TITLE: CHOOSE WISELY
TEXT: I SAMUEL 7:13
INTRO: Our lives are filled with choices. We make hundreds every day. Just this morning we decided to:
- Get up or stay in bed
- Eat or skip breakfast
- What to wear
- Where to go
- Which service to attend
- Most have decided where we are going after service
- On & on goes our life and with every part of it we make choices
- Some good some bad
- Some right some wrong
God sets choices before us regularly. And the decisions that we make will determine if we are blessed /anointed / or experience victory.
- Ill. Indian Jones had to chose wisely
Deu 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life,
It is up to us to choose God’s blessing, or cursing, Eternal life or eternal death. He gives us the answer key so that we can choose wisely.
Now lets look at our text again. Every promise of God is conditional and contains that little big IF.
- Israel had declined spiritually
- They had suffered defeat at the hands of their enemies for years
- The ark of God was not in the tabernacle but hidden in some barn
- Israel had forgotten the power of God
- They were worshiping Baal and Ashtaroth
- Everything looked bleak for Israel
- When a man of God stood and proclaimed “There is hope. If we make better choices, God will be on our side again”
- There are conditions
I. IF WE RETURN OUR WHOLE HEART TO GOD
1. No half hearted commitments
2. No just having a form of godliness
3. No looking for just a 60min Sunday morning pick me ups
4. No cheating in your relationship with God
5. No adultery on Saturday night and praising God on Sunday morning
6. This commitment to the Lord has to be total
7. Is there anything in your life that you have put off limits to God
8. He will either be Lord of ALL or not Lord at all
ILL. I have been married to sis. Tammy for 17 ½ years, you can’t stay married that long without total commitment. How do you think that she would respond if I told her that I would be with her on Sunday & Wednesday and with Trixie on Friday and Saturday, and with Bubbles the rest of the week. How many know that I would not stay married very long? How many know I would not be breathing very long? Your wife expects you to be faithful 24/7/52. That’s the deal, that’s commitment. The marriage stays intact I keep breathing IF.
9. in a relationship with God you cannot give Him your hit and miss faithfulness
- You want God’s deliverance
- You want God’s blessing
- You want God’s anointing
- You want God’s salvation
- It is there for you IF you give Him your whole heart.
II. IF WE PUT AWAY STRANGE GODS
1. Israel’s strange god
- Picture Israel protected by God through the plagues
- Protected by God as they escape the army of Egypt
- Cross the red sea
- Saw the Army of Egypt destroyed
- Now as Moses goes to seek God who they begin to worship?
- The God of their deliverance or protection? No
- They worship a cow
2. Americas strange gods ( we are no better today)
- There are those that right now are bowing down to the almighty Tarpon and the powerful Snook.
- Others are worshiping on the fairway today
- Still others have found their way to the altar of ball field
- That is just the Sunday worshippers
- During the week they follow after the god of green, money.
- Or the depraved pornography the world puts before them
- Some are worshipping in the tavern halls
- Others worship in the confines of their own homes in front of the T.V.
3. The many gods of America is mind boggling
4. But Pastor aren’t you a sports fan?
5. Yes but I refuse to give it first place in my life.
6. I will not lose my soul over a driver.
7. IF I want His blessings then I will follow after Him and make Him first in my life and will put away anything that might compete with God.
III. IF WE PREPARE OUR HEARTS
1. This one is the tuffy
2. How many times have you prepared your heart for God
ILL. A young girl begins to prepare for her wedding before she gets married. She does not one day get married and then there is a home. There is planning and preparation, The hope chest, The apartment, The furniture, The pots, The decorations. Now there is a home.
3. How much time do we spend alone in the presences of God
4. How many times have we picked up the word of God this week
5. How many times have we gone to church and afterwards found a place to knell and ask God to grow His word in your life
6. How many scriptures have we committed to memory
7. Did you think everything came automaticly after salvation
8. Everything in our lives are nothing more than choices to live for God or walk away from God.
9. It is up to us to choose so we must choose wisely.
Conclusion: The supernatural deliverance that Israel needed would come only IF they did as God instructed. They had to choose and so do you.
