Choose Life ...

13th Sunday of Pentecost 
September 4, 2022
Fr. Phil Eberhart

 

Choose Life!

We hear a lot these days about “choice” don’t we?  We, here in the west, put a high value on our own ‘sovereignty.’  Personal sovereignty.  It’s my life … it’s my choice.  Literally anything is justified as being ok… even good … if it’s ‘My choice!”

 

Let’s talk about choosing this morning.

 

Our scriptures this morning are about choosing.  The very first words this morning set out the choices! I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. That is the basis of every choice we have in life.  Our big problem is knowing the difference, it seems!  We live in a culture that has started to fly upside down… at night!  We’ve lost our orientation to the horizon and where we are in relation to the ground.  It’s really easy to crash the plane that way!

 

So let’s talk about “orientation” for a moment.

 

Orientation is defined as a person or objects relative position related to its surroundings.  Orientation can relate to the compass:  North / South / East / West.  Orientation can relate to altitude, to latitude & longitude (its position on the globe).

Of course I’m talking about our physical space – the direction we’re headed or the position we occupy in space.  Orientation has taken on a much wider meaning than just spacial meanings today as well.  It has emotional meanings, even sexual meanings today.

 

Orientation begins to really matter to us at the moment that we realize that we have lost our way!  If you are flying upside down at night, and you don’t know it, you are in danger of pulling “UP” and flying into the ground!!  So orientation is pretty important!

 

Like I said earlier, our culture today is “flying upside down at night!”  It’s a culture that, how does the Bible put it?  “Calls evil good and good evil.”   Flying upside down, at night!

 

So how do we re-orient our life?  “Choose you this day,” God says.  Life and good … or … death and evil.  So how do we know and see the choices … the real choices… that are before us?

 

Life and death – good and evil.  Light and dark.  Ying and yang.  John warns us in his gospel that we have a leaning toward “loving the dark.”  But he also says that the dark will never overcome the light!  Have you ever done the experiment?  Open the closet door and see if the dark falls out?  No!  Why not?  Because the light always rushes in!  Never fails.  Darkness never wins!

 

So how do we switch on the light?  What is the source of the light in our lives?  Anyone know?  Psalm 119:105.  Can someone tell me what it says.

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” 

So the source material for our orientation should be the source of light in our life.  The basis for orienteering is my relationship with the light (the sun) and the direction of my movement.  It’s true in our spiritual life as well.  The basis for orienteering my life is my relationship with the LIGHT * THE SON – and the direction of my movement (OBEDIENCE.)

 

OK.  There it is … the “O” word!  The very next words in our scripture reading from Deuteronomy were “IF YOU OBEY.”

Not our favorite “three little words.”  Something about the “O” word that causes us to…  ya know? 

Obey, Obey, Obey!

We just get our back up!

Why is following God’s rules so hard for us?

 

We have a heart problem.  And we’re “hard of hearing.” 

At the other end of the Bible, John again, at the end of his life, sends these words from Jesus to the Church at Laodicea:

¹⁷ For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

Flying upside down … at night!

 

What’s the answer?  Let’s look at our other scriptures this morning:

1 Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly,* nor stood in the way of sinners, and has not sat in the seat of the scornful;

2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord, * and on his law will he meditate day and night.

 

Paul tells Philemon he is “confident of his obedience…”

Jesus tells us:  “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”

 

Friends, our orientation is determined by our relationship to the SON and our direction in OBEDIENCE to His Word.  We call it a Biblical Worldview.

David reminds us in verse 2 of Psalm 1: “But his delight is in the law of the Lord, * and on his law will he meditate day and night.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

Show me your hand.  Hold it up!

Hear … Read … Mark … Learn … and Inwardly Digest.

 

C.H. Spurgeon comments that these disciplines are like cutting the wheat, grinding the wheat into flour, kneading it into dough and baking the bread but that meditation is sitting down and eating the meal!

It is clear throughout the Scriptures that the one who obeys the Word is “blessed in His/Her doing.”  James lays it out pretty clearly for us:

²² But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. ²³ For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. ²⁴ For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. ²⁵ But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

 

Obedience is the basis of blessing.  From Deuteronomy, actually from Genesis, to Revelation!  From beginning to end the basis of our getting oriented rightly in our life has been a relationship of obedience to God, through His Word.

 

John gave the invitation to the Laodiceans from Jesus:

¹⁹ Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. ²⁰ Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

 

 

Let’s pray together:

O most loving Father, by your mercy you put away the sins of those who truly repent, and remember their sins no more. Restore and renew in us, your servants, whatever has been corrupted by the fraud and malice of the devil, or by our own selfish will and weakness. Preserve and protect us within the fellowship of the Church; hear our prayers and relieve our pain; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

Show favor to your people, O Lord, who turn to you in weeping, fasting, and prayer. For you are a merciful God, full of compassion, long-suffering, and abounding in steadfast love. You spare when we deserve punishment, and in your wrath you remember mercy. Spare your people, good Lord, spare us; in the multitude of your mercies, look upon us and forgive us; through the merits and mediation of your blessed Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

And join me in our opening collect from your bulletin:

O Lord God, grant your people grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow you, the only God; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.