Transformational Choices

Happy Sunday. In 1973, a bank was robbed in Stockholm, Sweden. Hostages were taken for six days. At the end of their ordeal, some of the captives actually resisted rescue attempts. Some victims also refused to testify against their captors. One even started a criminal defense fund for the criminals that held him hostage.

A new phrase was coined after that incident: the Stockholm syndrome. It means captives identifying with their captors. If you're around my age, you likely remember the most famous of these cases. It involved a young woman named Patty Hearst. She was kidnapped in 1974 by a group that called themselves the Symbionese Liberation Army.

She willingly helped her captors in a string of bank robberies. She had identified with her captors. Years ago, I was pastor to a man who was a prisoner of war in World War II. He was beaten, he was malnourished, he was fortunate to survive the war as a POW. He was liberated as the war came to an end.

Imagine on the day of his rescue that he decided to stay a prisoner of war. He didn't do that. Today, and for the next several weeks, I'm going to talk about transformational choices. Water transformational choices? They're choices that we make every day to stay in the old or to bring in the new.

Maybe you decided to make some transformational choices as the new year rolled around. I have. We have a choice every new day to identify with our enemy or to be free in Christ. In Exodus chapter 14, we see the story of Moses leading the children of Israel out of Egypt. They were prisoners of war for over 400 years, and now God has sent Moses to lead them out of captivity.

The 10 plagues have happened, and they worked, and Pharaoh has agreed to let the people go. After their mass exodus, fickle Pharaoh sends out the army to bring them back. You likely remember this story. Pharaoh sends all his horses and chariots. The children of Israel hear a rumbling and see a cloud of dust moving their way.

They were camped out by the Red Sea, and they panicked. There was nowhere to run. The people started to complain and to turn on Moses. I want to read to you from verses 11 and 12 of Exodus 14.

"They said to Moses, 'Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not the very thing we told you in Egypt: Let us alone and let us serve the Egyptians? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.'"

Isn't that sad? The Stockholm syndrome. Most of these people would have chosen captivity again. In this moment, they had a transformational choice to make: one, to live with the enemy and be a slave, or two, to trust God and be free and let him take care of them.

Let's apply this. We choose every day, don't we, to have the same mess or to go a better way, to settle for mediocrity or go for the best? As Christians, there are times when we still let our enemy influence us in our language, our habits, relationships, desires, are attitudes. One of my favorite verses is found in Second Corinthians 5:17.

It tells us, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." Isn't it time we always make the right choices? Have you ever wondered how you might have responded had you been with Moses that day, the sea at your back, an army on its way? Would you have waited on God or voted to go back to the old way?

In the New Testament book of First Corinthians, in chapter 10, we're told that what happened to the children of Israel should serve as an example to us, a warning, so that we would learn from their mistakes. So what kind of choices can we make? Here's a good example. In the past couple of weeks, and even today, several people that I love have come down with this new strain of covet, or they might have it.

You know how your mind can wander. I must discipline my mind to not go to places it should not go. I have to pray and pray and not worry. Worry or pray? We make that choice in every situation.

There is a transformational choice that we daily face: to trust God. You can have peace, or you can fall to pieces. It's your choice. That is a transformational choice.

We lived in farm country in Indiana for many great years. I always loved the fall and harvest time. The two big crops in our area were corn and soybeans. In the fall, farmers would harvest the fruit of the seeds that they had planted in the spring.

God always did his part: rain, sunshine, photosynthesis, wisdom for the farmers, health. But the farmers had to do their part too. They had to plant and plan and fertilize and control the weeds, and the farmers had to harvest the crops too. In the spring, the farmers had to make a choice of what to do, what to plant, so in the fall there would be a payoff.

The same is true in our lives. God will do his part, and we must do our part. God will not make your choices for you. He has given us free will; we are free to choose. It's my prayer that you choose to do what God wants in your life, that you make the right choices, and that you're transformed and who he wants you to be.

Let's pray. God, as we gather in this video, we ask that you would reach each of us, because we make so many choices every day. Lord, we ask that our choices always include you, and you would continue to transform us to who you want us to be.

Bless this week, bless the people that we love, bless those that watch. And I pray that you would just continue to bless us and keep watch over us and bless us in our choices. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.