Let your Words Choose Life

Sermon February 16, 2014    Sermon –- Let your Words choose Life

Today’s readings challenge us to choose life.  As the church, we are called to focus on what God’s kingdom requires, what it blesses, and how the worshiping community is to live out its distinct calling to be the body of Christ. Jesus calls us to choose the practices that will bring God Glory and Honor.

Proverbs 18:21
Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit

Every word you speak has power—to build or destroy hopes and dreams, to restore or cause loss, to heal or break the spirit, to bring delight or despair, to bless or curse—for God’s Word says that death and life are in the power of the tongue.

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

¹⁵ See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;

¹⁶ In that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the Lord thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

¹⁷ But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them;

¹⁸ I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it.

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, that both thou and thy seed may live:

²⁰ That thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

There are consequences to pay for making the wrong choices. God desires for us to choose life which is on the covenantal side. A marriage is a covenant between two people. As long as both honor the covenant life is good. But if one decides to become unfaithful most generally there will be consequences to pay and it could lead to divorce.

We make a covenant with God by accepting the Blood of Jesus that was given for our salvation.

Some people can accept the covenant and live faithful lives to Jesus.

Others fight against the covenant and seem to struggle throughout life.

God did not write the Bible to be a coffee table book just to show. It is the instruction book on how to live.  If it is not read the information does not pass from God to you.

Psalm 119:1-8  UMH 840

Happy are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord.

This is a good statement for those that accept the covenant and try to live their lives according to the instruction manual that God gave. Their lives are happy and full of blessings. The law of the Lord is the Torah or the instruction of God.

The Word of God revealed in Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the Word that the Torah illustrates in this diadactical and instructional psalm.

I Corinthians 3:1-9

Paul is working to counter factions in the Corinthian community that have formed around claims of superior wisdom attributed to various religious teachers.

Pauls response to this situation has been to deny that human wisdom, however, exalted, has any ability to attain reliable knowledge of God (Chap 1)

Paul argues instead that it is the Holy Spirit that equips human beings to know God truly (Chapter 2), rather than rhetorical-philosophical cleverness.

Some of us may have many Christian broadcast on our cable or satellite. If you have ever sat for any length of time and watched program after program you can see how confusing it can be. One is saying this. One is saying that. Until You get confused. God is not the author of confusion. That is why He has told us to let the Holy Spirit be our teacher and guide. If we listen to man more than we listen to God we will get confused.

Matthew 5:21-37

Jesus makes it clear that if we are in conflict with one of our brothers or sisters, we are to go and seek restoration or reconciliation with that person before we bring our gift to the altar.

This would imply that old scores need to be settled and wounds healed before we gather around the holy table to receive the sacrament. Such action, of course, would serve as the ideal, in that each one of us could kneel before the Lord with a clear conscience and lighter heart.

However, we also know that there are just those moments when the ideal is not immediately possible.  The process of reconciliation and forgiveness often takes time, and not a small amount of patience on the part of both parties. 

It would be an awkward situation, for all concerned, if folk refused to offer their gift –“ourselves, our souls, and bodies..” because of some unresolved relationship, yet to be mended.

Holding grudges and resentments towards others will EAT YOUR LUNCH>

There was a profound reading that I found in a magazine article that helped me to see and understand the importance of forgiveness more clearly. It was written by a clergy person and this is what it said:

“If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free.  If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free.

Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free.  Even when you don’t really want it for them and your prayers are only words and you don’t mean it, go ahead and do it anyway.

Do it everyday for two weeks, and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and unforgiveness and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love. “(AA Bigbook page 552)

There are things that have happened in this church through the years. There are things that have happened in your family through the years. There are things that have happened on the job through the years.  You might have buried it but it is still there eating on you like a cancer.

Jesus is coming soon. It is time to get rid of it. How do I know? Because God has brought it forth in today’s message for someone.

Un-Forgiveness is probably one of the most common problems  and does the most damage in churches  and families today.

Matthew 6:12 from the Lords prayer: And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

Sometimes it is referred to as trespasses or sins.

Jesus goes on to comment in the 14^th verse saying: For if you forgive men their trespasses your heavenly Father Will also forgive you….v. 15 But if you forgive not men their trespasses, NEITHER will your Father forgive your trespasses.

IF We want God to forgive us, we must at the same time forgive others.              In this way we are choosing Words of Life. This is Love and Love covers a multitude of Sins so say the scriptures.

But Pastor you just don’t know what I have experienced…….I may not but God does. I am just the messenger. God is speaking to each of you this morning on this issue. Including the pastor.

It always boils down to “Choice”.  The one precious gift God gave to humans.

Adam and Eve had a choice. And we know what that wrong choice created.

A choice can affect the rest of your life.

A choice can change the rest of your life.

If you are just a church attender and a pew warmer God is saying Make the right choice.

Today is the day of salvation.

Today is the day to choose life.   Jesus said I am the way the truth and the Life.

If you have never made that choice I invite you to do so today.

Say this little prayer with me.

Lord, I have made a lot of wrong choices in life. Help me today to make the right choice. Help me to choose Life. I repent of my sins. I repent of unforgiveness in my heart. And today I choose to accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Amen.