Born Ultimatum (Life is filled with choices.)

If your new this morning I am using the movie trilogy of Bourne Identity as a backdrop for my message.  I’m not promoting the movie, just using it as a familiar language to communicate a biblical truth.  Don’t panic if you came to hear a Christmas story because it’s all in here.  Let me set the stage for action and intrigue.

Over the last weeks we’ve seen Matt Damon as Jason Bourne being a troubled man who had been trained to do harm.  He was slowly finding out that he was a destructive human machine because he had been fed all kinds of input about how to be harmful.  He’d been desensitized to other people’s pain and even his own.  He reacted with violence and automatically caused others to suffer at his hand.  He realized that deep down; something was saying to him that this way of life was unhealthy and wrong.  All this inner turmoil plays out what I believe is happening in many of our lives.

Some of you today are up against some of the same struggles as Jason Bourne.  No you’re not trained assassins but you’ve realized that the training you’ve received, by the society you’ve grown up in, has caused you to be harmful to others.  Some of you have been critical to your spouse and unloving to your neighbor.  Some of you have reacted to pain by stuffing it deep down and just plowing forward.  Something inside you says this can’t be right.  You have glimmers of goodness that come to you like momentary flashbacks but you can’t seem to keep it going.

The huge battle in you to do good or just succumb to evil is almost overwhelming.  You struggle with thoughts of anger, violence on the freeway, short tempered toward your 5 year old and impatient with your teenager.  You feel inadequate at school as the teacher expects things from you that seem impossible.  You hurt other people and get hurt yourself but don’t know what to do about it.  What do you do in this torn-in-two world?

Back to the movie premise: an ultimatum is a final demand and a final option to choose a course of action.  It’s like when we are faced with two roads to travel and we must choose only one.  Do we go left or right?  Do we just toss a coin or is there a clear distinction between the two paths?  Jesus came to earth to set before all of mankind a choice.  We celebrate during Christmas his coming to earth as a savior.  We tell the story of the wise men and the stable.  Even in that we get the story wrong for the wise men didn’t come until sometime later.  But all this is done for a purpose and to answer an eternal question.  Is He your savior?

The calamity at Christmas is that we neglect to hear the real truth through all the worldly pre-programming we’ve each received just like Jason Bourne.  We loose focus and get bogged down in our materialistically driven, retail accommodated, self-focused existence.  People have been programmed to focus on reciprocal gift exchange and fall into debt over Christmas, floundering for months afterward trying to pay off the supposed expression of generosity and the real truth is lost.

And then the church paints this childrens story and focuses on a babe in a manger.  But Jesus didn’t come to stay a cute little baby wrapped in swaddling clothes.  He didn’t lie in a manger for long.  He grew up and walked among men and women like you and I demonstrating and speaking about His living and loving Heavenly Father.  We celebrate Christmas, not because He was born a baby but because He was born a savior.

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.  This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”   Luke 2:10-12

Each of us in this room is faced with a decision this morning.  You are on a road that has now divided into two roads and God says you can only choose one path, the ultimatum is before you.  On one side is self-sufficiency and self-determination, which ends in eternal separation from God.  On the other road is full dependence on God’s plan and His directions, which end in life eternal.  God has always wanted mankind to choose life.

This day I call heaven and 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 and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him.   Dt 30:19-20

All our days are filled with choices and this year can end for you with the most important choice being settled in your hearts.  I’m not offering you a choice to be a member of a church where you put in your obligatory time and pay your spiritual taxes.  I’m setting before you today the ultimatum of eternal life or eternal death.

But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”  Jos 24:15

Don’t allow yourself a way out but rather see yourself with an ultimatum before you.  Will you love God forever or love yourself.  Will you listen to God who is wooing you into a relationship with Him or will you listen to the “Treadstone” voice of this world who has done nothing but bring you harm your whole life.

You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.  Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely?   But he gives us more grace.     

That is why Scripture says:

“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.  Come near to God and he will come near to you.  Jas 4:4-8

I’m going to open the door to allow you some time to invite Christ into your life.  It’s not complicated or religious.  It’s you asking Jesus to forgive you for your past and saying to Him that you acknowledge that He has come to earth as a child, but He also lived, died and was resurrected as a savior.  It is you inviting Him to LORD over your life and committing to submit to His counsel through His word the Bible and following His plan above your own.  Since you were born, God had this ultimatum in mind.  Are you ready?

Notes from Pastor Pasch’s December 21st message; to get a free CD of the complete message, contact Christ’s Family Church at (651) 437-2340.