Fateful Choices

Gen 37:25-36

Fateful Choices

INTRODUCTION: Every day all of us face choices. Some of those choices seem simple enough, what cloths to wear, what to have for breakfast, do I take time to pray, which way do I go to work or school, do I shovel the snow now or wait until it stops falling and hundreds of other choices we make. Yet they may just change your life. The cloths you wear may be part of a first impression you make on a boss, teacher, or friend you haven’t met. What you eat one morning may affect your energy and concentration level at school or work while your boss is determining your raise or your teacher your grade. John F. Kennedy faced a simple question, do I have time to take a meeting with a disgruntled person from a little country he never heard of, or attend to more important things. If he only took that meeting with Ho-Chi-Minn, would over 50,000 men and women not have died in Vietnam? In this passage we find Joseph’s brothers faced with a choice about what to do with their feelings.

1. THE CHOICE THEY FACED

A. JEALOUSY AND ANGER

a. GAVE A BAD REPORT

b. FAVORED BY THEIR FATHER

c. HE HAS DELUSIONS OF GRANDURE

B. IGNOR HIM

C. KILL HIM

D. THROW HIM DOWN THE WELL AND LET HIM THINK

E. SELL HIM INTO SLAVERY

2. THE LIFE CHANGING RESULTS

A. WOULD THEY HAVE BEEN SLAVES FOR 300 YEARS

B. WOULD GOD HAVE PROSPERED THEM WHERE THEY WERE

C. WOULD THEY HAVE HAD TO FIGHT FOR THE LAND LATER

D. THEY CARRIED THEIR FEAR AND GUILT THE REST OF THEIR LIFE

E. THEY LIVED WITH THEIR FATHERS GREIF AND CONTEMPT

3. MAKING BETTER CHOICES

A. TAKE THEM SEROUSLY

B. INVITE GOD INTO IT

C. APPLY GOD’S WORD

D. PRAY FOR GUIDENCE

E. LISTEN TO CHRISTIAN FRIENDS

CONCLUSION: What choices do face today, or tomorrow? Will you take your time? Will you let God in? We may never know how a choice made today might affect the rest of our life or someone else’s.