September 7, 2025
Dear friends in Christ grace and peace to you. The text for this week’s message comes from Deuteronomy 30:15-20.
It’s all about choices. That is a comment I hear quite often from my spouse when I’m grumbling about something. And isn’t that so true. Life is really all about making choices. Sometimes we make good choices – sometimes not. What do you do when you make poor choices? Do you lay the blame on someone or something else when poor choices lead to consequences? Do you mope around for days wishing you had made a better choice? Do you own the mistake, learn from it and move on?
In the text this week from Deuteronomy Moses addresses the Israelites as they are about to enter the land promised their ancestors. He speaks to his people in clear and concise language that they can all understand. Before you lies the Promised Land. What awaits is life, and prosperity, death and destruction. Moses reminds his people that it is up to them which it will be. It seems like a rather simple choice. Chose to obey God and his commandments and you will live and increase. But if you turn away from God, God promises you will not live long in the land you yearn to enter.
We live in a chaotic world. We here in the Midwest farm country are somewhat insulated from the unrest in other parts of the world and yet we are not immune to the troubles of the world. It all comes down to choices. How do we wish to live? What would the world look like if each of us lived worshiping God, obeying his commandments and caring for the land and its people he has commanded us to care for? It seems logical to think that the world would be a better more peaceful place. But it is all about choices. God doesn’t force his will on any of us. He lets us decide whether or not to follow him. The consequence of that decision is a life or death matter. This isn’t just a one and done decision it is a decision that faces each of us each and every day. We have to choose everyday to make a choice.
Joshua who led the Israelites after Moses death once again addressed his people by asking them to make choice. “But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” Joshua 24:15
Each and every day brings us new challenges and choices. God gives us the free will to make choices. We can choose to obey him and his commandments or we can choose to go our own way and follow other gods and risk losing God’s promise of eternal life. The choice is ours.
May the peace of God be with each of you as you make choices that will affect your life and the lives of those around you.
Michael Isaacson
August 31, 2025
Dear friends in Christ grace and peace to you. The text for this week’s message comes from Proverbs 25:6-7 with reference to Psalm 112.
I don’t know that I’ve ever led a worship service and not been reminded of my humanness. By that I mean during almost every service that I lead something happens to humble me and to remind me that this isn’t about me, that I’m not in charge. You who are sitting in the pews might not even notice when these things happen but as I see it, it is God’s reminder to me to remember who I am and whose I am and that God is present in all ways and in all things.
Our text this week speaks to humility, something I think is lacking in many of us and especially in many of our political and world leaders these days. We all need a little humility in our lives to remind us of who we are and whose we are. We ought not to think more of ourselves or that we are above someone else. Jesus showed us what humility is by suffering unjustly for our crimes by enduring the humility of a mock trial, being stripped nearly naked and flogged mercilessly, and unceremoniously nailed to a cross to die a humiliating death all in full view of the public. But Jesus rose above all of that on Easter Sunday morning when he rose up from the grave thereby defeating sin and death and all that Satan had to throw at him.
Psalm 112:4 reminds us that Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man. Humble leaders don’t usually gain much popularity. They are often ridiculed because it seems the world would rather see more drama and more forceful action. But in the end it is often the humble leaders that history will remember. The book of Proverbs is a book of wisdom, guidance for people to live by in daily life.
Today’s reading is about humility. Do we know what humility means? We might see humility as something that embarrasses us. If we are embarrassed by being called out on something that we have done then we know that we have done wrong. Being embarrassed by our actions is actually a good thing because it proves that we do fear God. Not that we are afraid of God, because we shouldn’t be, but our fear proves that we respect and love God and want to please him by our actions. The opposite of being humble is being arrogant, proud or conceited. These are not Christian attributes. God seeks for us to live in humility as Jesus did having compassion for our neighbors and treating them as we would want to be treated with respect and dignity.
May the peace of God be with all of you as you live humbly with your neighbors.
Michael Isaacson
