How To Make Decisions | Part 2

Proverbs 3:5-6 | Part 2 | Everyday, we are faced with making so many decisions. Sometimes, they can even change our lives. Do you ever wish God just told you what route to take? How can He help us make our decisions, no matter how big or small it may seem?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

No, because we keep on having these little mini crashes and we're going to do it. I want you to let you dad and show you how to do this. Because you're convinced that you've got this, but according to Proverbs, like, uh, you're not making decisions to work.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

You're listening to The Bridge with Junior Sigler. Junior's the lead teaching pastor at the bridge in Chicagoland. Junior, we are picking it back up in Proverbs 3, getting extremely practical about decision making. Yeah, we got a bunch of questions today about ask these questions before you make a decision. Like a decision-making filter. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

These are gold, these questions. I think they're going to be very, very helpful. But let me just start right here with this. First, don't be running to AI with your decision.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

But Chat GBT is like the Holy Spirit of our generation.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Well, I know it might sound like pedantic or it might sound silly, but this is what at least our generation is doing. First thing, I got a question. I'm going to run to AI and I'm going to allow AI to answer this for me. The problem is, is most AI platforms are designed to tell you what you want to hear. And we love that because we, and we'll get into it more in the message. We love for people to just kind of co-sign our decisions. If I'm going to have to make a decision, I kind of want to do this. I'm just going to ask the people that I know are going to tell me to decide this. I'm just wanting them to co-sign on whatever I'm going to do, anyways. But when it comes to a decision, we need to hear people push back. We need to fight through some of that as well. So don't be running to AI. Instead, we'll get into question number one. Are you really going to God's word with that?

SPEAKER_00 1:32

We have great questions for you today. Grab a phone, grab some paper, jot these questions down. These have the potential to be life-changing. Wherever you are, thanks for joining us. Now here's Junior.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

We sold our house thinking, well, we're going to Israel. Sold our house, went to Israel. We came back and we're like, we'll buy a house until we get back from Israel. And we came back and then COVID hit and everything went off the market. So we were living in my parents' basement for like a few months and uh looking for houses. And there was one day I was actually helping Pastor Jordan move. I was driving with my brother-in-law, and I pointed out a street and I said, Man, I wish something would go for sale down that street. I love that. I love that street. It's just like a quiet little nook in the nook in the neighborhood. And that night, somebody from our church wrote me and they said, Hey, I heard you're looking for a house. Uh kind of an emergency in the family. We need to move. We need to get out of here quick. You want to come over and just look at our house? Like, all right, fine. I think it's probably like something I don't want. And it's gonna be like, it's gonna be awkward to be like, I don't want your house. We drive over to their house and it's on that street that I pointed at. And we walk into the house and my wife looks at me, she's like, This is the exact layout that I was kind of like hoping for. Let's let's get this house. Now, we believe that wasn't God. So it wasn't like one house. If we would have bought in a house the month before, we'd have known no difference. Like we'd have been just fine. So it wasn't like this target to hit, but it's kind of fun how God can steer things sometimes. It's the same way, same thing with jobs. Sometimes people think like, oh, with a job, I got to hit that target. Well, yeah, once in a while, God might call you to one job. And I believe in those cases he's gonna make it obvious. But the truth is, most of us can honor God at a few different workplaces. So God's will is not this target that you have to hit, but this path to stay on. And so what Solomon is doing here is he's simplifying, which is so helpful because when we're faced with a decision, we can often overthink it, can't we? If you're anything like me, it's like, let's get into the details here, let's unpack this, let's try to forecast that. What if, let's get a list of pros and cons. And then it gets like overwhelmingly complicated, and there's all this stress. And it takes Solomon to say, hold on, put on the brakes. I'm not saying all that stuff is bad. You can do pros and cons less in a little bit, but first, declare your trust in God, bring him in, look to honor him. The path becomes more straight. He's gonna point to the path. So then the question becomes, well, then what does this look like practically then? Because you're thinking, me, you might be thinking, like, all right, Junior, I kind of get what you're saying here. You know, pray before meetings, pray before dates, pray before purchases. Like, probably be a good idea to do that. I've not been doing that, so I'll do that. But come on, man, I'm not gonna hear like an audible voice. Say like, that date is good. Say this in the meeting. Like, that's not gonna happen. So, how does that, how do we, how does this play out? And the fun part is Proverbs does not hold back from telling us. So if you're taking notes, grab them. If you don't usually take notes, I would encourage you to at least take some notes today because what we have in front of us, no joke, people pay big money to consultants and counselors for, and we're getting this for free from scripture. So we're gonna go over five questions to ask yourself before making a big decision. I cannot stress enough how powerful these questions are. Some of us might be thinking, like, man, I wish I would have heard this 20 years ago. And so if you're younger, count yourself blessed to get this right now. This week, when you're faced with a big decision or a small decision, you got a new job offer, investment opportunity, somebody asks you out, you're gonna take that next step in the relationship. Should we sell the business? Where should I go to school? What should I major in? You got that. You've got that decision to make, five questions to ask yourself before making that decision. Question number one to ask yourself what does God's word say about this? Now, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, scripture is our go-to. This is our final authority. Proverbs 2, 6 says, For the Lord gives wisdom from his mouth, so this is from his word, which is wording right now, from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. And since or if that's true, which we believe it is, then our first question is, well, then what does his word say with what I'm dealing with? And initially, we'll think, well, nothing. Nothing. Junior, God's word doesn't tell me if I should marry her. I don't think Chelsea is in the Bible. Thou shalt marry Chelsea and make babies. Like, that's probably not in the Bible. Well, no, of course not, not explicitly. But God's word says a lot about marriage and a lot about relationships. And the more you press into that, the more the path forward becomes clear. Now, if you do this right, it's gonna take a lot of time. God's word has a lot to say about marriage. How a husband and how a wife, they're very different, and how they come together and how they operate as a team, and how submission works, and how leadership looks, and how headship looks. And as you press into all of that, the path forward becomes more clear. Where it's like, oh, okay, well, if that's God's design for marriage, then it's not gonna work with that person. Or no, actually, it would work with that person. What does God's word say about that investment opportunity? Well, probably nothing about the business that you're studying, but but scripture has a lot to say about investing. I mean, Proverbs 13, 11 says, wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it. So is this investment that I'm looking at? Is this a get rich quick thing? Or is this uh the wisdom of gathering little by little? Again, yeah, scripture likely won't answer your decision explicitly specifically, but it will provide clarity the more you press in. And also, if you're a Jesus follower, man, this is just this is just what we do. Second question to ask yourself as you're facing a decision, what do godly people say? It's something that we say on staff a lot. In fact, this fast week, I um came back from drove back from Tennessee and then went straight to camp, was training our our summer camp staff. And we talked a lot about this in detail. But uh if you, and this is what I told the staff, if you make a big decision by yourself, even if it's the right decision, it was a bad decision. Because you weren't meant to just make the decision on your own. This is why God has placed us in community to make wise decisions together. But how many of us, we're just we're making decisions on our own. To live in community is to live humbly and that's looking for input from the right people. Proverbs 12, 15 says the way of a fool is right in his own eyes. He's just gonna do whatever he thinks is right. But a wise person is going to listen to advice and look and seek advice. God's plan for your life is to be this culmination of decisions that you've made with people that He's put into your life. But so many people's stories, and maybe this is your story, their life is simply a series of decisions that they've made on their own as they disregard the people that God has put in their life. So before deciding what's on your place, like, man, what do godly people say here? And the key word to hear is godly. I'll talk to some people sometimes who they've gotten into a mess, you know, in their marriage or extended family or work, and so we'll sit down and kind of unpack what happened, how the mess got messy, and I'll ask them, be like, well, who have you talked to? Like, well, I went to so-and-so. And I'll think, but I never say. I was like, why them? Well, you've why'd you go to them? You want their marriage? You want that marriage? Like they're on their fourth marriage, or maybe they're on their first marriage, but like their marriage is miserable. Look at them, like, what? Why are you asking them for marriage advice? Why'd you ask that coworker about what to do? That coworker cares nothing about honoring God. Could even be careful with therapists sometimes. I'm not, I'm not down on therapist. I saw a counselor for years, it's so helpful for me, but as a as a biblically minded counselor who really challenged me, but there's a lot of just bad therapy out there. Actually, several years ago, I don't know if you heard about this in the news, but one of the leading children psychologists, he's a tenured at an Ivy League school, um, wrote many books on raising children. Uh, his home was was raided, and they found two of his kids in dog cages. Now, this is the guy who's teaching a lot of people how to parent. So you gotta like you gotta be really careful in who you're going to for advice. Godly's a big deal. Too often, the advice we get is mainly based off convenience. So it's like, why'd you go to them? I don't know, they were around, I like them. We kind of click well. It's like, well, well, then play a board game with them or something, but like that's that's not enough credentials to give them influence over your future. To get godly advice, you have to seek it. Because godly people aren't people walking around just airing their opinions. Wise people tend not to give unsolicited advice. They're wise enough to only give it to those who want it, and it's on us to seek it out. And so, when's the last time you went to a godly person, you just asked for advice? Last time you went to a godly person, you said, Can I just talk to you? Just I got some marriage questions here. I got some parenting questions here. I got some dating questions here. You ever go to your small group leader? You ever go to a counselor that we have here on staff? You have a few that are just so like just gleaning from them, or a pastor, or an elder. This is why God puts us in community to run with each other. A few years ago, Nicole and I, we got an email uh from some friends. It's like out of the blue, they made like a really big decision, so they for whatever reason wrote us an email about their decision, and and their decision was to leave the church. And that was all right, like you're gonna do that, and there was no ill will on my end, like you don't have to go to my church to be my friends, fine, we'll still be friends. But we get this rather like weird, out-of-the-blue email, and just responded like, hey, love you guys, and really wishing the best for you. But that that evening we're we're cleaning up from after dinner, and Nicole says to me, She's like, Hey, you can like reach out to them and and tell them that they're making a mistake. Like, someone should. This is this is not good for that family. And I told you, baby, no, uh, decision is made. Uh, they never involved any of us. Like, I wish the best for them. It's fine. She goes, Yeah, but you were their pastor. I said, Yeah, but I wasn't. I wasn't. Like, we worshiped together, but I was never their shepherd. They they never bounced ideas, they never sought counsel, they never wanted our perspective, they never asked for advice. They didn't ask for advice on any of this decision that they made. They never did that with anybody in their church, whether it was me or a small group leader over there they had, or an elder, counselor. They never went to any of them. And so I wished them well. I really did wish them well, but it broke my heart to see that God had placed this beautiful family and this beautiful community, to live in community and seek godly advice and to run together and to seek counsel, but all of that was ignored. And today they're struggling, it's really hard to see. And I wonder how often I do that. Wonder how often you do that. So many godly, seasoned people with solid families in our midst, great counselors, proven pastors, wise elders whose lives are in order, the proof is in the pudding, they raise good kids, they have fun marriages, and God says, Man, run with these people, run with them, humble yourself, glean as much as you can from them, bounce ideas, but instead, we just are so used to relying on our own understanding.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

You're listening to The Bridge with Junior Ziegler. We'll get back to Junior in a moment. We want to tell you about one of his books, The Manual. If you're a man or raising a man, married to a man, maybe dating a man, there's a lot of confusion around what real manhood actually is. In the manual, Junior cuts through the noise, both the over-the-top macho stuff and the politically correct definitions, and he gets to the raw core of manhood. He exposes the toxic masculinity for what it really is, not manhood at all. This book is simple, honest, powerful, and it might just change how you view men, strength, and leadership. We'd love to send you a copy of the manual. Just visit juniorziglar.com and give a gift of any amount towards this show, and we'll send it to you. That's juniorzi at e-g at l-r dot com. Now let's get back to junior's message.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Question number three to ask yourself when facing a decision Am I healthy enough to decide right now? It's not in Proverbs, but one of my favorite Bible stories is when the prophet Elijah is emotional. And he's tired, so he gets emotional, which I can totally relate to because when I get tired, I get more emotional. And so he's just like, he's emotional, he's tired, he's sulking, and and uh he's having this conversation with the guy. He's about to like make it a just a decision, and God stops him, he feeds him, and he tells him to take a nap. Like, here's a snack, take a nap, and we'll talk. And it's like there's like this little story in scripture, but I love that story because so often we need to do the same thing. It's like my wife and I about to move five years ago. Like I'm angry about the COVID stuff, I'm cold, I want out. I wasn't in a healthy enough spot to make a good decision because I was too emotional at the time. Emotion-driven decisions are usually decisions that we regret. So decisions made in anger are ones that we regret. Decisions made in sadness are ones that we regret. Decisions made in fear, decisions made in the heat of passionate moments. Those are bad decisions. Sometimes we just need to eat a snack, take a nap, and then we'll come back to it. It's actually why, in a more serious note, this is why when someone is cheated on, horrible situation, highly emotional. In that moment, the person who is cheated on usually weighs this massive decision right away. Do I end the marriage? It's a big decision, and it's certainly an understandable option. But a good counselor will tell them, let's not make the decision in the wake of such high emotion. Okay, so let's let's grieve, let's go through this pain, let's let the dust settle, let's get our bearings, and then we can get ahead into this decision with a good head on our shoulders for that. So am I in a healthy, am I healthy enough to decide right now? First off, am I angry? Because I'm angry, it should probably calm down before I decide here. You ever make a decision out of anger? Of course not. You ever make a post out of anger? Of course not. I've never seen any of those. They're the ones we usually have to go back to delete, aren't they? Those decisions we made out of anger are usually the ones we have to go back and apologize for. Too often we decide to confront in the midst of anger. It's an anger-driven decision. So am I angry right now? I'm pretty angry. Okay, well then I need to take a step back, pray, get counsel, maybe take a nap, and then come back to it. Am I bitter right now? Not always, but often when people quit things or when people move or when people cut people off, it's out of bitterness. There's some sort of bitterness that's brewing. They want to teach so-and-so a lesson by leaving, or they're running from some sort of pain. That's not healthy. We don't make decisions that way. Doesn't mean we never step away from things, doesn't mean we ever put up boundaries, but bitterness in the heart is a recipe for a regretful decision. And then am I afraid? A lot of parenting decisions come from fear. Keep the kid safe at all costs. Well, yeah, safety sure is nice, but God hasn't given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control. But how many decisions we make are just driven by fear of like, eh, what if, what if? And then we become very self self-preservation. That's not that's not the way of a believer. Am I in a health, am I healthy enough to decide right now? Am I any of these? And if the answer is, yeah, kind of sort of, I'm sort of angry, I'm sort of bitter, kind of afraid right now. Okay, well, then if we can, let's put a pin in it. And like Elijah, let's go get a snack, take a nap, and then let's be come back in a healthier position to decide. It's like in our Jonah series. We talked a little bit about this in the Jonah series, but it's that space between stimulus and response. Stimulus means something happened, and that something that happened made you afraid, or it hurt you, or it made you angry, and it's understandable. Maybe you should be angry, maybe you should be hurt. It's wise to take advantage of the space between that happening and a response to it. You just sit in that, get healthy, and then respond. It's unwise to shorten this space because you're angry, you're bitter, you just want to lash out. Too many people make decisions in order to make a point. And the point that they make usually comes at their own expense. They should have just been healthier when deciding. Then, question number four you have that decision to make. Ask yourself, what future, what will future me have wanted me to do? Yeah, for sure, like five years from now, me, ten years from now, me, that's fine. You can think that way. But as followers of Jesus, we play the even longer game. We realize that the day is coming, and it could be this evening, it could be tomorrow, when we will stand before God Almighty and we will give an account for the life that we lived here on earth, decisions that we made. And thankfully, if you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, in that moment, we will be holding on to the work of Jesus Christ. Those who do not have Jesus will be judged and sent to eternal separation from God. But for those of us who have put our faith and trust in the cross and in the empty tomb, we will give an account for the decisions that we made here on earth, and we will be rewarded based on that. And in that moment, when we stand before God, just ask yourself, what future me will have wanted me to decide right now? When I stand before God, what am I gonna want to say I said about this decision? What a massive thought when facing something. What will I want to say when I stand before God? See, this is so big because if you're anything like me, we can stress about decisions and we can hyperfocus. It takes our headspace, and then we get into all the details. We've got to unpack this pros and cons. And all that is fine. But once in a while, we need to zoom out, get the bigger picture, and knowing that we're gonna stand before God can do that. Then last question. Question number five. When you're looking at a decision, you gotta decide, you're weighing all the different options. Ask yourself, am I led by conviction right now or am I led by feelings right now? What am I led by here? Conviction or feelings? And not always but often, decisions boil down to what's right and how I feel. Man, what's right is breaking up. But I I just I feel good in this. I want to stay in this because it feels so good. What's right is to drag this into the light and repent and get help. But I just kind of feel like keeping this hidden for the sake of my image, or I just kind of want to keep enjoying it. Or what's right is I want to be faithful and stick this out. But man, I feel like running here. Often, not always, decisions are more black and white than we like to make it. Sometimes we just like to say this is a gray area so we can get away with some stuff, but often it's just black and white. As people of God, we're called to live by faith. And often our faith is doing what we don't feel like and having faith that our feelings will follow later on. Last Christmas, my seven-year-old, she uh she asked for two things, and uh, she just wanted two presents, and she asked for high heels. She's seven, and the second thing she asked for was a drone. And I told her, baby, your husband is gonna be so lucky. You're like flying a drone in high heels. Like, come on, girl. You're like feminine and fun. That's awesome. And so, of course, we get her the high heels and you know, like this cheap little drone. It's on Christmas Day, uh, we we drove out to like a forest reserve, and her sisters went on a hike with mama. And Reese and I, we stayed out in a field and we we flew around her drone. Flying a drone, by the way, is not as easy as I thought it was, at least the cheap ones. And so, like, I get it, I you know, we're unboxing it, I'm like reading the directions, and she's like, Why are you reading the directions? Let's just get it in the air. And I'm trying to like learn how to like how do we take off of this thing, and and I'm kind of getting it a little bit, not very good, but sort of getting it. And once I sort of get it, I hand her the controls. As soon as I give her the controls, she like crashes the thing. So we run over, we dust it off, we get it back in the air. I give her the controls, she spirals it, it crashes. So I told her, I was like, all right, let me show you some a few things about this. Uh it'll help you fly better. It's like, dad, no, this is my Christmas present, not yours. I I got this. Okay, give it back to her, you know. It's like, okay, baby, keep your eye on the front, know where the front is. And you gently go forward. She's like, hey, I know, dad. Crash again. And then she says, This is a bad drone. Bad drone. Finally, she hands me the controls. She's like, okay, dad, show me. And I show her a few things. Ten minutes later, she's flying the drone with a big old smile on her face. She's having a ton of fun. Suddenly, like, she the gift is a good gift now. I wonder if you're like Reese. You're just gripping the controls of life. And God is saying, Can He can I show you a few things? Can you just let me into your meetings? Let me into your family, let me into your life, let me into your school decisions. Like, my word is gonna make things clear. The people I put in your life, they're gonna fly with you. It's like, ah that's my life. Like, I got this. Love you, but this, I got this. And some of us, we keep on having these little mini crashes, and we're going, this life is bad. And God's like, well, why don't you let why don't you let your dad show you how to do this? You're missing out on flying better than you've ever flown because you're convinced that you've got this, but according to Proverbs, like, you're not making decisions very well. What's it really gonna take for you to involve God more into those decisions? My prayer is not a crash, because that's many people. Crash their life, and it's like, all right, let's do this God's way now. Man, the people who before the crash go, I'm gonna do this God's way, they enjoy it a lot more. What's it really gonna take to involve God more into your decisions? My prayer is not a crash, but it's This time that we had God's word.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

You're listening to The Bridge with Junior Ziggler. That was part two of Junior's sermon, How to Make Decisions, part of our Proverbs series. Junior, we've been talking about how Proverbs doesn't give us just like these magical answers for every decision we have. It's a property. It'd be great, wouldn't it be? Because we like speed. We like, I want this answer and that. That's why we love AI so much. Because you can just go to it. Oh, here's here you go. Five quick answers.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Whether it's accurate or wise or not, we get it right away. And we would sometimes prefer just right away over quality.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

But you were talking, it's more about the process, the process that God, what God does through us as we're making these decisions.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

Well, sometimes, sometimes we face a big decision. I I wonder if partly because God's trying to get us to press more into his word. Hey, press into my word and really wrestle through this. Or I've placed some godly people around you that you're not going to enough. I'm gonna have you run into a big decision here so that you can learn how to press into the godly community that I've put around you. Or maybe you're just not healthy enough to decide right now. That was one of the questions. Like you're just really emotional. Let's, let's, let's wait things out a little bit and then make a decision. Um, what will future me what want me to have done? These are all great questions to ask, and they're a process, like you said. It's not this magic bullet instant, here's what you gotta do. It's walking through this process that's very good for our soul and very good for our walk with God. So I just want to ask you, what part of that process are you maybe abstaining from or pushing against? Are you really running to God's word and wrestling through some of this stuff? Are you really humbly going to the godly people that God has put in your life? Are you actually healthy enough to decide right now? Are you thinking through some of those things? And are you led by conviction over your feelings?

SPEAKER_00 23:42

I know that's a big one today. Junior, again, life-changing stuff. I hope you take these questions to heart at the next decision you have to make. Always good to be with you. Junior, can't wait for next time. Well, you have been listening to The Bridge with Junior Ziggler, a listener-supported broadcast. Junior is the lead teaching pastor at the bridge in Chicagoland, and we're so glad that you joined us today. As we told you earlier, we would love to send you a copy of Junior's book, The Manual. Whether you're a man, you're raising a man, married to a man, dating a man, this book cuts through the noise and gets to the raw core of manhood itself. All you have to do is jump on Junior's website, juniorziggler.com, and give a gift of any amount towards this show, and we'll send it right to you. While you're there, you'll also find great resources like today's message, all of Junior's books and podcasts, plus a link to our church, The Bridge. If you're in the Chicagoland area, we'd love to see you at one of our services. Again, that's juniorziggler.com, junior z-i-e-g L E R dot com. Thanks for listening. See you next time. The Bridge with Junior Ziggler is a production of the Bridge Community Church, a multi campus church in Chicago.