Good afternoon, brethren.
It's a privilege and a pleasure to be here with you this afternoon.
Kind of a beautiful spring day.
I found myself whining a little bit earlier in the week about all this rain that we've
been having because I don't know that I can recall a spring that has been this wet.
But I have to remember that July where we had a nice wet spring and then the first of
July it didn't rain a drop for 31 days.
I'm sure we may have some of that coming along here in the summer, but right now it
sure is nice to see the rain and to see the earth kind of coming back to life with the
beauty of the trees and blossoming and all of those lovely different colors that are
showing.
As has already been mentioned, today is the first day of spring, the first full day of
spring.
It's also the first of Nissan.
It's the first day on the sacred calendar.
So 14 days from last evening will be keeping the past over here.
20 years ago this spring, we were faced with some amazing circumstances.
Those of you that are under 25 did not experience this in the same way that the older couple
of generations in the church did at that time.
But for us, it was an extremely upsetting period of time.
Never forget a sermon that I heard roughly this time of year in the spring of 1995 where
a church pastor at that time said this, and I'll never forget this, brethren, you have
choices to make.
And that was the beginning of the message, brethren, you have choices to make.
And we did.
And we executed those choices over a period, in some cases the weeks, months, and some
even years, but we all had choices that we made and that we executed.
And as we all know about choices, there's always consequences.
Always consequences with choices, whether they be good or bad, there's always consequences.
And we are a product of those choices.
That's what I'd like to speak about this afternoon.
I'd like to take a look in the time that I have this afternoon on choices and the choices
in the context of how that relates to preparation for the Passover that we'll keep in 14 days
from last evening.
Let's start in Deuteronomy 30.
Like to introduce this point and hopefully the point of my sermon, split sermon here
this afternoon with three verses in Deuteronomy 30.
Setting in Deuteronomy 30 is that all the children of Israel on the east side of the
Jordan River, Moses is 120 years old.
He's right at the end of his life.
There is the preparation for succession in leadership from Moses to Joshua, the preparation
to cross the Jordan and go into the promised land as the children of Israel had been promised.
Right at that time and prior to that is when the words here in Deuteronomy 30 and the preceding
chapters and the succeeding chapters to the end of the book are recorded for us and written
for us.
Let's take a look at three verses in Deuteronomy 30 verses 15, 19, and 20.
I'm reading from the New King James Version and here's Deuteronomy 30, 15.
See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.
Got two equations there and both of those equations are opposite.
Life and good, death and evil.
Drop down please to verse 19.
I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you that I have set before you life
and death, blessing and cursing.
Therefore choose life, choose life.
That's God's wish for us.
That was God's urging of the children of Israel at that time.
Choose life.
And I believe that that applies to us in 2015 and the spring of this year.
Choose life.
That's what is set before us.
Continuing with that, that both you and your descendants may live.
Verse 20, that you may love the Lord, your God, that you may obey his voice and that
you may cling to him.
For he is your life and the length of your days and that you may dwell in the land which
the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to give them.
Real quick inset, I think you can look at Hebrews 11, the roster of the faithful and
you can see those individuals there are all the product of choice.
Right quickly, what does it say about Abraham that was mentioned here?
Abraham believed God.
That was a choice.
That was the choice that he made and executed and the result of that was what?
And it was counted to him as righteousness.
That all of those individuals that are mentioned there in Hebrews 11 and the scores and hundreds
of others that we're aware of in the pages of the Bible made choices.
We're told here in these verses, choose life.
Let's look at some choices.
If we would, let's turn back to Genesis 3.
First recorded choice where there are consequences listed.
Now you can say, well Adam made choices about naming the critters and so he did.
But that was a different kind of a choice.
That wasn't a character choice.
There's one in Genesis 3 that involves a choice relating to character.
Just backing up, let me read to you Genesis 2 verse 9, we're introduced to those opposites
again.
Out of the ground, the Lord God made every tree grow that's pleasant to the sight and
good for food.
The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
I want to change the phraseology on that last expression to try to, at least it does for
me, to enhance the significance of that rather than saying the tree of the knowledge and
then to say that there is a set of what that relates to, say good and evil.
Let's read it like this.
That there, and the tree of the knowledge of good and the knowledge of evil, it's the
same thing.
Specifically, we have the knowledge, we can make a choice about having the knowledge of
good.
We can make a choice where we become knowledgeable of evil.
That's what we're introduced here in 2.9.
The whole of Genesis chapter 3, we know the story.
It lies to Mother Eve.
There's no record of whether or not Mother Eve had ever encountered a lie in her life
before, but she made a choice.
She could have said, Adam, get the hoe that talking snakes bothered me.
She didn't do that.
She chose to believe the serpent.
Thankfully, I've never encountered a talking snake.
I've had my encounters with copperheads and rattlesnakes, but never one of them that talked
to me.
But the serpent tells her a lie and she believes it.
The serpent basically causes her to doubt God and causes her to make another choice.
First of all, she believes the serpent.
Then she believes that it's going to be okay if she takes of the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and of the knowledge of evil, and so she does.
Adam then follows on with his choice.
What does he do?
He could have stood up and said, I'm not doing that.
I'm not going to make that choice.
That's wrong.
God told us to not partake of that tree, but he did the same thing.
He made a choice and he executed it.
All of a sudden, their eyes are open.
They become aware that they're naked.
They hide themselves from God.
God's walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
He doesn't say, Eve, where are you?
He asks Adam, Adam, where are you?
Adam says, we're hiding.
God asked him, did you take of that tree?
Adam basically says two things that are interesting.
It was that woman that you gave me.
We played the blame game here.
I want to try to escapate myself here a little bit, but it's that woman that you gave me.
So I'm kind of blaming you a little bit, but I'm really passing the buck to Mother Eve.
God talks to Eve.
What does she say?
She doesn't say it was Adam, she says it was that snake.
And so she's passing the buck or trying to pass the buck and the blame for her choices
to the snake.
Find it interesting that God then addresses them in the reverse order, starts with the
snake and basically describes the punishment there.
Then he goes to Eve.
He talks about what's going to happen to her, difficulties with bearing children, things
like that, being basically in a relationship with your husband, maybe in a different way
than what had been in the past.
Don't know about that.
And finally with Adam.
The thing that I find really interesting in Genesis 22 and 4 are this.
Let's read 22 out of Genesis 3.
The Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us to know good and evil.
All of a sudden they knew evil, they'd sinned.
And now lest he put out his hand and also take of the tree of life and live forever.
You know, that was the restriction there.
Then there's no more access to the garden.
They're banished from the garden at that point.
That's verse of Genesis 3, verse 24, that so he that it's God drove out the man and
he placed caribbean at the east of Eden with a flaming sword that turned every way.
And that carib or caribbean's responsibility was to guard the tree of life.
So all of a sudden there's no access to the tree of life anymore.
I find it interesting that there was no prohibition prior to this event about the tree of life.
There's nothing that says stay away from both of those trees.
We just don't partake of the tree of the knowledge of good and of the knowledge of evil.
But the tree of life was available.
It was there in the garden.
There was no restriction against that that's recorded, that I know of.
One interesting thing here is there was no opportunity for repentance.
We don't see any record of anybody saying, I'm sorry, I wished I hadn't done that.
Can we have a redo here?
Can this be remediated?
It's over.
You know, it's done at this point.
You're banished.
The garden in that sense or access to that tree of life is closed.
And there's no repentance available at that time.
They couldn't reverse their choice.
And isn't that the way that it is with choices sometimes, that sometimes the ones you make
have lifelong consequences and we've all seen that with our friends and family members,
those people that we know well.
We see someone faced with a choice.
Sometimes they make a tremendous choice and they benefit for the rest of their lives or
we see the blessings and benefits that come from that choice.
Other times we see a choice at a young age that charts the direction for that individual's
life for the rest of their lives.
That's the way it is with choices.
Choose life.
That's God's direction to us.
One thing I was struck by in reading about this topic is three couple verses in John
10.
This time of the year, the Gospel of John is especially powerful to me with just the way
that the Apostle John records the events of that time.
But the very powerful verses, I'd like to focus on this point in the choice that Jesus
Christ made.
I was struck by this and there's just two little verses here, John 10, 17, and 18.
John 10 verses 17 and 18, words of Jesus Christ, therefore my Father loves me because I lay
down my life that I may take it again, a choice there.
No one takes it from me in verse 18.
No one takes it from Jesus Christ, but I lay it down of myself.
Jesus sang, I made a choice to do this, not that the God beings drew straws to see who
was going to be the sacrifice.
That wasn't the way that it was done.
And I don't mean at all in any way to denigrate the choices that were made, the plan of God
that's recorded for us that has existed before the foundation of the world, an incredible
expanse of time.
No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself.
I have power to lay it down.
I have power to take it again.
This command I've received from my Father.
A little later in John in chapter 15, let me just read this verse to you, it's a memory
verse for many of, it's greater love has no one than this than to lay down one's life
for its friends.
That's Jesus Christ's summation of the significance of his choice in choosing to lay down his life
for the sins of all of us, and all people for all time.
No greater love exists than this according to Jesus Christ.
Another choice, and this one is one that we all face.
Let's take a look at some very well-known verses, actually two of them in Matthew 6,
two of them in Galatians 6.
I can read them to you, or you're welcome to turn there with me.
We've got the choice of what our primary focus should be with our life.
Is our primary focus going to be on the physical, or is our primary focus going to be on the
spiritual?
And that's what it comes down to.
That's a binary solution, that there's just two choices there.
There's not three, or 15, or whatever other number, it's just where is your primary focus
going to be, which of those two areas will it be?
Matthew 6.25, Matthew 6.25, therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life.
Again, we're talking about life, again, going back to Deuteronomy 30, but what kind of life,
physical or spiritual, we'll see.
What you'll eat, what you'll drink, nor about your body, what you'll put on is not life
more than food and the body more than clothing, but wait a minute, we need all of those things
to exist.
We need food on a regular basis, or we're going to die.
We have the need for drink, we have the need for clothing, we have our physical needs to
perpetuate our physical existence, but what's the primary priority?
What is our primary focus?
Is it on the maintenance of physical life, or is it primarily on the spiritual life and
on our spiritual goals, and the physical becomes subordinate to that and secondary to that?
Over time we realize that the physical is temporal and that we all have a certain amount
of time and then we die, but the spiritual goal and the spiritual accomplishment of God's
plan of bringing many sons to glory is eternal life.
Go into that.
So we have that choice that each of us faces on a daily basis.
What will my primary focus be today?
Will it be on the physical things, or will it be that I've got physical things that I
have to do?
As all of you have, we have our jobs and we have our responsibilities and whatever it
is that we encounter, but where will my primary focus be, physical or will it be spiritual?
We're given the answer to this question down a few verses, Matthew 6.33, another memory
verse.
Here's what we're encouraged to do, but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness
and all these things shall be added to you.
It's not seek only, but it's seek first.
So a priority scheme is established there for us.
We're told to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then we can worry
about some of these other things, and by the way, God knows what we need and He'll provide
what we need.
And that's the priority scheme that we're encouraged to have in our lives, two verses
in Galatians 6, verses 7 and 8, memory verses, and these are, to me, these are powerful verses.
In Galatians 6, 7, do not be deceived, we could also say maybe in a more vernacular, don't
kid yourself, don't kid yourself.
God is not mocked, you're not going to fool God in that sense.
God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, He shall also reap.
That's where the consequences come in.
What we sow, the choices that we make, we're going to reap consequences from those choices.
Everything in verse 8, for he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption.
Our life ends, it's over from the standpoint of physical existence.
But he who sows to the Spirit, he's chosen spiritual life, he's choosing life, will of
the Spirit reap everlasting life.
It's our choice, it's our choice.
It can tell us, you ought to choose this, you ought to do that.
But when the rubber hits the road, it's my choice, it's your choice.
What will our choice be?
And have we fully considered the consequences of those choices and those actions in terms
of what we expect to reap from that?
I'd like to spend a little bit of time in John 6.
This is read often, it's read every time during this time of the year, and passed over in
one form or another.
I believe it's the longest chapter in the New Testament.
If it's not, please let me know which one is, because I'm not aware of one that's got
more verses than John 6, that's 71 verses.
I'd like to work my way through some excerpts in John 6, pointing toward a conclusion as
to there were choices made after these verses took place.
I'd like to read these verses thinking about, okay, who made what choices?
And we're going to read that here in just a minute.
And I'm basically titled at this point, The Bread of Life and the Choices of the Disciples.
The Bread of Life and the Choices of the Disciples.
Let's start in verse 33, for the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives
life to the world.
That physical or is that spiritual?
Believe it's spiritual.
Comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.
Also gave physical life to it, creation, but he's talking about spiritual things in John
6.
Drop down to 35, please, and she's the said of him, I am the bread of life.
We have that symbolism of bread and life, the connection in other places, bread here,
and the manna in the Old Testament, where God miraculously sustained the children of
Israel up to that period of time in Deuteronomy 30, where they were on the verge of crossing
the Jordan and going into the Promised Land, at which point that the manna ceased.
Some point after they got into the land, the manna stopped becoming available.
Jesus Christ, I am the bread of life.
He who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.
He's not speaking physically, he's speaking spiritually, because we all get hungry and
we all have thirst, but he's talking about spiritual.
He's talking spiritual, he's using spiritual terminology and trying to make, and making
a spiritual point, verse 40.
And this is the will of him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in
him may have everlasting life, not just physical life, spiritual life.
That is another way of saying, choose life, choose spiritual life.
And I will raise him up at the last day, raise him up how?
Hopefully to us who have God's Holy Spirit, either we will come up out of the grave at
the last trump, and we will be spirit, and we will live for eternity, or if we're alive
and remain, when Jesus Christ returns, then we'll be changed as the Apostle Paul says
in 1 Thessalonians 4, we'll be changed in the twinkling of an eye, in the blink of
an eye, and we will be spirit.
We will change from physical to spiritual in an instant, 47.
Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in me has everlasting life, and there's more
to believe than just an acknowledgement.
It may start with belief, but it is a way of life.
It is a collection of choices.
It is a collection of choices, 48, Jesus' words, I am the bread of life.
By Jesus Christ's life and his choices, we have the opportunity for forgiveness that
can give us ultimately eternal life.
51.
I am the living bread which came down from heaven, manna wasn't living, but it was bread.
Jesus here says, I am the living bread which came down from heaven.
If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever, and the bread that I shall give is
my flesh, the sacrifice of his life, the beatings that he endured and the brutality that he
endured as part of that sacrifice, which I shall give for the life of the world, 53.
Then Jesus said to them, most assuredly I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the
Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
Again, we're pointing to some people are fixing to make a choice here in a few verses.
What's it going to be?
54.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up
at the last day.
If you look at this physically, only it's confusing.
Obviously, Jesus Christ is speaking in terms of spiritual principles.
He's not talking about cannibalism here.
He's talking about spiritual principles, the partaking of the bread of life in that sense
that is our commitment to choose and our choice to live God's way of life as best we
can for as long as we can and as long as we live, 63.
It is the spirit which gives life.
The flesh profits nothing.
Priorities again.
The words that I speak to you are spirit and their life, 65.
He said, therefore I have said to you that no one can come to me unless it's been granted
to him by my father.
We see in John 6 the eloquent treatment of the reciprocity of the Father and of Jesus
Christ in interacting with human beings as far as calling and of the access that we have
by Jesus Christ or through Jesus Christ to the Father, 66.
Here we go with the conclusion.
From that time, many of his disciples went back and walked with him no more.
They did not choose life.
What they choose?
They chose a different focus.
They didn't get it.
They didn't comprehend what was said, but they chose another way.
They did not choose life.
What about the 12, 67?
Then Jesus said to the 12, got to remember Judas Iscariot in this group at this time.
Do you also want to go away?
What's your choice is what he's saying.
What are you guys going to do?
What's your choice?
Simon Peter with his bold personality, and he answers, says in 68, Lord, to whom shall
we go?
Where will we go?
To whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life.
Simon Peter recognized that.
The other 11 did too.
Let me read to you John 14, verse 6 to add to this.
Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
And that's what the 11 understood.
They got that point.
The other disciples that walked no more with him missed the point.
They made a different choice.
I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.
And we have that, and we put that together back up there with verse 65.
We see that the relationship of Christ and the Father in dealing with people that they
choose to call.
One of the things that I like to think about at this time of the year is to go back and
to review some of the baptismal commitment that each of us has made that are baptized
in whatever time that we were.
One of those, most likely when you were being advised and counseled about baptism that someone
went through some verses out of Luke 14 with you.
And I always like to do that at this time of the year because, again, it's about choice.
And we're faced with choices here.
What is our focus going to be?
What is my focus going to be?
Let's take a look at Luke 14.
Luke 14 and verse 26, Luke 14 and verse 26, if anyone comes to me speaking of Jesus Christ
and does not hate his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes, and his
own life also, he can't be my disciple.
Where is our primary focus?
The School Field Reference Bible has an interesting comment about that.
We've heard this in a variety of different ways over the years, but I like the way that
the School Field Reference Bible addresses that particular issue about hate.
It says this in a marginal notation, all terms which define the emotions or affections are
comparative.
They're comparative.
We've heard it explained as loveless by comparison.
But that School Field is saying the same thing with just a different choice of words.
We're not told to hate because elsewhere we're told that hate is equivalent to murder.
So Jesus Christ is not self-contradictory here, he's not telling us here that we're
to hate, but he's saying that we're to loveless by comparison.
It's a choice.
Am I going to love my parents more than I love Jesus Christ and the Father, and am I
going to let that influence my commitment or not?
It's my choice.
What will my choice be?
What about the rest of my family?
What about my wife, my children, my sisters?
What about my own life?
If it comes to that, am I willing to make that choice to where that I would choose the eternal
life over my physical life if it comes to that?
It's our choice.
It's what's important to each of us individually.
It's our choice.
Let me read to you Matthew 19, verse 29 as a companion to this, and then we'll move on.
Matthew 19, verse 29, also the words of Jesus Christ, that everyone who has left houses,
brothers, sisters, father, mother, wife, children, or lands for my namesake, made a choice about
priorities shall receive a hundredfold and inherit eternal life.
That's the consequence of the right choice.
That's the consequence in Jesus Christ's words of differentiating between the spiritual
and the physical when it comes to focus, and making the choice, the right choice, to choose
life in that sense, to choose life eternal.
One of the things that has really been on my mind recently is this next point, a choice
to be separate, a choice to be separate.
Many of us have made, we have individuals here in this congregation that have been baptized
for well over 50 years.
They made choices many decades ago and are faithful in that sense to those choices.
We have quite a group of young people in this congregation that are in transition.
In about a three-year period of time, we've got a really fine group of young people, a
remarkable group of young people that are making the transition from being in a household
with a family to stretching their wings and moving out on their own.
They have choices to make.
It's no longer going to be mom and dad's choice, it's going to be my choice.
It's not going to be mom and dad telling me that you need to do this or don't do that.
It's their choice.
They're faced with the transition in terms of the freedom to act to make the choice as
well as the accountability for the results of the choice.
Because when it's your choice and you make that choice, then you reap what you sow, hopefully
you reap blessings.
If you make the wrong choice, you're not going to reap blessings.
You're going to reap consequences of a wrong choice.
We've all been there, we've all done that, we're still doing that.
We all have choices that we make good, bad, or ugly.
We all have to deal with the consequences of those choices.
But to young people, I'd like to primarily address this to you, but it applies to every
one of us in this room that is concerned about choice, spiritual or physical.
Let's read four verses out of 2 Corinthians 6.
2 Corinthians 6, 14 to 17.
2 Corinthians 6, 14, the words of the apostle Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians,
do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
The apostle Paul doesn't mince words, just comes right out and makes a position statement.
Don't be unequally yoked together with unbelievers and continuing for what fellowship has righteousness
with lawlessness.
What communion has light with darkness?
And he's also painting with words, this picture of life and darkness, of belief and unbelief.
And with light, we see in the Gospel of John, light and life.
And the symbolism of Jesus Christ as the light of the world that gives all of us life spiritually,
living in 15, and he goes through this series of opposites.
What accord or concord has Christ with Belial?
What part has the believer with an unbeliever, 16, and what agreement has the temple of God
with idols?
We've all got to answer those questions.
We've all got to face the choices that we make and the results of those choices.
For you are the temple of the living God.
As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk among them, I will be their God and they
shall be my people.
The apostle Paul's quoting a couple of verses out of Leviticus 26, same principle.
You're fixing to come into the promised land, you've got choices to make as you interact
and how you interact with the inhabitants of that land.
But this is the apostle Paul's, he's quoting from that.
We're in the situation that God dwells in us too by the power of his Holy Spirit.
Elsewhere it says, Jesus Christ is dwelling in us and that is the Holy Spirit that we
who are baptized have.
He is living in us.
We in that sense are the temple of God.
So we need to be careful with our choices because we are the temple of God if we house
or we are a vessel of God's Holy Spirit.
What choice will we make?
Concluding in verse 17, therefore, conclusion, come out from among them and be what?
Be separate.
He said that in Leviticus, what the children of Israel do?
They entangle themselves with the people of the land, had all kinds of problems as a result
of their choice.
He's using that and says that in 1 Corinthians 10, these things happened to them, for examples,
for whom?
For us and for all of the people to whom these words have significance through the ages.
Come out from among them and be separate.
We've got another one of those binary solutions that choices.
We can either be in the world or we can be in the faith, but we can't be in both.
We can't be in both.
We make a choice as to where our primary emphasis and our primary focus is going to be.
What is it?
We all have to make that choice.
And we all are accountable for our choice once we reach that age of accountability.
Come out from among them and be separate.
Says the Lord.
It's not me saying this.
I'm reading from the apostle Paul quoting Isaiah 52.
These same words are written in Isaiah 52 and verse 11.
Different phraseology, same point.
And be separate, says the Lord.
Do not touch what is unclean and I will receive you.
That's a result of a choice.
We all face choices.
Those choices have consequences.
But it is truly at the binary solution set.
It's not something that we can have one foot in the world and the other foot in the church.
We can't live our lives.
We cannot compartmentalize our lives as Christians to where we behave one way on our jobs, wherever
that may be, and we act one way from Monday through then.
And every one of us, especially at this time of year, when we begin to reflect as we're
told in 2 Corinthians 13.5, examine yourselves whether you be in the faith.
First Corinthians 11 says the same thing in the verses that we'll read in preparation
for the Passover individually and it will read at the Passover.
What are we supposed to do?
We're supposed to examine ourselves and then we're supposed to take partake of those symbols.
And we go through this recommitment and this reaffirmation of the choices that we've made.
Let me read a couple other verses here, John 15.16, Jesus Christ's words, you did not
choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that
your fruit should remain, bearing fruit's choices.
It's making choices.
Hopefully that's good choices.
Good fruit.
Whatever you ask the Father in my name, He'll give you.
Look at what the Apostle Paul's choice was.
Let me read Galatians 2.20 to you.
Galatians 2 verse 20, a memory verse, I have been crucified with Christ.
That was the Apostle Paul's choice.
He's saying I'm all in.
I'm fully committed.
This is my level of engagement in my commitment to Jesus Christ.
That's what the Apostle Paul's saying about himself.
It's no longer I who live but Christ lives in me.
We made reference to that earlier.
And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God.
The Apostle Paul's life was cut short.
He was beheaded and he was a martyr in Rome.
But his commitment was he made the choice.
Is it spiritual life that is my focus or am I going to do something else to preserve
my physical life or to try to for a little longer and try to hang on?
And his choice was my focus is on the kingdom of God.
My focus is on the commitment that I made somewhere shortly after the events on the
road to Damascus.
And God very dramatically calling him and getting his attention.
And this is what his choice was from that time until this.
Now I live by the flesh which I now live in the flesh.
I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
This is the result of the Apostle Paul's choice.
This was what he did.
The Passover is 14 days away from last night, last evening.
As we examine ourselves, let's prepare to choose life.
This time of year we could look at as this is a renewal.
This is a confirmation of the choice that each of us were baptized made at some point
in the past.
And there are the consequences of the choices that we made that led up to baptism and it's
the public pronouncement that we are making a choice to choose spiritual life and that
our intent is that we're going to live this way, live God's way for the rest of our natural
life, for the rest of our physical life.
It's an affirmation this time of year and we come up to the Passover and we keep the
Passover in remembrance of Jesus Christ.
It's an affirmation of continuing with our choice.
Let's choose life.
