YOUR CHOICES CAN MAKE OR BREAK YOU – PART TWO

Friends, today, we want to continue from where we stopped last time: Your Choices can Make or Break You. Let me refresh our memories by reading the two short scriptures we started with.

Deuteronomy 30:19

¹⁹ I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you [God says], that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.

The second is from Joshua 24, in his farewell message.

Joshua 24:15

¹⁵ And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River [River Euphrates], or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

PRAYER:

Thank You, Father, for granting us another opportunity to search the scriptures. We trust that You would guide us, speak to us, enlighten us, in Jesus Name. Amen!

Your Choices can Make or Break You.

And we found last time that choices are what decisions are about. When we say, your choices can make or break you, we are saying that your life, for better or for worse, would be determined ultimately by the choices you make. And we also found that choices are a matter of alternatives. There must be at least two alternatives for you to have a choice. If you don’t have two alternatives at least, then, you don’t have a choice. And you will be right if you say you don’t have a choice. It is not only that choices are a matter of two or more alternatives, as we find in the scripture that we read; God gave Israel pair of two alternatives; Joshua three alternatives he gave to Israel.

We also found that choices are a matter of minor or major issues. We choose minor things; we also choose more serious things: such minor things as what clothes to wear, what hairstyle, what perfume to wear – those are minor compared to choosing who to marry, choosing your career, choosing who to worship. And we said that the weightier the matter, the more serious or the more important the choice will be.

We concluded last time with examining the life of Ruth and the choices she made. It is the pentral story of the family of Elimelech, people who were living in Betlehem, Judah. But there was famine in the land and they decided to go to the Land of Moab, a heathen territory, in search of food. So they were economic refugees in the Land of Moab. And there their lives did not fare well. Elimelech, the man of the house, died. He had two sons; and his two sons also died. And now, in that family, there were three widows: the older widow, Naomi, and the two young widows, Orpah and Ruth. Eventually, God remember the People of Bethlehem. And there was food in the land. And Naomi decided to go back to her nation. And these two ladies – these young widows decided to go back with her. But she felt for them because she wanted them to stay in their country so that they would be able to remarry – since they are still young. She succeeded in persuading Orpah to go back; and Ruth hung on to her.

Let me identify the choices that Ruth made; and then, how these choices made her the important person she ended up becoming in Israel.

Ruth responded to her mother-in-law.

Ruth 1:16-17

¹⁶ But Ruth said:

“Entreat me not to leave you,
Or to turn back from following after you;
For wherever you go, I will go;
And wherever you lodge, I will lodge;
Your people shall be my people,
And your God, my God.
¹⁷ Where you die, I will die,
And there will I be buried.
The Lord do so to me, and more also,
If anything but death parts you and me.”

This is commitment – par excellence! Commitment!

1. Ruth chose to go with her mother-in-law to Bethlehem, instead of going back to her family in Moab with the possibility of remarrying there. But she chose rather to go to Bethlehem with Naomi.
2. Ruth chose her mother-in-law’s Jewish people, instead of her people, the Moabites.

• Ruth chose her mother-in-law’s God, instead of the god of her people.

1. Ruth chose to live, die and be buried in Israel, instead of in Moab.
2. She chose commitment and sacrifice, instead of selfish interest.

You see, in all these, Ruth had, at least, two alternatives. You must have at least two alternatives to make a choice. But, pray that God would give you the wisdom to make the right choice. In Ruth 3:8-10, we see another important choice Ruth made, on the advice of her mother-in-law.

Ruth 3:8-11

⁸ Now it happened at midnight that the man was startled, and turned himself; and there, a woman was lying at his feet. ⁹ And he said, “Who are you?”

So she answered, “I am Ruth, your maidservant. Take your maidservant under your wing, for you are a close relative.”

¹⁰ Then he said, “Blessed are you of the Lord, my daughter! For you have shown more kindness at the end than at the beginning, in that you did not go after young men, whether poor or rich.

We need a little explanation to understand what is happening here. Ruth was trying to say to Boaz (that’s the man), you are my kinsman redeemer, and I have come for you to fulfill your obligations as kinsman redeemer to my family, the family of Naomi. Kinsman redeemer.

We find this concept in the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy 25, let me read because it is important to get the background. In Deuteronomy 25:5, God said to Israel, there,

Deuteronomy 25:5-6

⁵ “If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the widow of the dead man shall not be married to a stranger outside the family; her husband’s brother shall go in to her, take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. ⁶ And it shall be that the firstborn son which she bears will succeed to the name of his dead brother, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel.

That is the background of what is happening now: the woman – whose choices made her what she became in Israel. It turned out that Boaz responded favorably to this choice that Ruth had made. But Boaz said to her, there is somebody who would go first in line. I will approach him. If he will be the kinsman redeemer, fine; otherwise then I will step in. And Boaz did. And the man declined. To cut a long story short,

Ruth 4:6

⁶ And the close relative said, “I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I ruin my own inheritance. You [ that is, Boaz]redeem my right of redemption for yourself, for I cannot redeem it.”

You see the selfishness that this man exhibited? “Lest I ruin my own inheritance”. Boaz stepped in. and Boaz did not ruin his own inheritance. We will see shortly. Ruth ended up becoming an Israelite, a worshiper of the true God – and the great great grandmother of King David, from whom the Messiah Came. What a choice!

Ruth 4:17

¹⁷ Also the neighbor women gave him a name [that is, the son that Ruth gave birth to], saying, “There is a son born to Naomi.” And they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.

And listen to this, in Matthew 1:1,5-6

1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.

⁵ Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab, Boaz begot Obed by Ruth, Obed begot Jesse, ⁶ and Jesse begot David the king.

David the king begot Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah.

Application:

1. What important choices have you made so far; and did they make or break you? Did they make you better or bitter?
2. What choices do you intend to make in 2015? I hope one of them would be to choose to allow the Lord to be your shepherd?
3. Have you considered the potential of the choices you make daily?

Consider God’s instruction to Israel: 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, that you and your descendants may live.

Friend, choose life. Choose Jesus, the Savior. Ask Him to come into your life, and you will not regret it.

PRAYER:

Father, thank You for another time we have spent in Your Word. O we pray that You would give my friends and us all, the wisdom to choose properly – promptly, in Jesus Name. Amen!