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"Choice!"
I believe choice is a fundamental characteristic of human existence and I believe it is so because God made it. I am convinced that we are creations of God that he shaped us, that he formed us, that we are here as a result of his purpose. I don't know if you have ever thought of it before or not but I believe that God so valued choice as a characteristic in human existence that he makes it one of the prime characteristics of people. We, as a matter of fact, are the only creatures who have this characteristic of choice.

If you think about animals - they don't make moral choices and neither do angels. Neither angels nor animals have this component within themselves that we do, this ability to make choices, and choices that really make a difference.

I don't know if you have thought about it before but God valued choice so much in all of us that when he created us, he even allowed us to choose against God.

I have the privilege of being a father to three children, and I want my children to make a lot of choices. As a matter of fact, that is one of the objectives I have as a father to help prepare them to make good choices, but I'm not sure I am so committed to the concept of choice that I want those youngsters to be able to choose against me. And frequently when I tell them what I want done, I hate for them to have the option of rejecting my advice. As a matter of fact, I frequently say, "You can't reject that. That's more than advice. That's a choice which I'm going to impose."

But God understands the dignity that is brought to an individual by allowing the individual to control and shape his or her own destiny. And that's a characteristic that God has shared with us-that we make choices-choices for good, choices sometimes for evil.

It's important to understand that this part of our existence is God-given and it's the great privilege which we share. Politically we make a lot of choices. We've seen some elections this year and there are tremendous decisions to be reached by people regarding the individuals that would represent them in public office. Those are choices that are made.

Tom Paine put it this way two hundred years ago in the American Revolution when he said, "We have it within our power to make the world over again." In other words, we have choices that are so consequential that the world in which we live is literally determined by the choices we make. And it is true of free people that we have it within our power to structure the environment, to establish the context or quality or climate in which we live. And indeed when we make those choices, we determine something very important not only for us but for those around us.

I believe this freedom, this integrity, this characteristic of choice is God-endowed, that we have it because God gave it to us. And, of course, the most terrible thing that could possibly happen is that we waste any of God's gifts and this is certainly one of his most important gifts. We are unique. We are choice-makers. We have responsibility to make choices. And it's the ability to make a choice that really gives us a sense of being different in the world. It gives us the sense of being meaningful.

I suppose most of us go through our lives, one time or another, saying, "What's the value of it all? Is there any meaning to it? Is there any use? Does what I do really make a difference? Do the choices I make matter?"

Well, I believe that they do matter. And I believe having those choices is very important. You know, this country is full of choices. Perhaps we have more choices in America than any other place on the face of the earth. And I think it's because we have the heritage of understanding God as a creator who valued so much the freedom to choose in our creation that he established that as a primary characteristic in our lives.

But sometimes we get tied up in some pretty small choices - whether we want chocolate or vanilla, or a red one or a blue one. And in spite of the fact that while our lives are replete with these small choices, I believe that we have major choices that we must make. And those choices really have an impact not only on the way we live, but on the way those live who follow us and live around us.

I suppose it's most clearly set out in scripture in the 30th chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy, and I find the most stark evidence of this choice-making characteristic of human beings in the 19th verse. Let me just mention a few of the words from the 19th verse. It goes something like this, "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore choose life that both thou and thy seed may live."

Let's go back to that verse for a minute. It's an intriguing verse to me. The first thing that it says is that I call heaven and earth to record this day against you. That may sound a little bit like an added set of phrases that really don't focus on the meaning of the verse, but those words say something very important to me, and that is, "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you," means that this is important. When you're just talking to someone, shooting the breeze so to speak, exchanging pleasantries, there is no need to record things.

I'm a lawyer and I know that when I'm just talking with someone, I don't bother to have a court reporter. However, there are times when you really have something important to say, something that needs to be understood, and you want it recorded. When a lawyer calls in the court reporter, you know that things are important and this verse says, "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you," this is an important thing. The making of choices is consequential. It's something we should take very seriously.

Secondly, it says, "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing."

That's a tremendous set of choices. This isn't chocolate and vanilla. This doesn't mean whether we have a blue one or a red one. We are talking about life and death, blessing and cursing. We are talking about major decisions here that have real impact.

And then after the verse says that we will record this decision and that this is a major decision of consequences and proportions that are substantial, it says, "Choose life." There is a little advice in here that we should look toward making choices that support life, that support the gift that God has given us, that enhance life. Choose life over death, choose blessing over cursing, and, of course, the tail-end of the verse which is important and reinforces the fact that it has impact. This not only has impact on each of us when we make these choices, it has impact on those around us and those that follow us. it says, "Therefore choose life that both thou and thy seed may live."

Yes, the kind of choices we make has an impact not only on us personally but also on people around us and those who follow us. And this sort of phrase, "thy seed," is the kind of thing that makes me think that our choices may live for a long time in determining the sort of character of what's going to be done and the kind of circumstances in which people would live.

This is a very, very important verse, and it really tells me something about the meaning of life - that God establishes us as creations of his with this characteristic of choice. And that we have the option of choosing, and we are so free in that choice that we are even allowed to choose against God, to choose cursing instead of blessing. And this is the real challenge that we face to find ways in our lives of tapping the goodness of God and saying that we are going to release, or choose, blessing instead of cursing in life.

That's what my prayer is as an individual. When I pray with my family in the morning before the boys and Martie, my daughter, go to school, and before Janet and I begin our workday, I pray to God that we will release into the world blessing rather than cursing, that we will foster life rather than death. And I'm sure that's a prayer that most of us share.

We have perhaps the most dramatic of all the choice-making dramas that have ever been played on the stage of human history in Jerusalem about 2,000 years ago. You remember that Jesus was carried before the entire city of Jerusalem, and Pilate was asking the people what he should do with Jesus. And it's found, I believe, in the 27th chapter of Matthew in the 17th verse, "Therefore when they were gathered together, Pilate said unto them," and listen to this - this is intriguing to me, "'Whom will ye that I release unto you, Barabbas or Jesus, which is called the Christ?"'

That's quite a question. You will remember that Barabbas was a thief, a criminal, someone who had been an outcast of society, someone who had been of disservice, someone who had been releasing evil, someone who had not been a participant in providing goodness in society. Jesus was there as well. His conduct had been to make people whole and to provide an opportunity for people to be restored.

So often I have thought to myself, "Wow, I'm glad I wasn't there! I'm glad I didn't have the responsibility at that time of joining in the decision-making which took place when Pilate came out and said, 'Whom would ye that I release unto you, Barabbas or Jesus, which is called the Christ?"'

It really struck me as I have considered these two verses just how close that Deuteronomy verse is to that Matthew verse. It says in Deuteronomy, "I have set before you blessing and cursing, life and death - choose life."

And here in Matthew, you have literal embodiments, personification of blessing and cursing, life and death, and the admonition would be to choose life as well.

Unfortunately, in one respect the assembled throng in Jerusalem decided to choose not to release Jesus. They chose to release Barabbas, and that may tell us something about the way we make choices. It probably is not always wise to choose to do what the crowd is doing. It may well be that we ought to consider very carefully within ourselves what our choices should be. Because the crowd overwhelmingly in a moment of mass decision-making, decided that they didn't want Jesus released. They wanted Barabbas released. And that would be an apparent tragedy for you end up taking out virtue, you end up taking out honesty and purity, and crucifying it, and not releasing virtue and honesty and purity into society, and releasing instead something far less.

But what a tremendous set, what a tremendous circumstance there on the stage of Jerusalem if you will. We have the opportunity to make the choice that Deuteronomy says: that we have life and death, blessing and cursing. We have the opportunity to choose life.

And this is the circumstance in which we find ourselves at all times as human beings. We are on a daily basis given an option to release into the world Jesus, which is life, and blessing, and virtue, and honesty, and integrity, and healing and restoration and redemption; or we have an opportunity to turn our backs on that particular option, and we have an opportunity to release something less than that - cursing instead of blessing, death instead of life.

I believe what we want to do, what we really are at home doing, what we feel best about doing, is finding those good things within us and releasing them, rather than releasing the cursing and the death. We want to focus on life and we want to focus on blessing.

So we really find ourselves with a fundamental understanding that God creates us with a capacity for choice. Choice is very important. It is meaningful. It's something that lasts a long time. It's recorded in heaven and earth what we do. And it not only affects us individually but it affects those who are around us and those who would follow us. And we have the option of releasing good or evil in the world around us.

And I just want to make it my prayer each day that I would find ways to personally release goodness ind to favor blessing rather than cursing, and life over death.

And yet we see, from the circumstances most dramatically Put in Jerusalem that there is a propensity for us to, well, foul it up, to make the wrong selection, sometimes to make the wrong choice. And that's puzzling. For here you sense some of the dilemma, some of the difficulty of mankind. In spite of the fact that we so often have before us blessing instead of cursing, life instead of death, we make what is apparently a wrong decision.

And the potential for wrong decisions adds real pressure to our decision making. Those of us in government sometimes feel the pressure pretty strongly and pretty keenly when you have to reach a decision, and you know if you do the wrong thing, it can have very, very significant consequences.

And here we are created by God with this characteristic of choice. We want to make the right decisions. We don't want to make the wrong decisions. We have some fear that we might make the wrong decision, and that brings pressure into life, and that's why it's important for me, that's why an important part of my life is trusting in God to help us make the right decision.

You know there is a place in scripture that talks about all things working together for good to them that love the Lord and are called according to his purpose, meaning that if we have our heart right, and we're really doing what we believe God wants us to do, and we have committed our lives to him and we rely upon him, even apparently bad decisions and wrong choices can be used for his glory and for our benefit. Even that decision to release Barabbas and to crucify Jesus a couple thousand years ago really turned out to be something that worked to our benefit. "All things work together for good to them that love the Lord and are called according to his purpose."

And what we found there eventually was that redemption was made possible in spite of the fact that people would make the wrong choice.

What a tremendous thing it is, what an assurance it is to me and my testimony, that God promises that in this world in which we have to make choices, that if we dedicate ourselves to him, we commit our lives to his care and we trust him, that he can take even the worst of our choices and make them a part of his redemptive healing for the world. The death-of Jesus Christ and his resurrection becomes a source of life for so many of us, and I pray that the choices that you and I have the option and opportunity to make would be so used by God that we would bring life and healing, and virtue, and opportunity to those around us.

Yes, we are choice makers. We are created by God with this characteristic not shared by animals or angels. We have the dignity and integrity of affecting the way things are and the way things will be. Our choices are most important and they are consequential. And we should seek to release when we make those choices - life over death, blessing over cursing. personally want to seek to release Jesus' virtue over Barabbas' criminality, those kinds of things that are not healing or restorative. And yet I know that I will make mistakes but I am so grateful to God that he allows us in this process to be a part of redemption in the world, and healing, because he takes our mistakes. He not only takes them to make them redemptive, he allows us to participate in redemption as well.

What a tremendous thing to provide a source of gratitude within us, that when we seek to make the right decision, then we pray to God that he will make the decision right. That he will work together with us to make all things work together for good for his glory when we work according to his purpose.

I thank you, and I pray for you, and I pray for each family represented, not only here tonight, but in the television audience as well, that we would make the choices God would have us make, releasing life over death, and blessing over cursing that we might be a part of the redemptive, restoring, healing mission of Jesus Christ in this world.

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