The Choices of a World Changer - II

The following message from Pastor Greg Laurie is made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God. Hey, I want to hear from you. Would you consider emailing me? You can reach me at Greg at Harvest dot org. Again, that's Greg at Harvest dot org.

And you can also make me one of your friends on Facebook and drop me a comment. So here's Abraham and Lot. They've acquired great wealth. Abraham was content with his lot, but Lot wanted a lot more. Each man made very different choices. Pastor Greg Laurie points out our choices affect how we're doing, and they can be our undoing. Do you want to be God's friend or do you want to be the world's friend? Lot wanted stuff. Abraham wanted God.

What do you want? We have choices to make in life. When we look back on our lives, each little bend in the road was a choice we made. Some choices took us straight ahead. Other choices sent us off on a detour. Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie helps us make wise choices for the road that lies ahead.

We'll do a case study. We'll examine the lives of two biblical characters and see how two very different outcomes can be traced back to the choices they each made. Choices have consequences, and we need God's wisdom to choose well. You know, every day we're faced with, oh my, I don't know if it's thousands or hundreds.

It seems like thousands. But just countless choices. Every kind of choice imaginable. From, oh, what am I going to eat for breakfast? What am I going to wear? What route am I going to take? Who am I going to email?

Who am I going to respond to? All the things that run through our minds. Choices that we're going to make. I don't know about you, but when I pull up to a takeout restaurant, sometimes I'm overwhelmed by too many choices. You know, they have all these things. And then there's the pressure of people behind you and they want to order. So you're like looking at it.

Yes, can I help you? I went to Taco Bell the other day. By the way, I love Taco Bell. I love Taco Bell. I would pick Taco Bell over many restaurants that cost much more.

Trust me. Because I just think their food is fantastic. And there's something on the Taco Bell menu. I'm giving you a food tip now. So you'll thank me for this later because I told you about getting a burger at In-N-Out, right? And I told you to get it animal style.

Have any of you ever tried it animal style? So you know what I'm talking. When I give food tips, listen. Ok. When I give you the Word of God, really listen. But food tips.

They're up there too. Ok. So you want to take it to the next level. I told you animal style with chopped jalapeno peppers. Remember the next time at In-N-Out. Ah. But Taco Bell. Back to them.

There's an item that used to be on their menu years ago that's no longer on their screen. Of all these thousands of new things. Chalupa. Whoopa. Loopa. I don't even know what these things are.

Are you ready for it? It's called the Enchirito. The Enchirito.

It's not on the board. But it's still in existence. And they still know how to make it. And it's good. What is an Enchirito you ask? It's like an enchilada on steroids. Ok.

I don't know. It's just good. But all these decisions. Ok. Those decisions don't matter a lot unless you eat too much and it's late at night and you pay for it later. We're all going to face the three C's of life. Challenges. Choices. And consequences.

Again. Challenges. Choices. And consequences. Those challenges may come as an opportunity or a temptation.

The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which bridge to burn. Because choices are important as we will see in the story before us. Here we have side by side two believers. Abraham and Lot. One Abraham most of the time made the right choices in life. And the other Lot made a series of wrong choices that he lived to regret. Which just goes to show that your choices do matter.

So now let's look at the world changer who made the right choices. Let's go to Hebrews 11. Verse 8. We come back to Abraham. By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place which he would receive as an inheritance.

And he went out not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob. The heirs with him of the same promise.

We will stop there. Abraham is uniquely introduced to us in Scripture as the friend of God. And one day God said to his friend Abraham that he wanted him to follow him and leave his life of paganism and worship of false gods and leave his family and pack his bags and go.

And Abraham obeyed sort of. He did leave. That was a big step. He did leave his family.

That was a bigger step. But he took one family member along with him. And that was Lot.

Lot was his nephew. Now flip over to Genesis 13. And we are going to read verses 1 to 13.

And by the way I am reading from the New Living Translation. So Abraham left Egypt. It says Abram but I will say Abraham because his name was later changed. Abraham left Egypt and traveled north into the Negev along with his wife and Lot and all they owned. Abraham was very rich in livestock, silver, and gold from the Negev. They continued traveling by stages toward Bethel and they pitched their tents between Bethel and Ai where they had camped before.

That is the same place where Abraham had built the altar and worshiped the Lord again. Lot who was traveling with Abraham had become very wealthy with flocks of sheep and goats, herds of cattle, and many tents. But the land could not support both Abraham and Lot with all the flocks and herds living so close together. So disputes broke out between the herdsmen of Abraham and Lot. At that time Canaanites and Perizzites were living in the land. Finally Abraham said to Lot, let's not allow this conflict to come among us or our herdsmen.

After all we are close relatives. The whole countryside is open to you. Take your choice of any section of the land you want and we will separate. If you want to go to the left I will take the land on the right. If you prefer the land on the right then I will go to the left.

Look at this. Lot took a long look at the fertile plains of the Jordan River and the direction of Zoar. The whole area was well watered everywhere like the Garden of the Lord or the beautiful land of Egypt. So Lot took the land that reminded him of Egypt. That is before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot chose for himself the whole Jordan Valley to the east of them and he went there with his flocks and his servants and parted company with his uncle Abraham.

So Abraham settled in the land of Canaan and Lot moved his tents to a place near Sodom and settled among the cities of the plain but the people of the area were extremely wicked and continually sinned against the Lord. We will stop there. All right. So here is the operative statement for the moment. You make your choices and then your choices make you. So here is Abraham and Lot. They have acquired great wealth. Abraham was content with his lot but Lot wanted a lot more. Lot wanted stuff. Abraham wanted God.

What do you want? See if you seek God first. If you seek Him in His kingdom first what does Jesus promise? All these things shall be added unto you. But if you are all about getting that stuff and getting ahead and being successful and on you go then you are going to lose twice. You won't get the Lord and very likely you won't get the stuff you want and even if you get the stuff you want you probably won't be satisfied with it because you will still want more stuff.

And this was the problem with Lot. He wanted to have all this world offers but he still wanted friendship with God. And the Bible warns in James 4, For you adulterers don't you realize friendship with the world makes you an enemy with God? I say it again if that is your aim to enjoy this world you can't be a friend of God.

So make a decision. Do you want to be God's friend or do you want to be the world's friend? Lot wanted to be the world's friend.

Abraham wanted to be God's friend. And Lot wanted to have it both ways. See the problem with Lot was he did believe. Don't forget he is identified in the New Testament as a believer but he sort of leaned on Abraham.

It comes down to this. Abraham walked with God but Lot walked with Abraham. Lot needed Uncle Abe to kind of hold him up. Lot needed this man of God to kind of keep him moving forward.

He couldn't do it on his own. He hadn't developed his own close relationship with the Lord. And there are people like this that are constantly drawn to the world. And a lot of times the people I find that are the most drawn to the world are people who sometimes are raised in the church. See when you are not raised in the church and you have lived in that world and you have seen the underbelly of it you can become pretty disgusted by it. But when you have never lived that life and you have been relatively sheltered and you know you never watch secular cartoons. You only watch Veggie Tales. And you only went to Christian movies. And you didn't even have devil's food cake because that was evil. You know. And your parents were doing the best they could to try to raise you in a godly way. But maybe there were a lot of rules and regulations.

And then you had friends you met at school if you went to a public school maybe or maybe even a Christian school. And you know they are out there doing this other stuff. And oh that looks so exciting. And it looks so attractive. You are sort of like the moth drawn to the light. Oh I have got to get over there you know. And that is how a lot was. Oh man I am drawn to these things.

I am attracted to these things. But when you have been in that world you already know what it is. You know when I came to Christ for me it was to some degree a process of elimination. I knew where the answer was not because I saw everything the world had to offer. And then some through my mother's life and to some degree through my own dumb decisions.

I knew that is not where it was at. So I wasn't drawn to that like maybe some are. Temptations are always there for anybody. But here is a person a lot who is drawn to those things. But Abraham was drawn to God. You see it was Abraham's love for the Lord that kept everything in perspective. Coming up Pastor Greg explains how to bring these insights on wise decision making into our homes and places of work.

Stay tuned. Well Pastor Greg we have something exciting to mention. We just tallied up the numbers and this year just since January we have now seen a hundred thousand professions of faith through Harvest Ministries. Which is absolutely incredible. Yes David it is incredible.

And the way it came about is even more incredible. Because at the beginning of 2020 we went before everybody in our church and our ministry and said we have a goal this year. Some of you may remember this. I have seen a hundred thousand people make a profession of faith. I will be honest with you. I had some doubts like are we going to really hit this number.

But I thought well why not shoot for it. We will see what the Lord does. Well COVID-19 hit. So we went exclusively online with our weekend program that we call Harvest at Home. It is basically a church service that you watch in your home. But each week I have been inviting people to come to Christ. And on one particular Sunday we had seven thousand people make a profession of faith. So now as we tally the numbers we have reached the hundred thousand mark. We have reached it in an unexpected way. So what that says to me is well we had the right idea but the Lord had a different way of bringing it about. So we just say hey to God be the glory. Let's just keep going. Because we are passing that number now.

And listen to this. The Bible says there is joy in heaven over one sinner that comes to repentance. And we have seen one hundred thousand people in just months make this profession of faith to follow Christ.

So we join the angels in rejoicing. Well today Pastor Greg is helping us consider the importance of the choices we make. We are seeing how Abraham made wise choices. His nephew Lot made unwise choices. And their lives bore the consequences. It was Augustine who said love God and do as you please. That sounds like a crazy statement. Do as you please?

Yeah. But if you really love God as you ought to love God you will want to do what pleases God. And Abraham understood that. He had his focus on eternal things. He was looking to the Lord. But Lot was drawn to these other things. But Abraham thought man we have got to part company now. Let's try to part as friends. And Abraham was a peacemaker.

He wasn't a troublemaker. And so he says listen nephew I will tell you what. You choose what you want. Wherever you want to go I will let you go. You want to go to the left I will go to the right. You go to the right I will go to the left. You decide.

Genesis 13 9. It is not the whole land before you. Separate from me. And he says go wherever you want. He gave the best choice to Lot didn't he? He could have said I get the best choice. I am in charge here.

No. He said go pick whatever you want. I will go the other way. Abraham figured he would leave the choice and outcome to God. So make your choice now. And Lot made his choice.

And it was certainly the wrong one. Are you in a similar situation right now? You don't know if you can totally be honest and forthright in your business. Because if you are you are afraid that lying cheat of a competitor will take advantage of you. And you might even lose some business if you do things ethically. And with integrity it is easier to cut a corner. It is easier to not do it the way you ought to do it. But here is the question you have to ask yourself.

Are you more concerned with the fast buck or the approval of God? Maybe you are in a situation where you want to tell some of your friends about the Lord. But your concern is if you tell them it might cause friction with them. In fact if you tell them about your faith in Christ it might bring a division. And those people won't even want to be your friends any longer. So you are reluctant.

But listen to this. Jesus says in Matthew 1034, Don't imagine I came to bring peace on earth. I came to bring a sword. I came to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. Your enemies will be those of your own household.

You are saying what? The very friction you are dreading may be the thing that brings conversion in the life of your friend. See you don't want a conflict. You want to get along with everybody. If you stand for Christ it might bring friction. Yeah.

Here is the question. Do you want harmony with people and friction with God? Or harmony with God and friction with people?

Now when I say friction I don't mean that you are being mean or heavy handed. But what I mean is you make your stand for truth. It causes a temporary tension because that person is under the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

Now you pray for them to come to their senses and then they come to Christ and you have the ultimate unity and the real peace that God wants to bring into your home. We have choices to make in life. Lot made the wrong choices. And there were a series of steps that led to him ending up in the wrong place. There was a series of small choices that led to bigger and worse choices. In sin it is always little things that turn into big things.

Sort of like falling into sin is a lot like gaining weight. You know. You say I don't want to get heavier.

I want the scale to go left not right. Ok. So you try but then you cheat. You know you go to Taco Bell with Greg late at night. And you get the enchirito. And if that is not bad enough then you go over to In-N-Out Burger and you get the you know double double animal style with chopped jalapenos.

In addition to heartburn you notice that you are gaining weight. But here is what happens. You say well I already messed up. I might as well you know get you know large stack of pancakes for breakfast and you rest. Well I have already messed up. I might as well just keep messing up.

I am already off my diet. And that is how sin works. I will do this little sin. And you know I know I shouldn't do it but I will just do it once and you do it. Well I already did that. I might as well do the other thing. Well I already did the other thing.

I might as well do that other other thing. And little things turn into big things and that is exactly what happened with Lot. How did he end up in the worst city on earth? Sodom and Gomorrah.

If you are taking notes here is principle number one. He looked the wrong way. Verse 10. Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan that it was well watered like the land of Egypt. Genesis 13 verse 10.

He looked the wrong way. Notice that Lot's point of reference was Egypt. And why was he drawn to Sodom? Because Sodom reminded him of Egypt. So what is your point of reference? Lot looked around.

Saw Sodom and Gomorrah and he took the first step down. And by the way this was not a casual glance. The phrase looked means he looked with longing. Have you ever looked with longing at anything?

Like I want that. That car on the showroom floor. That outfit in the window. That donut you know coming down the conveyor belt at Krispy Kreme.

I am confessing all of my bad food issues here. You can tell where I am at. That attractive girl or guy.

Whatever it is. Oh he looked with longing. I want that.

I desire that. So it started with a look. This is what happened to Eve. Remember when she ate of the forbidden fruit.

We read in Genesis. She saw the tree was good. That it was pleasant to the eyes and desired to make one wise and she took of the fruit and ate it. She saw. Instead of lifting his eyes up to heaven Lot lifted his eyes to the plain of Jordan. Verse 10. He took a long look at the fertile plains of the Jordan Valley. Listen.

The eyes see what the heart loves. Abraham had taken Lot out of Egypt but apparently you couldn't get Egypt out of Lot. An outlook determines outcome. Abraham walked by faith.

World changers do. Lot walked by sight. His second step down was Lot separated himself from godly influence. Now this was a good thing for Abraham but a bad thing for Lot. And a sure sign of spiritual decline is when we find ourselves wanting to get away from godly people. When we find ourselves wanting to get away from godly people. So if you find when you are around Christians that it is kind of a drag and you don't enjoy it that is not a good sign. It is a good sign when you say I want to be around the people of God. When your wife says to you honey it is time for church and you say oh. That is not a good sign.

Slacker husband. But when you are the one saying the car is ready. Let's go to church. I can't wait to get there.

That is a good sign. When you are thinking about people to be around or maybe take your vacation with or spend extended time with and you want to be around believers that is a good thing. When you want to avoid believers that is not a good thing.

Number three. His third step down was he moved his tents to a place near Sodom. Genesis 13 verse 12. He moved his tents to a place near Sodom. Fascinated by the freewheeling lifestyle and their disregard for God.

Lot thinking he could handle it edges even closer. Now if you were to ask Lot at that point hey man what are you doing? Why are you moving close to this wicked city? He might have said well you know I don't approve of what they do but there is a lot of opportunities and I could go in there and influence people and probably do a lot of good. Yeah maybe you could. And maybe it will influence you.

That depends on you. Now there is a twist in this story. Sodom is attacked by another army from another city and of all things Lot has taken hostage. He is not even a real citizen of Sodom. But he has taken hostage because he is in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people. So what does Abraham do?

Hey check it out. Abraham the warrior. He gets an army together of his servants. They go over and they get Lot free from this king and bring him back again.

That is amazing. So how does Lot show his gratitude toward his heroic uncle? He moves to Sodom. If it wasn't bad enough to be living near Sodom now he moves to Sodom. You know sometimes God will send warnings to get our attention. We are just getting a little too close to sin and there will be those little warnings like you shouldn't be doing that. That relationship with that coworker at work.

A member of the opposite sex is getting a little too close. Of that habit you have of stretching the truth so you tell another lie to cover up the lie you previously told. And if you don't watch out you can end up like Lot. You make your choices and then your choices make you. Thank you. Great insight on the importance of wise choices. Pastor Greg Laurie with another message in his World Changers series.

We are focusing on the choices made by Abraham and by Lot today here on The New Beginning. And if you would like to preserve the insight you heard plus a great deal more. Get in touch for a permanent copy of the study called The Choices of a World Changer. Just call us anytime night or day at 1-800-821-3300. That's 1-800-821-3300.

Or go online to harvest.org. And then we are so glad to have some special guests with us today. In addition to Pastor Greg's wife Kathy, we have authors Jeff and Shanti Feldhahn. Who have written the new book Thriving in Love and Money. It's based on in-depth research into the habits and attitudes of hundreds of married couples.

Shanti herself is a data analyst. Jeff and Shanti say if money is a problem in a marriage, money is not the problem in the marriage. Money stress is a symptom of a problem in the relationship. How a couple relate to each other and understand each other and communicate about money.

It's fascinating insight. Shanti and Jeff, in the last chapter of your book you speak of how this information changed your marriage. How is your marriage different now after putting your discoveries to work?

Well I'd say that it's deepened our understanding, our respect for each other, our love for each other. I hated having this script run through my mind. And it wasn't necessarily a conscious decision that whenever we would have any sort of a disagreement about something. I had something that said Shanti wasn't correct or wasn't doing things right. And now all of a sudden I check that. And it has been, whether it's in money or other things, I check that really quickly when those thoughts start to come. And I look for the more generous answer for why she's doing something. Look, we all want peace in our households.

And we have peace. It's been fantastic. It has been so fascinating to see how I would have described our marriage as being a great marriage before. I had no idea there was a whole other level that we were missing. I had no idea that there was a whole other level of oneness and intimacy and closeness that was closed off to us. Because there was this area of marriage that just was taboo. It was the third rail, right?

It was that area that we just avoided it. That's exactly it. I'm excited because I feel like even if there's just one member of the household that will take the time to read this book, that it'll help them begin that conversation. Because rather than thrust a book into somebody, you know, your spouse's hands and say, you need to read this, the book itself will help you to begin to phrase that first question that you gave us, which was so good. What is the one thing that I could do that would help you begin to help me understand and talk about money with me? I mean, that question is just the opening of a nice conversation rather than just, you need to do this differently and you need to understand what I'm thinking. Here it is.

It's like, help me understand so that we can have this conversation. I love that. Well, thank you, Shanti and Jeff, for being on our show and writing this book, Thriving in Love and Money. And I hope that our listeners will order their own copy because it can really enrich, number one, your life. Number two, your marriage and help you know how to deal with your finances in a godly way from a biblical perspective. And so we want to send you your own copy for your gift of any size to our ministry here at A New Beginning, because as you know, we love to teach the Word of God. This is just an illustration of that where we're helping you to see how Scripture applies to all areas of your life, including your finances. And we also proclaim the gospel and give people an opportunity to believe in Jesus. So for whatever you send, we'll invest it in this ministry and we'll get you your own copy of this book by Shanti and Jeff Feldhahn, Thriving in Love and Money.

Yeah, that's right. We have a copy here waiting for you. Get in touch and request it. We'll send it to say thank you for investing in these daily studies.

You know, they touch lives each and every day, and you have a part in that spiritual fruit when you invest so these studies can continue. And when you send that investment today, be sure to ask for Thriving in Love and Money. You can write A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514. Or call 1-800-821-3300. We can take your call anytime 24-7, again at 1-800-821-3300.

Or go online to harvest.org. Well, next time we'll see that Abraham's life continued to prosper and Lot's life, because of his poor choices, reached a breaking point. Find out what happens next time on A New Beginning. This is the day, the day when life begins The preceding message from Greg Laurie was made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God. Sign up for Pastor Greg's free daily email devotions at harvest.org.