How to Avoid Foolish Decisions

Joel Gorveatte · Tidal Church Moncton · August 7, 2022 · Recharge series

Drawing on Luke 14 and stories like Elijah, Rehoboam, Jonah and Esau, Joel Gorveatte offers six practical questions for evaluating yourself and your options, so you can make wise choices that line up with God's Word and His agenda.

More from Joel Gorveatte · The Recharge series

Topics: Faith, Purpose, Discipleship

Transcript

[0:00] Are you ready to study God's Word today? Luke chapter 14, beginning in verse 27. Jesus said, "Whoever does not carry their cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple. Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, 'This person began to build and wasn't able to finish.' Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king.

[1:01] Won't he first sit down and consider whether he is able with 10,000 men to oppose the one coming against him with 20,000?" And so Jesus says that there is a process that we need to go through for good decision making, and here is why discovering that process is so important, because the decisions of today will determine the destination of tomorrow. We talk with people all the time who are just baffled, right? They just can't figure out why things have turned out the way they have in their lives, and people will ask, "Well, what went wrong?

[1:48] I just don't understand. I don't understand where I went, you know, went the wrong way. How is it that I ended up in this place that I never intended to be?" And so whenever you end up in a place in your life that you never intended to be, what you will find is that often you can trace back weeks or months or even years and discover that it is the decisions you made along the way that determined the place you are today. And so what if we could go back and figure out what were some of those mistakes to prevent doing the same thing in the future?

[2:33] And so here's our subject today. We're going to talk about how to avoid making bad choices, how to avoid making bad choices now. Can I just say, this is a highly relevant topic in my life right now. Now for those of you who don't know the reason that there was kind of like sympathetic and uncomfortable chuckling is because back in July, Tracy and I announced a crazy hard decision that we have been processing: to move to New York City the beginning of September. And see, here's what I've discovered. What I have discovered is that sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between crazy and courageous, right?

[3:29] And often you don't know until you look back in retrospect, and when things turn out bad, you're like, "I was crazy." And the person you thought was crazy, when it turns out awesome later, you look back and go, "Oh no, I saw it all along. They were courageous." Right? I don't know how that story is going to end yet. But we feel the call to be urban missionaries. And so we're in the process of selling our house and our vehicles and everything we own, pretty much, to go live in a tiny little apartment in one of the hardest places imaginable to live. And so, here's the point: if there is anybody who is worried about making foolish decisions right now, it is this guy.

[4:15] And if there's anything that I have probably been asked as much as anything else in the last 27 years as a pastor, it's this: When it comes to making these kind of big life choices, and sometimes even the smaller life choices, how do you make sure that you're making the right decision? And so today what I want to do is give you six questions that you can use. And listen, these six questions will help you through that process and hopefully help keep you on track with what God wants for your life. My friend Rick McGinnis says that it needs to be broken down into two sections.

[5:05] And so the first three questions we're going to look at today are about evaluating yourself, and then the second three questions that we're going to look at today are about evaluating your options. And as we look at these six questions that we need to be asking in our lives related to any decision, keep in mind that everything we're talking about today needs to be bathed in prayer and listening to the Holy Spirit. Are you ready? This is going to be really practical stuff today. Evaluating yourself. Let's get started, the first three questions. Before any big decision, to evaluate yourself, ask number one: Am I in a peak or a valley right now?

[6:00] Am I in a peak or a valley now? We all know what it's like to go through high times in our lives and low times. We have those times when we're feeling good and everything is awesome and things are good in our life, and we're at the mountaintop. But then we go through those seasons where we're down in the valley and we're discouraged and things are dark and we don't know what to do. And here's what's interesting: leadership experts like John Maxwell suggest that many successful people, many successful people, make their decisions when they're near the top, when things are good in their life and they're seeing things clearly, and as a result they tend to go from peak to peak up here.

[6:48] But what we often do is the exact opposite, right? What we often do is make our decisions down in the valley, in times of desperation, in times of discouragement, when trouble is all around us. And in our discouragement, we usually make poor decisions. In the Old Testament, we see Elijah, when he was afraid and he was running for his life, and he was so down in the valley and down in the dumps that he cried out to God and said, "God, I don't even think I want to live anymore. Just take my life, Lord." And some of you have felt that way. In fact, maybe some of you feel that way right now.

[7:33] And here's why he felt that way. In 1 Kings chapter 19, verses 10 and 11, Elijah cried out to God and said, "These Israelites," the Israelites, the people of God, the people who were supposed to be faithful to God, the people who were supposed to be his spiritual family, Elijah said, "These Israelites have rejected Your covenant, Lord. They've broken down Your altars and put Your prophets to death with the sword. And I am the only one left. And now they're trying to kill me, too. And see, like Elijah, so often we think that nobody else out there is as faithful as we are. Nobody else out there is as good as me. Everybody else has turned their back on God. I'm the only one left, but that wasn't true. He wasn't the only one, and God came to Elijah and said, Elijah, you are still just one of 7,000 who are being faithful, and who are still standing with you. There is a big difference between one and seven thousand.

[8:46] But in our discouragement, we tend to magnify the size of our problems. We think they're bigger than they really are. And so here's the key: Don't get so focused on how big your problem is that you forget how big your God is. And so before you make any big decision, ask this question: Is it possible that I'm just in a bad season right now? Is it possible that I am overly magnifying the size of this problem? Am I really thinking clearly right now?

[9:33] Because wise decisions are seldom made in moments of frustration. Let me say it again. Wise decisions are seldom made in moments of frustration. Make sure you're listening to God rather than listening to your fear. Question number two: Am I surrounded by wise or foolish counselors? In the Old Testament, you had the wisest man who ever lived, King Solomon. And when Solomon died, his son Rehoboam took the throne. Now, Solomon had left the people under a heavy tax burden. He had made a lot of big building projects all across the land, and the people were heavily burdened with taxes. And so when young Rehoboam took the throne, a delegation came to represent the people and asked him, "Oh, young king, will you please lower our tax burden?"

[10:45] Things haven't changed. I'm sorry. No. And so as a new king, he didn't know what to do. And so he did something pretty smart. He asked wise people for advice. Look at 1 Kings chapter 12, verses 6 through 11. Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. "How would you advise me to answer these people?" he asked. Questions. That's good. And they replied, "King, if today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants."

[11:30] But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men, his buddies. He listened to the people who told him what he wanted to hear. Who had grown up with him. And were serving him, and he asked them, "What's your advice? How should we answer these people who say to me, 'Lighten the yoke your father put on us'?" And the young men who had grown up with him replied, "You tell them, 'My little finger is thicker than my father's waist. My father laid on you a heavy yoke, and I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips, and I will scourge you with scorpions.'" Listen, dude, that is some bad advice right there.

[12:21] If you've ever tried to lead people, you know that you can lead with fear or you can lead with trust. You can't do both. And fear only lasts for a season until people can get rid of you. And that's exactly what happened. Then the whole nation fell apart. The kingdom fell into two nations. You had the southern tribes of Judah and the northern tribes of Israel, and they separated, and eventually the northern tribes were defeated by the Assyrians, and later the southern tribes were as well, and the northern tribe, within a very short amount of time, had been totally destroyed, and thousands of lives were ruined. Why? Because Rehoboam listened to foolish advice.

[13:10] And one of the things that blows my mind is how often we will take advice from people who, frankly, do not have a clue. Right? Like, why anybody would think that celebrities and Instagram influencers have anything to say that we should listen to? Hey. Have you looked at their lives behind the scenes? Just because somebody's famous doesn't make them smart. And listen, just because someone smart doesn't make them wise. There is a difference. And people will say, "Oh, I think this is a good idea. You know, I think this is a good idea to do with my marriage."

[13:58] And you ask, "Well, where'd you get that idea?" They say, "I got it from my best friend." Well, tell me about your best friend. "Well, she's been married three times, and you know, she's working on the fourth and already dating the fifth, two at the same time, and you can't get along with her parents, can't hold down a job." But you're gonna listen to what they have to say about what you should do with your life. Let me tell you, here's what I do. I look for people who I want to be like. And when I see someone who makes wise financial decisions and has a heart of generosity, living in the abundance and the generosity of God, and they have a plan that's working, that's who I go to for financial advice.

[14:56] When I see someone who has a strong marriage, and they love and respect one another, that's who I go to for marriage advice. When I see someone who has made wise choices with their children, that's who I go to for parenting advice. And yet how often we do this again and again and again. I it, when you sit back and think about how often we do this, it's just hard to imagine. We go around, the blind leading the blind, following people who couldn't lead their way out of a paper bag if you gave them a million dollars to do it. Listen, I know this sounds harsh, but I've only got a month to straighten you out.

[15:49] But this is so important: identify the people who you want to be like here at church, at your workplace, in your family. And learn to be like them. Learn from them. Number three: In evaluating ourselves, number three: Ask, am I prone to avoid character-growing opportunities? You remember the guy who swallowed by a whale, who got swallowed by a big fish? Jonah, exactly. And Jonah was always taking the easy way out. Jonah chapter 1, beginning in verse 1.

[16:38] The Lord gave this message to Jonah son of Amittai: "Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh. Wow, this sounds really familiar. You'll catch that later. Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh. Announce My judgment against it because I have seen how wicked its people are." And so Jonah had a decision to make at this point, and here's what he decided to do, verse 3. Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction in order to get away from the Lord. He went down to the seacoast to the port of Joppa, where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish, and he bought a ticket and he went on board, hoping that by going away to the west he could escape from the Lord.

[17:36] Last time you tried to escape from the Lord, how'd that go for you? And so how many times are we like Jonah? See, here's the essence of the question: Am I more concerned about my comfort or about my calling? Am I more concerned about my comfort or about the cause of Christ? And so these are the first three questions for evaluating self. Are you in the right state of mind for this decision that you're trying to make? Number one: Am I in a peak or a valley right now? Number two. Oh, just one more thing on that. If you're in a valley right now, I just want to say it one more time, just so we don't miss it, because wise decisions are seldom made in seasons of discouragement.

[18:33] Number two: Am I surrounded by wise or foolish counselors? Be careful where you go for advice. And number three: Am I avoiding character-growing opportunities? Are you making the comfortable decision or are you seeking the calling and the cause of Christ? And so after we evaluate ourselves, you know, bathed in prayer and asking the Holy Spirit to show what's really going on inside of us, then we move to the next part: evaluating the options that are before us. And so you look at all the choices and ask, number one, would this option trade tomorrow's rewards for today's gratification?

[19:21] See, we need to be careful when it comes to trusting our feelings. We've talked about this a lot. Scripture talks about this so much. The world says, "Follow your heart. Just follow your heart, trust your heart. It'll never lead you astray." And the Bible says, no, the Bible says your heart is deceitful, or deceiving, and will lead you astray. Your heart is constantly trying to lead you away from God. And so be careful about trusting our hungers and appetites and desires. Look at the story of two brothers, Jacob and Esau, Genesis 25, verse 29. Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, his older brother Esau came in from the open country, famished, and he said to Jacob, "Quick, let me have some of that red stew. I'm famished." And Jacob replied, "I'll make a deal.

[20:19] First sell me your birthright." "Look, I'm about to die," Esau said. "What good is the birthright to me?" But Jacob said, "No, swear to me first." You've got to give up your future if you want to satisfy your stomach right now. And so Esau swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob, and then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. At this point you're like, has Esau lost his mind? Well, maybe for a moment. But it wouldn't be the first time that a smart and successful person like Esau has given in to temptation because of the hungers and desires of the moment.

[21:08] And listen, some of the worst decisions you will ever make in your life are in moments of weakness and temptation. And marriages are destroyed, businesses are ruined, churches are torn apart, good things are tarnished when we trade tomorrow's rewards for today's immediate gratification. And right now I could fill this stage if I were to invite people to come forward. I imagine I'd have enough people to fill the stage from one side to the other who would come up and turn around and look at you and beg and plead with you concerning the decision that you're about to make or the temptation that you're giving in to. And they would tell you, "I've been there, I've done it, I've paid the consequences, and it's not worth it."

[22:07] In a moment of weakness when you follow your feelings, in a moment of weakness when you trust your heart, in a moment of weakness when you satisfy your urges, it only takes a split second to make a decision that you will regret for the rest of your life. Number two: Is this in line with the Word of God? So often we pray like Psalm 25:4-5. We pray, "Show me Your ways, Lord, teach me Your paths. Guide me in Your truth and teach me, for You are God my Savior, and my hope is in You all day long." And so how do we find God's ways? How do we learn His paths?

[22:56] Well, Psalm 119:105 says, "Your word, Lord, Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path." See, God's way for your life will always line up with His Word for your life. And if you think that God is telling you to do something that is contrary to the Bible, then guess what? What you are hearing is not actually the voice of God, because God will never ask you to do anything that does not line up with the truth of His Word. Number three, number three: Is this about advancing my agenda or God's agenda?

[23:42] And I think this is really one of the most important questions of all: Why do I want this? Why do I really want this? Is this for me? Is this about my agenda? Is this to build my kingdom? Is this for my glory, for my pride? Or is this because of God's agenda? Is this for the building of God's kingdom, not my kingdom? Is this for God's glory and not my glory? I know this whole thing today has not been all ishy-squishy and, you know, all, you know, heart-wrenching and, you know, I just you know, I just felt so deeply touched today. God, just this has been some really practical, hardcore stuff that I've kind of put, sort of, the soft, you know, and lovely stories to the side to get real and raw with you, because listen, what I want for you more than anything else.

[24:47] is to know what it means to live in the blessing and favor of God. And right now, even if you didn't do it before, right now God is maybe going to be prompting you to share this message with somebody, or maybe to even just share it out on social media in general, because you can think of how many people you wish were hearing these six questions today. And I wonder if God might be speaking to some of you right now about something you're going through, maybe a decision or a mistake that you've made, or regret that you're living with. It is never too late to turn around. Never too late. There is no sin so bad. There is no mistake so massive.

[25:41] There is no regret that is so strong that God cannot redeem it and restore it for His glory and turn that mess into a masterpiece in your life. That's the kind of God we serve. And so just real quickly, we're going to put these, the entire thing, on the screen, because I know some of you have been taking your camera and trying to take a picture of all the slides, and like, "Oh, I missed one." And so here it is for you, everybody. You can take out your camera. You can go back and look it up online later if you want to freeze frame. In fact, I saw Shane just a minute ago. Maybe we could even take this slide and put it out there. Would you like that? We'll just put it on social media sometime this week on all of our platforms so that you can have this in a pretty format.

[26:33] Evaluating yourself. Ask number one: Am I in a peak or a valley right now? Number two, am I surrounded by wise or foolish counselors? Number three, am I avoiding character-growing opportunities? And then evaluating the options, number one: Am I trading tomorrow's rewards for today's gratification? Number two: Is this in line with the word of God? And number three: Is this about my agenda or God's agenda? And if you will use these six questions to evaluate yourself and to evaluate the options, I think this is a process that the Holy Spirit can lead you through to find the wisdom that you're looking for in your life. And here's the good news: The good news is when you put Jesus first and follow the word of God and seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, there is a beautiful kind of life that is available to you.

[27:41] But none of it, none of it is possible apart from surrendering your life to Jesus, who died on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins, to wash your past clean and give you a new beginning. Your salvation, your eternity is only made possible through Jesus Christ, who died on the cross to take the punishment for your sins. And so we're going to pray in just a few minutes. But first I want to share with you a passage of Scripture that just jumped off the page to me this week. Somewhere around Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning, I forget exactly where, when it was, I was in the Scripture and I stumbled across, I say stumbled across as if it was an accident, I think it was by the Holy Spirit: Psalm 37.

[28:40] And so I have a pretty long passage of Scripture that I want to give to you today, but it's one of the most beautiful passages of Scripture that talks about what it's like to walk in the wisdom of God, following the word of God and empowered by the Spirit of God. Psalm 37, beginning in verse 1. Here it is, God's word. Unto you. Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong. For like the grass, they will soon wither; like green plants, they will soon die away.

[29:30] But trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will do this. He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath. Do not fret; it only leads to evil.

[30:24] For evil men will be cut off, but those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land. A little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found. But in the end the meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace. The wicked plot against the righteous and gnash their teeth at them. But the Lord laughs at the wicked, for He knows their day is coming. The wicked draw the sword and bend the bow to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose ways are upright. But their swords will turn around and pierce their own hearts, and their bows will be broken.

[31:10] You see, better the little that the righteous have than the wealth of the many wicked. For the power of the wicked will be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous. The days of the blameless are known to the Lord, and their inheritance will endure forever. In times of disaster they will not wither; in days of famine they will enjoy plenty. But the wicked will perish. The Lord's enemies will be like the beauty of the fields; they will vanish like smoke.

[31:57] The wicked borrow and do not repay, but the righteous give generously. Those the Lord blesses will inherit the land, but those He curses will be cut off. If the Lord delights in a man's way, He makes his steps firm; though he stumble, though he stumble, he will not fall. For the Lord upholds him with His hand. I was young, and now I am old, and yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread. They are always generous and lend freely; their children will be blessed.

[32:45] So turn from evil and do good. And then you will dwell in the land forever, for the Lord loves the just and will not forsake His faithful ones. My beloved, this is the Word of the Lord, Psalm 37. Amen. Let's stand together.

[33:33] Heavenly Father, Lord, thank You. First of all, for the wisdom of Your Word. Thank You that You have given us this guidebook, a lamp for our feet, a light for our path. our feet, a light for our path. And Lord, first of all, I pray for Your people today, that You would increase a love for Your Word. Many times we lack wisdom because we simply do not know Your Word, the source of wisdom. So Lord, I just pray that You would stir up within us a hunger for Your Word. And Lord, right now for those who are maybe in a season of decision-making, Lord, I pray that You would use these six questions to give them the guidance and a way to approach You and see what You want for them to do.

[34:37] And Lord, I pray for those right now who are living in regret. They look back and see the mistakes that they've made, and right now they're living in the devastation of their decisions. They can see the destructive path that they've left behind in their life. And right now, Lord, I we pray in the name of Jesus that You would cause hope to rise up from within them, that You are not done with them yet, that the best part of their story is yet to be written. Greater days are yet to come. And so right now, if that's where you are, maybe today you've never made a decision to surrender your life to Christ.

[35:25] What I would encourage you to do if you want that restoration, that new beginning, what we call salvation in Jesus, we're going to confess our sin, that we've done wrong, that we've lived apart from God and tried to do things selfishly our way rather than His way, and then we're going to commit. As we believe that Jesus died on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins, we're going to commit our lives to Him. And so if you're ready to do that right now in your heart, just right now, would you just close your eyes, and just between you and God, you just say, "Heavenly Father, Lord, I confess, Father, I see now that I've been living selfishly for myself rather than for You.

[36:23] And I see today that the very meaning of life itself is found in a relationship with You, Father, that You have prepared eternity for me to be with You because You love me. And I want to be Your child." And right now, declare your belief. Let faith rise up from within you and declare your belief that Jesus died on the cross for the forgiveness of your sin. Jesus died because the punishment for sin is death, and He took your place so that you can be forgiven and right now receive that gift. Receive that gift. "Forgive me, Lord.

[37:10] I turn away from that sin. Turn away from all of my past so that I can follow You into the future, Lord. I want to live Your way according to Your Word." And so right now, in your heart, commit to follow Him for the rest of your days. And in the name of Jesus, we believe in what You're doing in our lives right now. And everybody together say amen, as we are ready to sing this song here's as a declaration of worship. I do want to do something before we sing this song. I just want to ask right now around this room if we could bring up the lights for just a second, just so I can see some faces.

[38:00] If you feel like God did something significant in your life today, maybe you received Christ, or maybe you gave Him a burden that you've been carrying far too long, and you as a declaration of faith want to raise your hand and say, "I believe that I was set free today." Would you just raise your hands somewhere around the room if you did something significant today? Amen. We celebrate with you. We celebrate with you. And we're going to talk in just a minute about some next steps that you can take. But first, let's worship Him and with our lips declare how much we need God, because He listens to the cries of His people. And so don't just mouth the words.

[38:46] Sing them from within your heart. This is your prayer today. Let faith rise up. Let's raise the roof today as we declare that He is all that we need.