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Series: Into the Wild
August 31, 2008

Last week we had three people recommit their lives to Christ, three folks who decided to take a chance, and believe in the promise, and believe in Jesus. We had three more people take a step closer to belief. Three people who said they want to know more about connecting with God. And like I always say, there is nothing, nothing I love more than meeting with folks to talk to them about life, and about Jesus. I love helping people make this connection in every way possible. I love giving out bibles, and materials to help people learn and grow. And starting in September we are going to do two things that will help you take huge steps in your growth. First, we are planning a baptism service, here at the theatre, Sunday September 21. This is the ultimate public expression of a decision to believe in Jesus as our savior. Second, we are starting a new Connection Group that is solely dedicated to exploring the basics of the Christian faith. It’s a course called ALPHA, it a video based curriculum and discussion.

Five weeks ago we stepped into worship here at Connections, and I challenged you to step "Into the Wild." Actually, I challenged you to see your life through the story of the bible. I argued that seeing your life through the bible is the best possible way to make sense of your life and the world we live in. And then when we got into the bible what we discover is that our lives, and our world, have already been thrown out into the wild, and our job, our journey, is one of finding our way back. We are born into this wild world where sin, and death, and pain, and suffering are every bit as real as happiness, and joy, and laughter and fun. It’s a broken world, but still, we experience and know God’s love and grace. One of our top priorities in this world- to remember. To remember God, who he is, who we are, where we are and where we’re going. Where are we going? As individuals we are on a path of living or dying; as a world, we are progressing to coming kingdom of God. Not back to a garden, but to the city of God where all the peoples live in shalom, peace, with God, with each other, with the creation itself.

Through this wildness journey God has given us some guidelines, the law of the jungle. And there we had to challenge what is perhaps the most common misunderstanding that the entire world, and all people, have about God and the Ten Commandments. Almost everyone you ask thinks that commands are God’s ten-step program to earn his love and work our way into heaven. But nowhere does the bible teach this. What the bible teaches us is that God loved the people of Israel, so he became their God, and he became their savior, and he brought them out of slavery, and into freedom. The commands where God plan to keep free people free. I kept saying it over and over, “rules without relationship always lead to rebellion.” We know this, God knows this. SO God entered into a relationship with the people so that they will know that the rules he set up were not to keep them from something good, they were to keep them some something bad. The rules don’t keep us from doing fun and wonderful things, they keep us from doing foolish and harmful and destructive things. The law is not God’s way to earn his love, it is to confirmation his love, and to confirmation of our freedom, and simply put- the best way to live.

We have a hard time believing this because we haven’t gotten into the relationship with God. But if we are in the relationship with God we will know, we just know, that it is God’s way to keep free people free- free to love God, free to love other people. We keep free to worship, free from idolatry, free from working seven days a week like slaves, free to honor our parents, free fro murder, from sexual sin, from theft, from lies from coveting. That’s a great way to live! That really is freedom.

Then, with the people free from Egypt, free from their slavery, with guidelines that would ensure their freedom and with the promise to be their God, he led them to the edge of the Promised Land. They sent the men in to explore. We read the wild story about a land flowing with milk and honey, with great big fruit, great big cities, and great big people. And like I said last week, it’s one of the greatest insights into the human condition, the people said we seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them. And though God lead them out of Egypt, and through the Red Sea, and confirmed his loyalty to them, and proved himself trustworthy, and even though it was the Promised Land, not the “maybe you’ll get it, maybe you won’t land,” not the, “take a change and see what happens land,” but the Promised land, they didn’t believe the promise. It’s hard to believe the promise. But I challenged you to believe the promise. And of you did believe the promise last week. We celebrate that more than anything else here at Connections.

Today we need to drive this series home. When we left last week we left in a bad place. The people of God rebelled, they didn’t believe the promise, so they were left to wander through the desert for 40 years until an entire generation passed away. And that is exactly what the people did. They literally walked around in circles in the desert, skirting the edge of the promised land, always looking in, always being reminded of what they rejected, while they learned the hard way to trust God, to follow him, to believe in his promise. Even Moses, who had been leading the people this whole time, was kept from entering the land.

But Moses led them back to the same place they stood 40 years earlier, back to the edge of the Jordan River, and there he delivered to them his final address. We actually have the entire address recorded for you in the bible. It’s called the book of Deuteronomy, and I’d like to read it for you now, it’s only 34 chapters sow we’ll be done before dinner. How about I skip to the end? We’re going to look at his final encouragement to the people in chapter 30. He has poured out his heart and soul for these people, even as he has poured out his entire life to lead them to the Promised Land. He has encouraged them in every way he knew how to believe in the promise, to trust in God, to take what was theirs. Finally, he says this…

11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.

17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

19 This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Everyday we make choices. I’m kind of weird about choices. Most of the big choices in life have come relatively easy for me. After my first real date I knew, I just knew that Robin wanted to marry me. It was just written all over her face. I took me a few months to come along, but eventually I did. But many of the big decision have come easily. I gave my life to God at a very early age. I made the decision to marry Robin without hesitation.

But the seemingly inconsequential decisions are a whole other story. From the moment I wake up I am plagued with decisions that almost incapacitate me. My dear wife doesn’t ask me to pick up anything from the store anymore because I’ll just walk into the cereal isle and I’m paralyzed- Get mini-wheats. OK, do we need regular sized mini-wheat’s, or bite sized? Strawberry or vanilla, brown sugar or cinnamon, or now cinnamon apple strudel? When did it all have to become so complicated!

Like what to wear. I hate deciding what to wear. I wish I had school uniform I could put on everyday and not have to think about it. I have actually made little systems to help me make these decisions. For Sunday morning I have three pairs of jeans- blue, black, and khaki. And my shirts- I actually have a system where I have my shirts lined up left to right, and I take the shirt furthest to the right, wear it, wash it, hang it on the left, and this way I rotate through my shirts evenly. (Some of you are going to start doing that!)

We've all been in a situation where someone we love- a son, daughter, parent, spoouse, friend, is faced with a monumental decision. The implcations are a serious as life and death. And we see so clearly which way they should choose. If they opened their eyes, took a step back, or just took a moment to stop and think, they;d see it so clearly too. But they choose the path of death, of destruction, of curses. And there's nothing we can do to stop them, to make the decsion for them. We have to watch, we have to deal with the consesquences of their decsion with them. Our hearts cry out because we want tnothign but life and blessing for them, but still, they make the wrong decision. It's not a matter of prefernce or taste, it's life and death. But they still choose death.

Here’s the thing. Some choices that seem big, really come quite easily. And some choices that should be obvious, somehow, we can make confusing. I need a volunteer from our congregation today. I need someone to help me illustrate the power of choices... Ok, I have here to things- this is a rat trap. Can you guess what this symbolizes? This is $20 from MY wallet (This will cost me, it's part of the metaphor!). Can you guess what this symbolizes?

Now today I want to offer you a choice. I’m going to put each of these behind my back, and then I want you to choice one of my hands, and what ever is in that hand can be yours. I promise you that I will not switch the items in my hands. Ready, choose…

Now, wouldn’t it rot if God offered us choices this way. Behind one door is death, behind door two is life. You have a 50% chance of getting something great! But you also have a 50% of dying a miserable death. But tough beans, take a shoot, and see what happens. No, here is what God does, and here is what I’m doing for you today. I set before you right here, right now, life, or death. I’m not holding it behind my back, I’m not holding up in the air, out of your reach, I’m not holding it away from you so you’ll have to run for it. In fact, I’m making this incredibly easy, because I know what I want you to choose. So choose… (Now I’ll never have trouble getting volunteers from the congregation every again.)

This is what God does for us. God has proved his heart for us. he wants teh best for us. he wants freedom for us. he wants blessing for us. he watns life for us. But God also says God says to us, I love and respect you so much that I am not going to force the decision on you. I’m not going to assume you want what really, everyone should want. As crazy as it sounds, I’m not going to assume that you’ll want to choice what is best for you, for your family, for others, for the world. But I really do hope and pray that I’ve made this incredibly obvious, and incredibly easy for you- choose.

Friends, God really wants it to be that simple, that obvious, that good. Blessings, or curses, life or death. Now choose blessings. Choose life. Choose God.

God wanted to make it so simple that he removed every obstacle that would lay in our path. Our passage read what I have commanded you is not too difficult or beyond your reach. The word is very near you, it is in your mouth, and in your heart so you may obey it.

A writer named John, when telling of the birth of Jesus, wrote that the word became flesh and dwelt among us. God wanted the choice to become so obvious, so easy, that he even removed the obstacle of his divinity, by becoming flesh and blood, while yet remaining entirely God. Jesus, the word, became one of us, and he lay his life down before us, so that the choice would be that easy- to simply say yes to Jesus.

What breaks my heart, what truly breaks my heart, is that everyday, everywhere I go, I see people making the wrong choice, and missing life. I see people who are so close. I see people who want life so badly. But they keep missing what is right in front of them. They keep missing Jesus. They keep missing the sacrifice that God made so we could know him. The keep missing the greatest story, and the greatest news, the world has ever heard.

Friends, please don’t miss what God offers you this day. He laid down his life to show us his love. He made the hardest decision the world has every known, so the decision would be easy for us. He choose death, so that we might life. Now choose life. Choose Jesus. Choose him today…