Are You A Five Pointer? (Godly Decision-Making) - [Matt 6:9-13]

There's only one thing worse than making a bad decision. That's making a bad decision using the Bible. Turn with me, if you would, to Isaiah chapter 20 for a quick introduction. We'll start suddenly today, but I'm sure I will get your attention.

The Danger of Using the Bible the Wrong Way

Isaiah chapter 20. People make decisions all the time. We have thousands of decisions to make. And God has given us clear instructions on how we are to make decisions, what principles we are to use. But if we're not careful, we may use the Bible as some kind of template that always works.

That is to say, something is described in the Bible, and we take it to heart like it's something that we should do. Something is describing a certain character, especially in the Old Testament, and we say, if it was good for Him to do, therefore, I will have to do the same thing, except louder.

Wow, I thought I was a little soft. Can you hear me in the back there? I don't want you to ever have to strain to hear preaching. And so if you can't hear, then Ron Farrar, would you come down here and tell Bernard?

I always have one, well, I have two words for sound people. Number one, you never get thanked because it's always, you know, if there's a problem. So thank you. Number two, louder is always better. And so it's a hermeneutical issue about decision making.

Just because something is said to a certain group or to Israel or to a specific apostle, it doesn't mean that we're to do it. It's back to the old description, prescription. And regarding decision making, if I were to read you Isaiah chapter 20, verse 1 through 6, you can imagine what would be a good decision and what would be a bad decision based on what happens in Isaiah chapter 20.

Let me explain what I mean. Verse 1, in the year that the commander came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him, and he fought against Ashdod and captured it. That at that time, the Lord, Yahweh, the covenant-keeping God of Israel, spoke through Isaiah, the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loosen the sackcloth from your hips and take your shoes off your feet.

And he did so, going naked and barefoot. And the Lord said, Even as my servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot three years as a sign and a token against Egypt and Cush, so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt, the exiles of Cush, young and old, naked and barefoot, with buttocks uncovered to the shame of Egypt.

Then they will be dismayed and ashamed because of Cush their hope and Egypt their boast. So the inhabitants of this coastland will say in that day, Behold, such is our hope, where we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria, and we, how shall we escape?

And here we have this context of Isaiah chapter 20, and you see the bereavement, and you see God's involvement with Isaiah, and if you study it, you will see the context and figure out very quickly what this text is saying and what this text doesn't say.

And you'll see the clothing that's involved symbolizing the office of the prophet and other things like that. And if you're not careful, and if you had bad exegesis, and you wanted to make sure you were spiritual, you could turn this passage into what?

And you'd laugh because I already know what you're thinking, but actually in the 17th centuries, the Quakers, because of these verses, literally stripped naked and they went going around as naked as a sign to say that they were being spiritual and led by the Spirit of God.

There's only one thing worse than making a bad decision, and that's making a bad decision using the Bible. How horrible! We look at that and we go, that is foolish, I can't actually believe you gave that illustration in a sermon.

Well, it's right there in the text what's happening. But the bad decisions can come in all ways and shapes and sizes in our lives, and I want to make sure that we understand that decision-making is not just randomly opening the Bible, left foot read, right hand Malachi or something, and off we go.

It's not something like rock, paper, scissors. How could I worship God, the triune God, as I make a decision? That's the real question. Whether you eat or drink or you make decisions, we are to do them all for the glory of God.

Certainly wouldn't God give us instructions in His written word so that we might properly have the right attitudes and actions so we might say, God, this decision I'm making, I'm doing it at your feet as it were, I'm submitting to you and here is my worship to you, godly decision-making.

Is that fair? I think that's very fair. And just because something's in the Bible for a particular person, it doesn't mean it's applied to us. I could give you another illustration with Judges chapter 6 and Gideon's Fleece.

How many times do we run around thinking, I'll use Judges 6 and I'll give a little sign for God that if He does it, I'll know it's true. And we don't really understand that Judges chapter 6 is God's kind, benevolent, wonderful condescension to Gideon, not trying to say that was the right way to make a decision, but he says, I love you so much that even though you make an idiotic decision based on signs and presumption against me, I still am going to bless you.

And so we use fleeces. We do all kinds of other things for decision-making in Christianity. We do tea sheets. Maybe there's nothing wrong with that. Pros and cons. I remember years ago when it was Dionne Warwick's psychic hotline, 1 -800, I always say 1 -800, I'm foolish.

But we make so many decisions, how do we make a good one? What about my new job? What about moving? What about someone to marry? What about small decisions? What do we really do? The Bible gives bad examples, so we look at them and say, God, what others do and rely on astrology and the mind of God is somehow in the stars, I think I need to study the stars to make decisions.

We see that in someone else and we say, that's foolishness, we run. We look in Genesis and here's this hydromancy where people would look at water and see how the sun would come onto the water and if there's a little shake or a little shiver in the water, that would be the mind of God.

When I look at that, I think, how stupid. How stupid is it to take a lamb and cut the lamb open and bring out the liver and the kidneys and look at it and see how it's shaped and say, that's how I'll make my decision on who I'm going to marry.

I did that once, that was the wrong way to make the decision, but the right wife, I almost got myself in trouble there, wow. No, you know what I mean, it was the right decision. I've made wrong decisions that God has turned out for good.

I have a track record of preaching, if you're a visitor today, hang in there with me. By the way, today is the once a year non-expositional sermon and I repent after the once a year topical sermon and back to exposition next week, so I'm going to have to repent after the sermon because it's a little more dealing with the issue of how do I make a good decision.

Last week we were in Matthew 6, working through the Sermon on the Mount and we discussed that when we say to ourselves, here's this God to be hallowed, here's this God where we want His kingdom to come, not our kingdom, here's this God when we pray, we say, we want obedience on earth as there's heavenly obedience now.

It was wrong to say, God, I'm looking for God's will for my life and it was right to say, I'm looking for Your will to be done. It's not about me, just like the song we just sang from Psalm 115. It's not about our glory, it's about God's glory.

But I think it's fair to ask this question, if we're not going to talk about God's will for our life, is it fair to answer the question and ask it, how do I make decisions? And the answer is, yes. So this morning, let me give you five words, I usually don't use alliteration, but let me give you five words that will help you when you make decisions.

About every four years I like to teach a message like this because we all make lots of decisions. And just as the Sermon on the Mount teaches us through our Lord that our prayers should be God-centered, everything about it is about this God who is close, our Father.

He's far away and transcendent, He's in the heavenly places, and He is to be glorified. So too, I think we should have a desire to make glorifying choices in our decision-making. So let me give you five words, five questions, five points, if you will, and find out today if you're a real five-pointer.

Not when it comes to Calvinism, not when it comes to the solas, but the five points of decision-making that you should consider when you make decisions. I think too often we just run to the decision, and then what we do is we backtrack.

We know what we're going to do, and then we need to find some people to agree with our bad decision. If we find some people that don't agree, we'll go to the next group of persons until they agree, and then we'll think, you know what, there's confirmation here.

But what do we do when we make decisions? How do we decide things biblically? Number one, the word would be word. What does God's word say about your potential choices? What does God's word say about the situation?

True or false? Sometimes the Bible directly speaks to a decision we would have to make. True. It directly speaks of a decision we would have to make. So what does the Bible say? I could give you an illustration.

Should you, if you're a healthy male, work? If you were able to work, should you work? Or should you somehow cast lots and play Yahtzee to figure out if you should do it or not, rock, scissors, paper, shoot?

One potato, two potato. I don't feel led to work. God hasn't opened the door to work. The circumstances don't allow me to work. I don't want to work for that kind of price. Or, let's just quickly, to show you an illustration, 2 Thessalonians 3.

The Bible's very clear that if you're able to work and you're a grown man, you should work. It doesn't say if you've got a huge bank account or you're just kind of cruising along, it doesn't say, well, you can't find a job, then make your job trying to find a job.

But here, very simply put, if we ask ourselves the question, does the Bible address this? Here's an illustration of what it does address. You should work. 2 Thessalonians 3. Verse 10. We don't need to look at a liver or a kidney to find out if God wants us to work.

For even when we, 2 Thessalonians 3. Verse 10, were with you, we used to give you this order. If anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to what? Eat either. And you say, who would ever do that?

There were some people doing that, and Paul had heard about it. For we hear that some among you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, but acting like busybodies. If you don't work, you're going to do something, and you're going to cause problems running around, doing what busybodies do, getting into trouble.

Now, such persons, the ones that don't work, that should work, that can work, and are working at being busybodies, we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ. Why does he say Lord there? Because this is the King.

In the Lord Jesus Christ, to work in quiet fashion and eat their own bread. But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary in doing good. When we need to make a decision, first of all, we can say to ourselves, does the Word of God directly give us an example?

Let me give you another illustration. Quickly, 1 Peter 4. If you have to ask the question, should I use my spiritual gift as a Christian in a local church, and I need to make a decision, should I or shouldn't I?

The decision, friends, is already made for you. The Bible says that we ought to do that. If you're a Christian, you shouldn't ask for a leading of should I or shouldn't I. You may say, God, direct me into the path so I can obey you, but when it comes to saying, God, I want you to be honored in my decision making, the first thing we should do is, does the Bible directly address it?

1 Peter 4. Verse 10. It's interesting that in verse 7 it talks about, the end of all things is near, so how do you act when the end of all things is near? Get up on your roof and wait for the second coming.

He says, no, you've got to think properly with sound judgment. You need to make sure you're praying. You've got to love, verse 8, that covers sins and covers other sins. You're hospitable. And then it says in verse 10, whoever speaks, it is to do so as one, excuse me, that's verse 11, verse 10, as each one has received a special gift, employ it.

You've sovereignly received a spiritual gift at salvation. 1 Corinthians chapter 12 says, use it. God gave it to you, not for yourself, but for others. And so he says, employ it in serving yourselves.

No, serving one another. This is a trust God has given you as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. And people look at church, and they see all the different spiritual gifts that are there, and they think, that is just the beauty of God.

That is just the rainbow grace of God distributing spiritual gifts in the local church. And then it says in verse 11, what are those kind of gifts? They're speaking gifts and serving gifts. The signed gifts are out, but the speaking and serving gifts exist.

Whoever speaks, it is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God. If you preach or teach, teach the Bible. You never have to walk in and go, well, I wonder what I should teach today. God, would you lead me something to teach the junior high kids today?

I wonder what that might be. Oh, let's see, why don't I pick a new blasphemous book called The Shack, and I'll teach them that. You never have to ask that question. By the way, it's just, I can't get over how many people will just drink down books like The Shack without ever thinking that it's a blasphemous book, and it's poison.

And you say, yeah, but there's a couple good things in there. Snake poison is 80 protein and 20 poison, and it's going to kill you. I love you enough to tell you that if something's popular, it's probably not good.

A couple things aside, the Bible's the number one bestseller, and Pilgrim's Progress is the number three bestseller, overtaken by some other purpose kind of life book. Don't get me started. Okay, stay on track.

You can worship God as you make decisions. Number one, you say, does the Word directly address it? If it says work, I work. If it says use your gifts, there's either speaking gifts, or later on this text we would say in 1 Peter 4, verse 11, there are serving gifts.

I was reading this week, Daniel Wallace said he had a friend, and this friend asked the Lord whether he should go to work that day. Every day he would wake up, God, should I go to work today? He also asked the Lord every single day, should I brush my teeth today?

Should I use deodorant today? And Daniel Wallace rightly says that man is described in Proverbs chapter 6 as a sluggard, hiding behind, should I do this, God, my triune God, not unto me, but unto you be the glory, should I use my deodorant today?

I mean, please. I could probably stop the laughing and say, you don't have to go too far to find out that the Bible directly addresses the idea of sacrificial giving. You can read 2 Corinthians chapter 9.

You say, I don't know if I should give sacrificial or not. We're not under Old Testament. I don't have to give 10 here and 10 here, 3 here, 2%, 1 here, 26%. It's not a theocracy. I'll just do what I want.

You don't have to go very far to find verses like this. 2 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 6, let me just read them. He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly. He who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.

We don't have to say, I wonder what God means by that. So there are some things directly in the Bible. Additionally, still under point one, the word, you can ask yourself this question. Does the Bible have a principle that relates to my decision?

Are there principles from the text that would bear weight in my life as I make a decision? There are some things directly involved and there are some things that would bear weight. Can you think of any illustrations?

Well, if you said something like, I think I'm going to move, but there's not a local Bible teaching church with a high view of God, with expositional teaching. There's not a verse in the Bible that says you can't move unless they're there, but you could find in the Bible the central place in God's economy of the local church, Ephesians 4.

True? You could say to yourself, I don't know if I should marry this unbeliever or not. 2 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 14 and following has nothing to do with marriage or business. It has everything to do with Christianity yoking itself to an unbelieving system, a religion of works righteousness.

So there would be a principle there. If the church isn't to yoke herself with an unbelieving organization, then I too ought not to marry somebody who's an unbeliever. And we can go to 1 Corinthians 7 for direct references, but that's just an illustration.

Should I have a business with an unbeliever? We can get principles from the Word of God. And here's the next question that I think sometimes we often forget to do when we're making a decision from the Bible.

If I have one thing to maybe teach this morning, for those of you that have been around for a long time, here's what I want to focus in on, beloved. Ask yourself this question. Have I flooded my mind with the Word to think like God thinks?

So I think biblically. I think God-centeredly. George Muller knew it when he said, God guides not by a visible sign, but by the swaying of your judgment. God doesn't give you a sign to speak to you these days.

He changes your judgment and your thoughts and the way you think as you read the Scriptures. And when you read, like I said last week, Chronicles, Kings, Samuel, it doesn't address should you do something, but it addresses how to look at history and how to look at current events and how to look at life and the world from God's perspective.

As Pink would say, we don't start with our circumstances and work out. We start off with God as a sovereign king on the throne and work inwardly. As your relationship with Christ Jesus increases, so too does your mind think the way God wants you to think, and then you would naturally make decisions that are commensurate with that.

Listen to Bruce Waltke. If you are struggling with a specific question, rather than trying to magically divine God's answer, spend time drawing close to Him. Then your character and perhaps your perspective will change.

Did you hear that? As we sit under the Word, we are becoming more and more like Christ from one level of glory to the next. True? 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18. And as we become more godly, we make more godly decisions.

And if we start with the Word, the first point is Word. Use the Word. Then what follows that? What is certainly secondary to that? Things like feelings. How many people have made horrible decisions because they have not led with the Word, the principles from the Word, flooding their mind with the Word, but they've been following their feelings.

Can you trust yourself? Or should you distrust yourself? How about circumstances? Let me show you an illustration. Acts chapter 28. These poor people did not have any kind of way to understand circumstances, and certainly they're not believers, but we could misread circumstances just like these people did with one of the most glaring illustrations I've ever seen.

When you look at circumstances to make a decision, and then you try to interpret them, it tells me or tells other mature people a lot more about you than it does which decision you should make. That is to say, when you try to divine circumstances, it's basically showing other people that you're immature when it comes to decision making, and it shows us your perspective of those circumstances more than it shows you, oh, I should do this or I shouldn't do that.

Let me give you an illustration. Fascinating Acts chapter 28, verse 1. Let's try to figure out what God's doing here. And when they had been brought safely through, then we found out that the island was called Malta.

The natives showed us extraordinary kindness, for because of the rain that had set in and because of the cold, they kindled a fire and received us all well. Received us all, excuse me. But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand.

Can you imagine? If you divine circumstances, what's the point? If you're like, let's see, I'm going to read circumstances, verse, think biblically, what is God trying to show me with this sign? Verse 4.

And when the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, wouldn't you have liked to have been there? They began to say to one another, undoubtedly this man is a murderer, and though he has been saved from the sea, justice has not allowed him to live.

Circumstantial evidence, he's guilty and God finally got him. Undoubtedly. Oops. New circumstance, new perspective, new demonstration of sinful immaturity. Verse 5. However, he shook the creature off into the fire and suffered no harm.

Well, maybe we'll get it right this time. You saw a guy, he got bit by this deadly viper. You go, yep, justice, karma, comes around, goes around. Every dog has its day, shakes the thing off into the fire, and now what's your new way of reading the circumstance?

Verse 6. But they were expecting that he was about to swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But after they had waited a long time and had seen nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their mind and began to say that he was a god.

Wrong again. Wrong reading of a circumstance. And we're going to learn very quickly, maybe even the next point, that we just have to be careful about reading circumstances because we will read them improperly because we are uneducated, ignorant, we don't know everything that's happening in the world, and we're fallen.

Friesen said, How do I make a decision? Number one, word. Number two, wisdom. You must seek wisdom like buried treasure. So first we go to the word. Does it directly say something? Are there principles?

And have I flooded my mind with scripture? Now I need to make the second one, and this is, by the way, in descending order. The word is always at the top, and then we start working our way down. Number two, wisdom.

And as I just said, we need wisdom for a couple of reasons. One is because we're not omniscient. Two, whatever knowledge we have of life and circumstances and the world, it's off kilter. We have a nature that although we may be redeemed, we're still sinful.

And so we have a human mind not capable of understanding all the universe. We're inexperienced in life, even if we're 70 or 80 years old. And we need guidance because we have a core heart problem, meaning we're sinful.

And so since God knows that, He emphasizes in Scripture, get wisdom. Go after wisdom. It's not go after money. It's not go after power. It's not go after anything else. It is go after wisdom. Listen to this precious commodity, wisdom.

Ecclesiastes 9, wisdom is better than strength. Also in Ecclesiastes 9, wisdom is better than the weapons of war. Proverbs 3, wisdom is more profitable than silver. The next verse, it's more profitable and precious than rubies.

Proverbs 8, nothing you desire. What's the top of your desire list? If you could have anything in the world. Proverbs 8, 11, nothing you desire can compare with wisdom. Turn with me to Job 28, please, and let me try to reinforce in your minds what you already all know.

Basically, that's what preaching is a lot of times, is telling you what you know. To reinforce in your mind the priority that we should have for wisdom. There should be something that we want and that we would ask for and that we would desire, wisdom in general, and certainly wisdom in decision making.

Number one, word. Number two, wisdom. How much do we need wisdom? Job 28 talks about it with very wonderful language that should remind you of how the Hebrew mind would think of word pictures, very picturesque versus the Greek language cut and dry and a sense of a computer programming language almost with the intricacies of the Greek language.

But here, picturesque, Job 28. There's a mine for silver and a place where gold is refined. Iron is taken from the earth and copper is smelted from ore. Man puts an end to the darkness. He searches the farthest recesses for ore in the blackest darkness.

To what extent will people search for gold and silver? Far away. You can see them going down the tunnel in verse 4. Far from where the people dwell, he cuts a shaft, this deep tunnel, this hole in the ground in places forgotten by the foot of man.

You can't walk down there. Far from men he dangles and sways. What do you mean? You hold a rope down and then one guy climbs down there, trying to get down into the middle of the center of the earth, as it were, to get this ore out.

Swinging basket or his foot's in a knot. Verse 5, the earth from which food comes is transformed as by fire. There's all kinds of things down there. Sapphire. Nuggets of gold. Verse 7, birds don't fly down there.

Falcons don't see down there. You think you're a wonderful beast of a lion, a prey? You don't go down there. But men, they tunnel. Why? Because they want to get this kind of gold and silver. They want something that they can use.

Verse 12 has an interesting question, though. Verse 12 asks the question that we should be asking ourselves. What's better than silver? What's better than strength? What's better than gold? What's better than all these things?

Why would God so kindly tell us about this, so that we would not go after what we'd like to go after? Verse 12, but where can wisdom be found, and where is the place of understanding? Man does not know its value, nor is it found in the land of the living.

The deep says, it's not in me. The sea says, it's not in me. Pure gold cannot be given in exchange for it, nor silver can be weighed as its price. It cannot be valued in gold, in onyx. Sapphire, verse 17, gold or glass cannot equal it.

It can't be exchanged for articles of fine gold. You can't get it down there. And this is all a picture to teach us, that if we go to these lengths to get silver and gold, how much more should we want wisdom?

Verse 28, let's just skip ahead. And to the man he said, behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding. There's a place to get gold, there's a place to get silver, they have value, but they don't have any value compared to wisdom.

That's why Proverbs 4 says, the beginning of wisdom is what? Anybody know the answer here? What's the beginning of wisdom? That's true, but Proverbs 4 says, here's the beginning of wisdom. Get wisdom.

That's a funny kind of way to do the verse. The beginning of wisdom is this, acquire wisdom. Wisdom is supreme, Solomon said. So you say, alright, I've looked at the Word, flooded my mind with the Word, had some principles from the Word, and now I move to wisdom.

First, let's get wisdom from God. Wisdom from God. We know wisdom is important, so now what do we do? Let's turn to James 5, we ask God for wisdom. It can't be found in the ground, it can't be found at a secular university, it can't be found inside of us, or in our groups, or at the goat's lodge, or the royal order of the celebrated, I don't know, it's not in those groups.

I was going to quote somebody, but I decided not to. I was wise, you say. James chapter 1. And again, this is all stemming from a goal to make a good decision. Wisdom is important, so let's ask God for wisdom.

And you know the wonderful thing about the Lord? He's so unlike me. If I'm not careful, I'm chintzy, I'm cheap, I don't give with extravagance. Left to ourselves, nobody gives this way, but God gives this way.

And when you ask God for wisdom, what does he do? Maybe next year. You've got to memorize a few more verses. Probably better be in discipleship. You come to the church for a year, I'll maybe do it. Verse 5.

If any of you lacks wisdom, that is James Pastoral Code 4, you do lack wisdom. You don't know, and you need to get it. But he says it in a kind way, this is a spoonful of sugar, helps the medicine go down.

If any of you lacks wisdom, you lack wisdom. Let him ask of God. And as we've been learning in Matthew chapter 6, this father. Here comes your child coming to you, a father, an earthly father, a creature father, a sinful father.

And yet you will give your children what they ask if it's good for them. Let him ask of God, what kind of God? And here it describes God with great language. You can just hear the half-brother of Jesus teach these truths.

Who gives to all, all who ask, generously and without reproach. And it will be given to him. Of course we must ask in faith, it says in verse 6, without any doubting. But when you ask without doubting, you say, you know, my pride is not going to make me say I don't need it.

The humility that God has given me is going to say, God, I need wisdom. Help me. Over and over and over. God, I need wisdom for this situation. No wonder Solomon was so blessed when he could ask God for anything.

And he asked for, God, give me divine wisdom. I can't do it my own way. I can't figure it out. I have a deficiency. And God, you have everything. So when you need to make a decision, God, give me wisdom.

There's another place you can get wisdom on earth. Not just from God, but from other godly Christians. Other godly Christians. So when you want wisdom, ask from God. Ask God for it, number one. And number two, ask other people.

Let's turn to Proverbs and just have a quick tour of this. And I've got to speed up a little bit because next Sunday I'm going to talk about Revelation, excuse me, Romans chapter 13. And how we need to frame our minds right so when November 4th and 5th come along, we are going to be thinking godly and not the world is upside down or right side up depending on who you want to win.

So we need to finish today. Proverbs chapter 1. Proverbs chapter 1. How do I make a decision that would honor God? What does the Word say? And now I need to get wisdom. Wisdom from God in prayer first, who generously gives.

And now wisdom from other people who have learned from this God. This is a secondary agency wisdom, if you will. Derived wisdom. This is wisdom God has given other people. Now they in the flesh will give to us.

But it starts off in Proverbs 1 .5 with a description of what should be our heart's desire. And by the way, as I give these five points for decision making, if you thought somehow I want you to will these things, to work these things, to do these things with sweat and toil alone, that wouldn't be right.

God will work through our sweat and toil. Sanctification is God's work through our work. But here we have the greatest gift of all, Christ Jesus, the empowerment of the Spirit of God through Christ Jesus, His finished work on Calvary, His resurrection.

And we are able to complete these things because God has allowed us to, not just because we work hard. But certainly there are commands in Scripture. And here as we look, Proverbs 1 .5, for wisdom, a wise man will hear and increase in learning.