SPECIAL DAYS: Baptism of Our Lord January 12, 2003

January 12, 2003 - LESSON: Matthew 6.24

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INTRODUCTION:

The story is told of a man who received a call from an employment agency in Florida.

They said, "We think we have found you a job, but there is one question. Can you pick lemons?"

He said, "Boy, can I. I have been married five times."

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Stephen Leacock, grew to be one of the best-known humorists in the English-speaking world.

He once wrote, "Lord Ronald said nothing; he flung himself from the room, flung himself upon his horse and rode madly off in all directions."

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Aesop, Man with Two Wives

IN the old days, when men were allowed to have many wives a middle-aged Man had one wife that was old and one that was young; each loved him very much, and desired to see him like herself. Now the Man''s hair was turning grey, which the young Wife did not like, as it made him look too old for her husband. So every night she used to comb his hair and pick out the white ones. But the elder Wife saw her husband growing grey with great pleasure, for she did not like to be mistaken for his mother. So every morning she used to arrange his hair and pick out as many of the black ones as she could. The consequence was the Man soon found himself entirely bald.

"YIELD TO ALL AND YOU WILL SOON HAVE NOTHING TO YIELD."

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You Have to Decide ⁽¹⁾ - Former President Ronald Reagan says he learned the need for decision-making early in life. An aunt had taken him to a cobbler to have a pair of shoes made for him. The shoemaker asked young Ronald Reagan, "Do you want a square toe or a round toe?

Reagan hemmed and hawed. So the cobbler said, "Come back in a day or two and let me know what you want."

A few days later the shoemaker saw Reagan on the street and asked what he had decided about the shoes. "I still have not made up my mind," the boy answered. "Very well," said the cobbler.

When Reagan received the shoes, he was shocked to see that one shoe had a square toe and the other a round toe.

"Looking at those shoes every day taught me a lesson," said Reagan, years later, "If you do not make your own decisions, somebody else will make them for you!"

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MAIN BODY:

1. Who is going to decide for you?

1. Have you ever found yourself in any of the circumstances above?

2. If you have than who decided.

3. O, you decide for yourself.

1. Then on what basis will you decide?

2. What principles or purposes will you use?

4. When I was diagnosed with prostate cancer we consulted with a urologist and an oncologist.

1. The urologist recommended surgery.

2. The oncologist recommend radiation therapy.

3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of both types of treatment?

4. Helga and I both got on the internet and eventually downloaded a stack of reports and recommendation that was an inch high.

5. From all the information that we collected the decision was made to have surgery and then if necessary radiation.

6. This worked the best because neither surgery nor radiation were successful in removing the cancer.

7. This is when I went on what I call my "hot flash" therapy which as created a current state of chemically induced remission.

8. We made the right choices based on the information that we had received and the consultation with specialists in their perspective fields.

5. Many people will not make right choices because they only take half-way measures.

When you were a kid, was there anything better in life than sneaking into the kitchen and snatching a still warm chocolate chip cookie off the cooling rack?

Remember? Crispy and warm with the chocolate still melty and gooey. Could anything beat it? Nothing ... nothing, that is, unless your mom was the kind that allowed you a spoonful of the cookie dough before it was baked. Sticky and brown-sugar sweet with hidden chips waiting to be licked clean and slowly dissolved on your tongue...

But as good as cookie dough and a freshly baked cookie are, the in-between stage is terrible. A half-baked cookie sinks down in the middle, forming a glutinous puddle. When eaten, that same cookie continues to sink--right to the pit of your stomach like a stone. Half-baked: not really a cookie, not really dough.

1. Most things that begin with the adjective "half" are bad news.

1. Half-baked--not good for cakes, cookies or creativity.

2. Half-life--things like nuclear waste that always last about 10,000 years longer than any of us will be alive.

3. Half-done--when you still have to do as much as you've already completed.

4. Halftime--especially bad and over-blown during the Super Bowl.

5. Half-dead--never the look you want to go for.

6. Half-alive--which always begs the question "Which half?"

7. Half-price--what's wrong with it?

8. Half-crazy--just sane enough to be out on the streets.

9. Half-grown--a teenager!

10. Half-gone--a teenager's parent!

2. Anything given halfheartedly is not a joy, but a chore.

6. In John 8 Jesus has a conversation with the religious leaders about slavery and freedom.

³⁴Jesus answered them, "Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. ³⁵The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. ³⁶So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. ³⁷I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you look for an opportunity to kill me, because there is no place in you for my word. ³⁸I declare what I have seen in the Father's presence; as for you, you should do what you have heard from the Father." ³⁹They answered him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing what Abraham did, ⁴⁰but now you are trying to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. ⁴¹You are indeed doing what your father does." They said to him, "We are not illegitimate children; we have one father, God himself." ⁴²Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now I am here. I did not come on my own, but he sent me. ⁴³Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot accept my word. ⁴⁴You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. ⁴⁵But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. ⁴⁶Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? ⁴⁷Whoever is from God hears the words of God. The reason you do not hear them is that you are not from God." (John 8:34-47, NRSVA)

2. Jesus proclaims that making personal decisions, especially the vital and life-saving ones, are not easy.

1. "No one can serve two masters;

2. You will either hate the one and love the other

3. You will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

4. You cannot serve God and wealth.

3. If you choose to serve mammon you are serving the forces that are behind the desire for the accumulation of things for the possessions themselves.

1. Remember the temptations of Jesus.

⁸Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; ⁹and he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me." ¹⁰Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'" ¹¹Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him. (Matthew 4.8-11, NRSVA)

2. You see who hides behind the mammon.

3. It is the deceiver who is lying in wait to deceive.

4. The cause of confusion.

5. The creator of doubt.

6. The source of half-heartedness.

4. Serving God is not a chore it is a delight

1. Jesus offers true freedom.

2. God does not have slaves but children.

3. God does not reduce but enhances you ability to choose.

4. He restores to you the power to choose wisely and well.

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CONCLUSION

An alcoholic executive had been attending AA meetings for six months, but sought help because, "AA wasn't working."

He had memorized all the 12 Steps, yet for every night that he went to an AA meeting, he spent another blind drunk.

It was suggested that the Twelve Steps--simple though they sounded--constituted a profound body of spiritual wisdom, which took several years to fully understand.

He admitted that the Steps didn't mean much to him, particularly that "stuff about putting trust in a Higher Power."

But he proclaimed that he certainly understood the First Step; "have come to admit that I am powerless over alcohol."

He was asked what he thought it meant. "Its simple," he replied. "It means once I take a drink the alcohol takes over. Once I start I can't help myself. It means I can't take the first drink."

"Than how is it that you are still drinking?"

"I guess I just don't have enough will-power."

"Maybe that's what the First Step really means. Maybe it means not only that you are powerless after you've taken a drink, but that you are powerless even before you've taken the first drink."

"That's not true," he exclaimed. "It's up me. I'm a competent person. I can determine whether or not I'm going to take that first drink."

"That's what you feel, but it's not how you act."

"It's still up to me,." he insisted.

"Have it your own way."

1. You can have it your own way.

2. You can have it the Jesus way.

3. It's up to you!

1. Haddon Robinson, Decision Making by the Book. Contributed by Rowe C. Watson, Douglasville, GA.

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