The Third Sunday After the Epiphany
How to Decide
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ! Amen. In today’s Epistle, God says to each and every Christian,
including you, “I want you to be free from anxieties.” At the end of the
Epistle, God also says that He wants “to promote good order and to secure your
undivided devotion to the Lord.” With these Words, the Lord your God wants you
to know that He is able to help you make important decisions in your life. God
wants you younger adults to take today’s Epistle especially to heart, now that
you are beginning to make big decisions concerning school, work, family and
future. You are not alone: your parents and grandparents also face important
decisions all the time. God wants to help each of us old geezers, too.
Dear Christian friends:
In order to get down to the decision-making abilities God has for you in
today’s Epistle, we first have to deal with the talk about marriage. God used
Paul to write these Words, and Paul was unmarried. Because there was such a
high expectation that Jesus would immediately return, Paul believed that people
should not divide their attentions by getting married. There would be no time
to raise the kids, anyway. That is why Paul said,
Brothers, the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who
have wives live as though they had none… The married man is anxious about
worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. … The
married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband.
We Christians today still live in the high expectation that our Lord Jesus
might return at any moment “to judge both the living and the dead.” But time
has also passed, and we have learned to wait. We also have gone on, marrying
and giving in marriage, according to the Word of the Lord (Matthew 24:38) and
with His blessing (Matthew 19:6).
Now look at the bigger picture in today’s Epistle, which has to do with more
than the divine gift of a man marrying a woman (Genesis 2:22-24). God has
written some important guidance into today’s Epistle that will help you with
many important decisions that you will need to make in your life while you
patiently wait for your Lord’s return.
1. Let’s begin with the end of the Epistle, where God says that He wants “to
promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.”
1a) The Words “promote good order” point us in the direction of the Ten
Commandments. “Good order” is built into the commandments. If you make
decisions by ignoring or rejecting God’s Ten Commandments, then you have no
reason to expect any blessing from Him, either in this life or in the life to
come. If you make your decisions with God’s Word and commandments central to
your mind and heart, then you may trust that you are headed in a good
direction. Therefore, the Ten Commandments should be integral to your
decision-making at every stage of life. Here are some examples of what I mean:
o We live in a world that allows you to buy more stuff than you afford.
But God says in His commandments, “You shall not steal” and “You shall not
covet.” Therefore, when you are thinking about making a major purchase—such as
an automobile or a house—God wants you to make the decision that will fit your
budget. God does not want you to pretend that you have more income than you do.
That is “good order.”
o The world also offers you plenty of opportunity to do all kinds of
things with your body—with or without marriage. God will help you make godly
decisions—and He will protect you from many evils—if you will only respect the
“good order” He built into His sixth commandment, “You shall not commit
adultery.”
o Again, God says in the Fifth Commandment, “You shall not murder.” These
Words indicate that “professional assassin” is not a good and godly career
choice. “Soldier” might be, however, because the God who said “You shall not
murder” has also commanded us to obey our government (Fourth Commandment;
Romans 13)—and the Fourth Commandment allows even for military service.
o Each of God’s Ten Commandments can be brought to bear upon the major
decisions you must make. God’s commandments will give you the blessing of
helping you narrow your options when it comes to family, career and every other
part of life. Solomon said it well: “Fear God and keep His commandments, for
this is the whole duty of all mankind” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). God has also
attached is blessing to your mindfulness of His commandments. No, the
commandments will not get you into eternal life. Jesus has already done that
job for you—exclusively and completely—with His bloody death and victorious
resurrection. Yet the Words of God are clear and they declare, “Blessed are
those who keep My ways” (Proverbs 8:27). Again God says, “Godliness is valuable
in every way, because it holds promise for the present life and also for the
life to come” (1 Timothy 4:8).
1b) Your decision-making should also take into account these other Words at the
end of today’s Epistle, “to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.” With
these Words, God is telling you that He does not want you to take up a field of
study that will cause you to doubt or to reject the divine gift of faith in
Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. God does not want you to gather
friends for yourself who will devalue or undermine your Christian confession.
God even says in another place that He does not want you to be “yoked together
with unbelievers” (2 Corinthians 6:14). God does not want you to do things that
will prevent your access to the gifts that He has given to you for increasing
your faith, namely, the preaching of the church and the administration of the
Holy Communion. God wants you to make wise and careful decisions that will
enhance, promote, and “secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.”
In today’s Epistle, God says yet another important thing about decision-making.
Before we get to that, however, we should pause and notice what God does NOT
say here about decision-making.
• First, God does not say that He will help your decisions by whispering
into your ears, speaking in a dream, or thundering from the sky. God used to
talk that way in His Old Testament, but God also says in His New Testament that
He is all done talking that way. Hebrews chapter 1 states, “Long ago, at many
times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these
last days He has spoken to us by His Son” (Hebrews 1:1). These Words indicate
that the good news concerning Jesus is greatest and final thing that God wishes
to say. These Words also indicate that God’s Christians today have no business
seeking dreams and visions.
• You should also bear in mind that, just because you make a careful,
God-pleasing decision, that does not necessarily mean that your life is going
to be rosy and trouble-free. The Scriptures describe the Christian life as one
of hardship and cross (Mark 8:34)—one that God promises will end with a
victorious resurrection. The Lord your God does not use riches, happiness or
success to indicate that He is pleased with you. God is fully and completely
pleased with you on account of Jesus’ Baptism into your life (Mark 1:11) and
His sanctifying death for your sins (Hebrews 10:10).
2. Now let’s get back to today’s Epistle, and the most important element God
has for your major decisions in life. God says here, “I want you to be free
from anxieties.” Yes, Paul uses these Words to talk about the everyday
challenges of marriage, but these Words certainly have a wider application to
all decisions in life. God wants you to be “free from anxieties.” This means
that:
• You should think things over carefully, but do not get too wrapped
around the axel. Just take your best shot within the parameters of the
Christian faith and LET YOUR GOD BE YOUR GOD. When you face decisions trusting
in the Lord, what can possibly go wrong? “The Lord watches over the way of the
righteous” (Psalm 1:6) and YOU have been made righteous in the blood of Christ
(1 Peter 3:18). Or were you baptized in vain? “Not even a sparrow can fall to
the ground outside your Father’s care—and you are worth more than many
sparrows!” (Matthew 10:29, 31). Therefore it is written, “Cast your burden on
the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never permit the righteous to be
moved” (Psalm 55:22). We also have the personal promise of our Lord, “Come to
Me, all you who are burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
• God is so thoroughly pleased with you in Christ Jesus—in His
forgiveness and life—that you no longer need to worry too much about the
details. “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will
He not also with Him give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). Therefore “nothing
shall separate us from the love of Christ” (Romans 8:35)—not even major
decisions concerning college or work, marriage or family, medical or financial
situations.
Today’s Epistle speaks the grace of God and the freedom we now have in Christ
Jesus our Lord. The Words, “I want you to be free from anxieties,” mean that
• you can choose the blonde Christian or the redheaded one, and God will
bless you in many ways either way.
• you can choose work or school according to your own good pleasure—since
the work of pleasing God is already fully accomplished in Christ.
• you are free to choose the surgery, or free to face what happens if you
do not choose the surgery—either way, your body shall rise on the Last Day and
the earth shall at last give birth to her dead (Isaiah 26:19).
• you have nothing to fear in any decision you face. No matter what
comes—hardship and ease, lean or plenty, sorrow or happiness—no matter what
comes, your future shall be full of God’s grace.
Now I will speak to each of you as a father in Christ: “I want you to be free
from anxieties,” my child. Jesus is your past, having been crucified for the
forgiveness of your sins. Jesus is your present, ever cleansing you and
watching over you in the power of your Baptism. Jesus is your future, bringing
you at last to your eternal home and promising to make right again everything
that shall seem to go wrong. Your God has sworn and He will not change His
mind: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews
13:8).
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