Make the Easy Choice!

6th Sunday after Epiphany, 2/16/20
Deuteronomy 30:15-20


Make the Easy Choice!
I. God chose you.
II. Choose life with God.
III. Why that’s so difficult


Life is full of choices. You make them so often every day of your life that most of the time you hardly think about it. And that’s OK, because many of the choices you make aren’t all that important. For instance, will you choose to eat a salad or a sandwich for lunch? What will you wear to work or school today? Will you buy this brand or that one? There’s nothing life-changing or monumental about those choices. Make one quickly and move on.

Other choices in life are so easy, it’s almost as if there’s no choice to make. Today you can buy one and get one free. Would you like the free one? Of course you would! If you choose this electric utility supplier, you will spend less per kilowatt hour than the one you are currently using. Would you like to change suppliers? Of course you would! This investment option will earn you 1% more interest. Would you like to move your money to that account? Of course you would!

But some choices are far more difficult. In fact, the choice might be so difficult that we struggle on and on to make it. You can choose to have surgery, but it will likely cause these complications. Should you take this job offer or stay employed where you are right now? Do I select this college or that one to further my education? Is this the right person for me, or should I wait for another one to come along? Tough choices! So much of your future depends on making the right choice. So much of your happiness is in the balance. What should you do? Which choice should you make?

You have a choice before you this morning to make. And it’s an important one. In fact, it’s not just a few years of happiness and prosperity that are on the line; it’s your eternity. And the one placing the choices before you is none other than the holy, almighty God who loves you with an astounding love. What’s more, he doesn’t place two equal things before you and direct you to choose one. No, he tells you this, “Now choose life.”

So, what are you going to do? Is there really any choice to make? Obviously not, so make the easy choice! It’s easy to make, because the advantages are so clear. But, as we’ll see, it’s one we have trouble making. So let’s make our way through this portion of God’s word and receive our Lord’s encouragement to make the easy choice, the right choice.

Part I.

Before we talk about the choices our God lays before us this morning, we need to understand that the only reason we have the opportunity to make those choices in the first place is that our God chose us first. The Bible makes it clear that before God created all things, in eternity, he knew you by name and chose you to be his own. That boggles the mind! Your God thinks so much of you that you have always been on his mind and in his heart.

But be clear on why he made that choice. It’s not the criteria we use to make our choices. Which one looks better? Which one will perform better? Which one will make me happier? Your God didn’t consider any of those things when he chose you.

So, on what did he base his choice? Solely on who he is. The Bible states that he chose you in Christ. In other words, he chose you on the basis of his grace and love for you. He chose you, not on the basis of what you could or would do for him but on what he could do and did for you in Jesus. None us makes choices like that, but your God does and did.

In eternity he chose you to be one of his believers and now, during your lifetime, he has followed through on that choice by making you his own. Bible history is the account of the saving activity of God so that you could be one of his own dearly loved children today. He carried through on his promise to send a Savior into the world. We celebrated it just a couple months ago at Christmas. In two months, we’ll stand at the foot of Calvary’s cross and ponder our Savior’s astounding love for us—a love that drove him to sacrifice himself for our sins. And then we’ll join the Christian Church on earth in praising our God for our Savior’s glorious resurrection on Easter. Those are all saving, historical events that God carried out for you.

Part II.

And now, in your lifetime, the Holy Spirit has brought you to faith in Jesus as your personal Savior. You’ve been baptized and brought into his saving kingdom. For years—decades even—the Holy Spirit has nurtured your faith in Jesus through his word and sacrament. He did all that so that you could remain in your Christian faith. He made all those right choices for you, so that today you could make the right choice—the easy choice—for him.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Why wouldn’t we choose life with our God who has done so much for us already, even in eternity? Why wouldn’t we choose life with our God when he simply wants to bless us eternally? Why wouldn’t we choose life with God when the only thing he wants is for us to live with him in bliss forever? There is no downside to that choice; only an eternity of upsides. Choosing to love the Lord is as easy as choosing to love your spouse on your wedding day. You’re all in! It’s the only thing you want to do and you want to keep doing it. It’s such an easy choice!

Then why do we have so much trouble making it? In fact, why do God’s people throughout his history of dealing with them have so much trouble making it? In fact, our God knows we have trouble making that easy choice and that’s why he spoke these words through Moses in the first place. Listen to them once again, “See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”

Part III.

Moses spoke these words to the Children of Israel as they were on the verge of entering the Promised Land. Once in that land, they would be surrounded by people who worshipped vile idols in the vilest of ways. The Lord knew what a wicked influence these heathen people would be on his people. And that was one reason this easy choice would be so difficult for them.

It’s the same for you and me. Unless you get a spiritual reset—like at least once a week in worship—it’s so easy to begin mimicking the people who surround you. You easily fall into their materialistic worldview. You quickly succumb to playing their power-struggle games. Their dishonesty and manipulation become attractive ways of doing things. Your God calls you to your spiritual senses and says, “Choose life, not death.”

The Lord also knows acutely the battle that rages inside each one of us. He has chosen us in eternity and made us his own people by faith in Jesus, but our sinful nature still clings to us. It influences us to think only about ourselves. It constantly suggests that the world’s sinful ways are far better than God’s holy ways. It even stands stoutly against the God who has made us his own and demands independence and the right to think and feel as we want to. In fact, it wars against all that is from God and is holy. While your sinful nature is constantly pulling the steering wheel of your life into sin and death, your God calls you to your spiritual senses and says, “Choose life, not death.”

And then there are our doubts, doubts about who our God is and what he says in his word. We know his promises to bless us. We know he has told us to follow him and he will make everything turn out for our good. But we’re afraid that if we take him at his word, things might not go as well as we had hoped. We convince ourselves that we need to do things our way at the time we think is best, rather than wait for our God to make things turn out his way. And our thinking is as old as sin itself. Like our first parents, we doubt that God really has our best interests in mind. We wonder if he’s as good as he claims to be. We convince ourselves that he’s withholding something good from us. So we better go ahead without him.

That’s spiritual nonsense! Our God comes to us and declares, “Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life.”

How can I be sure? Look no further than the cross he nailed his Son to for us. There’s our forgiveness for every time we’ve doubted our God and chosen a path away from him. There’s our life with him—an eternal life with him which Jesus won for us. He gives us that life with him freely and fully, even though so often we’ve chosen ways that lead to death and destruction. And, but for the grace of God, that’s where we’d be. Instead, he chose you and made you his own so that you can enjoy life with him forever.

He chose you first so that you can choose him every day of your life with him. Make the easy choice, and enjoy God’s blessings forever! Amen.