Pre-Decide: Part 2 - I AM READY
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
If I haven't met you, I am Pastor Lauren, and we are on week two of our Pre-decide series. So we started this new series last week where we're talking about making a pre-decision for how we are going to head into 2024. And I don't know about you, but I don't know anyone who like plans to be 40 pounds overweight, or plans to file bankruptcy, or plans to, I don't know, bring chaos to their family. But I think there's some of us that don't have a plan not to. So we're gonna talk about that today. We're gonna talk about having a plan not to do these things. 'Cause you don't ever have a plan to wreck your life, but we wanna make sure we have a plan not to wreck our lives. Last week, we talked about the power of decision and pre-deciding and how the quality of your decisions determines the quality of your life. When you make decisions, which we do, we make thousands of decisions every day, those add up to a life. And so if you're not a great decision maker, that's gonna have a big impact on your life. When we harness the power of pre-deciding and making good decisions, it builds up and creates a good life. Pastor Chris had this kind of formula for us that when we are faced with, fill in the blank situation, we are pre deciding to take this action. When faced with this temptation, when faced with this obstacle, I have pre decided to do XYZ. And that's gonna be specific to each of us. we'll all have individual situations and fill in those blanks differently. But it's kind of this formula for us to pre-decide. So over the next few weeks, it's a six week series, and we're gonna talk about different aspects of this. We're gonna talk about being ready. I am ready. I am consistent. I am devoted. I am generous, I am faithful, I am a finisher. So, Fast Chris challenged us last week to be here. If you're online, what's up, hello, welcome. So glad you're here, but if you can be here in person, make that a priority. Be here every Sunday, because this is going to set us up for 2024, and maybe for longer. I believe that, I believe it's going to bring an impact beyond this year. But if you can be here, be here. Because as we go through this, we're gonna see that our decisions are not based on what feels good in the moment, but who we want to be for the rest of our lives. We should be making decisions just on momentary satisfaction or what feels good to us. This is the lesson I'm trying to teach my children right now. It is easier said than done. But when our values are clear, the decisions we make will be easier. Not always easy, but easier. When we are honed in on our values and we know exactly who we are, whose we are, and what those values are, if they are in alignment with scripture, it's gonna make the decisions so much easier.
Who has given into temptation before? Let's just be honest. Yep, mm-hmm, okay. Who has regretted it? Yeah, yeah, me too, mm-hmm. We've all been there. Why do you think that is though? Why do you think we knew we weren't supposed to do it, but we did it anyway. So why do you think we gave into that? Because we weren't ready. I'll just, spoiler alert. It was because we weren't ready. We weren't prepared. One of our main passages today is 1 Corinthians 16, 13. Paul is writing to the church in Corinth and he says, "Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong, be on your guard." You gotta be ready. Matthew 26, 41 says, "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." I think a lot of the time we have good intentions. Like I said, we don't plan to wreck our lives, but we're human. We make mistakes, we're weak. So we need to watch and pray. So that's where we're gonna pre-decide to be ready. We're gonna have our guard up. We're gonna be watching. We're gonna be praying. I got two main reasons why this is super important. All right? The first one, The devil is coming for you. Sound like a fire and brimstone preacher here. The devil's coming for you. But I think in our modern Western Christianity, we have significantly downplayed the spiritual realm. We kind of just go about our lives forgetting that there are angels. There is an enemy who is evil, who has schemes that his main mission is to steal and kill and destroy. That is his goal. He wants us to be distracted. He wants us to not be in relationship with God. He wants us to be living in sin. That is his goal. Again, Paul, but in 2 Corinthians this time, he says, "I wrote to you so that Satan "The man will not outsmart us, for we are familiar with his evil schemes." We're not unaware. We know he's out there, but I think sometimes we forget it. We let our guard down. But he's studying you. He knows you. He knows where you're weak. He knows where you're vulnerable. He knows what's tempting and what's not for you. He knows where you struggle. He is the father of lies, and he is going to lie to you and convince you that what you think is best or what your flesh wants is what is best. Paul, again, we're just BFFs with Paul today. Paul talks about the armor of God in Ephesians. He's writing to the church in Ephesus and he talks about armoring up. He uses the image of Roman soldiers armor to compare it to how we can protect ourselves spiritually.
Ephesians 6:10-11 says, "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power, put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes." Again, we know they're coming. It is not a matter of if the devil is scheming or if he's going to come after us. He is coming, so we might as well be prepared. Growing up every day, my mom would have us kids put on the armor of God. We'd go from head to toe. And so I do it with my kids in our family Bible time in the morning. We go helmet of salvation, breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, our feet ready to spread the gospel of peace, the shield of faith and the sword of the spirit every morning. Because it's a reminder, one, that we have the power from Holy Spirit to be ready for battle. We are given his power. If you are a follower of Jesus, you have the power to combat the evil schemes. And also it's a reminder to be on our guard, to be ready, to armor up, to be prepared. So number one, the devil is coming for you. Number two, you are not as strong as you think. Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but same here, I'm not as strong as I think. We think we got this. I'm not gonna fall into that sin again. I'm not gonna be fooled by the enemy. It's fine, I got this. Well, it's funny 'cause God knew we'd think like this and he wrote, so if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall. If you think you are standing firm, be careful. Now there are times we are gonna be able to resist temptation. We are going to be able to stand firm, but it's only by his power and his strength. Let's not get cocky. Let's not get overly confident unless it's in him. Studies are actually showing that we are overconfident, that we overestimate our ability to resist temptation. restraint bias, meaning you think you can resist or restrain yourself more than you actually can.
This is not great news for us at the beginning of the year when we're all setting resolutions, I'm sorry. But there is hope, I promise. It's kinda like when maybe you're at the office and it's someone's birthday, which it seems like there's always someone's birthday, and someone brings in a cake and you're like, "No, I'm not gonna have the cake." And you sing happy birthday and you celebrate, and that's fine, but you say no thank you to the cake. and then someone comes by your desk and they're like, "Oh hey, did you get some cake?" Oh no, no, no, I'm good, thanks. And then you walk by the break room and they're like, "Dang it, there's still cake left." Nope, nope, I'm not gonna have cake. By the end of the day, you've had two pieces and you're like, "How did this happen? "I wasn't gonna have any." You thought you were stronger than you were. And why is that? Why do we think we're stronger than we are? It's because we have a limited capacity. for decision making. We overestimate because it takes energy to resist temptation. It takes energy to make decisions. So when you're making these positive decisions over and over and over again, your energies are being depleted. Your emotional energy, your mental energy, your spiritual energy, you're just getting depleted. And eventually the part of your brain that controls good decision making and willpower wears out and is just tired. And so we give in. And I use the cake example, but it's gonna look different for all of us. Maybe you fight the temptation all day long to not take your anger out on your coworkers and you come home and you take it out on the dog. Or you yell at the kids. Maybe you're spending all of your energy fighting the sweets and those temptations, you go home and you end up binging on whatever snacky thing you can find in the back of the pantry. Our self-control and our willpower are limited resources. So if we pre-decide, the more we pre-decide, how we are going to respond in those situations, the easier it will be. So the double is coming for you and you're not as strong as you think. Those are the two main reasons we need to be ready. So practically speaking, what does this look like? Okay, we know why we should be ready, but how? How do we get ready? Other than the armor of God we talked about. Well, we're going to do a few things. We're gonna move the line, we're gonna magnify the cost, and we're gonna plan the escape. Move the line, magnify the cost, plan your escape 'cause we have an enemy and he's coming and we're gonna be ready for him. So move the line, what does this look like? We got some tape here, all right? A little illustration for us today. Okay, so here's our line. All right, this side of the line is sin. This is where we don't wanna be, right? We fight it, we fight it, we fight it. We don't wanna be here. We know we're not supposed to be here. This side of the line is where we're supposed to be. Following the Bible, following God's will. We're not falling into sin. We're doing good. But what do we do? What do most of us do, right? How close can I get to the line? Can I touch it? We wanna get as close to the line as we can without going over, I'm not sinning. It's like the little sibling that's like, I'm not touching her, I'm not touching her, I'm not touching her. How close can we get to the line? You know, when Chris and I were dating, you know, we love Jesus, but we're also hormonal teenagers, so it's like, how close can we get to the physical line without crossing any barriers? Any boundaries we shouldn't cross, right? If you survived '80s and '90s purity culture, you understand what I'm talking about, right? Okay, yeah. How close can I get to the line? Maybe, again, the eating well analogy. Maybe you're like, I'm just gonna have the salad, but you go to Cheesecake Factory. Nothing wrong with Cheesecake Factory. I love me some cheesecake, but I'm just saying.
You get as close to the line. Maybe you know there's certain websites you shouldn't look at, or certain social media accounts you shouldn't be looking at. But you just scroll anyways, alone, maybe at night, when no one's watching. I'm not looking at those, but you're still scrolling. You're still getting really close. You're setting yourself up for failure. We shouldn't ask how close to the line we can get. We should ask how far away from the line can I stay? How far away from the line of sin can I stay? What barriers can I have in place to protect me? We don't do this with like really big things, right? Like when you're flying, you really hope your pilot is not like, I wonder how much fuel, Like how little fuel I can use to get there without killing us, right? Or like, how close can I get to that 2,000 foot tower without like nicking it? You really hope your pilot's not doing that. Or like my kids, you know, they like to ride bikes or do scooters or whatever outside. I don't tell them, okay guys, there's a car coming, you wait until it gets as close as possible and then you get out of the way. We're not playing Frogger here, like this isn't chicken, right? We're trying to keep them safe. You see a car coming, you hold tail and you get out of there. You stay far away, you go up in the yard, you go up on the porch, you get as far away, you set barriers. You move the line. I am putting distance between me and that temptation. Again, it looks different for all of us. Maybe it's spending, he got the spiritual gift of add to cart. So maybe that looks like you giving your Amazon password to your best friend and you cannot check out until you get your password back. Maybe it's scrolling social media and you gotta set some limits on there. Some timers, the app kicks you out or you got an accountability partner that checks in with you. Those websites, man, you can lock those down. You can set up accountability. Stepping on some toes today, I'm sure, but stick with me here. I'm just the messenger, I promise. We're creating barriers between you and this sin. And you might be like, "Lauren, this feels so restrictive. There's rules. I don't like rules." I don't either. Don't put me in a box. Don't give me restrictions. But I promise you these boundaries that the Lord gives us in His word, they're good. And there is so much freedom within the boundaries. There's so much freedom in here. The boundary lines, sorry, David, thought it was Paul again.
David says in Psalms, "The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Surely I have a delightful inheritance." God's got a delightful inheritance for us. But if we're trying to live outside of his boundaries, we don't get to have that. We don't get to partake in that delightful inheritance. The boundaries may look restrictive. At times they may feel restrictive or inconvenient, but they are good. It is pleasant and delightful and there's so much freedom to be had there. When we are living within these pre-decided boundaries, we expend less energy 'cause we're not making the decision over and over and over again. And we already know exactly what we're gonna do. We're ready, we're prepared. So we're gonna move the line.
Number two, we're gonna magnify the cost. This is where you take whatever situation maybe you struggle with and you play it out, you magnify the cost, take it all the way. Maybe let's do health. You deal with gluttony and you overeat and you don't get it in check and you don't take it to God and you keep overeating and then it becomes an issue. Maybe there's strain on your relationships with your spouse or your kids or your family and then maybe you start having health issues and you start seeing your doctor more than you're at work. You get really, really sick. Maybe it's something like infidelity. No one's going to know. It's not going to hurt anybody. It's just between me and this other person. No. It could wreck your marriage. It could destroy your relationship with your kids. It could compromise your integrity, your job. So many repercussions. Take it out, work it out so you see what could happen. When you walk it all the way out, it puts it in perspective so that you are more inclined to fight that sin. Numbers 32, 23 says, "You will be sitting against the Lord "and you may be sure that your sin will find you out." and come out one way or the other. So magnify the cost.
Number three, plan your escape. We are not just sitting ducks. We don't have to just be waiting with nothing to prepare for. We can be ready with a plan. There's a story in Genesis, you might be familiar with it. the story of Joseph and his brother sold him into slavery. And he ended up going to Egypt and being sold to a man, his name was Potiphar, he was a very powerful man. And he was raised up to like the manager of his household. He was like very important in this man's household. Well, Genesis 39 says, "Joseph was a very handsome and well-built young man and Potiphar's wife soon began to look at him lustfully. "Come and sleep with me," she demanded. So apparently Joseph was a strapping young man that caught the eye of Potiphar's wife, and she was tempting him. But he knew that that was not okay. Now it would have been easy for him, you know, they were all alone, he had some sort of level of power in this house, no one would need to find out. He was young and single, why not? But he knew that that was not what was right. You know, something else I think we do that maybe we don't realize we do, is we justify our disobedience because of our disappointment. Maybe we blame God for the situation that we're in. We're like, well, he put me here, so I'm just gonna live it up. I'm just gonna do what I'm gonna do. My job doesn't pay me enough, so I'm just gonna put it on the credit card. My spouse isn't giving me what I need, so I'm gonna find what I need. It's God's fault, he put me here. And we blame him. But we can't use our disappointments to justify our disobedience. Joseph said, "No, yes, I was sold into slavery. "I'm not in my home country. "I don't know, or I am not near my family. "I don't know how they're doing. "I'm all alone here in this foreign land." He could have blamed God. He could have said, "Forget it. "Why should I keep following you? "Why should I keep doing things the way you want me to?" But he had a plan of escape. It goes on to say, or sorry, day after day, she hit on him. And so one day she grabbed his coat and said, "Come to bed with me." And he said, but he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house. He knew that if he stuck around, he might not be able to continue to fight the temptation 'cause the devil likes to wear us down. He's gonna keep coming at us and we're gonna maybe get that decision fatigue. But if we have a plan, it's gonna be a lot easier. And he had a plan. If she grabs my coat, I am out of here. Better to have a good name than a good coat. He knew what he was going to do. Back to 1 Corinthians, it says, "And God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted," not if, when, "When you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it." The key to that though is the first part, it says, and God is faithful. He's the one who's going to give us the way out. He's the one who's gonna give us the strength because of his faithfulness. He's not trying to set us up for failure. He's not trying to see us steeped in sin and struggling. He is faithful. He is good. He is going to provide a way out.
So we gotta pre-decide that when the devil attacks in whatever area is specific to us, we have an escape plan. No one plans to fail, but few plan not to. So be honest about it with yourself. Be honest where you're vulnerable, where there's weak spots and cracks in your armor that the devil could get into, 'cause those flaming arrows are coming. figure out what those barriers need to be. Where's the other line you need to draw? And what barriers can you put in place between you and the temptation? Kind of a silly illustration, but I think it proves or illustrates the point. Last year, I had been doing some research on gluten and the effects of wheat and on our bodies and such. and I thought, you know, I should try gluten-free. I should try that diet. Should see how it does, how it impacts my body. But for those that don't know, I was pregnant for most of 2023, and so changing your diet drastically when you're pregnant is not easy or fun, so I didn't. But I tried, I will say that, I tried. There were some times I'm like, you know what, I'm just gonna lessen the amount of gluten I'm eating, just to kinda see how I feel. Doesn't really work that way. Or, my favorite, is I would say, okay, I'm gonna try gluten-free. I'm gonna see how it goes. But I make our own sourdough, and sourdough's like, it processes all the gluten, and so like, or most of it. So like, I'm just gonna have just the sourdough. I make it at home, it's fine. Like, I'm just gonna have the sourdough. That's it, that's the only gluten I'm gonna have, okay? But then what happens? You say, okay, I'm gonna have the sourdough. But then I go to an event, and I'm like, oh, there's dessert there. Okay, I'm just gonna have one dessert, since I already have the sourdough anyways, it's fine, but then I'm gonna get back to it. But then Friday night rolls around and it's family pizza night, and the place we're getting pizza doesn't have gluten-free crust. Well, of course I'm gonna have the pizza. I already have the sourdough and the dessert, so I'll just go gluten-free tomorrow, it's fine. Do you know what happens when you're on a gluten-free diet and you keep making decisions to eat gluten? You're not on a gluten-free diet anymore. You're just not. It didn't work. I needed accountability. I needed to say, I'm not doing the sourdough. I'm not having the desserts at the event. I'm gonna find gluten-free pizza crust. I'm gonna have it in my house ready to go.
I had to set up those lines. I had to draw my line over here because I was trying real hard to be here and I kept stepping over. There's a pastor that shared, he wanted to just be clear and above reproach and that he was married and he was faithful and he didn't want any temptations to cause him to stumble. So he had his technology was locked down, password protected. He didn't travel alone, he didn't stay in hotels alone. You know, he always had like some sort of companion to go with. He said it was to the point that it was inconvenient and annoying. One time he went on a search engine to book a hot air balloon ride for his teenage son. He couldn't do it because his search engine was locked down to the point he couldn't Google the word hot. It was a little inconvenient, right? But it was worth it to him. He didn't want anything to be in his way. He's like, I wanna be as far away from that line as I can. The inconvenience is worth it to do it God's way. Why resist temptation over and over again in the future when you have the power to eliminate it today? Now we can't eliminate it altogether. We can't plan for every scenario we're going to face, but we sure can make it easier on ourselves. We can limit it. we can reduce the likelihood that we'll give in. The devil is going to attack and you're not as strong as you think you are. We are not as strong as we think we are without the power of the Holy Spirit. When your values are clear, your decisions are easier. Be clear on those values. Know what the word of God says. If you don't know, get in the word. Check out the Psalms, check out the Proverbs, check out the Gospels where Jesus is literally walking the earth and teaching his disciples how to live. When we're tired and we're overwhelmed or we're discouraged or we're just going through a really hard season, our barriers are down, our guards are down and it's so much easier for the devil to attack. So be aware of that. Know that that is the case. Be on your guard. And when we're on our guard and we're ready, the decisions won't be based on the emotions in the moment, but on the values that God has given us. Amen. Say be ready. I am ready.
All right, pray with me. Jesus, thank you for your word. Thank you that you have given us these boundary lines in pleasant places, God, that you have given us so much freedom within these boundary lines to live and worship and play and love and you are so good to us. You give us these things for our good and for your glory. God, may we make a plan. May we have a plan of escape. May we set up roadblocks and move our lines so that we aren't tempted to fall into sin. Help us to be ready. Help us to armor up. 'Cause we know there is a real enemy out there who wants to come for our souls, God. Remind us that we have your power within us to fight those battles. We can't do it on our own. We weren't created to do it on our own, but we can do it with you. The power that you have given us, that you have put in us, that raised Jesus from the dead, lives in us. May we be ready. In Jesus' name, Amen.