Growing Spiritually
We should use the negative results of personal mistakes as an opportunity to grow spiritually.
Here's Gene to explain:
And his is to me, one of the exciting things about a principle-oriented study.
You see, the story unfolds and so, the principles are connected to each other.
And here, the principle that is related to the previous principle, is related to the
mistakes. But in this case, using the negative results from the personal mistake.
Because there are always negative results.
Always.
Sometimes they're extremely severe.
Sometimes it's just minor. We can correct it very quickly.
By the way, the mistake that Abraham and Sarah made is not easily correctable.
I mean, that's a big one.
I mean, he's got a son named Ishmael.
And he's there.
And he's part of the family.
And he may be a big mistake, from a human point of view.
And you can't just easily overlook that big mistake. Because that was a mistake that continues
to reverberate around the world with incredible tension with the sons of Ishmael and the sons of Isaac.
And you see that.
So, the key word here is "opportunity."
We should use the negative results of personal mistakes as an opportunity to grow spiritually.
And that's a tough thing, is to say: Okay God, this is an opportunity.
Boy, it's hard to get clarification on that one, isn't it? Opportunity.
You know, we're so much in the midst of the difficulty that we can't see the opportunity.
We don't want to see the opportunity.
We're overwhelmed by the mistake and the negative results.
But I believe that one of the things that can help us tremendously is to see the opportunity.
Because with every mistake comes an opportunity.
It may not feel good, but it's there if we look for it.
And it's an opportunity to grow spiritually.
So, Genesis 16:15 and 16, we read:
"So Hagar gave birth to Abram's son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son Hagar had.
[And] Abram was 86 years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to him."
Now, 13 years later. We see something very interesting.
Look at chapter 17.
"When Abram was 99 years old, the LORD appeared to him, saying,
"I am God Almighty. ..."
Now, the thing that we need to really understand here, is for 13 years Abraham, I believe,
believed that Ishmael was to be the promised seed.
And God didn't let him know any differently until 13 years later.
He lived in the darkness of his mistake.
And he thought that Ishmael was the one.
I think that's somewhat obvious from the text.
But notice there's a lesson he needed to learn.
"When Abram was 99 years old, the LORD appeared to him, saying,
"I am God Almighty.
Live in My presence and be devout. ..."
This is My goal for you, Abraham, is to live in My presence and be holy.
It's what the word "devout" means.
"...I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will multiply you greatly."
Now, there's another lesson that he needs to learn.
Both Abraham and Sarah--and here's the lesson--
Both Abraham and Sarah had yet to discover
and trust the Lord as "God Almighty"--El Shaddai--
which means the One who could override the natural
laws governing reproduction.
Now, El Shaddai simply means that God Almighty can do anything He wants, but it's supernatural.
And they didn't understand this concept of God.
They had experienced God as Elohim--
another word for God, which means their shield, their
protector, their provider.
God had taken care of them once they came down into that land.
God had provided for them.
God had gotten them out of messes that they created.
He was their protector against the kings that came against them.
But you see at this moment they were unable
to understand God's specific promise that
they would have a child in a supernatural way.
Because being 100, or 99 or 100, with
a wife that's 90, that's a miracle
to give birth.
And God is saying to Abraham and Sarah:
you've got to understand that I am the God Almighty, El Shaddai.
This explains why they tried to help God out.
They didn't understand that.
They didn't go to God and say: Lord this has got to be a miracle.
You're the miracle-working God.
They tried to resolve it in their own way. And of course, it created a mess.
It created a very difficult situation.
In Colossians 1:11 through 12, a very important verse here where Paul says,
"May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might..."
El Shaddai.
His supernatural power.
"...for all endurance and patience, with joy giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled
you to share in the saints' inheritance in the light."
You know the interesting thing here in this situation with Abraham, is that I believe
his motives were right in desiring to fulfill God's promise. But his methods were all wrong.
And it's possible to have a right motive and a wrong method.
And when that method violates God's motives then it's a huge mistake.
I mean, we can have good motives, have a wrong method, correct it.
But boy, this method tied in with a violation of the will of God.
And so it created this situation, taking the matter into his own hands.
And you know, today we still tend to walk out of God's will even though we have the
Word of God.
We have the Holy Spirit.
That's a natural tendency for us even today.
And that's why we need God's power.
We need to know God is El Shaddai.
Principle 7 that grows out of Ephesians says:
In order to live in God's will, both as individuals
and as communities of faith,
[as believers together],
we must not only understand God's power...
It's one thing to talk about it.
You know, you can talk about it.
You can sing about it.
...but we must experience this power.
It must be translated from what we know to what we really, truly believe and act on in
our lives.
And sometimes there's a disconnect isn't there?
And it's so easy to have that disconnect between what we know and what we really, truly believe.
In Ephesians, Paul really expands on the prayer there in Colossians when he says this:
"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father from
whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.
[And I pray] that He may grant you,
according to the riches of His glory,
to be strengthened with power..."
"Dunamis," Greek word from which we get
the word "dynamite," which really is not really
a good metaphor to describe the power of God.
Dynamite is huge. But if you want to say no, an atom bomb rather than dynamite,
you're getting a little closer metaphorically.
Or a hydrogen bomb.
Or a nuclear weapon.
Or an explosion that is beyond anything we can comprehend.
In other words, God's power is beyond measure.
And that's the power that God wants to release in our lives, through faith, and
"... through His Spirit [the Holy Spirit] in the inner man."
And I love this great culmination in Ephesians 3:20 and 21.
It's like Paul comes to this point of exaltation.
He's explaining the power of God and it's as if he just is lifted up with praise when he says,
"Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond
all that we ask or think--according to the
power that works in you--to Him be glory
in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations,
forever and [for] ever. Amen."
And so basically what we're saying here with this principle is: that even in our mistakes,
it gives us an opportunity to grow spiritually and to really experience God's power in our lives.
I don't know about you, but when I'm working things out pretty well myself. When things
are going well. And you have that sense of control.
And it's a good feeling.
But boy, it's so easy to slip from that sense of self-confidence into a real selfish confidence
or a self-centered confidence.
I think there's self-confidence and then I think there is self-centered confidence which
steps over the line. Where we leave God out even though we believe
and we say we need Him.
And we're functioning pretty much on our own.
And we lose that balance.
And God has a way I think, at least in my life, of just allowing something to happen
that reminds me that I'm not in control.
So the question is:
How can we balance dependence on God and at the same time, fulfill our human responsibilities?
Well I think there's a simple, basic answer and that is we've got to be aware of our human
tendencies to go off balance.
I think the tendency, more frequently, is to take matters into our own hands and forget God.
There are those who, by the way, go the other extreme and say: well, God will take care of it.
If this is what God wants, it will happen and I'm not responsible
from a human point of view.
That's the other extreme.
Because God doesn't like irresponsibility in our lives.
We've got to have balance.
I love the story of Nehemiah.
Because when Nehemiah went back to rebuild those walls and God sent him.
And it was a miraculous way in which God sent him.
One of the first things he did was to go out by night, and survey those walls.
For three nights.
Didn't tell anybody why he was there, basically.
Took a couple of guys into his confidence.
But he developed a plan, amazing plan, for rebuilding those walls before he even revealed
it to the people.
And when he revealed it to the people, he said: the mighty hand of God brought me back
here and the mighty hand of God's going to help us rebuild these walls.
But here's how we're going to do it.
And he laid out the plan.
And in the midst of that plan unfolding--when they were attacked from all sides.
When they thought the enemies of Israel were going to come in on them from the north and the south,
the east and the west. It says they never took their clothes off at night.
They were always on guard.
They had a trowel in one hand, a sword in the other, and they were laying bricks and
mortar while they were protecting themselves.
And it says at the same time they were talking to God.
God, we can't do this without You.
And to me, that's one of the most perfect balances of human responsibility and trusting
God in a situation.
Now it varies in terms of keeping that balance, but I think there is a great lesson there.
And the challenge, of course, is to keep that balance there and trust God to help us.
And to see some of these mistakes, and the results of these mistakes, as opportunities.
Not that God ordains the mistakes. But God wants to use the mistakes when we make them.
And He's got a great choice because we all make them, to use those as opportunities for
us to grow spiritually.