Only the Right Values Will Give You the Future you want by Rick Warren

well again I want to say hi to everybody this weekend at all the different campuses I'm so glad you're here we're beginning a new series if you'll take out your message notes inside your program if you're watching online you can download these notes and we're starting a new series I'm calling choosing your future a lot of people have a big misunderstanding about God and what they misunderstand is this they they have okay the Bible says that God planned me before he planned the earth that's true that God had a purpose for my life before he even created the universe that's true and so a lot of people think well since God has a plan and a purpose for my life and he planned that long before I was born billions of years for I was born then it must be all preset it must be all predestined it's all pre-planned so there's no choice in it for me and the Bible teaches the exact opposite yes God has a plan and a purpose for your life but you can miss it it is not automatic friends most people are missing the purpose of their life God is not going to force himself on you God is not going to force you to enjoy the plan he created you for most people frankly waste their lives they waste their lives they don't understand that this plan and purpose has to be chosen has to be accepted has to be followed now repeatedly the Bible tells us that God will not force you to do his will he gives you the choice to accept or reject his will he gives you the choice to obey or disobey his directions he gives you the choice to follow or ignore the purpose that you were created for and most people honestly miss the purpose of their life because of their poor choices when Moses led the Jews out of Egypt after 400 years of slave and he led them out into the desert and he said we're going to a land that God has promised to us and it's gonna be an incredible land it's gonna be a land of milk and honey a land of great bountiful blessing and it's gonna be a whole lot different than the years you lived in slavery and this is a course of picture of salvation coming out of slavery to myself to send guilt the fear to judgment to freedom in Christ and the Bible says this is gonna be called the promised land anybody said it's not odd automatic that you're gonna get this I've planned it for you I've planned the Promised Land for you and God has promised to have good things in your life for I know the plans I have for you says the Lord plans to prosper you not to harm you plans to give you a future hope in the future hey there's I i I've got good plans for your life but you have to choose to follow me that's why I'm gonna do this series we're calling choosing your future for the next several weeks and before they went into the Promised Land God through Moses said this to the people and he says the same thing to you notice there on your outline the top verse Deuteronomy chapter 30 says this this is God talking today I'm giving you a choice you can choose life and success or you can choose death and disaster I am commanding you God is and he says I'm commanding you to do three things to love the Lord your God to live the way he has told you and to obey his laws and teaching those are choices you you can choose to accept or reject he says now you're about to cross the Jordan River and take the land that he is giving you if you obey Him you will live and you will become successful and powerful that is a promise it's not only promise that God has given to other people he gives it to you too but he says you've got to love me you've got to obey my word you've got to listen to me you've got to follow me live the way I've told you so he says if you do this you'll be successful and powerful as your pastor who loves you this is what I want for you I want you to succeed in life I want you to fail I want you to succeed as a woman as a man well if you get married as a husband or a wife if you have children as a parent I want you to succeed as a professional they says it's up to you I give you this choice life and success death or disaster are you gonna love me you're gonna obey me you're gonna live the way I tell you to do he says then if you do these things you'll be successful and powerful but verse 17 he says this if you disobey him and you refuse to listen to me you just don't listen and you're a letter way to worship other gods in other words you idolize things you'll be destroyed and you will not live long in that land across the Jordan that you're about to occupy in other words you lose the very thing that I planned for your life he says I'm now giving you the choice between life and death between is God's blessing his blessing or his curse and God says and I call heaven and earth to witness the choice did you make he said everybody in eternity all the angels are watching the choice you're making with your life I call heaven and earth to witness the choice you make and they finally at the end says this two words choose life choose life one of the greatest gifts that God has given you is ability to choose you are not a puppet God could have made us all like marionettes where he pulls all the strings and we pray five times a day we always do the right thing and if he had made us without a choice guess what there'd be no evil in the world there'd be no school shootings there be no racism there'd be no bigotry there'd be no no people fighting each other no Wars there'd be no sexual abuse and harassment there wouldn't be any evil in the world if God just took away our freedom to choose it but he gave us the freedom to choose that your greatest blessing and it is your greatest responsibility and if you choose wrongly it's your greatest curse and that's why I said we're gonna look for five weeks at choosing your future so much of what we think influences our lives is what happens to us let me just be real clear what happens to you in life I'm sorry for all the bad things that happened to you because we're in a broken planet you don't always choose right other people don't choose right we all get hurt but what happens to you in life is not nearly as important as the way you choose to respond to it because for some people they go through a bad situation and it builds them up and the other people it breaks them for some people it's a stepping stone for other people it's a stumbling block I can take you people put them in the exact same pain and one of them will succeed and one of them will fail why it's the choice it is the choices that you make your choices are far more important in shaping your life than your circumstances you cannot control all the circumstances that happen in your life sorry I'm sorry for the pain I've had circumstances in my life I wish had not happened you cannot control the circumstances in here but you can't control your choices and you can't control how you respond to it and you can't control whether you let something make you bitter or better now what I'm saying as we start this series is that we make our choices and then they make us you are far more shaped by your choices than you are by your circumstances and that's why for five weeks we're going to look at five different kinds of choices and today we're gonna look at choosing the right values I just finished a three day planning retreat with the elders of our church all day Thursday all day Friday all day Saturday and we were talking about culture and we're talking about change people always ask how do I change something well the way you change anything to change the value of it if you want to change your home change what you value at home if you want to change your health change what you value in your body if you want to change your business change what you value at work it's gonna change your community change your job change the values in that situation and it will change the circumstances and only the right values will give you the right future where are you gonna be in 10 years where you gonna be in 20 years without even knowing you I can tell you where you're gonna be tell me what you're choosing right now because the choices you make today will determine where you will be tomorrow not the choices you make tomorrow the choices you make today will determine where you'll be tomorrow and smart people wise people are always asking the question what do I need to do today to get me where I need to be tomorrow that's called wisdom it has to do with your choices now God gave the children of Israel God's people the choices that you choose life or death you choose success of failure insures happiness or sadness I'm giving you a choice you know blessing or curse success or failure I'm letting you choose I'm not gonna force my plan in your life but long before God gave his people the choice he gave the leader a choice who was the leader the leader in this case happened to be Moses and Moses had to make choices long before God said this to God's people choose today life or death and I want to just say this I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on it but if you want to be a leader to be a leader means you make the difficult choices before everybody else does that is the mark of leadership you make the difficult choices before anybody else does and so I want us to look at the choices Moses had to make in order to get to the place where they were going to go into the Promised Land because if Moses hadn't made the right choices these other people wouldn't even had this choice of am I gonna go into the Promised Land or not now Moses of course was the greatest leader in the Old Testament he you know unified the nation of Israel after 400 years of slavery he liberated them God gave him the Ten Commandments the first five books of the Bible Moses wrote he's by far nobody's more important in the Old Testament part of the Bible then this guy named Moses but it wouldn't happen if some choices hadn't been made now I want you to look on your outline and here's the story of Moses a summarized in Hebrews chapter 11 it says this and it talks about four life choices that Moses made and these by the way the same choices you're gonna have to make if you want the future that you want by faith Moses parents hid him for three months after he was born because they saw that he was no ordinary child and they were not afraid of the king's edict and let me stop and explain that when the Jews went to Egypt originally they were just a very small little group of family members but over the next hundred forty years they grew into millions and they became a nation within a nation and Egypt was full of people who were not Egyptian there were Egyptians but there were also millions of Jews in the same country Pharaoh gets worried about this like I'm gonna lose my country to people who aren't even Egyptian so he makes a rule says from now on the firstborn son of every family's got to be killed Moses is the firstborn son of this family and it says that the parents ignored the king they disobeyed the law I said they weren't afraid and it says this by faith Moses parents hid him for three months after he was born instead of killing him because they saw he was no ordinary child he's a special child and they were not afraid of the Kings eat it then it says by faith Moses when he had grown up refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter now you know the story here is that instead of killing their son they said we're gonna trust God with our son they put him in a little basket lined it with pitch and set him in the Nile River not even knowing where he's gonna go I'd rather put my son in the hands of God than lose him and it just so happens that the king's daughter is out there you know bathing in the Nile and she sees this basket come by and she says I love this little baby and she adopts a Hebrew boy not even knowing his Hebrew Jewish and so he's born it is born a Hebrew but he's raised as an Egyptian he's raised as the grandson of Pharaoh that says by faith Moses when he'd grown up refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter he chose to be mistreated along with the people of God these are all the slaves rather than enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time he regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as a greater value than the treasures of Egypt because he was looking ahead to his reward by faith he left Egypt not fearing the Kings anger he persevered because he saw him who is invisible now I could split early spend weeks just on these four or five verses but let me point out something general and then we're gonna look at four choices here there's an order in this story first God chose Moses of all the people God chose beause it says he was a special child from the very beginning even his parents did this gets different God chose Moses Moses that had nothing to do with that choice did you know that God chose you that's why you're born if God hadn't wants you wanted you born if God hadn't chosen you you wouldn't have been born God chose to have you be born so it starts with God's choice of you then next in the in the sequence Moses parents have to make choices for Moses when he's a child and it says they hit him Moses couldn't hide himself they disobey the law they make a basket they put him out in the Nile they protect him all of those choices when Moses was a baby the parents had to make now I actually have heard parents sometimes saying well I don't I'm not gonna force my child to go to church I'm gonna let them make their own choices and I'm just gonna let them grow up the way they want there's a word for that stupid you don't let your kids choose when they go to bed you don't let you in kids just choose a lot mom I want to eat Twinkies all day you don't let your kids choose I don't want to go school it well fines whatever you want to choose why why would you take the most important area of their life spiritual growth and say well that one I'm just gonna leave up to them know when they're little you make choices for your children parents who don't make choices good choices that you are not good parents they're not being responsible when they said well I just let my kids see any movie they want and all that my kids have any app they want on their phone and all that my kids have unlimited game time and all that then that's not a good parent it's not being a good parent you have to make some choices for your kids before they're old enough to make those choices but then notice it says finally Moses had to make choices when he had grown up circle that phrase when he had grown up the mark of maturity is you start making the choices yourself it's responsibility when he as a boy baby it's okay for Moses to live off his parents faith that's immaturity but when he has grown up yes start making his own spiritual choices that's called maturity and in this passage Moses makes four choices and we're gonna go through them pretty quickly but I want you to circle these four words refused chose regarded and persevered these are the four choices Moses made in life there on your outline Moses refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter he chose circle bat to be mistreated with the people of God that's to be a slave he regarded you know the sake of Christ greater value than the treasures of Egypt and he persevered that's the fourth choice that he did now I want to look at these for just a few minutes in detail because these are the exact same four choices you have to make if you want your future to be different than it is right now you got to make the choices today that will determine where you want to be tomorrow and if you don't make today's choices you're not gonna be where you want to be tomorrow so what did he do first choice the first life shaping choice in order to get the future that you want here it is refused to be defined by others refused to be defined by others you has as an adult have to make that decision and you have to teach your children how to make that decision that they refuse to be defined by other people they're not going to let other people determine their identity this is the first choice Moses had to make and he couldn't make it but he was immature but when he grew up it says when he grew up it says this he refused by faith when he'd grown up refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh's daughter now what in the world does that mean well Moses was having an identity crisis and every teenager has an identity crisis and every young adult has an identity crisis and a lot of people through life have an identity crisis and Moses is born a Hebrew slave but he's raised as a Gyptian or a royalty the son of Pharaoh's daughter raised as the grandson of the most powerful person in the world he's actually a slave but he's raised as Egyptian royalty and so at some point Moses has to decide Who am I Who am I and that's good that decision is going to affect the rest of his life now he's got two choices he can pretend to be favored as grandson and if he does that live a lie then he's going to Fame he's gonna have fortune he's gonna have luxurious lifestyle he's gonna have beautiful women peeling grapes for him he's gonna have every every wish and whim he could want he'd get in the palace of Egypt fame for all the stuff we want in life he already had or he could admit he's Jewish he would be humiliated he would be treated as a slave he'd have to do slave labor which one would you choose I think I'll just fake it I think this is kind of convenient I'll just I know who I really am but I'm not gonna pretend that okay and Moses refuses to live a lie this is called integrity the bite of the word they're refused and my actually means to to reflect on and disown means I think about it go ah not for me that is what it means to refuse he insisted on being what God made him to be now let me ask a very important question who are you letting determine your identity who are you letting determine your identity who you really are your friends your co-workers a parent who is unpleased will your spouse your boyfriend your girlfriend the kids at school who are you letting determine your identity it's called peer pressure do adults have peer pressure Oh baby oh baby yeah see what you're wearing I gotta wear it I see the fashion you got I better get it you got a cool car I need a cool car hey you cut your grass I'm gonna have prettier grass are you letting the competition determine your identity are you letting television determine your identity are you letting social media determine your identity and I've got to put out my so called perfect life Moses refused to live a lie now here's what the Bible says Romans 12:2 don't let the world around you squeeze you into its mold but let God remould your mind from within so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good look up here on the screen Moses said this exodus 20:3 - don't follow the crowd in doing wrong you ever let the crowd teach you or trick you into doing something being something you didn't really want to be let's go to this movie and let's go get drunk let's do this or that you know I don't want to do that but everybody's doing it you just gave up your identity the moment you said but everybody's doing you just gave up your identity 1st Thessalonians chapter 2 says our purpose is to please God not people he's the one who examines the motive of our hearts and Jesus said this about his disciples look up here on-screen John 17 16 they are no more defined by the world than I am defined by the world you know here's the big issue when you settle this first choice and that is who's going to determine my identity it makes you resistant to the fear of disapproval and that is one of your biggest fears what will other people think and you're scared to death what will other people think so I don't you talk this way don't talk to people about Jesus what will other people think when you know who you are your fear goes down when you're living a lie your fear goes up because they might discover what I really am or Who I am now this is your first life shaping choice we're gonna do five weeks on this friend but the starting well starting point is you refuse to be defined by others Moses refused to become be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter because it's not it's a lie it's not true it's just not true he says instead you just trust God and I want to challenge you as we start the series okay my first resolution as I am resolving to trust God and not let my life be defined by other people here's what the Bible says Jeremiah 29:11 Rick watch our rose song on this for I know the plans I have for you we should sing this song says the Lord there plans to give you plans for your good plans to prosper you not to harm you there plans to give you hope and a future now this is real success being who God made you to be and if you're gonna be where you want to be in 10 years or 20 you got to stop letting other people to find you alright second big choice this is the second one moses made and you need to make it to and it is a choice a life shaping choice to get the future you want choose this is hard but it's true choose short-term pain for long-term gain if you want to be where you want to be in five years or ten years or twenty years you're gonna have to choose short-term pain for a long-term gain this is the second choice that Moses made most of your problems in life come from a delay in ability to delay gratification I want it and I want it and I want it and I don't want it now and I can't afford it so I've charged it I don't have the money for it but I'm gonna buy things I don't need with money I don't have and you know the rest of that to impress people you don't even like and that is the second big problem we want we give up long term gain because we're afraid of short-term pain how many of you would agree with me that's I'm the right thing to do is the hard thing to do that true yeah it is true sometimes the if the right thing were easy everybody would do it why do we rarely do the right thing because it's usually the harder thing in that moment you attacked me I just want to attack you back that's easy you criticize me I want to criticize you back do I want to forgive no that's the hard thing it's always the right thing is almost always the harder thing to do in the short term but the benefits are in the long term now here's the next verse verse 25 it says Moses chose Circle that word chose to be mistreated that's short-term pain along with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short time now you know one of the things I love about the Bible is it always tells the truth and the Bible says right there the pleasures of sin for a short time the Bible says there's pleasure and sin ok here's what the Bible says sin is fun it's sin was a bummer nobody do it it's fun to disobey God it's fun to be selfish it's fun to be self-centered the Bible says the Bible even says it there's pleasure and sin for a season that means it's short-term you have your kicks but you're gonna get the kickback the Bible doesn't even try to mask over it no sin is fun there is pleasure in sin for season well what's it do for me to sit on the couch and watch a bunch of dumb movies eating a big bucket of ice cream or go in my room and read the Bible well evidently it's easier for you to read the Bible okay I you're better I always knew you guys were better than me I don't know maybe maybe you're that way but for me it's easier to sit and eat a bucket of ice cream okay so I always knew you were better than yet I'm not worthy of this church okay you're just too holy you got a Center for a pastor okay and you're all just great Saints I'm so glad that thank you pray for me okay all right now I want you to notice in this story of Moses verse 23 God chooses Moses but in verse 25 Moses had to choose God have you done that in verse 24 we see Moses refusing that's the identity and in verse 25 we see Moses choosing the negative is always followed by positive okay let me ask you a very important question where do you need to accept responsibility okay let me frame it another way who are you blaming for your life who are you blaming for your unhappiness who are you blaming for your lack of success who are you blaming for your spiritual condition well let me just go through some uncomfortable spiritual facts right off the bat number one you're as close to God as you choose to be you're as close to God as you choose to be you can't blame your husband your wife or anybody else just close to college you choose to be if you feel far from God guess who moved God didn't move he's always that you have moved away from him don't blame it you're as close to God as you choose to be let me give you another one you can't live off of somebody else's spiritual commitment now when Moses is a baby it's okay for him to live off his parents faith but when he had grown up he's got to make his own decisions there's some husbands in here trying to live off their wives spirituality man up start being a godly man yourself start there being a model of a godly father a godly husband you know I you know I can't tell many times I've sat on a plane flying somewhere around the world and then L say hey what do you do and I don't ever want to tell them I'm a pastor cuz that's gonna kill the conversation right there so I usually tell them I'm an author then they're very interested okay but eventually sometimes I'll give them a oh you're a pastor and they always was a my uncle was a missionary like you're gonna get into heaven on a credit card to somebody else your mother may have been a saint or your uncle or your sister your brother it's you Lord standing in the need of prayer so you can't live off somebody else's spiritual commitment you can't blame anybody else for the direction of your life okay let me just be real clear people can hurt you people can harm you people can scar you but no one can ruin your life not even Satan only you can ruin you I'm gonna say it again people can harm you people can hurt you people can scar you but nobody can ruin you except you your choices are far more important than your circumstances you are a product of your past but you are not a prisoner of your past your past influences you but your past does not define you you are not your past your past is past so let it go let me give you another truth maybe you haven't thought about for a while you're free to choose and you choose good or bad right or wrong success failure you you're free to choose anything but are not free from the circumstances of your choices the consequences I am free to make any choice I want to in my life what I eat what I drink who I hang out with but I do how I use my time but I am NOT free from the consequences and the moment I make those choices certain consequences go into half action and if I make bad choices in any area of my life then I'm going to reap those bad choices I'm free to make the choice I am NOT free from the consequences what choices are you gonna make today to be where you want to be tomorrow let me give you one other this is a really big one you're gonna have pain in life either now or later you're gonna have pain there's no such thing that's pain-free life no such thing as pay for you're gonna have pain in life and you're gonna have it either now or later now if you take it easy now life's gonna be hard later on the other hand if you put in all the hard work and effort now life is gonna be easier later just when do you want the easy part that's why the Bible says you know if I put in the hard work of saving my money now that'll be easier later or I spend it all now and it's gonna be harder later and I'll be in debt and I won't and I'll be I in want now God makes a couple promises about pain look here on your outline go hunts write these promises in first first promises that God will use it pain to help me grow that's a promise of God God has not promised you a praying free life but he has promised two things God will use it to help me grow Romans 5:3 and for we can have joy in our troubles because we know that the trouble produces patience and patience produces character and character produces hope God will use the pain in my life to help me grow here's the other promise of God God will reward me in heaven this is not the end of the story how you handle the difficulties of life you will be rewarded for in heaven 2nd Corinthians 4:17 these present troubles are quite small and they won't last very long yet they will produce for us an immeasurably great glory that will last how long forever circle that forever forever let me give you another one to back that up look up here on the screen so we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen because what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal so let me say it again you're gonna have pain in life take it easy now it'll be harder later in life because you didn't develop the habits or put in the hard work now to grow in character it's gonna be easier later it actually gets easier alright so couple choices first choice is to refuse to be defined by others the second choice Moses make is that you short-term pain for long-term gain okay here's the third choice Moses made and you got to make this two if you want to be where you want to be in ten years or wherever choose what God values not what culture values choose what God values not what culture values this is the third life shaping choice to get the future that you want so the Bible says this in the next verse verse twenty 26 Hebrews 10:26 Moses regarded regarded means I'm making an evaluation I'm making a judgment call I'm making a choice I'm clarifying I'm evaluating I'm considering I'm appraising Moses regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ in other words I'm gonna be put down as a slave as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt all of the possessions and the wealth of the world were centered in Egypt to this time and he's gonna inherit it all and he says you know what it's more important for me to be with God's people in their pain than it is for me to be with the devil's people in their pleasure and says Moses regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as greater value than treasure Egypt because he was looking ahead to his reward he wasn't looking at the things that were temporary he's looking at the things that are eternal so he evaluates he considers he appraises he makes a value judgment he clarifies what matters most let me ask you this if I were to ask you to right now I'm not gonna ask you to do it so I would ask you to write down on your outline right now your top three values in life I wonder if what they'd be could you even name them could you name your top 10 values and could you name your top two values in life if you can't name them how in the world can you live by them if you don't know what's important to you let me tell you something other people will decide it for you if you don't know what's valuable and what's not valuable what is worth giving your life for and what is not worth giving your time for your waste in your life is sorry you just wasted your life Moses considered what God values and he said I want what God values not with culture values culture values everything was in that Egyptian Palace fame fortune sex salary and status is all there the very three things we spend our lives trying to get Moses walked away from that stuff the stuff we spend our entire life trying to get fame and fortune possession power privilege you know pleasures things like that you haven't identified your values you certainly can't live by them and as I said if you don't decide the world will decide for you by the way what does the world value well the Bible is very clear and for thousands of thousands of years the world has valued the same three things the Bible calls it the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of law or as I've written down there on your outline they value popularity prestige and power that's what was in the kingdom of of Pharaoh they value pleasure in verse 25 and they value possessions the treasure of Egypt we've got the measure and the pleasure and the treasure of Egypt and Moses walks away from the measure and the pleasure and the treasure beat it's ironic by Moses standards and by the world standard Moses had it made he's got all the wealthy once he's got all the pleasure once he's got all the fame he wants and he walks away from it why cuz he knows they don't last the Bible says there on your outline first John 2:17 the world and everything in it the people desire is passing away but those who do the will of God live forever so the wise way to live is to do what God values so if that's what the world values popularity pleasure and possessions you know the things to have the things to be the things to do feel what does God value once you write these down God values three things number one verse 24 God's purpose is more important than popularity that's a smart move when you value God's purpose for your life more than being popular as Pharaoh's got a grandson Moses of the heir to the throne he's a celebrity friends but Fame never lasts you know what if Moses had stayed as Pharaoh's grandson nobody would even know who he is today he'd be nobody nobody even remember his name because he said no know God's purpose for my life is more important than being popular we're talking about him six thousand years later all right so God's purpose is more important than popularity number two people are more important than pleasure in God's value system people are always more important than pleasure and that's verse 25 Moses trades this royal lifestyle in order to go help a bunch of knee slaves many of you have gone on a peace trip to go reach you know some group of people on the back side of the world you gave away pleasure you could have the money you spent on a peace trip you could've gone bought in a plasma TV with it but you didn't God's going that's my boy they value my purpose more than the popularity and they value my people more than pleasure and number three they value peace of mind more than possessions and that's verse 26 he was looking ahead to his reward he considered doing the right thing greater value than the treasures of Egypt the possessions so he rejects popularity and pleasure in possession in order to have purpose God's people and peace of mind you realize what I'm saying here that Moses gave up everything we spend our lives trying to get the world's pleasure the world treasure the world's measure of success why he's looking ahead to his reward now there's one more here's the fourth choice excuse short-term pain over long-term gain I choose what God values over what culture values number four I choose to live by faith not by fear and that's a choice and that is a choice to choose to live by faith not by fear verse 27 says this by faith Moses left Egypt most powerful nation in the world with a bunch of slaves not fearing the Kings anger he's not afraid why he has faith he persevered why because he saw him who is invisible Moses had every reason to be scared to death he had every reason to be to be afraid he's going up against the most powerful man in the world Pharaoh at the height of the Egyptian Empire the most powerful man on the planet in Egypt Pharaohs considered a god you're going up against a god and and and the truth is Pharaoh in Egypt he could command you to do anything and you had to do it I commanded you to cut off your right hand you had to cut it off Moses looked at favor and goes I report to a higher authority you're not God you're not even a mini-me God God is God and you're not Pharaoh and so he does this in faith now here's the key the key to faith is not just faith in anything did he put faith in all kinds bad stuff and not be where you need to be in 10 years you got to put your faith in the right thing now you go put your faith in Bitcoin there you go put your faith in some politician and you go put your faith in some celebrity you go put your faith in yourself I highly recommend not doing that one how's that one working out for you are you where you want to be right now no you got to put your faith in God look at this verse Galatians 2:16 no one can please God by simply obeying the law so we put our faith in Jesus Christ and God accepted us because of our faith by the way when it said Jesus Christ does Jesus have two names like Jesus is the first name Christ is his last name no no Jesus is his name Christ as his title it's who he is Jesus the Christ Jesus the Messiah Christ and Messiah the same thing but he says we're gonna put our faith in Jesus Christ that's what gets me to where I want to be you live in light of eternity it's the only antidote for all the pressure you're under you got to stop caring what other people think you got to stop caring about the world's values of passion possession and position sex salary status I got to have it I got a be everything and I gotta have all the pleasure I got to get more and more all the world's value just got a kick you got to get off that rat race treadmill cuz even if you win the rat race you're still a rat he who dies with the most toys wins no he who dies with the most toys still dies and just wasted his life because life is not about the acquisition of things you're not taking any of it with you in the next few weeks we're going to look at other major choices we talk to here we're talking about choosing the right values next week I'm going to talk about choosing the right guide I'm going to teach you how to be led by the Holy Spirit how do you let the Holy Spirit make you make the right decisions and then we're going to talk about choosing the right companions the week after that and then we're going to talk about choosing the right doors to walk through in life your life will be determined by which doors you walk through and which doors you walk past and we're gonna do a whole series on that after Easter and then we're gonna walk look at choosing to let God use you and bless you in ways but it starts with these choices let's bow our heads now I want to challenge each of you to make these for life shaping choices that will set you up for where you want to be in the future with your heads bowed let me read to you again what God says you can choose life and success or you can choose death or disaster if you obey me you will live and you will become successful and powerful but if you disobey me and you refuse to listen then I will not give you these things God says I'm calling all of Earth in heaven as a witness to the choices you make choose life how do you choose life by choosing Jesus that's using God's plan and purpose for your life so in your mind just right now maybe you've been in church all your life you've never been in sure ever or maybe you're just listening online and invite you to pray this prayer as I pray it just say me to God what Rick's saying I'm saying that that's my prayer today dear God I don't want to drift through the rest of my life I don't want to drift I want to move with direction and purpose and so today like Moses I want to commit to these for life shaping choices first with your help I want to choose to not let other people define me I want to be what you made me to be second God like Moses I want to choose short-term pain over long-term gain to have long-term gain there dad I want to choose that for the rest of my life to live by your values I met cultures values which aren't going to last and finally I Lord I want to choose to really live by putting my faith in you I realized that it's only by your grace and power that I can make these choices and then keep these commitments so Jesus Christ help I need your help I humbly come to you for help I totally put my faith in you starting today I ask you to save me and empower me and guide me and I'm gonna stop making excuses and I'm gonna stop blaming other people and I'm gonna get in a good church like Saddleback where I can receive support and I ask you to accept me into your family Jesus Christ and I humbly pray this in faith amen

Channel: Saddleback Church Hong Kong

Views: 24,954

Rating: 4.8139534 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: Mb_wHFr7uk0

Length: 50min 33sec (3033 seconds)

Published: Wed May 02 2018