Alternate Ending “Choices Matter” By: Pastor Tracy (notes & video)

Alternate Ending series: Choices Matter

Promo video below (full message video at the bottom of this post):

Sunday June 24, 2012            Pastor Tracy Boyd

Intro: Everybody explores the would of could of should of’s! We wish in many cases there were some alternate endings to situations in our life. But what if we could really have alternate endings.

We can look at the life of Samson; great start, bad ending

• Chosen from birth to be a nazarite (refrain from eating anything unclean, fermented drink or cutting his hair) who would deliver and judge Israel
• Israel would choose to not follow God, fall into oppression from enemies, cry out to God for deliverance, and God would answer!

This week  out title is: Choices Matter

Bottom line most of the time our choices have gotten us where we are today

• God has given us a free will to choose
  • Adam and Eve freely chose to eat of the tkge
  • Cain

Genesis 4:6-7 (NKJ)

⁶ Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? ⁷ If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.’

• Deut. 30:19-20 (NIV)

¹⁹ This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live ²⁰ and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

• God’s plan was for the Israelites to go to the promise land; they choose to wander 40 years.

Numbers 14:22-23 (NV)

²² not one of those who saw my glory and the signs I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times – ²³ not one of them will ever see the land I promised on oath to their ancestors. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it.

• There are laws that govern life and laws that govern death; they are unseen yet exits. We determine by our choices what is released in our life.

Choice (which laws we cooperate with) is determined by observations, associations and teaching

• Example: a young girl raised in oats where there

• The oats of our world are slanted toward: Lust of the eye the lust of the flesh pride of Life- Do what I feel like doing

1 john 2:16

For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world

World: this is not physical creation, but the sphere of evil operating in our world under the dominion of satan

• The enemy operates with the above 3 because they all have destructive endings
  • Eve: Genesis 3:6 she saw that it was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.
  • The Above three led to Samson’s horrible ending
    • Lust of the flesh: He slept with Harlots, ate honey that was in the carcass of a dead lion he had killed with his bare hands
    • Lust of the eye & the pride of Life

Judges14: 2-3

So he went up and told his father and mother, saying, “I have seen a woman in Timnah of the daughters of the Philistines; now therefore, get her for me as a wife.”

³ Then his father and mother said to him, “Is there no woman among the daughters of your brethren, or among all my people, that you must go and get a wife from the uncircumcised Philistines?”

And Samson said to his father, “Get her for me, for she pleases me well.”

( this phrase in Hebrew is similar to the phrase “everybody did what was right in their own eyes”)

• Samson did what He felt lie doing what was right in his eyes even though his parents tried to talk with him

• The enemy uses veils in our soul to convince us we won’t be happy unless…. Lot’s wife was convinced she would be missing out by leaving Sodom.
• Let’s be real…I’ve had those thoughts especially as a teenager because I wasn’t presented the gospel correctly.

Choices can be changed

Proverbs 4:20-23

My son, pay attention to what I say; turn your ear to my words ²¹ Do not let them out of your sight keep them within your heart; ²² for they are life to those who find them and health to one’s whole body. ²³ Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

• Samson’s Generation got away from the ways given by God:

Judges 2: 7, 10, (NJK)

So the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord which He had done for Israel.

¹⁰ When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord nor the work which He had done for Israel.

Judges 17:6(NKJ)

⁶ In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

• This is the generation that we are living in today! Previous generations fought to take the Bible and prayer out of our culture. With out it we are not equipped to fight the pull of sin that leads to destruction.

• Violent crimes chart: following the court’s decision to remove the Bible, violent crimes soared 470%. US became  the world’s leader in total crimes committed.
• Divorce chart: Divorce skyrocket- us found itself number 1 in divorce
• Unmarried couples living together chart: increased 1000%
• Sat chart: Sat scores plummeted after being stable for decades
• Birth rates of unwed mothers chart:  soared 460% America has the highest teen pregnancy rate of any nation in the industrialized world
• Sexually transmitted disease chart: Soared

• As we keep the Word around and in us we begin to reshape our oats

My story: I would have ended up just as my dysfunctional family if my Oats did not change.

Psalm 119:11 (NKJ)

Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You

Romans 6:14(NKJ)

 For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

The Word and the revelation of our right standing with God is a supernatural empowerment to curb the temptation of sin.

My example of God asking me not to date in college: He was reshaping my history! I had patterns of going from one relationship to the next trying to reduce the sense of rejection and acceptance.

The Word will shape your choices and give you an alternate ending

• Example: trying out for cheerleading, got hurt, built a case with the Word, prayed, made the team with out trying out!

• The enemy likes to repeat history- alcoholic, divorce, infidelity, pride. You can have an alternate ending!

• Samson was suppose to be a great judge, instead he was a loner who did great exploits. It did not have to end the way that it did! We can learn form his life and realize we can have alternate endings. God will readjust our GPS!

Conclusion: Speak what you want your ending to be!

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