God.

Therefore, the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Bottom line is, the closer we are to God, the more you're always out of step.

That doesn't mean you don't have friends outside the church. You may have good jobs outside the church, your neighbor's family. But, the closer you are to God, the more an outlier you are.

You're always an outlier in this. You're not quite part of it.

And you know that inside. I'm not quite part of it.

2. Beloved, now we are the children of God. I want you to stop and think about that. If God chooses you and you say, Yes, I choose to follow, please help me, please love me, please forgive me, please do what I cannot do, because you and I can't do this. He says, Now you are my children.

No, no, it's not. When Jesus comes back, and there's a resurrection, we become the children of God. Yes, but in relationship, you are now the children of God.

Do you realize that? You are now the children of God. That's who you are. Now, you say, Well, I don't see myself that way. But you know who does? The Almighty God.

The Almighty God says, I chose you, choose me, and come here, child. Here's what happens. We go before God, and you say, Oh, no, I failed again. I haven't been praying. I didn't keep the Sabbath right. I stole something. I told a lie. I can't go before God because He'll punish me. Here's what happens. You go before God, very, very torn up for what you've done.

And Jesus Christ, who acts as intercessors, sort of like a big plague that we can see going on, says, Come here, child.

Jesus Christ presents you to the Father. That's what He says He does.

This child's messed up. This child has a problem. And here's what God says. Come here, child.

Do you realize that? The creator of the universe, because of this relationship, because He chose you, when you choose Him, He looks at you and says, Oh, you're a mess. Come here, child. We're going to have to be playing in the sewer. We're going to have to hose you down.

Yeah, I had a boy. I had him.

We're going to have to hose you down.

He doesn't say, I'm going to throw you away. He paid too much for us. He only throws us away when we reject Him. I don't want this anymore. I don't want what you're offering me. I like Satan and the world better. Then He'll let us go. He loves us too much to keep us. That's what I don't understand. He'll let us destroy ourselves instead of taking away our self-will.

He won't force on us, but we don't want. But boy, will He beat us up to try to get us there. He'll do everything He can without taking away our self-will to try to get us there. It will follow. So you are now the children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be. But we know that when He is revealed, when Jesus Christ comes back, that we shall be like Him, and we shall see Him as He is.

I don't know what that means. I'm looking forward to it, but it scares me a little bit.

This is the promise. It's not the Promised Land. It's not cars and stuff. It's not that you're just going to have everything you want. It's not the promise made to ancient Israel. This makes that one look like nothing.

We are now His children, and when Christ comes back to establish that family, we can be resurrected and see Him as He is, and be part of that.

That should keep us focused, because the next verse says, And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself just as He is pure. In other words, you're sacrificing every day.

Some of the sacrifices hurt. Some of the sacrifices cost us a lot. But we never want to be like the man who said to Jesus, I can't follow you. I have to give up too many physical things.

I like life. The Ten Commandments give me a good life. I like that. But that's not enough for what He's promising us.

It's not enough for the Kingdom of God. It's not enough to be the family of God. It's sacrificing ourselves to be changed into His children.

God sets before you this day a choice.

Choose the goodness of God, not what we think is goodness.

Choose the forgiveness of God through Jesus Christ.

Choose His virtue. Yes, obey, so we're not sinning, but choose His virtue that is now presented in our lives.

We're not worried about stealing. We're being generous to others.

That's a virtue.

That His virtue is being developed in us. That's the spirit of the law. And the spirit of law is being developed in us. And you won't break the letter of the law if you're keeping the spirit of the law.

You'll be keeping the letter of the law.

Look forward to Christ's return as the ultimate goal in your life.

Today, choose life.