Back to your Future!!!
Choices 2
gregg barbour. JAM. 8.31.03
Let’s say you wake up tomorrow and there’s a time machine sitting in your driveway!!! Doctor Emmit Brown jumps out of the 1985 DeLorean and says, “(insert name here), you’ve got to come back with me!!!” Back to the Future! Wow! You’ve got every opportunity you’ve ever dreamed of to look and see what your life will turn out like, and you can even go back in time and make up for the stupid things you did when you were in elementary school, or those times when you made your sister eat your toenails because she made you eat a booger. You have every opportunity to make it so you NEVER ate that booger, but she still ate your toenails. Or, how about that time when you got caught cheating on a spelling test and got sent to the principal’s office? OH yeah…you can go back and study all you need to so that you can ace that thing WITHOUT cheating! Ok…so what do you do? Do you wanna see your past or do you want to see your future? Will you be popular in high school? What will college be like? Who will you marry? Somebody in here maybe? What will you be when you grow up? What kind of trouble will you get into? Your future has a LOT to show you, and your brand new time machine can really help you out. Just hop in, sit right back, and take the ride of your life to find out everything you want to know about yourself.
Let’s see just how far we can get into the future without a 1985 DeLorean Time Machine. Believe it or not, God has a lot to say about your future. Jeremiah 29:11. Somebody read it! The Message says, “I know what I’m doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.” OK, how about that?!? God says he has everything planned out and it’s going to be what you hoped for! How’s He know that? He’s God…He created you. Let’s look at Psalm 139:16. NLT says, “you saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.” The days of your life were prepared before you’d even lived one day. Man…God knows every single detail about your life, in fact, he’s planned it all out. Let’s look at a clip and try to open our eyes a bit. (BTTF 3 clip)
There is some truth to this movie clip…Doc said that your future hasn’t been written, but God says He’s already written it. The truth that we can learn from this movie is that what we do today determines how our future will turn out. Your future IS what you make it. The choices and decisions we make today will affect how our lives will be in the future. Last week, almost all of you made a decision to choose life, and to practice the power of positive speaking. How are you doing with that? The only way to be sure that your future is what you want it to be is by continuing to choose life, and by making the right choices today!
Let’s try something really quick…I need one volunteer. (Have the volunteer wear a blindfold, spin him around, and try to make his/her way to the back of the room without stepping on anyone. Some of the students are going to give you positive advice, while others are going to give you negative advice. Good luck.) Good job! It’s hard to know what decisions to make when we’ve got all these voices telling us what to do, isn’t it? That’s why it’s extremely important to listen to God while we’re searching for His purpose. The Bible says that God is not the author of confusion…which is helpful to know because we’ve got to stay away from those voices that lead us to places where we’re confused. A lot of times you’ll be confused anyway, but for me…I always know that God’s given me the answer by the peace that I feel. Philippians 4: 6-8 says, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” So, what can we take from this? We can learn to hear God’s voice and where He’s leading us into our future, but we’ve got to trust him to help us make the right choices. This is a sure fire way to make sure all your choices and decisions are in your best interest and glorifying to God. 2 Corinthians 7:1, “Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.” The Message says, “With promises like this to pull us on, dear friends, let’s make a clean break with everything that defiles or distracts us, both within and without. Let’s make our entire lives fit and holy temples for the worship of God.” The best way to make sure we make the right choices is to ask one question before we actually do stuff. You’ve all seen the “What Would Jesus Do?” bracelets, and many of us have them…but here’s a new question…”Is it Holy?” You may say, OK, so how do I know if something’s holy or not. The word holy literally means, “set apart, or separate, sacred, divine, blessed, unprofaned, clean, morally pure, and dedicated to sacred purposes.” If something is holy, then it brings glory to God. So, when we ask the question, “is it holy?”, we’re really wondering if what we’re about to do will bring glory to God. Should I listen to music that talks about sex and how life stinks b/c my wife ran off with my brother’s sister-in-law and she took the dog and the john deere tractor? I don’t know…let’s see..Is it holy? Does it bring glory to God? Nope…Ok…let’s make another decision. My best friend just offered me a cigarette. Should I light it up and take a puff? Hmmm…is it holy? The Bible says that your body is a temple of the holy spirit…because if you’re a Christian, the Holy Spirit lives in you…so is it holy? Nope…it wrecks my body! Alright, should I look at dirty pictures on the internet? Is it holy? NO! Should I beat up little Bobby and take his lunch money? Is it Holy? Nope…God wouldn’t want me to do that.
(check time, optional story) I remember the first episode of a reality dating tv show called “meet my folks” In this show the parents choose the girl for the guy to date by eliminating certain girls based on facts from their past and who they pretend to be. During this episode, this guy chose one of the girls for a one on one date. He took her out by the fire, roasted some marshmallows, made some s’mores, and then they started doing a little smooching…everybody say, “that’s gross!” meanwhile, the parents who were fast asleep received a fax that says, if you want to check up on your son, turn on your tv. They had a camera showing everything the kid was up to. They saw their son kissing on one of the girls, so they hoped out of bed and the mother ran out there screaming, “Parent Alert!” That guy got so upset and he honestly could have avoided all the humiliation and embarrassment if had had asked one single question…was what he was about to do holy? You see, that single moment had an effect on his future. He didn’t know it was coming, but it came. His parents got upset and found out that he wasn’t little Mr. Innocent. Let’s face it…God’s got us on his big heaven screen watching our every moves…he wants us to make the right decisions everyday. We should be living our lives with the sole intent to perfect holiness and bring glory to God. Ephesians 1:11 says, “It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we’re living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone.” You were created to bring glory to God, and the best way to do that is by obeying Him, and making decisions that keep that purpose in mind. Asking the question, “is it holy?” will help you be certain that your future will be everything you hoped for and more. Let’s concentrate on making decisions that glorify God, and give us a future that holds no regrets. From this moment on, you can choose to live a life that doesn’t have to keep saying, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.” (invitation song, close)
