Making Moral Choices: Part 1

Making moral choices in an MR world. June 27, 2003. Dear Kate, I love you. One of the great privileges in my life is to be your father. No father could ask for a better daughter.

When God gave you to your mom and me, he bestowed upon us a bundle of pure joy and bounteous blessings. May his name be praised. His goodness and mercy endure forever. My cup overflows. For 18 years, your mom and I have prepared you for this day, the day when we no longer decide for you.

Now you decide for yourself. As a practical matter, in many areas, you have been making your own decisions for some time now. However, you have been subject to our direction and control. But from this point on, while I reserve the right, as does your mom, to give advice and to make suggestions,

the final choices are now yours.

This is as it should be for several reasons, and then I go on with the letter. choices choices choices we worry don't we that our children will make good choices that they will do the right thing because we know that there are consequences

in the choices that we make and if only we can get them to adulthood things will be okay because we know when people get to be adults, they make good choices, never make mistakes, seem to always know the right path, the right way to go. And we bemoan that these children, these young people just seem never to know what to do or how to do it. And we don't understand why, because as adults, we know we always make good choices and are great role models for them. the reality is is it not folks that what we bemoan so often in the younger generation is seen precisely in the older generation they do what they see they act after the models that they are used to

So today we want to talk to adults about choices. When I first heard this story, it was presented as an African story, a story from the African continent. I'm not sure of its origin, but regardless of where it originated, it's a great story to illustrate an important point. an elderly man from a tribe went to the river with a young man and as they got to the river as they stood on the river bank the young man suddenly noticed that there was a small baby in the water that someone had thrown into the water and the young man goes charging into the river and grabs this baby rescues him from the river and comes and puts him on the bank at the And then the young man turns back to the river and he sees now there are two babies that someone has thrown into the water. And he rushes into the water and he grabs these two babies that are drowning.

And he runs out and puts those two babies at the feet of the older man. And when the younger man turns around, then there are three babies. And then four. And then five. And then six.

and as he's coming back to the bank with six babies in his arms that he's trying to rescue, he notices that the older man has turned and is leaving all the babies that are on the bank, and the older man is walking upriver. And the young man screams, what are you doing? We've got all these babies to save. Why are you leaving and going upriver? And the older man looks at him and he says, I'm going up river to stop whoever is throwing the babies in the water.

The reality is, folks, that the church is trying to catch all the babies coming down the river. In other words, we're grabbing, trying to deal with all these problems. And sometimes we forget that we need to go upriver and try to stop the problems from ever occurring in the first instance. I'm going upriver. I'm going upriver.

I'm tired of catching the problems.

I want to see if we can help prevent them. we ought to want that for our children but dear God we ought to want it for ourselves so I want to help us think about how to make moral choices in an immoral world and my hope my prayer is that we go up river and we stop the problems from ever arising in the first instance Let me praise you again. Dear Lord, be with us this day. Help us to think clearly. But I pray, Lord, that you will help us to quit for a moment thinking about others, the problems we see they have, the wrong choices we're so easily able to discern that others have made.

And I pray that you'll help us to look at ourselves and go back to our roots and ask some very fundamental questions about what we should do, how we should live, and about the choices we should make. For it is in Christ's name we pray, and for his sake. Amen. How do I make moral choices in an immoral world? There are probably a number of ways we could go at this question.

I'm just going to give you some principles. you've got in your handout ten principles I hope to get through four or five today and hopefully to conclude either next week or the week after but pay attention and listen carefully how do I make moral choices in an immoral world first always begin with God's moral will whenever we face any choice in life, the first question is, what is God's moral will in this situation? When I talk about God's moral will, I mean God's, this is how I want you to live will. This is God's revealed will, sometimes theologians call it. It's the will that He's shown to us.

It's not the kind of will we have to wonder about. What does God will in this situation? He's told us. It's His moral will, His revealed will. It's the will by which He wants us to live.

It's God's view of what is right and what is wrong. It's the kind of thing we think about when we think of the Ten Commandments. thou shalt not commit adultery. That's God's moral will. And we would have to ask what part of thou shalt not don't you understand?

Sometimes, don't we? God's moral will is in the book. The Bible. I've done a diagram. Go to the next.

The diagram's on the back of your handout. if you'll turn over and look at that for just a moment, I want us to look at that, and I want you to understand my diagram.

The big square,

the outside square, represents all the possible choices that are out there. When we face decisions we must make.

The big circle is God's moral will. And what I'm illustrating by that first big circle inside the big square, that there are some choices we could make that would be outside God's moral will, right? So the first question is, when I'm making a decision, I must consult God's moral will. And any choice I make must be within His moral will. This circle here.

There are certainly choices out here I could make, but any choice that's going to be the right choice is going to be within this circle. And I've represented this by the square. My moral choices will always be within God's moral will.

We won't face every moral issue in life, So that's why I've made a square in here to show we do face moral decisions, and any moral choice we make will be within God's moral will. There are some choices in life we make that are non-moral choices, not immoral choices, non-moral choices. When I got up this morning, I needed to decide what color shirt would I wear.

It's simple for me. It's black.

I've got a bunch of black shirts. There's a reason I have a bunch of black shirts. I don't have to think about it. That's what I'm going to wear. But you might have chosen red.

You might have chosen something else. That's a non-moral choice. But hear me, the non-moral choices that we make in life, and I'm going to talk about non-moral choices maybe in a couple of weeks. Today it's moral choices. The non-moral choices we make are always within the moral.

See what I'm saying? Even the non-moral choices will never be outside the moral, but always consistent with and within the moral. I'm pressing us to be a group of people, a group of Christians, who are always, always vitally concerned that whatever choice we make is within God's moral will.

This is Christianity 101, right? This is basic. There's nothing rocket science here, is there? But we need to begin, when we face a decision, to always ask, what is God's moral will? where people apparently didn't pay much attention to whether it was God's moral will or not.

You have to always ask the question, what is God's moral will? We've got to get in that habit. It's got to be second nature to us. If we begin to think about this, at some point some of the decisions sort of become second nature because we know what God's moral will is. But you must always begin here.

Our children, those of you who are parents or grandparents, we must impress upon their young minds that they are always, every day, in every way, to be sure they make choices that fall within God's moral will.

Point two. Now I want you to remember the basics of God's moral will. Here are the basics. remember the basics of God's moral will I'm going to tell you three things about God's moral will that I'm going to submit to you if you'll remember these three things

then most of the time at least the choice you're supposed to make will be apparent

now you still got to make the right choice sometimes choices are clear what we should do And sometimes we don't do what we should do, correct? But here are the basics of God's moral will that will help us know what we should do. God's moral will is first that we have a single-minded loyalty to Jesus Christ, to our Lord. Single-minded loyalty. This is God's moral will.

You shall have no other gods before me. You can't serve two masters. You can only have one. We're not supposed to be double-minded people. That is, people who shift back and forth in our loyalties.

We are to be people who have a single-minded loyalty to Jesus Christ. He always comes first. in anything we face and in any choice we make our loyalty to him must be first god is not interested in people having a half-hearted lukewarm loyalty to him he wants people who love him more than anything on earth and more than life itself

us guinness says we live before an audience of one because we have a single-minded loyalty to christ our main question is when we make our choice is he applauding and we seek the applause of god and not the applause of men we don't care if the whole world is booing if jesus christ is applauded.

So when you go to make a decision or a choice, the first question is will this choice be consistent with my single-minded loyalty to Jesus Christ? It's the kind of thing that when the king says bow down to the golden image because of a single-minded loyalty to God, Shadrach Meshach and Abednego refuse to bow and stand when everybody else bowed down and even when threatened with death said doesn't matter doesn't matter God's able to deliver us from the fire but if he doesn't if he doesn't oh king we will not we will not we will not bow down God can kill us but we're not going to bow down above all others. Get the picture? Secondly, single-minded purpose.

Our purpose in life above all other purposes is to glorify God. Whatever we do, whatever we say, whatever we think,

glorify him. What is the first question of the catechism? We Baptists ought to bring back the catechism. What is the chief end of man or the chief purpose of people? Somebody tell me.

What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy him forever. When you begin to make a decision, the question you should ask is what I'm about to do Honoring to God. Will he be glorified?

Simple example. Some of you coach.

Little league teams. Church basketball. And you know what always happens if you coach. The referee can't see straight. The umpire needs glasses.

going to make a bad call. And there you are before all those young people. And the referee has just blown it. The whole world saw it. The videotape would prove it if they would stop and look.

The guy has got to be blind.

So what do you do?

Who do you want to get the glory? Who do you want to get the glory? to get the glory? You see when you ask that question the answer is easy isn't it? Because suddenly you don't care about yourself getting glory. You realize the most important thing is not winning the ball game. You realize the most important thing in life is not winning the championship. You realize going to the playoffs is secondary to God getting the glory. How about Travis Perry? I'm gonna tell you coach who's more concerned about God getting the glory but God Travis Perry had a big choice to make.

Mark Cahill's having a big youth rally at Praise Cathedral. This was a week ago this past Wednesday. It's the day when practice is so critical for the upcoming game against Union on Friday night. I mean, these guys are going for the gusto. They've got playoff opportunities.

And Coach Travis Perry has to make a choice. am I going to let my young men leave practice on Wednesday afternoon and go to hear this Christian speaker speak where they'll hear about Jesus Christ or am I going to keep them here working on the football field so I can get ready to win that championship game on Friday night?

Now, no, if I don't keep them here and we lose on Friday night, boy, am I going to hear it. Boy, my phone's going to be ringing off hook because you know in Greer there's nothing more important than high school football. To God, I mean, excuse me, to high school football be the glory. What did Coach Travis Perry do? He said, you know me, we're going to hear Mark Cahill.

Because he was more interested in glorifying God than getting the championship.

Praise God he won, beat Union. Praise God he beat Clinton. 7'6". I think God honored him.

20 young men, 20 young men. you could have been there it was great 20 young men gave their lives to jesus christ

from that team from the greer high football team because travis perry had them there 20 young men to god be the glory it's a simple question folks is the choice i'm going to make glorifying to god but boy it certainly makes certainly makes all the choices easier to make if that's your purpose. The third basic is single-minded obedience. Single-minded obedience. And I'm going to press this here. God is not interested in halfway obedience.

He wants complete obedience. John Piper talks about radical obedience. The kind of obedience that says, I'm going to do everything that I can to do

the difficulty in this world is people don't like radically obedient Christians

because it radically obedient Christians make them feel uncomfortable radically obedient Christians don't let them just sort of coast along in their bad choices radically obedient Christians stand out but folks God wants us to be radically obedient to do what he has called us to do. And he says very plainly, if you love me, if you love me, if you love me, if you love me, you will obey me.

How we behave shows who we love.

It's that simple, folks. so when we come to make our choices we want to be radically obedient not halfway or half-hearted because we know that shows we love god so three principles about thinking about god's moral will he wants single-minded loyalty he wants us to have a single-minded purpose and he wants us to have a single-minded obedience to him I'm going to tell you right now 95% of the choices you have to make in life that have moral implications if you remember single-minded loyalty single-minded purpose and single-minded obedience if you remember those three things you're going to make the right choice I submit to you you don't need to know much more than that's what he wants particularly if you've been in church and have a sense of what God wants you're going to make good choices

Simple, huh? Simple.

So let's do it. Let's do it. Let's do it. Let's don't be halfway.

I don't, and the reason I'm pressing you is I've seen enough in the church. I've seen enough in our class when people forgot their loyalty. They forgot their purpose. they forgot to whom they were to be obedient and they are paying the consequences I press you because I love you and I care about you you don't know how many times I've been home just in my heart grieving because of where somebody in our class was

I'm going up river I'm trying to stop the babies from being thrown into the water Next principle. Live by the book. Live by the book.

This is part of this radical obedience. But God's moral will is most clearly revealed to us in the scriptures. It's right here.

And so often when we're faced with choices, sometimes I've talked with people who've done this. they're faced with a clear moral choice and they're saying you know i'm not sure what god wants me to do here what you know what is what do you think god wants me to do and they're kind of like they're wanting some special sign to either remind them of what they already should know or some special sign that somehow will they think will let them do something they really know is wrong.

God's guidance is given right here. And he will never give you any guidance contrary to the book. If you are in your mind have somehow thought that it's God's will for you to do something that is contrary to what he teaches in the book, you need to rethink what you're about to do. I can promise you 100 percent unequivocally that if you are married god does not want you to go to cancun with that co-worker who is not your spouse who invited you to go down there for a long weekend and that co-worker is a member of the opposite sex i can promise you no matter how nice cancun is know how much that co-worker is going to spend on you no matter what they promise to do with for or to you while you were there. I can promise you it is not God's will for you to go.

You are to be faithful to your spouse. It's in the book. Now the problem is that we so often look at the book and think, man, this is terrible. I've got to stay in this narrow confines, do what the book says. You know, life's just no fun if you've got to live by the book.

let me tell you if you could see all the people I have seen in my legal career who didn't live by the book who thought it was going to be fun and then see the traps and the difficulties they're in you would know it is a lie from the pit of hell that joy is found by disobeying the book in fact the opposite is true you want to find joy in life, you want to find delight, you want to find real pleasure, you'll live by the book. You'll live by the book. That's where it is. We, letter to Caleb, September 25, 1999. He's 16 years old that day.

One word of advice from dad. Take the Lord at his word and obey him. The one who made you has given you a guidebook for living. It's in the form of a story that began at creation, and within that story are God's principles for how we should live best. Many will try to convince you that God's prescription for living is archaic, outmoded, boring, narrow, puritanically restrictive.

Do not listen to these people. They do not have your best interest at heart. The reality is, the greatest joy in living is found when our lives are ordered by the one who knows better than anyone what gives us real joy and fulfillment in life.

So I tell you to live by the book, yes, to avoid the pitfalls we can get into. Live by the book if you want to really experience joy and fulfillment and pleasure in life. Because all really good pleasure, all really satisfying pleasure long term comes from the one who invented pleasure. That's from God himself. Satan has to take the pleasures of God and pervert them.

Because Satan didn't invent pleasure, folks. did you hear me satan didn't invent pleasure god did and all satan can do is try to take those pleasures god has given us and pervert them in some way to cause us harm satan hates you folks he's not interested in your well-being he will do anything he can to convince you that living by the book really doesn't bring joy and delight and pleasure and that his way does it's a lie from the pit of hell. Live by the book. If you don't know what the book says, go talk to somebody who does. If you're not sure when you face a choice, if you can't in your own research figure out what the book says, then go talk to somebody who knows it.

Look at the list. I started writing down, the book tells us so many things about how we should live in life and it touches so many areas of living that we often don't think about

um what does somebody help me what does the book teach us about marriage

give me some principles

excuse me

okay the husband's got to be members of the opposite sex is that what you're saying okay Okay, here's a basic principle. Most people in this room are married, but you have children or grandchildren aren't. One basic principle you can tell them is when they get ready to propose or accept regarding marriage, they need to look across at the person and make sure they are a member of the opposite sex. If they are not, they don't marry that person. What's another question?

What else should they ask?

Okay.

okay, I'm going to come to you guys a sec. A believer. Is the person that they're about to marry a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ?

If the answer is no, it's the end of the discussion. They don't marry that person, or should not. You obviously, you know, there's a point at which they can make bad decisions, but they're living by the book. They don't marry that person if that person is not a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Makes life simpler.

It just eliminated a whole lot of people you have to consider for marriage.

but god doesn't give us those principles because he he's he hates us he gives us those principles because he loves us and knows the most important thing in life is our loyalty to him he doesn't want us to be yoked to somebody who might take us away from him and the tendency when you start to marry someone who's not a believer is your fate diminishes rather than increases

when once we're married god wants monogamy he wants faithfulness you don't go to cancun with a co-worker right all right how about dress somebody give me some uh you all had to get up and put on something to wear this morning i chose basic black simple but was was there anything of moral implications I had to think about that the book addresses regarding dress. The most fundamental principle of the Bible about dress, the Bible doesn't much care about the color of dress, that kind of thing, but it does care about modesty. The question is not, does it make me look sexy? That is not a biblical question. That is not a biblical question.

It is not. I've read the whole book. That is not the question.

The question is, out of my loyalty to Christ and my desire to honor Him and live in obedience to Him, I will dress in a modest way, a way that doesn't invite temptation in others or invite myself to tempt myself by being less than modest. What's another biblical principle about dress?

I think there's a pretty good biblical principle that our dress shouldn't be ostentatious. That is, we shouldn't be spending extravagant amounts on clothing because in the church, we're going to use our money wisely as good stewards of God. And number two, within the church, we don't want those who have less to feel less, feel like less.

Not ostentatious in our dress. You got your paycheck last week.

How does God want you to, what does God want you to do with that money?

Okay. Tithe. Tithe. 10% for the Lord's work.

10% for the Lord's work. I know you want to know, is it net or gross?

You know what? everybody well it's all his that's right people ask me that kind of question that's not even the biblical question because you know the new testament principle is we give all we can god requires 10% but that's the floor not the ceiling and in fact the whole emphasis of the new testament is generosity and those of us who may be in better positions financially and who can give beyond the 10 percent we ought to be doing it out of generosity and our commitment to him is it gross or net when somebody asked me that question i said look if you're asking me that question why don't you start with net because i know you're not there yet and the reality is probably if you start at five percent it would be an improvement from where you are so don't start slicing and dicing with me when you're not to giving really at all.

Sabbath.

And I'm going to, let's assume for the moment that the commands regarding Sabbath observance apply to us as Christians today for Sunday. Sunday is our Sabbath. Somebody give me some moral principles about observance of the Sabbath.

excuse me

keep every day alright you're going to have to explain that one

well okay there is apparently though a command that has an implication about rest yeah okay but let's talk about the one day of the week that is set aside keep it holy okay that's a general command let's take that to more specifics

ok work we don't work unless it's an act of necessity or mercy

excuse me not to buy or sell that goes with the idea of work so it's a day that we keep as holy it's a day for worship it's a day for not working those of you who are employers and have the say on the days your employees work, you should not be working and having them work on Sunday. Unless it's a real act, there's an emergency kind of situation, an act of necessity or an act of mercy. We need our doctors to be working on Sundays because people get sick on Sunday. That's an act of mercy and an act of necessity. But if you're in the kind of employment that's not doing something that's required to be done on a Sunday in order to help someone or is an emergency.

You should not week in, week out, as your routine, have your employees working. How about if you are with an employer that demands you work on Sunday as a Christian? What do you do?

Find another job.

What will I do?

how will I provide for my family? You trust God, but you do what he said.

Somebody help me with another moral principle. Where are you going to eat today?

If we are not to work on Sunday, should we demand that others work for us? on Sunday in terms of having to hold an employment in order to serve us.

My single-minded loyalty is to Jesus Christ. My goal is to honor Him in anything I do and to be single-mindedly obedient to Him.

I'm going to stop there because the next point is going to take me too long. Are you hearing me? Are you hearing me?

I will get into some more specifics as we get down this list. But would you put this list in your Bibles and bring it next week? You notice my duplexer quit duplexing so you've got two sheets. and I'll have some extra copies next week but please try to bring these as we think further about how to make moral decisions in the immoral world. Let me close this in prayer and I'll see you next week.

Lord, this day I pray that you will help us as we

as we seek to live for you. Lord, I pray that you'll help us to be willing to first just be obedient to you It means it's an uncomfortable thing for us, at least where we are right now. We know that doing this thing that you require of us will make us uncomfortable in a sense, will call us to do things and go places we really hadn't gone and done before. It may put us out of step with our friends, our co-workers. Lord, I pray that this class will be a class that loves you first, always, and the most.

and we'll live like it. For it's in Christ's name we pray, and for his sake. Amen.