Making Moral Choices: Part 3

Let me explain my diagram because it will help us as we get started. We're going to talk about specifics, but as they pertain to relationships. When I make, for most of the last, I don't know, 14 or 15 years of my life, I have annually set goals for myself. A couple of years I've missed in there, but most years I've done. And when I think about setting goals, I think about relationships.

And what you see here is the way I set my goals. I first think about in my goal setting my relationship to God. What are some very specific things I want to do this year to develop in my relationship to God? The next relationship I think about is my spouse. How can I work on that relationship and improve it and make it better and stronger?

The next relationship I think about is my relationship to my children. What I need to do to develop that bond. Next, I think about my relationship to just people in general, others. And then I think about relationship to myself. What do I need to do for sort of self-improvement?

these are people relationships in the different colored blocks i have two other relationships we're going to talk about relationship to work and relationship to money and stuff and i would set goals for myself related to work and related to money and stuff okay now let me make several comments about this the way this diagram is set up the closer you are important the relationship. When you get to the outside, that really doesn't matter very much. Money and stuff is not all that important in the scheme of things. But the most important relationship is here. The next most important relationship is my spouse, then my children, then others.

Self comes after all those other relationships in terms of importance from a biblical perspective.

now I would submit to you that in our culture so often this order which I would submit is the biblical order of importance of relationships is flip-flopped in some fashion or form for example often the relationship in the middle might be self and then everybody relates to me you know I am the center of the universe how do you relate to me and and and everything is me me Another flip-flop might be in family relationships is in our culture, people might say the relationship to children comes before relationship to spouse.

Oh, I love my children, I just can't get along with my spouse. I say if you love your children, you will love your spouse more. Because children thrive best when mama loves daddy more than children and vice versa. That's the reality.

So do you see what I'm saying? Most important here, work out. Our culture flip-flops them. What does Satan want to do? I would submit to you, Satan wants to go and damage the relationship as close to the center as possible.

If he can get you to deny your relationship to God, he knows he just destroyed all the other relationships with it, typically. if he can't get you if you're one of those who says you love God but he can get you to not like your spouse he'll go there because he knows if he can get you not like your spouse he damages your children in the process and other relationships so he's always working I submit to try to damage the relationship that he can most easily damage as close to the center of the diagram as possible so just because you feel like you have a good relationship to God separated from your spouse or your children or then the relationships with others he will go at it so what i'm going to do as we go through this today we're going to talk about the first four relationships god spouse children and others and then next week i'm going to finish up with self work money and stuff okay everybody with me okay let's go to the next picture one other idea before we start. Thoughts, actions, and habits. You know, a lot of what I have talked about over the last couple of weeks is what we do. You know, we want to make moral decisions, take moral actions. And what I've really been trying to deal with is I've seen people make some terrible, take some terrible action steps that have caused them significant problems in life.

And I want you to make good decisions that make good actions. But you know, actions arise from thoughts, don't they? We typically, typically, not always, typically we think before we act. And how we think affects how we behave. In other words, what principles we think by affect how we act.

And if we do the same action over and over and over, what do we get? We get a habit. And boy, when we get to this point where we've developed habits, it's tough to break those habits. Because we've already been through the thought process, we've done the action over and over and over, and now it's a habit, it's sort of ingrained. And to break that really requires that we go back to the beginning and rethink what's important, how we are to behave, start to work on new actions to develop new habits.

My goal is that all of these will be in order in our lives, and ultimately we'll have habits by which we live that help us in just doing the right thing over and over and over. But it starts by thinking right and then each day trying to do the right action. So if you've got bad habits, hopefully this will help you go back and rethink some things.

And my hope is we'll think right so that we don't get into bad problems. Okay? Alright, let's go to the next one. What is the preeminent virtue for us as Christians? Stop right there.

Don't show them the next. What is the preeminent virtue for us as Christians in our relationship to God and other people? That's my question. I'm trying to give you one principle that overarches every other thing we're going to talk about. The one principle is

what kind of love? Biblical love. I put the word biblical there for a very important reason. The word love is so perverted in our culture today. It's how you feel.

It's, you know, I love ice cream. I love Jesus. I love, you know, we throw it all over the place. I'm talking about biblical love here. biblical love is to be the virtue that characterizes i think most importantly our relationship to god our relationship to spouse our relationship to children our relationship to others but it's biblical love this is the love that says i'm going to do what's best for the object of my love no matter how I feel no matter of anything else biblical love is always thinking first about the other person the object of the relationship and putting them first and there are priority of loves I submit in scripture the preeminent love is God then spouse and children and then we get to other people okay but when we talk about biblical love it's important for us to understand that in some ways this is what we would call a tough love.

It's a love that says I'm more interested in the object of the relationship, the object of the love, and I'm going to always do what is best for the object of the love. And that sometimes means I do things that may seem, particularly when we're talking about the relationships with other people, I may do things that seem painful to the other person at the moment, but in the long run is the kind of love that always delights in the truth and never delights in evil. It's the kind of love that will not just say anything's okay because it really cares most about the person that is the object of the love. It's like a good parent won't just say to a child, well, whatever you want to do, because I love you, I'm just going to let you do whatever you feel like doing. What a perversion of love. And we see that when we talk about a parent-child relationship.

reality, though the relationship is not parent and child with other people, we still should have that attitude of what's best for the other person is what we seek. Okay, let's go on. Let's start with our relationship to God. And I'm going to hit this fairly quickly because we've talked about some of this already. I've added one new word here.

In our relationship to God, if we're going to make good moral decisions, we must always, always, always, always be loyal to God and He should be our first love. He is our first love.

This is, you know, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The great command is you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Our total being is to be committed to Him. We're Not to be double-minded, shifting from one love to another in a sense. We are to love Him always first and foremost.

This is the idea of having a pure heart. A pure heart doesn't just mean clean living. It means that our hearts, like pure gold, is 100% gold. A pure heart is 100% Jesus heart. That's what a pure heart is.

And that's what we are to have in our relationship to God. The next is purpose. we live to honor him. Whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do it all for the glory of God. Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

So whenever you start to do anything, the question is, will this decision be in line with my purpose in life, which is to honor God? The third principle is delight. I put this in here because it's so important, I think.

delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart Psalm 73 25 whom have I in heaven but you and earth has nothing I desire beside you it's hyperbole, it's overstatement but the psalmist is showing that the relationship to God, the delight in God is so great that all other relationships dim by comparison

I'm going to submit to you We are to avoid immoral actions because they're wrong, but we should also avoid immoral actions because we find so much more delight in God than anything else in life. And the reality is, in the best of all worlds, we don't do wrong things simply because they're wrong and we shouldn't do them. We don't do them because we're really not that interested. Something else gives us more pleasure in life. Something else winds our clock more.

And what winds our clock more is God himself. So why do you not commit sin? Because it's wrong. But because I'm just not that interested in it, to be honest with you. I'd much rather be serving God and working with him and being with him.

The antidote to sin is delight in God. I'm going to submit to you, until we delight in God, sin will always be much more difficult. overcome. And we won't stick with God long term unless we begin to find delight and joy in Him. You hear what I'm saying? Avoiding sin is in one sense a negative approach. I just want to avoid it because it's wrong. But then the positive approach is there's something better. There's something that in the end is more satisfying and enjoyable to me.

I see some of you going, how can this be? God isn't ever nearly as delightful is all that sinful stuff.

I never will forget being in Honduras first Team Duloc trip. And we're there in the medical clinic. And an elderly gentleman who had walked for hours to get to the clinic has been through the treatment and he comes back in and he comes to me and I was the team captain on that first trip. And he begins talking in Spanish ears couldn't catch it at first and it took a little while but I finally began to understand what he was doing. He came back in and he was thanking me for us being there and then he began to pray out loud thanking the Lord for this team and thanking him for what we were doing there and thanking him for all that we were doing for the people around there and I said this is good.

This is good stuff. I would rather do this kind of stuff any day than all the sins that Satan to throw up in front of me. Now I have my weak moments like you do. But I'd a lot rather be down in Honduras working with those kind of people delighting in God in doing so or in the middle of Ethiopia out on the border of Sudan standing outside a refugee camp thinking about how are we going to be able to help these people. And the delight in God and the pleasure he gives are so much better folks.

So much better.

Fourth, obedience. And that's overall. Anytime you start to make a decision, ask about loyalty, purpose, delight, and obedience. And just those general principles will help you make the right decision. Now, let's go to spouse.

Relation to spouse. I'm going to just hit highlights, folks. There are a lot of things we could say here about the relationship with our spouses. It is the second most important relationship I submit in life according to the Scriptures. Rightly understood.

One way we start as Christians thinking about having a good relationship to our spouse is before we marry the spouse.

Okay?

God's requirements or admonitions to us as believers about who we marry I think are pretty plain from Scripture.

Christians should marry Christians.

1 Corinthians 7.39 is where I get that. That's not the verse that says unequally yoked. That's where Paul tells widows, yeah, you can remarry, but only if you marry someone who belongs to the Lord.

And that is a principle, I think, that applies in all married situations. Secondly, opposite sex.

Third, I can't believe we even have to say that. But we do. We do. And we should. Thirdly, it's for life.

For God is joined together to let no one separate.

Now, let me ask you this.

Does the person you marry have to be of the same race?

No. Does the person that you marry have to have the same educational level that you have? No. If you're from the South, can you marry a Yankee?

I didn't get it.

I was waiting for Kathy Rogers to say something.

If you're a Yankee, can you marry a Southerner?

By the grace of God, okay.

But let me ask you this.

If you're rich, can you marry a poor person? Sure. If you're poor, can you marry a rich person? Sure. But let me ask you this.

should you consider those differences before you decide who you marry. It's not an absolute requirement like being a Christian in the opposite sex, but when you're thinking about can I stay married to somebody for life, while there are no absolutes about race, education, income levels, you ought to say, hey, will these differences affect my ability to stay married to this person for life? And you need to have a sober, sound thought process in analyzing the differences to say, yes, in spite of these differences, we can stay committed to one another for life. So the third category is where you think about all the different things, the differences that are between you to make sure that despite those differences, you can stay married together. You follow me?

So while they're not absolute requirements, they should be considered. What if you married, what if you were a Christian and you married a non-Christian? And you've decided now, you know, I really, you know, I understand the biblical requirement now. Why didn't I think of that beforehand? You know, so you know, I think I'm going to go back and try to get it right.

I'll divorce this person so I can go find a Christian.

The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 7, which is a great chapter, you ought to go read. says to people who he wrote to in the church of Corinth, whatever your current situation, if you've married an unbeliever or married to an unbeliever or whatever, you stay in the relationship you are in and you do the best you can to make it a good relationship. So I would submit to you, if you didn't follow God's command initially, so be it. But now you follow his command and take whatever relationship you find yourself in now in marriage and you do the best you can to make that a strong, vital marriage. If you have divorced and remarried, should you divorce your present spouse so you can go back and remarry your first spouse?

No. Whatever relationship you're in right now in marriage, you do everything you can to make it a solid, strong relationship.

You can't unscramble scrambled eggs in a sense, right? But boy, you can... What was the... you can put ketchup on it. That makes it taste better for those of you who don't like ketchup on scrambled eggs.

You do the best you can where you are. This is an important thing. I've seen people cause a lot of damage saying, well, I did it wrong the first time, so I'm going to try to start over, but then they do more damage, and you're not supposed to do that. Wherever you are, stick with it. All right, loyalty, love,

relationship with spouse after God is the most important relationship more important than children, others, self, work or money God hates divorce God hates divorce He hates divorce and never wants it never wants it He does permit it we know of at least in scripture there are at least two grounds on which he permits it. One is unfaithfulness, marital unfaithfulness, adultery. The other is desertion. 1 Corinthians 7, Paul told believers, if your spouse has deserted you, you've done all you can to make it right, deserted you, you're no longer bound.

Apparently willful desertion, he permitted it. You know, the debate becomes, are there other circumstances cruelty, etc. that are the equivalent of like willful desertion. If your spouse walked in one day and shot you trying to kill you, would God permit divorce in that situation? Would that be the equivalent of a sort of a willful desertion of the marriage?

That's where you get into more difficult debates. But it's very clear that adultery and willful desertion apparently are permitted. But God never wants it. That's the point. Next, one flesh.

One flesh is the picture for marriage. It comes from Genesis. You know what the implications are of this one flesh? The two shall be joined together, the text says, as one flesh. And it's literally, if you wanted to give sort of a modern translation, it's being superglued together.

And the way it's supposed to be, you're superglued together, meaning it can't be separated. of one flesh is such a great picture for marriage because one flesh has the idea of intimacy of care you know you're so close you're one if you love your spouse you're really loving yourself in a sense it's got a picture of exclusivity two become one two fleshes become one not room for any other fleshes you know

not supposed to be

this has important implications for when we think about sex

in marriage

in marriage does the Bible say anything about sex in marriage? you bet it does you probably haven't read it but I'm going to tell you what it says your bodies aren't your own Your bodies, when you become married, are also your spouses.

And Paul says, Husbands and wives should not deprive one another of the sexual relationship, except by mutual consent. Sex is not to be a weapon in the marriage, the sexual relationship. Paul is very explicit. Husbands and wives should not deprive each other of the sexual relationship, Except by mutual consent. You could decide for a period of time, for whatever reason, to not have sex.

But then, again, you go back to having it. But one spouse is not to say, okay, I'm not going to give you the sexual relationship just because I don't want to give it to you. Now, this is not an admonition that you can rape your spouse. It's a call to each spouse to voluntarily give him or herself to the spouse.

Because marriage is the only appropriate outlet for sexual intercourse, according to Scripture. But within marriage, have at it.

Anything goes between husband and wife that is not physically, emotionally, spiritually damaging.

I'll let you decide what all that means.

Excuse me?

Yeah, Paul looked at the passage. The Apostle Paul says you can, by mutual consent, not have sexual intercourse. But the Apostle Paul makes the point for only a short time. The mutual consent, not to have a sexual relationship, should be only for a short time. Why is that?

He doesn't want us to fall into sin. That's why the outlet is marriage.

so have sex with your spouse

I was at a marriage conference I taught for a bunch of Presbyterians

and I made some suggestions about what we ought to distribute at marriage conferences

I don't usually do that anymore but

And I'm joking a little bit, folks, but I'm being, at the same time, very serious. I have talked with married couples and been negotiating the sexual relationship with them, between them. You know, one didn't want to have sex, the other one wanted it all the time.

Let's care for one another, husbands and wives.

but enjoy the gift God has given us. It enriches the marriage relationship and it helps it to stay where it ought to be. If we're going to be one flesh, we need to avoid situations or thoughts that might lead us to sin. Situations. Don't be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And watch your thought lives. Watch your thought lives. It is not right. for Christians to be fantasizing about intimate relationships with others than their spouse. Thoughts breed actions, folks.

Thoughts breed actions, and lust in the heart is not a good thing. This is a real battle, though, isn't it? Boy, it's a real battle today with all the images we're flooded with. I would also encourage you, husbands and wives, to watch your tongues and facial expressions when you're interacting with your spouse. C.S. Lewis captures this in his little book, The Screwtape Letters, where Screwtape is writing to Wormwood and encouraging Wormwood to try to cause difficulty in a marriage relationship.

And Screwtape, the senior demon, tells Wormwood, here's how you can do it. Listen to this. This is great. At the time C.S. Lewis wrote this, he was not married.

But boy, he had great insight into how we interact with one another. When two humans have lived together for many years, it usually happens that each has tones of voice and expressions of face which are almost unendurably irritating to the other. Work on that, Screwtape tells Wormwood. You know the kind of thing. I simply asked what time dinner would be, and she flew into a temper.

Once this habit is well established, you have the delightful situation of a human saying things with the express purpose of offending, and yet having a grievance when offense is taken. Hear what he's saying?

What time will dinner be ready, darling?

Are we ever going to have dinner tonight?

When will dinner be ready?

I got home from work. It's 5.30.

You know, maybe it's not dinner for you. It's something else. But it's easy to start to damage the relationship by those little barbs. Lastly, submission. is a biblical principle. Mutual submission. Husband submits to wife. Wife submits to husband.

Ephesians 5.21 Mutual submission submission is a different word from obedience. It doesn't mean we always obey our spouses but submission means they come before me.

I respect them. I care for them. I want the best for them. I will not stand on my rights. Instead, I will do just the opposite.

I will surrender my rights, in a sense, for my spouse. This is, again, not a permission for one spouse to lord it over another or be mean toward another spouse. It's saying to each spouse, care more about them than you care about yourself. Love them more than you love yourself. Serve them first rather than yourself.

Children.

We'll do this one and stop for today. Children are a gift from the Lord.

Some children come biologically, some come by adoption. It doesn't matter. They're a gift from the Lord.

Parents, you are to teach your children to love and follow the Lord. You are not to follow the view that, Oh, we want our children to make up their own minds. You have wisdom. You're older. You understand more.

Teach them in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. That means you have formal training of your children. You bring them to Sunday school. You have them in Bible studies. You have them in discipleship training.

But informally, you must be teaching too. The scriptures really have an emphasis on this informality about teaching children. they must hear about the Christian life and how it is to be lived when they sit at home, when they walk along the road, when they go to bed, when they get up. It's supposed to pervade all of life. You can't, I submit, just teach your children this stuff without letting them catch it at the same time from you as they see you live.

Long term, your children are much more likely to follow what they've learned informally. You can say all you want, but if you live a different lifestyle, your children are going to see that. So it's important they get the formal but the informal training. Children are to obey their parents. Children are to obey their parents.

It is a straight command. Children are to obey their parents. So parents, you should expect that your children will obey you. now this is an admonition for children and I would submit there's a point at which this changes you may still be biologically someone's child but you at some point become an adult

and at that point I think this admonition does not apply in other words once you're an adult your parent can come and say go do this, do this, do this you're an adult at that point, no longer a child child stage that we are bound to obey our parents. Once we're adults, we still honor them, don't we? But it's a different relationship. But for children, those who are under the control of parents, they are to obey. Thus, parents, you should discipline when they don't.

And the scriptures are very plain about this. To withhold discipline from a child is not to love the child. To withhold discipline is to invite the child to go in directions that are not healthy long-term for the child. This is the tough love, the kind of love that says, I will discipline you because I love you and because long-term it's best for you.

Now, let me say this word. Children are to be respectful of other adults, but the obedience is of parents. You hear me? It's of parents.

So this is not a general admonition that your child has to obey every adult. They should be respectful of authority and so forth. But the admonition is obey your parents. Last point.

Parents, while you are to make sure your children obey and are to discipline, don't exasperate your children.

Don't provoke them to anger. What does that mean? That's Ephesians 6. I think it means this. I think it means that we can be too harsh in our discipline at times.

That would exasperate children. We can exasperate children by having too many rules

to the point that it's just inconceivable that they can handle it all. I think we're much better parents teaching them principles, some very clear rules, Rules should typically be relatively few that are absolutes. One absolute is you always do whatever I tell you. That's a good rule. And it covers a lot of ground.

But if that rule is learned early, boy, life is much easier.

I'll close with this one thought from Susanna Wesley and James Dobson. They both taught the same thing. Susanna Wesley, the mother of John Wesley, James Dobson taught it later in the book Dare to Discipline. He said this, how do you know when to discipline? Sometimes it's hard to know.

But James Dobson and Susanna Wesley gave us one bright line rule that I think is invaluable. Parents, whenever your child clearly and unequivocally challenges your authority, you must discipline then.

Caleb, I told you to do this. No, I am not going to do that. You've got about a millimeter of a second. If you blink, you lose.

There should be no question that the child will obey the parent.

If you hesitate, if you hesitate, when the authority is clearly challenged, you lose.

How soon do you start to discipline? As soon as they know they're challenging your authority. And that's pretty young.

All right, let me stop there. We'll finish this up next week. Let's pray. Lord help us as we think about relationships in life to understand how you want us to live by the book. Help us to see that living by the book is not a burden. That ultimately it's the way life is best.

I pray that we will be students of your word. That we'll begin to understand your word. But then we'll live by it. For it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.