Choices

Your life is made by choices. You make a decision about something you're going to do and you do it, and your life is just a series of choices that you make lived out in the world, and all of us make choices in different ways. I'm more systematic when I do it. I want to sit down and say what are all the negatives about this that I can see, and what are all the positives about this that I can see, and then when I've got all that worked out and the consequences in my mind that might occur, I want to make a choice. The other people are different than that. They get in a situation, they look around, and they just do what feels right to them at that moment. All of us make choices in different ways, but all of us have underneath all of those choices that we make some framework of ideas that govern those choices. It can be the law, for example. You're out on the highway, and you're in a hurry to drive, and you see a sign that says 65, and so you look at your speedometer, and you say I'm supposed to go no faster than 65, and because it's the law, and you think you should obey the law, you keep it 65. Those laws and principles govern our choices, whether we think through them carefully or whether we just do it by instinct. Whenever you become a follower of Christ, whenever you become a follower of Christ, something happens in your life that changes your decision-making. All of a sudden, you have someone with you by means of the Holy Spirit who is giving you instructions as to what you ought to do. That changes everything for you. Now, whether you're impulsive in your decision-making, and you say okay, this is what I feel like God wants me to do, or whether you're rational in your decision-making, saying I've prayed to God about this, and I've looked at all the alternatives and thought through what he said, whichever way you might do it, you're trusting in God to guide the process that you do and to give you the framework in decision-making. Now, some things are really simple. You're at work, and somebody does something you really don't like, or you're at home, and someone does something you really, really don't like, and maybe physical violence might come to your mind, murder even, and you say, the Bible says, thou shalt not kill, so you just push that off. Some are easy like that. Then there are sometimes when decisions have to be made, and you look at one side, and you look at the other, and you talk to God about it, and you can see how one side would be right, and the other side would be right. And so you're torn in how to be able to make the right choice at the right time, at the right moment. Not all of them are clear-cut black and white. The story that I want to read today is about Jesus and his followers, and here are some simple directions that he gives us about how his followers can make decisions and choices with the confidence that God is directing them. While Jesus was in Bethany at the home of a man known as Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which he poured on his head as he was reclining at the table. When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. Why this waste, they asked. The perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor. Aware of this, Jesus said, why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. I tell you the truth. Wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her. The story starts whenever this woman comes into the room with Jesus. Matthew doesn't indicate who her name is, so we don't have that here. He doesn't indicate the value of the gift that she gives. I don't use the other gospels in this because I think there's a reason that Matthew is telling the story exactly the way he's telling it. The woman is anonymous. She's intended to be anonymous. What's really important is the act that she performs and how God sees it. The alabaster jar that he's talking about was a very expensive kind of glassware. I understand from my reading that it's opaque. You can kind of see through it. They usually had for perfume things like this a long neck on the bottle with a cap on the top so that they could keep in the aroma of the perfume and it wouldn't dissipate through time. So here she has this gift, an expensive gift. Now very expensive perfume is a relative matter. If I go into the store and I'm shopping for some cologne, I look at what's on the shelf and I look at the prices and if it's twenty dollars, I say that's very expensive cologne. And other people might look at the cologne and say well here's some for a hundred dollars. That's very expensive cologne. And others might look at the cologne and say all this stuff is cheap. I want some really expensive cologne. John tells us in this story that the cologne was valued at three hundred denarii. A copper denarii, that's a weight like an ounce, a denarii just means a weight, but a copper penny that's that weight would be roughly what you would pay someone for a day's labor. Now if you take off the weekends and you take off the vacations and the holy days for them, that would have been a year's salary. Now if you put it here for us and you talk about the average salary for even minimum wage jobs, we're talking about a bottle of perfume that was worth fifteen to sixteen thousand dollars. Extravagant, right? Very extravagant. Now what happened to Jesus was this lady comes in with expensive perfume, fifteen thousand dollars worth. She breaks the neck of the jar, which is how you had to do to get the heavy perfume out. The nard, it's probably nard, it's what they had in it. It was not like a liquid, like splashing around. Break the neck of the jar, which ruined the jar, and then you had to put it on Jesus' head. Now if you read the scriptures, you'll find that one of the customs they had in Jesus' day was when someone came to your home walking across the dirty ground and the dusty ground, that they would bring a basin of water and wash the feet of the person who came as a way of greeting them and making them feel good because everybody would come with dust on their legs and feet. I don't know how this worked exactly, but I know if you get out in the summertime and you're walking around, not only is it dusty, but also you begin to get sweaty. If someone of special significance would come to your home that is an honored guest, you might take a little oil with scent in it and you might put it on their head, honoring them and maybe making it nicer for all the people that had to be around them when they walked that way to your house. But anyway, it was considered a way of showing respect and honor. Now this woman, she had to be wealthy somewhat, but you know, even having a lot of wealth, spending fifteen thousand dollars for one night to pour perfume on someone's head and then it would all be gone is a very extravagant thing. She had to be thinking, Jesus is so important to me. I want to show him the highest honor that a person could show anybody. I want to be able to express to him how valuable he is to me. I could give him maybe a coat or new shoes, but those are things that you could use every day. I want to give him something that will just say, I love, honor and respect you. And so she got this bottle of fifteen thousand dollar cologne and when Jesus came, eating as they do, laying down on the floor, she came to his head, she broke the bottle and she poured it on him. Now in this story, the disciples were there, his henchmen, his followers. They'd been with Jesus a long time. They were watching what's going on. Now they didn't all have jobs. Jesus didn't have a job. They depended on gifts from people for their own lifestyle and their sustenance. Maybe they wished somehow or other that they had some of the fifteen thousand dollars. We don't know that. They couldn't very well say that. But they looked at this and said, would Jesus approve of this? And then they remembered Jesus' lifestyle. He didn't have fancy things. He didn't have a lot of things. He said he didn't even have a place to live to lay his head that was his own. He had no home. He was living on the barest minimum of necessities. And they concluded from this, Jesus will not like this. Jesus will not want this to take place. It's like he wanted to give a good gift to someone, a very valuable gift to someone, butch. And they said, we're going to give butch a tuxedo with a big high hat. He will really love that. And why are his friends and family laughing? He would never wear it. It doesn't fit him. They looked around at Jesus and they looked at this expensive perfume and said, this is not Jesus. He would never have asked for this. And you know, if you look at the story of Jesus' life, you probably would agree. They also had words of what we call scripture, things that Jesus said. A man came to him one time and said, I want to follow you. And Jesus said to him, sell everything you have and give it to the poor. And they knew that Jesus was interested in poor people having the necessities met. And this was the Passover time when hundreds of thousands of people were in Jerusalem. Many of them travel long distances and it was expensive for them. And some of them would have gotten in trouble because the crooks knew when Passover was too. And they set traps along the road so that the pilgrims who were coming to celebrate, they knew they had money because when you got to the Passover, you had to buy a lamb and you had to give an offering. And so they laid traps for them. And they knew that there would be poor people all over Jerusalem who would need money to celebrate the Passover and even to get back home. And Jesus had said, sell everything you have and give it to the poor. And so they were sitting there watching what was going on and talking about it. And not only were they disapproving, but the scripture says they were indignant. That's a fancy word for being plain mad. They were mad about this. Why in the world would someone waste fifteen thousand dollars when there are so many more important things you could do with your money? The third party to this story is Jesus himself. Jesus, aware of this, said to them, why are you bothering this woman? His criticism was not for the woman for her extravagance, but to his disciples for complaining about it. Was it wrong for her to give the gift? Jesus is saying no. Would it have been wrong for her to take the money and to give it to the poor? No. There was not a choice here between wickedness and righteousness. It was a simple choice that two followers of Jesus had to make. The lady had to make a decision about what she was going to do with the money, and the other followers who were watching were criticizing her decision because it would not have been the one they would have made. There are a lot of times when you're faced with choices that you have to make, and not everyone is going to agree with your choice. It happened in this situation. Some of them are not necessarily wrong or evil, and some of them good. Sometimes they're the balance between two good things that you could do. And how do you know the choice that God wants you to make? Jesus gives the first warning. If you have a brother or sister in your faith who is trying their best to serve God, and they make a choice, be careful not to criticize them. They may have been talking to God about what he wanted them to do. Jesus is rebuking his disciples. You didn't pray about this gift before she gave it. You weren't the one asking what you should do when I came to your house. She has been. She's been seeking direction about this, and she's given it. Do not criticize your brother or sister in Christ for the choices they make for God. There may be more to the story than you really know. Well, what could it be? I think Jesus helps us as he describes why it is that he's criticizing his disciples. She has done a beautiful thing for me. Jesus didn't say that he liked this. He didn't say that it was a wonderful thing, but he looked at what she intended to do. She wanted to honor him. She wanted to tell him how valuable he was to her. She wanted to tell him how important she thought he was. She wanted to give him an honor that was extravagant. That's what she wanted. Isn't it a beautiful thing if people want to do nicer things for you than you deserve? Isn't it a wonderful, beautiful thing if people want to honor you far more than you actually deserve? Isn't it wonderful that there are people in your lives who love you even when you don't deserve it? Now, Jesus didn't fall into the category of not deserving and not earning or not being worthy, but he did fall in the category of other people not recognizing it. But she has seen who I am, and in this moment she has honored me in a way that no one else has honored me. One of the keys to making choices between two good things is which one will honor God more. So when you're asking God for decisions about direction during choices that you make, you say, God, I've had two things here I could do. Which one of these would bring more honor to you? Or you have to watch out for yourself and say, God, am I wanting to make this choice because it makes me look good? Or am I wanting to make this choice because it gives honor and glory to you? Am I wanting to do this because you want it to be done or because the person who needs it needs it to be done? Or am I simply doing something so people will step back and say, what a wonderful Christian person that guy is? Evaluate your motives. Jesus said the motive that I'm impressed with is she wanted to do a beautiful thing for me. So that's one of the things you look at all the time. What is the motive and what does it do for you or for God or for others? The poor you will always have with you, Jesus said, but you will not always have me. What Jesus was saying is not that the poor are unimportant, but the fact is that no matter what you do today, tomorrow there will be more poor people here. And the next day there'll be poor people here. And a year from now there'll be poor people here. And you will always have that opportunity. But there are some things that you face that are once-in-a-lifetime situations. You'll come along to a situation and you'll realize this is a critical time. I have an open door to be able to do something important. Years ago when I first came to Kansas there were not as many churches as there are now, not as strong churches as there are now. And I would want to go on vacation. It was hard to find anybody to even fill a pulpit for me. And I thought about years growing up in Oklahoma and Arkansas and why there are so many preachers down there. And I realized that a lot of them had come to experience the call to preach in camps, in a church camp. Now I never went to any church camps myself all those years. We lived on a farm and there were cattle and milk and crops to put in so I didn't get to go. But I'd heard other people talk about this when I was in seminary, how their call was in a camp setting. And so I got a burden to be able to do that. When Aldridge Camp was being let go by the Girl Scouts I tried to get Southern Baptist to buy it and start a camp there. But there's too much opposition among Southern Baptists to do that and we didn't get it done. Then I got elected president of the Kansas-Nebraska Baptist Convention. One day the executive director called me and said, a man in Salina wants to give us a camp. Would you come up and look at it with me? So I drove up to Salina to camp Webster. We walked through it. It was a lot of buildings there and they were very solid but they were dilapidated and they were in disrepair. I thought this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Here's an opportunity to be able to do something that will have impact in the Kingdom of God if the Lord tarries for years and years and years. The executive director was against doing it. The state staff was against doing it because they were afraid it would take all their money to run this camp and they wouldn't have any money for evangelism or church planting or the other things. Some had seen camps that had started and been very expensive. A man on the executive board, in fact, when they voted to take the camp resigned and got off. They said, I'm not any more to do with this. This is a terrible decision. Well, we listened to people's choices or concerns. Tried to make sure in planning that we didn't allow any of these things to take place. But I knew in that moment that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I saw it that way. Not everybody else did but I did. And once you see that, you have an obligation to do something about it. Now, Jesus is saying, there always will be poor people but I will only be on this earth one time and I will only die one time and in a few days my life will be over. She has the opportunity to honor me. One of the principles of whether or not you choose to do something is it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Now, it can happen in a lot of ways. You can just be talking to someone at work and they can start talking about their problems, the concerns that they have. And it comes to your mind that you've had some of the same concerns they have and God has helped you and you realize this is an opportunity for you to tell them how God has changed your life and helped you. Those are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, often. It may be that you're working and someone comes up to you and says, I'd really like to talk to you. You go to church, don't you? And you're busy, you have other things to do. And you weigh, am I going to take time to talk to this person or am I get my job done? And you've torn between those two things. You stop and ask yourself, God, is this an open door that I have to go through? If it is, if it is, you stop and you give that choice to God. I'm going to do it. We come to church Sunday. You look around, there are all the people here. And then Sunday, suddenly one Sunday, someone comes and you've never seen them before. You don't know them. Whenever people come to church, they don't come to watch a basketball game or a football game. They come because they know there's something spiritual going on there. And oftentimes God works really hard to get people to enter the church building. And sometimes he does it because people say, I'm at the end of my rope, I don't know what to do next. And they come to church. Don't just look at that person like they just are another human being. Think of it this way. God has brought that person to this place for his help and you can help them. These are once in a lifetime opportunities. I've seen many circumstances where a person comes to church one or two times and then they are gone. And you meet them later and they say, and you meet them later and they say, oh yeah, I came to church whenever I was going through a really difficult time in my life. But I got over it without God. You see, those are once in a lifetime opportunities. What Jesus is saying is, it's not unimportant to help the poor. They're very important to help. But you have to tell the difference between what is urgent and what is an ongoing task. And when there is an urgent task in God's eyes, you need to take it right then. She realized her great love for me, but she didn't know all the things that were happening. I will be gone soon. Now the disciples knew. Why weren't they having a celebration for Jesus? Why weren't they expressing how much they were going to miss him? Why weren't they talking about his leaving and the significance of that instead of looking at the money that was there? They were not listening to the Spirit of God. Sometimes, you see, in those instances, we have a once in a lifetime situation. But whenever you ask God for the right choice to make, I'll tell you this, you don't always even know the value of it. We don't know if this woman knew anything about what was going to happen to Jesus. Jesus said, She did this to prepare me for burial. Jesus knew he was going to die in a few days. The Father had prompted her to do this, Jesus thought, because of his impending death and his preparation for his own burial. She may not even have understood that or known it or recognized it, but she did. But God always works in our lives and our minds to get us to make choices that are consistent with his purpose, that fulfill what he's trying to accomplish. And I think, when I read this, that the Father was saying, My son is here. He's told his disciples. No one seems to see or understand the importance of what he's going through or the agony he's facing. Here's a lady that loves him. I will have her give him the most elaborate gift possible. And then he will know that I am with him. I am affirming him in this dark and difficult hour. You don't know what impact your own life can have on someone else. But when you're asking about the choices that you need to make between one good thing and another good thing, God always knows which of those choices will be more powerful and important in his kingdom. And you may not ever even know the end result for it. But Jesus knew. He knew that the Father was saying to him, I know what you're struggling with, and I want to affirm you in the most powerful way possible. And so here is a gift, a gift of great love. The final thing that he said about choices is that whenever you make these choices, you don't always know the eternal consequences of what's going to happen. This woman, Matthew didn't mention her name, I think he doesn't mention her name because he doesn't want to make her the center of attention. It's her choice and what she did that's the center of attention. Jesus said, wherever the story of my life is told, this woman, her story will be told. Think of this. You make a choice, a little choice, maybe it's hard for you to do, maybe it's difficult for you to do, but you know it's the right thing to do and you do it, you may never know the consequence, the eternal consequence that might come from that. Who is it that the people you teach in Vacation Bible School are going to become? What wonderful and great things might they do? Who are the people that you pray for? You never, they never even know what happens to them. You look at the list of prayer concerns and you look at the missionaries that are there and you pray for them, you have no idea what God can do with that. But here's the promise he makes. When you follow me and obey me, whatever you do will have consequences for the kingdom of God. If you don't have to see the consequences of your life, you can be in for a wonderful life of surprises in heaven. But if you make God say, show me the good result this is going to get, I'm afraid you're going to miss a lot of opportunities. You're going to face choices in your life and you're not going to be able to figure out what to do. But here's the promise, the Spirit of God lives within you. And Paul tells us in Romans that he is working inside of us, praying in ways that we don't even know. And he's guiding us in ways that we can't even understand. And when you come to choices that you need to make, here's simple rules. First, does it honor God in a great way? And you ask him that question. Second, is it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? Or is this just something I could do tomorrow without any consequence that might help you? And you look to say, God, have I done in this moment exactly what your Spirit tells me to do? God does not leave us in the world with all these decisions to make on our own. When you give your life to Jesus Christ, he places his Spirit within you. He gives you the scriptures to let you know what's right and what's wrong. But the Spirit of God lives within you so that when you come to those choices, it could go either way. He can guide you absolutely always. Now, you might make a mistake. The disciples did. But you know what God did? He sent Jesus to tell them their mistake and corrected it. If you make mistakes in the choices you make, you're like the disciples, God will correct that with you. If you make the right choice like with this woman, he will affirm you. God is always in the process of helping us learn how to choose because every choice we make molds our life and provides a witness to the world of what God is like. You're going to make choices today. It's not important so much how you make them. As you say to God, please guide my choices that the choices I make will be the ones that matter to you. The whole secret to the Christian life is this beginning point, saying to God, I've made choices on my own, doing what I thought was best, the way I thought it could, and I realize how bad that is. I recognize I've ignored you, the ruler of this world, and not let you control my life. If you want to make good choices, here's the place you start. You say to God, from this moment on in my life, I'm going to depend on you to guide my choices. I'm going to ask you to help me every time I have a choice to make, to make the choices you want me to make. I'm going to ask you every time I make the wrong choices to let me know that that's true. And then you begin this life of submission and obedience to God, and he will build your life, one choice at a time, into a wonderful, victorious life. If you've never done that before, you've never said to God, I give my life and all my choices to your control. I want to invite you right now, this day, to make that choice. It may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you. None of us know what's going to happen in an hour, two hours, or in a day. It's a very simple thing for you to do, but it will change your life. Maybe you've made that promise to God, but you realize you've been making a lot of choices lately based on your own thinking. I want to urge you to come back to this place you started and say, God, help me to run every choice by you. Control even those choices I make when I don't know you're controlling me. Maybe God has something he wants you to do that you've been boiling inside of you. You know he wants it. Make the choice he wants you to make. The church is filled with people who've The church is filled with people who've made a promise to God. We want you to control the choices of our individual lives and all the choices this church makes. We need your help. We need to have people here who want to follow God and to obey him. And we open the doors of the church to you if you've committed your life to Christ and ready to be following him in baptism by immersion. Then you come into this church to be a part of those helping us make the choices that will change our community and the world. So, Father, I ask in these moments, as we're making choices right now, that you would tell us what the choice is you want us to make. And give us the courage to make that choice regardless of what other people think. I pray, Father, that each of us would listen carefully to the voice of your spirit and choose to follow you. In Jesus' name, I ask this. Amen. Would you stand, please?