Peachtree Presbyterian Church | 05-09-2021 | Everyday Holy | By Peachtree Presbyterian Church | Facebook | Good morning, Dear friends and welcome to worship at Peachtree. Yeah. Mother’s Day Huh I love being a mom and I love that I’ve got my own mom living nearby I’ve been the marvelous grateful recipient of so many surrogate mothers in my life and I’ve been able to be the second mom for so many of my students throughout my years of teaching and ministry just great blessings today, Rich is going to talk to us about wisdom and discernment. And he thought that this is a great opportunity to talk about those topics on Mother’s day because there is nothing so keenly sharpened as the wisdom of a mother and I should know. sometimes that wisdom gets delivered with a raised eyebrow. Yeah, I’ve perfected that one. sometimes it just involves soothing a crying child. no matter how old they are. sometimes it. Delivered with strong encouragement through gritted teeth. sometimes that wisdom has asked us to have the skills of a military logistics as we’ve solved family problems. You know, but most of the time. it asks us just to listen. and that’s all we need to do and to keep learning how God has called us into every loving moment. and right now, he’s calling us to worship so please join with me as we start our day with prayer. Dearest lord, who calls us into your presence. give us discerning hearts today. Like Solomon give us your wisdom but even before that. give us yourself let us have relationship with you seeking you first before anything else. Thank you that we can come to you at any time day or night and that your steady hand will guide us and help us find our way in Christ Name. Amen. Immortal Invisible God only wise that is a perfect hymn to start this day. Let’s sing it with will. Oh god. Almighty And I’m sorry. Thy Thy clouds are fountains. You. For her life. Your father. In preparation for Mother’s day, we reached out to some of our members and asked a question What did God teach you or show you through your mother? Diane says the power of unconditional love my mom would listen and never make a judgement. Stanford said the importance of reading the Bible, my mother read the Bible daily and would read to me daily. This set an example and gave me a foundation in faith. Carol. My spiritual journey began with a godly mother in law. She was a person who lived out her faith every day and I wanted the relationship she had with God. Richard told us my mother was the most generous and giving person I ever knew she taught me to care for my neighbors and put them ahead of myself and Jim said. Whenever I faced a difficult time in my life or a challenge that seemed overwhelming my mother’s mess. Was always twofold. God loves you and wants the best for you and he will help you wise wise woman indeed for this mother’s day Rich wanted to surprise a few of our Peachtree moms and give them a little. thank you So here he is we got some beautiful flowers. We’re going to go honor some moms. Alright, let’s go see this mom and family in action. This is the Mcknight clan are we doing school Happy Mother’s Day. Oh well. Thank you. Y’all are very sweet. Thank you for all that you’ve been doing to hold everything together this year. What’s what’s been the challenge for you Lots of zoom calls lots of yelling out timers like you have class get on class. She’s been a rock star managing the home front having to manage me every day. Yeah. So. in other words, she has four children. She has four children every day in the house. I know this is. A hard year, so we just wanted to just say thank you being a faithful mom, It doesn’t get celebrated enough. No. thank you all this is lovely. I mean what a fun surprise. Thank you guys. Thank you. Alright. Bye guys. As the Bible reminds us with Abraham and Sarah, there’s different timings and seasons for Parenthood. so we’re about to see a mom who’s helping to raise a grandchild. Let’s go and check that out. Hello Welcome. Come on out. Come on out. Oh my goodness. We know that this has been a remarkable season for being a mom and especially being a grandmom who’s taking care of a grandchild. so tell us just a little bit about that. Yeah. Mikaela has been with us most of her life. She’s a sophomore at Riverwood Okay she’s in the youth group at Church. She’s a blessing. Yeah. now I’ll be honest. I didn’t think I was going to be in this situation. At my age, yeah, well you’re standing in the gap for a lot of children and a lot of families in the midst of that. And so we celebrate you and honor you and bless you. Thank you for being a great. Thank you. Thanks for all you’re doing. Oh my goodness my friend. Alright. Happy Mother’s Day so sweet. Thank you rich. Thank you got it same to your sweet wife. You got it apparently you’re always supposed to honor the one who gave you children so we’re going to do that today. We’re going to honor my favorite mom. Even though she’s not really my mom do you have to knock at your own house. I don’t think you do. I think you just go in this is every day where she’s zooming she’s working from home. We got a she’s got a puppy mom right here. He’s very excited. Hi Happy Mother’s Day. Mwah. Thank you. Oh this is awesome. Well. it’s a surprise. Austin says. She’s the best puppy mommy ever alright. so we are at the baseball field might run into some Peachtree folks, but we are looking for Allison. We’re going to bless her for Mother’s Day I’ve enlisted a lifeline a friend we got newly. Pastor Dean and she’s going to present the flowers on behalf of the church. Come on. Let’s go. check it out there. She is we see her We found her Allison. What do we got here? Well? We’re four to nothing and we’re winning. We’re winning. Yes. yes. we’re winning miles gets to wear a jersey out there and we’re excited for it. We’re rooting for him. This is what moms do Moms hang out at baseball fields. They go where the kids go and because this is a mother’s day celebration, we have some flowers on behalf of the church. thanks for being a great. Mom Moms are heroes. Wow. thanks for being a great Pastor Moms have been in all kinds of different circumstances and situations and this one has a different tone She’s been having to manage the care of a two-year-old son who’s been going through cancer treatments in the midst of of this pandemic that we’ve been suffering through so let’s go honor Brittany and celebrate DC’s Health. Our mother’s day flowers for you, Oh. thank you. Yeah. How’s Dax doing he’s been doing really well this round he was diagnosed in July of 2019. Okay, We just monitored for a little while and then in May of twenty, he had some growth in metastasis, so we had to start treatment. Wow about a year ago now so the prognosis is good and it actually is currently no evidence of disease. so everything we’re doing now is to prevent relapse to the high risk for relapse. Oh my gosh you’ve been a great mom moms are heroes and all kinds of circumstances and this has been a trying one. so so just we want to honor and. And lift you up and bless you in the midst of it. Thank you so much take care. Alright blessings. Thanks so we can’t we can’t get to every month but we would love to and there’s so many different stories so many different opportunities to celebrate these women who have blessed us nurtured us cared for us and most of all love us and so to all the moms out there regardless of whether or not we got to bring flowers to you. Happy Mother’s Day and we love you. We just saw a few stories of Peachtree Moms and I know that there’s so many stories. out there. God knows all of us. He knows all of our stories and it’s not been a very easy year for moms this year. Won’t you let me pray with us now. Our Lord and our God we’ve gathered today to worship and praise you and and thank you for the gift of life We’ve gathered today to honor our mothers, those who bore us or chose us those who raised us from when we were so small we only registered them as warmth and safety and love. We remember our mothers now, some of whom are with you in heaven We remember that they held us on their laps to read and to sing lullabies. we. That they taught us first things. God is great and God is good. How to know our letters and colors and shapes how to enjoy the beauties of this life warm cookies and milk swinging in a swing taking a nature walk blowing out a birthday candle singing Jesus loves me our mothers taught us how to cope at school and they picked us up when we can barely keep it together and held us. our mother. Helped us get ready for tests and for prom and for the big game. our mothers have watched us proudly as we turned around from their embraces and walked into the larger world. Lord we remember when we first knew that our mothers were real people with real hopes and dreams of their own We remember when our mother believed in us when no one else did we remember our mothers with love and thankfulness today? Lord some of us remember our mothers today with sadness or confusion or anger. Some have difficult or complex relationships with our mothers and so this day is poignant and painful. for some here. their mother is ill and this day is touched with anxiety. Some of us have sent our mothers on to you and we feel their absence keenly today we ask. Blessing and compassion lord on all those for whom Mother’s Day brings painful or bittersweet memories. We give thanks also Lord for the blessing of being a mother when we first held our children, we knew something of your powerful love for your children. We ask your blessing and loving presence with all those who would like to be mothers that have not yet been able on all those who have lost a son or daughter and who have em. Arms and an aching heart today. we pray for mothers who wait and pray for one who is estranged and on those who care for families in crisis help us to have the kind of strong compassionate love you model for us. Oh lord help us to patiently keep on pouring the love as you do. Lord we pray now also for our world. We pray for all those who work to make this just and free world and lord we pray today for mothers around the world who want peace, simple food and shelter safety and a future for their beloved children help us to remember them as we celebrate and safety today. we pray now for those of our own number for those who are ill, We pray for healing for those who mourn we pray, especially for all those whose mothers have died and are very much missed today and on all mother. Who have lost a child lord? we thank you that when we pray to you, we pray to one who knows everything about our human lives, our joys and our sorrows lord, you are our master and our friend and you taught us to pray together, saying our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us. Debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. It’s so good to be able to pray with you and I want you to know that there’s a way you can post prayer requests on our prayer wall every single day you’ll be able to see that people around the city and around the world are praying for your prayer needs. so remember the prayer wall and know that you can participate in the real life of our church in another way you can give it’s easy to do online and you will feel so good that you did that it helps to do the. Of the Lord here and around the world, there’s a link here you can use to give and last of all if you’re able if it’s possible, Don’t forget your mama today, give her a visit or a call. Happy Mother’s Day. Happy Mother’s Day everybody. What a joy it is for us to celebrate the moms in our lives as soon as you’re done with worship today, hope that you call write Email text shower with gifts and with praise to the women who raised us cared for us loved us nurtured us so grateful for the gift of motherhood and the reflection of that that that is to the love and the unconditional grace of Almighty God and so we’re grateful for all of you. Moms who are watching and participating today and I’m. For us to get to share this particular message on Mother’s Day, we’re in the midst of a series of messages where we’re talking about everyday Holy and in everyday Holy we’re talking about the specifics of how God meets us with his sacredness in our everyday lives and so we’re talking about sacred people sacred spaces Sacred rhythm Sacred reflection sacred wisdom, sacred art and sacred journeys today we’re talking about sacred wisdom. How appropriate is that on? That we’re talking about the wisdom that we receive and I want to begin today by sharing with you when I started out in pastoral ministry part of the portfolio of my responsibilities and tasks was to work at this university. This is rice University. It’s located in the heart of Houston, Texas in the shadow of the largest medical center in the world. It’s a it’s a great university and had a variety of things that I would do like in Bible studies, but as it is with. Ministry The core of the ministry is relational ministry and so I was meeting one on one with students and when I wasn’t directing a class of college students, most of the one on one discussions centered around two different questions. They centered around like what am I going to do with the rest of my life. What is my career? What is my vocation? What what am I supposed to do with that and the second question that people would often invariably ask was relational questions like Is this the one I’m supposed to marry? Is this the one that I. Supposed to spend the rest of my life with. and so I felt like I was kind of a vocational and relational counselor as I was working in college ministry and what’s interesting to me is that the question that’s behind all of those questions is this. It is it’s what’s God’s will for my life People wanted to know how they could discern the will of God. and so today we’re going to tackle that subject I need to tell you that today’s kind of message is going to be a little different and how it’s configured we’re going to start. Biologically then we’re going to talk biblically and we’re going to spend a lot of time on kind of how to apply or practice what we’re talking about today So let’s start talking about theology when I was in college and I started to ask these questions. My dad gave me a book now. it was not a Christian living book. It was this book. it was called decision making and the will of God a biblical alternative to the traditional view this book was written in. It is 500 pages long and so it was in the early 90s that I was reading this book and it was the first theological book that I read. I’d read some other Christian living literature, but never something that was kind of dense and I’m not telling you to go run out and buy this because it’s it’s pretty thick in terms of understanding it. but when I dove into it it absolutely changed the way that I thought about God’s will for the rest of my life and I’m. To give you the cliff notes version of that right now, so when we talk about the will of God, what exactly is it that we’re talking about because there’s kind of three different ways that you might understand when the Bible or someone talks about the will of God is it God’s sovereign will for creation kind of God’s total will for the universe? Is it God’s moral will in other words his his. understanding of what is right and what is wrong or are we talking about God’s personal or individual? A will for my life and so let me see if I can help you understand these three different things kind of on a diagram There’s the you know the totality of God’s will over all of creation. and then there’s God’s moral will, and then the question is is is God’s personal will just this kind of little dot. the midst of all that we can do with right and wrong I actually think the diagram goes more like this. I think it’s about God. Sovereign will and God’s moral will, and yet there is this large sandbox or area of freedom and responsibility. You know what I’ve talked to people about this II hear people use phrases like I want to stay right at the center of God’s will as if God’s will is this tiny little area of real estate or geography and man if you deviate from that a little bit you you’re going to be outside God’s Will I remember a friend who had the difficult challenge of choosing between two graduate school programs that were both. Really good and the question that he kept saying, is II, want to make sure that I’m doing God’s will and I kept thinking to myself. I think you can honor God at either one of those schools. So let’s talk a little bit about how this theology comes to us in the form of a couple of clear statements. This is how the authors of that decision making in the will of God put it. This is how they summarize it first. It’s called the way. Wisdom where God commands we must obey where there is no command. God gives us freedom and responsibility to choose. thirdly where there is no command. God gives us wisdom to choose. and then lastly when we have chosen what is moral and wise we must trust the sovereign God to work out all the details for good. Helps us to understand as we’re talking about the will of God how all of these different pieces kind of fit into play? So let’s think about this all the way back at the beginning of the Bible in Genesis chapter one, we are told that we are created in the image of God that that we are to reflect God’s character and that a part of that is that we are each and every one us given a Dominion, we’re given a region or an area of our will to be done here on Earth and so. In the midst of that you and I are called to exercise that why stewardship and judgment in the freedom in the area that God has given to us and then we see this in Genesis chapter two just chapter two. It says this the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and to take care of it and the Lord God commanded the man you are what you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for when you eat from it, you will certainly die now. there’s a lot of. What is that tree and the one prohibition the shorthand understanding from that is for them to be able to determine right and wrong for themselves. So, in other words, eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil just like one forbidden fruit, it was saying we get to determine for ourselves. What is right and what is wrong? It’s a rejection of God’s will as the moral will I get to be the god of what is right and what is wrong. So what we see in that Scripture is probably. Able for me to kind of paint with a silly little made up parable. Imagine that Adam and Eve. it’s towards the end of the day and Adam comes in. he’s super tired and he’s like man I had to name a lot of animals today and I nearly I mean I was out of gas when when I called that thing the Ava I mean I just II need a little bit of break and I’m absolutely starving and Eve, says. Well, I know you’ve had a long day. day. I’ll be glad to dinner for us. Why don’t you go out and collect? Fruit and then I’ll come and I’ll kind of make it into a fruit salad and it’s like total deal goes out to go kind of pick some of the fruit and he comes back empty handed. and eve’s like wait, I thought you were going to go get some food and Adam came in and he’s and he’s just like you know what Eve III didn’t know what fruit to pick. II want to stay in God’s will and I don’t know if it’s God’s will for us to have apples tonight or for us to have you know oranges for us to to have tonight Maybe we’re supposed to. How are we supposed to determine these things? and he says, well, isn’t it true that God gave us freedom. for all of those things in the garden. and Adam’s like you know you’re right, God did just give us freedom so we could eat bananas tonight we could eat oranges tomorrow night and Adam goes back in and brings the fruits and they’re able to actually have their meal together You know as silly as that parable might be. it’s an. Of going all the way back to the beginning and how God told them that they had all of this freedom and sometimes we really don’t believe that we have that kind of freedom. I love how Saint Augustine put it. He put it like this, he said. Love God and do whatever you want now. We have to understand this biblically in context, but loving God isn’t meant like hey you get to go to church, say a prayer and then get to go do whatever you want and remember that Jesus said. If you love me, you will keep my Commandments. So it doesn’t it’s not a blank check for any desire that you and I might have what Augustine was saying is that when you love God when you are in a relationship with the living God. that you and his will start to merge together. into one and that God has invited you into the glorious freedom. that is his will. And so what is this? Look like this is the summary statement from that book that I told you that was 500 pages long. It’s a little shorter in sermon form. It’s this instead of wondering how do I find the will of God a better question to pursue is how do I make good decisions? How can you and I become wise? faithful Good stewards of what God has entrusted to each and every one of us you know I think. When we think about the will of God we just do so in a way where we kind of are. offloading the responsibility and the freedom that we’ve been given with and so I want to put that mantle on you to say say that God’s will is not small. It’s big and it’s within his moral will and that you and I have the chance now to make some wise and faithful and good decisions on his behalf so for the rest. Message I actually want to spend some time in the practicality of that and I want to share with you because as a pastor, I get a front row seat to a lot of lives. some of the common mistakes that I see with decision making so we’re going to talk about seven quick. mistakes that people make with regard to making wise decisions and the first one is this first one is what I call the outcome bias. and what we mean by that is we think that good decisions. always mean good. There’s a social scientist by the name of Annie Duke, who’s written a book on decision making, and the way that she talks about it is is that it’s called resulting that you and I are the kind of people that are biased towards that man if you make a good decision, it always leads to a good result when the reality is this is far more complicated than that. Let me give you an example, an example of that might mean that you run through a red light but nothing. To you, you didn’t get a ticket you didn’t get into an accident. That’s an example of a bad decision that ended up with a good result but say 1 day you’re going through a green light and you get in an accident That was a good decision that actually ended up in a bad result in kind of a silly vein when I’m playing the game of golf every once in a while I feel like I hit what is a really good golf shot, but it you know, bounces one way and bounces another and ends up in a bunker a trap out of bounds or something along those lines. It’s still was. Shot it just didn’t have a great result and that is true for us in life itself. You can be making the right decisions and not have them have the right outcomes for what you wanted and so don’t immediately think in terms of a binary nature of God’s will I know a lot of people if something doesn’t turn out the way that they expected, They’re like well, it must not have been God’s will that is not the way it works and life is far more complicated and nuanced than that. That’s mistake number one mistake. number two is this It’s called the destiny mistake and what we think with the destiny mistake is kind of this fatal that everything hangs on this one decision when I was when I was in graduate school, there was a movie that came out a long time ago. That was that was called sliding doors and in this movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow the whole movie was about. Life diverging on whether or not she made it to that subway train on time or not so it played out two different timelines. One timeline of her life is if she made the train and the other timeline as if she didn’t make the train and how absolutely up and down and backwards and inside out her life was just from the simple shift of that one decision I remember watching this movie and it drove me crazy. It drove me crazy because I. Thinking about that they were making such a big deal out of this one decision and talking about all the implications. when in reality. it didn’t necessarily have to pan out the way that the movie goer or the movie makers had made it. I can give you an example of that. From recently I was meeting with a family and the Kaiser family. We’re we’re talking a lot about college. We have a sophomore and junior this year in high school and we’re looking large at the the looming decision that college is and. So this couple they’re on the other side of that they’ve been through that and I was asking them for wisdom of like you know you’ve got three children. They’re way on the other side of college. Tell me about what what you thought and I love the way that they put it, they said this, they said we think the decision of where you go to college is less important than what you do with it. And boy that just seemed to be a really wise word for a family. It was just about to go through that we often inflate certain decisions with so much importance. when the reality is is all that that decision does is open up a variety of different possibilities. I’m not saying that the decision about where you go to college is inconsequential what I am saying is it’s just one of many decisions and it’s not near as important as the myriad of decisions the multitude of decisions that you will make on the other side. Of that decision, I believe that I could have gone to lots of different colleges and had a variety of different experiences and still stay within the will of God don’t get this fatalistic perspective of inside his moral will that one is good and is in God’s will and that the other one is bad. I think God has given you a freedom and an area to be able to move and to decide the third mistake is this. At the alternate reality mistake, it’s the mistake where we say if only if only it’s the mistake that I see all the time where people have a tendency to blame their unhappiness or what’s wrong in their lives based on their circumstances that what they really need in order to be healthier happier better is that they need to be able to change their circumstances. They need to change their circumstances with their relationship or they need to change their circumstances at work or they need to change their circumstances at home or where they live or whatever it is. It’s this, it’s the chasing of the rabbit of if we will get this one change then my life will be better. one of my professors along the way in life was AA just incredible man that you hear me talk talk about often if a part of the Peachtree family, his name is Dallas Willard and he says this, he says God has yet to bless anyone except where they actually are and if we faithless discard situation after situation moment after moment as not being right we. Simply have no place to receive his kingdom in our life. God has yet to bless anyone except for where they are now. This is this is not a statement that can be taken out of context to say that if you are in a horrible bad abusive terrible situation that you shouldn’t rectify it if you can. what it does mean is that many of us from circumstance to circumstance thinking that circumstances is the solution. To all of our problems. the way that God works is that he meets you and I even in where things aren’t good. and so one of the mistakes that I see is that people chase that change every decision they make is on the basis of how can I change my circumstances for better? Maybe it’s not about making it better. Maybe it’s about the opening of our hearts and our lives before God. exactly where we. Are. Here’s the next mistake mistake number four I like to call it the magic eight ball mistake you know God should just automatically tell me exactly. what I should be doing you know this is an incredible and important book. It’s an incredible resource and tool for our communion and communication with God and a part of the way. I’m convinced that God wants to share with each and every one of us is for. To take this book and to incorporate it into our lives, but many of the ways that people kind of treat this book as they open it up and it’s it’s like a magic eight ball. they’re looking for the answers to questions that the Bible isn’t giving them you know in the famous passage about the Bible that has to do with second Timothy 316 and seventeen that all scripture is God breathed and it’s useful for teaching rebuking and all those different activities and then the purpose. All of that, Paul says, is so that the that the person might be the servant the man of God, the woman of God might be equipped for every good work. in other words, the purpose of reading the Bible is not to get all of the answers to your questions if you’re approaching the Bible with God answer all of my questions, you’re reading the Bible in the wrong way where we should be reading the Bible is God help me to become the woman or the man or the person. Who can now be wise? James tells us in his letter. So this is the brother of Jesus, said If anyone lacks wisdom, you should ask God gives this generously we should be going to God’s word not to give us all the answers to all of our questions We should be going to God’s word to help us to become a particular kind of people. so that God might use that wisdom that we have gleaned so that we might be on the shaping and the restoration of his world. Here’s the next mistake. The next mistake is what I refer to as the weariness dizziness mistake and this is very simple. The biggest mistakes that I have made in my life with decisions. I can honestly and straightforward, tell you most of the time those decisions were bad decisions. because I was tired or I was in a hurry. and so if you have a big decision to make in fact, even if you have lots of little decisions to make one of the most important things for you to do is to rest to replenish. and to remember that. We cannot. automatically run at full tilt all the time and that there is a lot of things that we regret later when we make decisions when we’re tired and when we’re hurried. maybe the most spiritual thing you can do is to take a nap to rest to replenish so that you’re making better decisions The Bible talks a great deal about Sabbath keeping for these types of reasons. The next mistake, this is the sixth one the isolationist mistake I can do this by myself, I don’t need anyone else’s input. I don’t need anyone else’s direction. This is what on Mother’s day we might refer to as the call your mother and to do so to do what she tells you to do and the the reason that that I can joke about that is is that when we talk to another person but particularly to someone who loves us when we do that. I gotta tell I gotta tell you having that perspective is one of the biggest shots of wisdom that you can ever get when you have that conversation, even if that person doesn’t say anything the sheer act of that conversation will give you a new perspective and then if that’s a good and loving friend or another person who cares for you, they will be able to help to shape that perspective in a way that you might be able to make a better decision. This is one of the greatest pitfalls that can fall before. When we try to take the burden of making decisions all on our own and we forget that God’s giving us a loving community in order to be able to make those decisions. It’s one of the most valuable things about Church. one of the things I’m most excited about in welcoming you back is is for us to be in that community and I think that we individually make better decisions when we are in our Sunday school classes and we are in our small groups and when we are part of belong communities and things like. That I think we make better and wiser decisions. and the final mistake I want to talk about today is this. It’s the avoidance mistake John or says that readiness is overrated when it comes to being a litmus test for a good decision. Sometimes we need to make the right decision whether we’re ready or not. earlier this week, I was reading through some of Frank Harrington older servants, Frank is the belove. Former senior pastor of this church from decades ago and in one of those sermons that jumped out to me that he was talking about decision making and avoidance. It was a sermon on the figure of Elijah at Mount Carmel and he says this. he says I remember meeting a man many many years ago early in the morning hours of the church, he was in trouble His family was falling apart because of his neglect and he was facing the consequences and he finally. II meant to do better doesn’t that count for something and I said no not really meaning to do something and intending to do something is far different from doing something. you know the old adage that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I frequently run into members of this church who have not been attending with any degree of regularity. We call them BPO members burial purpose only I like these members they like me we enjoy becoming reacquainted with one another somehow they just drift away almost invariably they feel compelled to bring it up and more often than not. something goes like this, they say, Hey, pastor I’ve been meaning to go to church. now friends meaning to be in church and being in church are two different things don’t ever confuse the. Who is being synonymous? They’re not it’s like saying to your wife, I’ve been meaning to be married to you. That’s not the same thing as being married to her. I’m going to put up all seven of these decision making mistakes. And all this is meant to be suggested as you think about the decision making that you need to be doing the wise freedom stewardship that God has entrusted to you within his will. Is there some kind of change that you need to make in your decision making? Listen as I close out this message there’s fellow pastors in the area. Andy Stanley and his father Charles Stanley and Andy tells the story at the beginning of his book on decision making, he tells he tells at the time of how over and over again, his father would drive him crazy and the reason that his father would drive him crazy is that when Andy would come to him with a major decision and would ask for his advice, he would follow up that question with more questions and eventually. All boiled down to. what do you think the wise thing to do is. And he would push him and he would say dad like you’re you know, you’re you’re you’re not telling me what you think and and his father would say you know, I’m not always going to be here and he’s like yeah, but you’re here right now and he’s like yes and the reason that I’m here right now is to help you to become a wise person. What do you think the wise thing is to do? You know when I think about that father son relationship, I think it mirrors a great deal about the relationship of our heavenly father to each and every one of us. that it’s not just about compliance and directing us and that there’s this tiny little thing that’s called his will out there that you better not deviate from you know I think God has given us an incredible wide birth within his moral will to not only obey him but to be able to share in the freedom and the joy and the love of what it means to bear his image. And so I hope you’ve had kind of the watershed moment that I had and thinking about God’s will differently. and I hope that today helps you to make better decisions let’s pray. Thank you. Oh God for the incredible day that this is and how we get to dip our toes into the deep pool or the vast ocean of your sacred wisdom. Thank you God that all of our questions are followed up with your questions and that often when we come to you and say what do you think we ought to do you often answer that with a question and say what do you think you ought to do? Thank you that we are never in jeopardy of being outside of your sovereign will help us to make sure that we are staying within your moral will help us to love you and then to. Within the freedom that you’ve entrusted to us. Take us back to the beginning God and for us to reclaim the freedom and the image and the Dominion that you’ve entrusted to us and most of all help us to become wise, mature people who reflect your goodness with better decisions each and every day and we pray these things in Jesus name. We call. The food of your Take your truth. it. in. That Today And our deeds. So, all the Lord and And so I love the basis of that song that we just sang of Samuel being in the presence of the living God and he didn’t realize it and eventually speak Lord for your servant is listening The spirit of God is still speaking still guiding us still directing us still asking us questions still nudging us on. not just any selfish desire until our will becomes more of his will and that we get. Live with that mercy and justice and love and beauty and joy and passion in the world and so thanks for being a part of today, I’m going to close today’s service with a passage. It’s been a great deal to me and hopefully it takes on a whole new meaning for you today. Paul says in the book of Romans that we are in view of God’s mercy to offer ourselves even our bodies as a living sacrifice to God for that, This is our spiritual act of worship and that we’re not to conform any longer to the pattern of this world but to be transform. By the renewing of your mind. and then when that happens, he says, then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is for your life. God’s perfect and pleasing will his will comes about by the transformation of our mind. God’s not looking for robots God is looking for a people. and so go and be his people and may it be so. And For us