Life is a Choice

If you have your copy of God's Word, go and make your way to

Genesis chapter 13, Genesis chapter 13.

Genesis 13 · chapter mention Genesis 13 · chapter mention

And as we prepare to dive into this chapter, I want to share

with you several quotes that are from a variety of sources, but

as you're going to be able to tell, are essentially saying the

same thing. All right, so who knows who

originally said or what the original saying was, but check

these out. Here's the first one on the

screen. Life is a matter of choices, and

every choice you make makes you. Our lives are fashioned by our

choices. First we make our choices, then

our choices make us. There's a choice you have to

make in everything you do, so keep in mind that in the end,

the choice you make makes you. Life is about choices.

Some we regret, some we're proud of, some will haunt us forever.

The message We are what we choose to be.

Finally, we are our choices. To say in a sentence what I

think Genesis 13 is trying to say is that life is a choice and

our choices make our life. Life is a choice and our choices

make our life. Listen to verse 1.

So Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he

had, and Lot went with him into the Negeb.

Now you remember, Abraham's been called by God to leave house, to

leave home, to leave country, and to leave kindred.

And Abraham's been promised land, nation, name, offspring,

blessing, protection, and on and on it goes in the covenant that

God has made and will make with Abraham.

There was a famine in the land, and so for a short period of

time, Abram takes the hiatus from that land in the land of

Egypt. And while they're on the way in,

a fear overcomes Abram that due to the beauty of his wife Sarai,

that the people of the land are going to want to take her for

their wife and kill him. And so they make a plan to

pretend that she's only his sister.

Sure enough, Pharaoh of Egypt takes Sarah into his house.

And based on this decision, driven by fear instead of faith,

Abram's now put into jeopardy all that God has promised him.

By not believing that God would be good to his promises, by

believing that the beauty of his wife was going to overcome God's

goodness, Abram's now threatened all the promises, land and

nation and name and offspring and blessing.

Now his wife's in the House of another man.

He's between a rock and a hard place.

Unless God intervenes, this is all going to end well.

Guess what God does even in the midst of our unfaithfulness?

Praise God. He intervenes, does he not?

Praise God, He is still faithful despite our unfaithfulness.

Even when we mess up, God still in His grace shows up.

Hallelujah. So he does so, for Abram sends

him out of Egypt with extra blessings than what he came

with. We pick up in verse 2 through 4.

Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver and in

gold, and he journeyed on from there, from the Negeb as far as

Bethel, in the place where his tent had been at the beginning

between Bethel and AI, to the place where he had made an altar

at the 1st. And there Abram called upon the

name of the Lord. Abram makes it back to where his

journey had begun, and here is where God had appeared to him,

and here is where Abram had made an altar from which to worship

God. Remember, an altar was a place,

a physical thing. They built a platform, if you

will, on which they would offer sacrifices and offer prayer and

where they would worship. All right, praise God, we no

longer need to show up with our dead animals to put on an altar.

Amen. You know what you want to know?

Why? Because Jesus is the final and

full physical complete sacrifice for the sins of the world, The

Lamb of God who takes away the sin of what?

Every sacrifice before Jesus just pointed forward to Jesus

that one day Jesus would eliminate all those sacrifices

because he would be the one final one.

Jesus is the final and full sacrifice.

Therefore, we no longer need to alter on the altar offer like

what Abraham did. Abram had a place though where

he called on the name of the Lord.

He was making a deliberate choice to worship is what I want

you to see because again, life is a choice and our choices make

our make our life. So Abram is making choices that

are making his life here. It's the same for us today.

Every day you have an opportunity to make a deliberate

choice whether you are going to worship God or not.

In fact, I want you to write this down in your notes.

The first thing I think we learned here is life's greatest

choice is who you will worship. Life's greatest choice is who

you will worship. Listen, in one sense, every

single human being is worshipping every single day.

Whether you realize it or not. You were actually made to

worship. You were designed by God to

worship. You are worshiping whether you

realize it or not. Now, typically what happens is

if we're not worshipping God deliberately, I can kind of go

ahead and kind of break the news to you.

Most likely human beings worship who themselves every day.

What I mean by you worship is you're giving your life and your

loyalty and your love and your allegiance to something or

someone. You're going to do that.

That's worship. The only question is, who are

you really giving that first love, that first loyalty, that

first allegiance, that first of your life, too?

All right. And ever since the fall of sin,

ever since sin entered the world and infected our lives, we as

human beings default to worshipping ourselves all right,

because our hearts have been infected by a virus called

idolatry that turns us to worship anything and everything

but the one true God. Which is the reason why the

Bible says we must be born again, made new, saved, given

new life, made a new creation, forgiven of our sin, joined with

Jesus and set free so that we can say no to that virus of sin

that's infected us and be filled with the Holy Spirit made alive

in Christ and live by worshipping him.

If you've never experienced that new birth, that forgiveness,

that salvation, what you need to realize is that your sin

separates you from God, your sin personally.

We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

This is why Jesus came. This is why He lived a sinless

life. Can you imagine living a sinless

life? Just wrap your mind around that.

That's what Jesus did. Never thought, spoke, or did

anything that would dishonor God.

Why did He do it? Why did He come to earth to do

it? To do it in your place and in my

place so that he could go to the cross, the perfect, qualified,

spotless Lamb of God for the sins of the world, to pay for

your sin and to pay for mine, so that he could go to the grave,

be laid in that grave, and rise on the third day.

Defeating death, defeating sin, defeating hell, defeating Satan

the enemy, and offering us forgiveness and life.

And the Bible says when you call on the name of the Lord to be

saved, When you hear that your sin separates you from God.

And when you hear what Jesus has done for you to bring you back

to God. And you call on Jesus to ask Him

to say you and forgive you and be your Lord.

The Bible says you're born again, you're made alive, you're

forgiven, you're rescued, all the things, a new creation in

Christ so that you now live to worship Him.

Abram's making a deliberate choice to worship every day.

God calls us those who've chosen to follow Christ, to make a

deliberate choice to worship Him.

Let me just give you some of those scripture references to

specify what I'm talking about. Luke 923 If anyone would come

after me, let him what? Deny himself, and take up his

cross, and follow me. Romans 12/1 I appeal to you,

therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, that you offer

yourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable

to God, which is your spiritual act of worship.

John 15. Five.

I am the vine, Jesus says, and you are the branches, and

whoever abides in me and I in him, here it is.

That bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

Every single day. You must make the most life

determining choice you can make it.

I want to break that choice down into three things you're going

to see in your notes there. If you're going to deliberately

choose to give God your life, your loyalty, your love, and

your allegiance, it's going to look like this number one,

You're going to intentionally have to choose to die to

yourself. Jesus, this day is not mine.

Jesus, my body is not mine. Jesus, my money is not mine.

My job is not mine. My family is not mine.

Jesus, all I got you've given me, and all the life I have is

you've given me. And I'm dying to my way and

living it the way I want so that I can say yes to what you want.

Step #1 #2 this is a daily thing #2 is to offer yourself as a

living sacrifice. Again, God's not asking you to

bring a dead animal. He's asking you to bring a

living surrendered, submitted you.

Why? So that through your life and

your living, Jesus can live through you.

So you got to say no to yourself and then you got to say yes to

Jesus, right? And then thirdly, you are going

to live by abiding in Jesus. What does that mean?

Abiding in Jesus, right? It means that when you go to

work or when you go to school and how you do marriage and how

you do parenting and how you do your hobbies is in this way, not

the way you want to do them, but constantly you're walking,

you're living aware of God's presence.

You're praying without ceasing, you're asking God for wisdom and

direction, saying God, as I go here, as I do this, as I say

this, as I respond to this, God help me do this in a way that's

dependent on your way, your wisdom, and your power and not

mine. This is a moment by moment

reality of a mentality for a Christian that we're not just

out there on our own doing this by ourselves and our strength.

So you got to say no to yourself.

You got to say yes to the living sacrifice and you got to say God

help me every moment along the way.

That's what it looks like. That's the Christian life in a

nutshell. Is daily death to you, daily yes

to Jesus and God, daily help me moment by moment.

That's it. That's how we walk by the

Spirit. That's how we die.

That's how we live. That's how we abide.

Right now, let's pick up verse 5 through 7.

And Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and

tents so that the land could not support both of them dwelling

together, for their possessions were so great that they could

not dwell together. And there was strife between the

herdsmen of Abram's livestock and the herdsmen of Lot's

livestock, and that at that time, the Canaanites and the

Perizzites were dwelling in the land.

You know, Abram is choosing to worship God.

But if you remember, and here's what I love about the Bible, the

Bible doesn't sugarcoat anything.

The Bible just tells you how it went down and how it happens.

And one of the things the Bible has told us is that Abram has

made a decision. Even as someone who's seeking to

walk with God and worship God and honor God, Abraham's made a

decision that it seems pretty clear may not have been exactly

what God had in mind. Because if you go back to God's

instructions to Abraham, he said leave house, home, country and

kindred. But guess what Abram does?

He takes a little kindred along with him.

All right, Guy named Lot, that's going to cause him lots of

problems, right? So will that decision come back

to haunt him? If life is a choice and our

choices make our life, is that decision going to have impact on

his life? You better believe it, right?

So here, how does this go? All right, well, the problem is

they both accumulated so much stuff.

Now their people can't get along, right?

I mean, now they got a first world problem on their hands,

they've gotten rich and nobody can get along.

Does that not sound right? Anyway, that's a different

sermon. Yeah.

In North Georgia, from what I understand, a couple acres can

sustain a cow. If you're going to have cattle,

you're going to have a couple acres per cow.

All right, because North Georgia grows pretty good grass.

Go to the Middle East. Couple acres won't support half

a cow. All right?

You have a dead cow on 2 acres after about a day, All right,

you need more. All right, So this is what the

herdsmen are fighting about. They need more room to feed

their animals. The animals are stressed because

they can't get enough food, not finding enough.

The herdsmen are stressed. There's physical, there's

relational problems, but there's another problem in the land that

you know what, if you're not paying attention, it'll just

slide right past you because God says something here in the midst

of this physical, relational conflict, there's a bigger

conflict going on, but you might not notice it.

Did you see what it said at this time?

The Canaanites and parasites were dwelling in the land.

There is a spiritual danger that's going to lead that's

bigger than physical conflict. That's going to lead to a

spiritual conflict. God goes out of His way to say

that the reality surrounding this problem that Abram and Lot

are having is a bigger problem caused by the inhabitants of the

land being wicked people. Now I know it doesn't say

they're wicked there yet it's going to in verse 13.

And then it's going to come even more obvious if you know your

Bible just how wicked these people in the land were.

All right, so how wicked are we talking?

Well, Leviticus 18, verse 24 and 25 says this.

Leviticus 18:24

God speaks this to his people to help give them understanding of

what's going to happen in this land.

He says, Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things,

for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have

become unclean. And the land became unclean so

that I punished its iniquity and the land vomited out its its

inhabitants. A lot of times you'll hear

people in kind of attacking the Bible, they'll talk about maybe

quote how God, you know, in the conquest of Israel in this land,

God kicked out, God wiped out peoples that were living in this

land as if God did that for no reason, which is not true.

What's true is that the people inhabiting this land, their

wickedness and rebellion against God is coming up before God in

such proportions that God does what he does as a holy God.

God is not mean, but God is holy, holy.

He is so holy He knows He does not associate with sin outside

of the right way of judging sin and then giving mercy in the

place where we can choose to trust God and have our sin

forgiven when we choose to have faith in God and His provision

out of His Holiness for our sin. So God is telling, He's giving a

heads up that this sin is a problem.

In fact, the problems are specified in Luke 18.

I mean, not Luke, Leviticus 1819 through 23.

I'll let you read that on your own time, but God specified what

are some of these things that God is going to remove the

inhabitants of the land for? Let me just mention some of

them. This isn't culturally popular.

This isn't politically correct, but this is what the Bible says,

and that's what my commitment is to tell you.

These things included in that passage are adultery, child

sacrifice, homosexuality, and bestiality.

And God says because of the rampantness of these things that

don't honor him, that go against God's design, God says I'm going

to judge sin because of the rebellion of mankind against me.

And so wicked people are living in the land.

There's strife between the families of Abram and Lot.

Where will they go? What will happen?

Let's keep going. Listen to verse 8 through 13.

Then Abram said to Lot, Let there be no strife between you

and me, and between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we

are kinsmen. Is not the whole land before you

separate yourself from me? If you take the left hand, then

I'll go to the right. If you take the right hand, then

I'll go to the left. And Lot lifted up his eyes and

saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere, like

the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt in the direction

of Zoar. This was before the Lord

destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, so Lot chose for himself all the

Jordan Valley, and Lot journeyed E Thus they separated from each

other, and Abrams settled in the land of Canaan, while Lot

settled among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far

as Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked

great sinners against the Lord. Abram, if you notice, takes the

lead in seeking to solve this conflict.

He says lot. We're family man.

We ought not be fighting. You choose take first choice, go

the direction you want to go and I'll choose second.

I'll go last, right. And but from their location

geographically on the hills and arid kind of mountain area of

Judea, they could look down, if you will, on a clear day and see

the entire Jordan Valley that is following the river that flows

down to the Dead Sea. They could see how well all

watered, how lush, and how fertile that land was.

All right? It mentions it like it was

compared to the Garden of the Lord, that's the Garden of Eden.

It talks about it as if it was like the Nile Delta, well

watered by the river, right? So Lot looks around and makes a

massive life decision. Remember, life is a choice, and

our choices make our life. And though the Bible doesn't

come out and say this directly, I want you to notice you can't

miss the two factors that are driving Lot's decision to go

this direction #1 one is material prosperity.

Lot looks around and says, where could I go to maintain my

standard of living? What's going to make me richer?

What's going to sustain my riches?

Where can I go and experience greater material prosperity?

But then Lot makes the decision about where he's going to live

based on a second factor that we'll call moral neutrality.

Lot makes a decision about his address, regardless of the

spiritual consequences it's going to have on his life.

So Lot looks around. Life is a choice.

Our choices make our life, and material prosperity and moral

neutrality are driving Lot's decision here.

He looks around and he doesn't call on the name of the Lord.

It says he doesn't pray and ask God for direction.

He doesn't ask Abram, who he knows really has been trying to

worship and walk with God. He doesn't ask Abram for advice.

Lot sees what appears to be the greatest material advantage,

regardless of the spiritual risk, and he takes it.

And listen, I'm not up here trying to say Lot was a bad guy.

The Bible doesn't say that. But the Bible presents Lot as a

guy who would not yet learned to make wise life decisions.

Do you see the difference? You don't have to be a bad

person to end up in a bad place, right?

All it takes is making a decision or two, not according

to God's wisdom, and next thing you know you make it based on

material prosperity or. Moral neutrality.

And it's like, whoa, I didn't, I didn't mean to end up in such a

bad position, but I didn't follow God's wisdom.

And guess what? A not bad guy is going to end up

in a terrible situation. Life #2 can mark this down in

your notes. Life choices are determined by

the wisdom you choose, by the wisdom you choose lots.

I don't want you to miss this. Lot's decision of where to live

was based on wisdom. It was just the wrong wisdom.

Did you realize you are living by a wisdom right now?

You're choosing to operate by wisdom.

The question is not if, but what?

What wisdom are you? Are you choosing to operate by

your own wisdom as if and all the universe you know best?

That's a pretty arrogant place to be.

Are you operating by your friend's wisdom?

That's a pretty foolish place to be typically.

Are you operating by the world's wisdom?

By the culture? Listen, I've had a sentence

resonating in my heart and mind based on different situations

I've been encountering pastorally, personally, and it's

this. It's that.

It's not that the Word of God is not clear.

It's that the world we live in is so loud.

We struggle sometimes with what to do, what to say, where to go.

As if the word of God is not clear, right?

As if God's will and God's best is not obvious.

The problem is, it's not that God's word is not clear.

It's that the world we live in is so loud, it's all we hear.

And so often that's the only wisdom we choose to walk in and

never question it. Because guess what?

This is the water we live in. It's the air we breathe.

We're blind, by the way. John Newton was too in 1779.

He said I once was blind, but now I see I once was lost.

But now I'm. I've changed the wisdom I'm

living by. My eyes have been opened.

There's another wisdom, and it's God's his choices.

Lots are spiritually careless. Have you ever made a bad choice

based on bad wisdom and paid a terrible price?

Yeah, young people in the room. I want you to, I want you to

hear me. I'm going to tell you about four

choices just very quick that you've got to have God's wisdom,

all right? I don't mean these are the only

choices you need God's wisdom for, but I mean you better have

them for these four. Are you ready?

Number one is your choice of the church that you attend.

By the way, I sure hope you choose to attend even beyond

your days under your parents roof.

All right, but the choice you choose, the choice of your

church matters because whether or not you choose a place that

stands and believes the word of God or not is going to impact

you and your thinking and the wisdom you choose to live by.

The church you choose better stand on the Word of God.

Regardless of what the world says, what the culture says,

what politics say, you better choose one that stands on the

word of God. All right, number 2 is your

choice of friends. If your friends don't love

Jesus, you are headed for trouble.

You are just headed for trouble. It's coming.

All right, you've got, I know this is hard, but it would be

better off to walk alone for a little while if you have to than

friends that don't. With friends who don't love

Jesus. OK, God has promised you never

to leave you nor forsake. You'd be better off alone for a

little while if you have to. Number 3 is your spouse.

You better choose to marry someone who loves Jesus, not

that you think loves Jesus, not who says well, I'm a Christian,

not who starts going to church with you because you ask them

no, because you found them following Jesus.

I'm not saying there's some situations that don't work out.

Praise God that weren't that Hallelujah for God's grace, but

that's not the normal, it's not the normal.

Choose a spouse by God's wisdom. And then finally, fourthly,

choose your career by God's wisdom.

Now, I don't mean that there are better or worse careers.

There's so many options out there.

I'm just saying that you don't want to choose that randomly.

God built you and made you for a purpose, like He gave you gifts

and talents and a calling. And so God knows where He wants

to put you and how He wants to use you.

Ask God to guide you by His wisdom to be doing with your

life something that He made you to do.

Let me tell you what a blessing that will be.

Those four things you need God's wisdom for every decision, but

those four, you better mark it down.

You got to make a decision that I'm not going to make those

without God's wisdom. Verse 11, let me go back to it.

It says thus they separated. That's Lot and Abram separated

from each other. Verse 12, Abram settled in the

land of Canaan while Lot settled among the cities of the valley

and moved his tent as far as Sodom.

You ought to hear some like danger music in the background

right there. All right, now the men of Sodom.

Here's where the Bible just comes out and tells you the men

of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.

Part of part of God's call y'all on Abram's life involved a

separation. Do you remember?

God calls Abram to leave, to be separate from house and home and

country and kindred. Why?

Because God's calling, God's calling our lives, doesn't

always call us out of all of those things, but God's calling

our lives always calls us out of something so he can call us into

what he's calling us into. All right, so Abram's call had a

separation involved. Lot, on the other hand, also had

a separation, but a wrong kind. He separated himself from Abram

and joined himself with who the Bible calls great sinners.

This again, young people. He chose friends, He chose

neighbors that we're not going to lead in the right direction.

He separates himself from the promised blessings of God, and

he puts himself and his family in the path of the judgment of

God. In fact, the famous reformer

John Calvin writes this. He says let us learn from Lot's

foolishness that our eyes are not to be trusted.

We must rather be on our guard lest we be ensnared by what we

see. Lot fancied he was dwelling in

paradise, but it was a place that nearly plunged him into the

depths of hell. Listen, one of the greatest

lessons you can learn is you got to learn to decide what you're

going to trust, because you're either going to trust in what

you think and what you feel and what you want.

And you're going to Plumb line your life by that and you're

going to walk in your own wisdom.

Are you going to say, you know what?

If there is a God and you believe in Him and if he has

spoken and if what he speaks is true and if what he says is

true, then I got a different Plumb line by which I got to do

life. And you may not like the Plumb

line, you may not like it, but guess what?

God didn't ask you and He didn't ask me.

He just said this is how I made you.

This is how I've designed you to operate.

You can go off and do it yourself, your way, if you want

to. God gives us choices and life is

a choice and our, our choices make our.

And God in his love invites you, invites you to his wisdom and

way to be called out separate to Him.

So #3 life choices are determined by the separation you

choose. Life choices are determined not

just by the wisdom you choose, but by the separation you

choose. Listen to what the word of God

says. John 1519.

If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own,

but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of

the world. 2nd Corinthians 616 and 17 Paul writes for where the

temple of the living God. And God said, I'll make my

dwelling among them and walk among them, and drop down to

verse 17. He says therefore go out of

their midst and be separate from them.

First, Peter 29 but you're a chosen race, a royal priesthood,

a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may

proclaim the excellencies of him.

What's this? Who called you out of darkness

into his marvelous light? God calls us out.

This is the separation. I mean, that is the right

separation of out of the world, out of the ways of the world,

the wisdom of the world, and to walking in the ways and wisdom

in the will of God. It's going to make you look

different. It's going to make you sound

different. It's going to make the world

hate you, as Jesus said, and reject you because you know

what? You don't look like, you don't

sound like. You don't talk like what the

world looks like, sounds like, and talks like.

I've heard it said that those who are citizens of heaven ought

to have the accent of heaven, not the accent of earth.

But the problem is when you live somewhere long enough and guess

what you tend to do? Adapt the accent.

When I was in South Georgia, where I was born and raised, I

said a few words different than I now say them.

I've been through Mississippi, I've been through Texas, I've

been through Alabama, Back to Georgia, right?

One of the words I used to say was for H2, Oi would say water.

Why are you laughing at me? That's what I said, water.

Hey, were you going to go water skiing?

That's how I would say it. I got to Mississippi my 9th

grade. The comrades looked at me and

was like, what, what, what, what, what, what is that?

Do you mean water? I was like, yes, that's what I

mean water. Well, it took me about two weeks

and guess how I said water? The way, the way I just said

water. I, I lost a little bit of my

South Georgia accent getting to a new place.

How often the temptation is in our lives to lose the accent of

heaven on earth, because you're going to be called out for the

accent of heaven. You're not going to sound like,

talk like, look like. It's going to be different.

And this is the separation that God calls us to.

I've heard it said like this. A ship is all right in the sea,

but the sea is all wrong in the ship.

The church is all right in the world, but the world is all

wrong in the church, right? Are you living separate?

I don't mean in a commune in a neighborhood that says

Christians only at the gate. Jesus says be in it, but not

what, but not of it, right? So let's pick up and keep

reading. In Genesis 13, beginning in

verse 14, the Lord said to Abram after Lot had separated from

him, Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are

northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all

the land that you see. I will give you in your

offspring forever. I'll make you make your

offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count

the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted.

Arise and walk through the length and the breadth of the

land, for I will give it to you. So Abram moved his temp and came

and settled by the oaks of Monterey, which are at Hebron,

and there he built an altar to the Lord.

I want you to notice how Abram responded to conflict.

This is so practical because we walk into conflict all the time.

I want you to notice how how Abram handled it here.

The source of conflict in our lives is typically when

something we like, love, want, or care for is endangered and we

go into protection mode, we go into fight mode, we go into

that's mind mode. We going to, you're not going to

touch that mode, right? And in this case, it's the

physical space and provision for their livestock and their

possessions. And the strife that begin with

the herdsman could have worked its way up the chain and even

spoiled Abram and Lot's relationship, right?

But that's not what happened. Why?

Because of the way Abram responded.

How did Abram respond? I think you could say Abram

responded generously, graciously, selflessly.

Why? Because Abram's life was

anchored in believing the promises of God.

And when your life is anchored in believing that you're going

to receive and be blessed by the promises of God, you realize you

can't give yourself out of the blessings of God, right?

Abram's like, listen, I'm free to let Lot choose first.

God has promised me more than I could have ever imagined.

How could you not live generously when God has promised

you all things He didn't? He didn't choose first because

he believed the promises of God. He didn't stress in the midst of

conflict because he believed the promises of God.

He didn't fight for his own, protect his turf, or alienate

lot because he believed the promises of God.

Can I just ask you, are you believing the promises of God?

Can I ask you based on specific promises, right?

Just kind of run these through your heart and mind.

Are you ready? Let me name some Hebrews 13

five. Keep your lives free from the

love of money and be content with what you have because God

has said, never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.

How many times do we quote the second part of that verse but

never the 1st? It's so true that we love some

parts of the Word of God and we don't like others, right?

But again, whose wisdom? Whose Plumb line are we living

by? Are you believing that promise?

Luke 1224 Consider the Ravens. They do not sow A reap.

They have no storeroom or barn, yet God feeds them.

How much more value valuable are you then birds?

Philippians 419 And my God will meet all your needs according to

the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.

How many needs has God promised to meet in your life?

How many wants, just just in case you're listening?

Matthew 633 But seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness,

and then what? Then all these other things that

you need will be rightly and appropriately added.

Romans 832 This is so good. He who did not spare his own

Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him

graciously give us all things? You can't give yourself out of

the generosity of the promises of God.

You're free when you believe the promises of God to be a

blessing. You're free to be selfless.

You're free to be gracious. You're free to be generous.

Yet you know what dries up? Generosity and graciousness, not

believing the promises of God's generosity to you.

Then you start fighting for your own and protecting your turf and

choosing not to share and choosing not to give because

guess what? You got to fight for what you

got as if it depends on you clawing and hanging on.

You don't live like that when you realize God has given you

everything. Abram is believing the promises

of God. Life is a choice, and our

choices make our lives. Write down #4 in your notes

here. Life choices are determined by

the promises you believe. Life.

Life choices are determined by the wisdom you choose, the

separation you choose, and the promises you believe.

You see, Lot went after what he saw.

Abram waited for what God promised.

A lot walk by sight. Abram walked by faith.

Such faith honored God. And guess what God did in

response to Abram's faith and generosity?

God shows up here at the end of the chapters like, hey Abram, I

just want you to look up, man. I want you to survey the

horizon. Look at all I'm going to give

you in your offspring. Abram, go take a walk, tread the

land. Go scout out all that.

I'm going to bless you and provide you.

Just go check it out. Abram honored God, he put his

faith in God and God just happens to show up and hit

refresh on all the promises says, hey, let's just review

Abram, just to encourage you. I love that life is a choice and

our choices make our life. I'm going to ask you to bow your

head and close your eyes. John and praise team are going

to come out. Before I ask you to stand and

sing and respond this morning, I want to ask some questions that

you might want to use to respond to and maybe the way God has

spoken to you this morning. The first one is this.

Who are you worshipping? Who are you worshipping for?

Whom are the altars in your life built?

Who's getting your life, love, loyalty, allegiance?

Is it God? Is it something else?

Let me ask you, secondly, what wisdom are you living by?

Are you living from the wisdom of heaven, from the wisdom of

God? Are you living from the wisdom

of this world? What separation have you chosen?

Separation from the world for God, or separation from God for

the world? And finally, whose promises are

you believing? Are you believing the promises

of the world of the enemy or the promises of God says Abram built

an altar and there he worshipped.

These steps might be this morning, a physical place where

you need to make decisions in regard to the things that I just

mentioned. As I stand here, I stand here to

receive you, to pray for you, to talk to you about following

Jesus, to receive him as your Lord and Savior if you need to

make that decision. Or maybe you seem to come here

and kneel or stand and talk to God about whom you're worshiping

or what wisdom separation are promises you're choosing and

believing. Maybe you need to leave

something here and say, God, I got something I need to trade

out for what you've promised, for what you've offered, and I'm

choosing that today. I'm going to pray and I'm going

to ask you to stand and we're going to sing and worship and

you come. Heavenly Father, I want to pray

right now, the Lord Jesus. Then these next moments that

your way would be had in our lives, that nothing would hold

us back from saying yes to you. God, help us choose your wisdom,

even as unpopular as it is in the world.

God, we just want to be people who say we believe.

We believe you. We're aligning our lives with

your will and your way. So have your way in US.

God help. Would that be the cry of every

heart? In Jesus name I pray and all

God's people said Amen. Would you stand with me as John

and praise team lead us? I'm going to wait for you.

These steps are open. Our encouragers are close.

You come.