Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 17, 2019 | Can I Help? - Failure

Transcript

March 17, 2019 | Can I Help? - Failure · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good morning, Topeka Bible Church.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: Mulvane, Cab Building, and wherever you are watching on your computer.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: We're in a series if you're visiting today.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: It's a series in the book of Isaiah, which has, I think, more words than any book in the Old Testament.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: It's the first of the prophets, it's the greatest of the prophets.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: It's the Romans of the Old Testament.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: And the title of the series is Can I Help?
0:28
SPEAKER_00: You look like you need it.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: That would be a word from God.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: And we've got this Isaiah challenge going on.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: And I invite you into the challenge, even if you're a late comer to it.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: This week we'll be reading chapters 49, 50, 51, and 52.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: That would be four chapters, not five this week.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: And I'll be writing devotionals.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: Today we're going to preach on chapter 49.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: So by the way, how many of you are following along with a reading and you're actually caught up through chapter 48?
1:00
SPEAKER_00: I see some guilt on some of your faces.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: So if you're close to 48, like you at 21 or something.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: All right.
1:08
SPEAKER_00: And we've got devotionals on those, four chapters this week of devotionals.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: I hope you're doing those.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: And uh and uh so anyway, thanks.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: So uh the title this morning is called Failure.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: Caught you there.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: So you can leave right now since none of your failures.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: But uh and I don't want to talk to you about everything that has to do with failure today, not about how we recognize failure when it happens or why we fail or how to avoid failure, all of which are important.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: I want to talk to you about our response to failure, how your parents perhaps responded when you failed, or how you respond, if you have children, to your children's failures, or to the failures of those you love when they disappoint you, or how they respond to your failures, how God responds to your failures.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: Our response to failure, how we how we respond to failure uh matters, and it matters quite a bit.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: Let me uh give you a story to illustrate that.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you a couple stories to illustrate that.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: Let me start out with the story of John.
2:22
SPEAKER_00: You know how when some people come to Christ and sort of slip into the kingdom, they don't create any ripples that, you know, it's hardly, you can hardly tell.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: They slip quietly into the family of God.
2:33
SPEAKER_00: But John was not like that.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: John trusted Christ as his savior when he was a junior at high school.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: And man, he hit the ground running, he was on fire for God, he read the Bible even openly, he had a quiet time, a prayer time.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: He would witness to his friends in high school.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: He just really took to the whole, you know, uh Christianity thing.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: And and he prayed, and I love the way his prayers were just so honest.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: They were sort of impromptu.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: It was like, God, this is uh John, it's me again.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: Remember, I'm the one who became a Christian last month, and I'm really happy about all that, and it's been the greatest month of my life.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: And and so he prayed like that.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: After he graduated from high school, John uh got accepted to the police academy.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: And from the moment he joined the police academy, his faith was public.
3:20
SPEAKER_00: He'd read his Bible in public and he let him know he was a Christian, and he would, you know, back away when they were telling the dirty jokes and so forth, and as a result, you know, they started calling him, you know, you know, a religious nut, you know.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: And they'd leave him out of some of their social stuff.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: And then one of the guys who really hated that part of him started blaming him to their bust, you know, for things that he hadn't done.
3:49
SPEAKER_00: And initially John's, you know, thought about that was well, he's you know, you've persecuted for the sake of Christ.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said that, you know, men will revile you, they'll curse you, and all manner of things about you for my sake, and great will be your reward in heaven, and so forth.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: And uh the problem is that Jim.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: How do I say this?
4:11
SPEAKER_00: You know, whenever you're in a group of people, there's always one who's at the top of the heap, like in school or police academy or anywhere, and there's always one who's at the bottom.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: The problem was that John was at the bottom.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: You know, whether it was the examinations, the tests, the written tests, or whether it was actually, you know, even out in the field, the athletic things and so forth, he was close to the bottom, and and he didn't have a great, you know, one of those great personalities anyway, that would win people to him.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: And so he went to Christian counselor, I know, and um he um he he would just say, you know, I I I I would like to be sure that the reason people are rejecting my witness for Christ is because they're rejecting Christ, but I feel like maybe they're rejecting Christ because they're rejecting me.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, really, look at me, who would want to be me anyway?
5:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm uh average at best in intelligence, in appearance, and personality.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I to be honest, I just feel like uh I feel like a failure.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: And a year later he took his life.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: It was shocking to everybody who knew him.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: But you know, when you feel as though you're a failure, and feel as though you have no hope of success in your life, both in your life and as a Christian.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: And there are thousands of people like John.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: There's there's Beth, for instance.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: Now, Beth's failure, her story of failure really can be traced back to one event, one hasty decision, one quick decision that maybe she made it because all her friends were getting married.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: She was 10 years old, Beth was, when she trusted Christ as her savior, and about a dozen years later, she met an executive, and he was a Christian, he seemed like a nice guy, and maybe, you know, it was because all of her friends were getting married.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: She rushed into it a little hastily, but she was sure this must be God's will, and God would take care of him, and it would be wonderful, and so forth.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: But almost from the beginning, she realized she'd married a guy who was it was all about himself, you know, and he lost his temper so easily, and she could never do anything right.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: He was critical of her, and he would even demean her in public.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: I know it sounds like I'm dumping on him, but this is the true truth, guys.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: Because when he had children, he would do the same thing to them.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: He would judge them harshly, judge them too quickly, judge them without knowing, and punish them.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: And as a result, as teenagers, they have rebelled against God and their parents, still trying to find themselves.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: And Beth, you can imagine how she feels.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: She feels like an abject failure.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, when she was young, she used to play piano and she used to sing, she used to be involved in church ministries and so forth, not anymore, because he's, you know, he's got to be in control.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: And she doesn't see any light at the end of the tunnel.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: And she goes, Man, I just feel like I've failed.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it all goes back to a bad decision I made, but I don't see any future.
7:01
SPEAKER_00: I don't see any hope.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you about one of my favorite couples.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: I will call them Lee and Lana.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I've ever seen a couple who are more naturally gifted for the mission field.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: When they decided to become missionaries as a doctor, he was a doctor, she's a teacher.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: I thought, wow, this is just a marriage made in heaven.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: This is gonna be amazing.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna set the mission world on fire.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: They got accepted, they went to the training, they went over to an Asian country which really needed a doctor, really needed a teacher.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: But almost from the very beginning in this country, in their country, the letters I was getting from them, the personal letters, not the of course the form letters, but I mean, we're like, and they were having such trouble adjusting.
7:41
SPEAKER_00: She couldn't adjust to the culture, he couldn't adjust to the other missionaries they were thrown in with, and they tried, they persevered, they worked at it one year, two years, three years, four years, and finally, absolutely broken emotionally, just broken psychologically, they finally just threw in the towel, they came home.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, he's back to being a doctor, but you know, and and and they stay going to church and so forth.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, people will come up to they're in another part of the country now, and another people come up to them, wow, so excited when you went over to such such a country and so forth, but you're home.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: What's the deal?
8:14
SPEAKER_00: I haven't kept up on you.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: And their reply is always, well, we uh you know, we're home for health reasons.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: But to their closest friends, they just say, in two words, we failed.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: We just failed.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: And I I doubt that there's any of us that has absolutely no idea what that's like.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: We know what it's like to fail.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: We know some of us couldn't get a job out of college, some of us were fired from our first good job, some of us have been rejected by every of one of the schools that we wanted to get into, whether it was a PA school or business school or a med school or whatever, law school.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: Some of us have tried repeatedly, applied for the job we really want, and we just simply can't do it.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: Or some of you have been parents, you know, and now your parenting that stage sort of seems to be over, but you had a couple of children, you were you so excited about raising them to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and their neighbor as themselves, be contributing citizens, you know, in the world and our country and merciful and everything, and then but you're both your kids took a took a turn left.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they both left God, you have no idea.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: You thought you did a good job, you thought you tried, and you feel you feel like a failure.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: Some of you who are coaches and teachers feel the same way because you're not just a coach or a teacher, you're a Christian coach and a Christian teacher, and you're all about not just winning games, not just about, you know, teaching, dumping knowledge into your kids' heads, you're trying to develop character.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: You really are, and and when the kids come over to your home, you're looking forward to moving them closer to Jesus Christ.
9:48
SPEAKER_00: And some of you feel like failures, depending on the year you have, depending on the kids.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: And you begin to wonder after a while, is my legacy, is the legacy of my life going to be failure?
10:00
SPEAKER_00: Is my last thought before I die going to be, well, God gave me some great opportunities?
10:05
SPEAKER_00: But I struck out.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: I was a failure.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: Somebody could come up to you and they could say, Wow, look at the failures in the Bible, though.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: You know, Adam and Eve were failures at the progenitor at the starting the human race thing, and Isaac was a failure as a dad.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: Just look at Jacob and Esau, and Jonah was a failure, and Jeremiah and Ezekiel, they were failures they were told to be witnesses and to, you know, bring Israel back to God.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: That didn't work out very well.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: And David, wow, what a failure he was as a dad and as a husband and as a king.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: And Saul and Samson, failures as leaders, and you get to the New Testament, and there's Peter, oh my goodness, what a failure he was as a leader of the disciples.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: They try to encourage you with that.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm here today to tell you that the greatest failure story of all, the one that affects you the most, the most significant failure story in the whole Bible, is the least known of all failure stories, and yet it's the one that is most significant to you personally, that affects your life today more than any other.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: And I say that because it's not the story of Jonah or Jeremiah.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: It's the story of Jesus, it's the story of the greatest person who has ever lived.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: And you say, blasphemy, go ahead and cry it out, blasphemy.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've read the Gospels and Jesus is sinless.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: Jesus never failed.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing saying he's failed?
11:21
SPEAKER_00: And I say, sorry.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not in the Gospels, it's in the book of Isaiah.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: And the words come from the lips of the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: Let me show them to you in one of the greatest passages you'll ever see, even though it's a passage you may not know.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: All right?
11:39
SPEAKER_00: So that passage is actually from Isaiah chapter 49, and we have a two-minute seminary moment here where I give you a picture of the last 27 chapters of the book of Isaiah, okay?
11:49
SPEAKER_00: The last 27 chapters are right here, Isaiah 40 through 66.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: It's the second book of Isaiah, second half, because it's so different from the first 39 chapters.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: And it divides into three parts, nine chapters each, 40 to 48, 49 to 57, 58 to 66.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: And in each of these you have amazing prophecies.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: In the section of Isaiah we just finished, 40 to 48, they're what I call near prophecies.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: He is prophesying about something that will happen 150 years in the future.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he is.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah is doing that, and he is prophesying to the exiles in Babylon, 150 years in the future, that a man named Cyrus is going to come along and liberate them.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: And he's going to liberate them from their captivity to Babylon.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: And it even named Cyrus twice.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: It's just unbelievable.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: Then in 539 BC, which is actually about 170 years, 160 years ahead of time, this guy Cyrus the Persian is going to come, the general.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: We told the story last week of how he damned up, he diverted the waters of the upper Euphrates, marched his army in underneath the walls, and conquered Belshazzar and the rest of them.
12:58
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
12:58
SPEAKER_00: And that's the amazing prophecy in 40 to 48.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: In 49 through 57, which we're going to tackle today, next week, and the week after, we have distant prophecy where Isaiah suddenly is prophesying about something that's going to happen 700 years in the future, in about 30 A.D.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: He's going to prophesy about, and I'll just put the key at the front door here, tell you without having to prove it, that he's prophesying about Jesus, the suffering servant.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: There's a servant mentioned in this part of the book.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: He's never identified.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: His name isn't given.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: He's anonymous.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: The anonymous servant, I'm telling you, it's the Lord Jesus Christ.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: So he's prophesying about that.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: And then in chapters 58 through 66, a remote prophecy, 2,700 years in the future.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: It was 2,719 years ago, actually, that he prophesied this, but it hasn't happened yet.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: And that's when Jesus returns as the glorious king.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: And that's the last nine chapters.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: All right, there's your seminary moment.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: It's over.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: And quit copying this down.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: I see some of you going frantic.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: I'll send you, if you just text me, I'll send it to you.
13:59
SPEAKER_00: So there are four servant prophecies.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: Every scholar knows this.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: A lot of Christians don't.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: You should.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: There are four prophecies about the Lord Jesus Christ, the coming servant, in chapters 40 to 66.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: They are in order.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 42, 49, 50, and 53.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: There's some of the most remarkable passages of Scripture you will ever read because they are prophecies about the anonymous or the suffering servant that's coming in 700 years.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: We're going to take the second one of those this morning.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: The third one next week.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: The fourth one, the week following.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: They're that amazing.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's just start right out here to tell you the story of failure, the most unbelievable, significant story that's the least known.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: Coasts and islands, and guess what?
14:44
SPEAKER_00: The servant himself is speaking.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: That's how cool this is.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: All right?
14:48
SPEAKER_00: It's not God speaking, not Isaiah.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: We're quoting this future servant, whoever he is, telling you it's the Lord Jesus Christ.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: Coasts and islands, listen to me, distant peoples, pay attention.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: Who's he talking about here?
15:03
SPEAKER_00: Well, he's not.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: So this is stunning that he's not just not, he's not writing to the Jews or to Israel.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: He's actually writing to the people in Topeka, Kansas, because the words coasts and islands, distant peoples, then meant the farthest away people we can think of who live on the coasts that we haven't even explored yet, way over there in what would future be, you know, United States of America.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: So he's actually addressing us, which is really surprising in the Old Testament, to ever address Gentiles, to ever address people who live in, you know, America or South America, whatever.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: So, who is it talking?
15:39
SPEAKER_00: The Lord called me before I was born, says this servant.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: He named me while I was in my mother's womb.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: Right?
15:47
SPEAKER_00: So the two choices of the servant, nation Israel or an individual Messiah.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: Notice how personal this is.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: The Lord called me before I was born.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: Before I was born, sounds like Jeremiah.
16:00
SPEAKER_00: When I was in my mother's womb, he named me.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: Notice here just a second.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: For those of you that know the story of Jesus, he had a mother whose name was Mary, who was his father.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: His father was God.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: Now, in Israel's day, either the dad or the mom named a child.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
16:23
SPEAKER_00: Who gets to name, who named him?
16:26
SPEAKER_00: The answer, it was the Lord.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't Joseph, it was the Lord, right?
16:32
SPEAKER_00: And that literally happened.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: And notice only the mother is mentioned on earth.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: So the first thing this servant says is, I was called.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: I was called and named.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: It's very personal.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: I was called personally and lovingly.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: That's what naming is when you name someone.
16:53
SPEAKER_00: And I was called sovereign, sovereignly before I was even born.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: It happened by the sovereign God, and it was personal and loving.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: I was called.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: And we find that this really happened.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: The angel Gabriel came and told Joseph, you shall call his name Jesus.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: Just wanted to make sure, Joseph, that you don't call him Bob, that you don't call him Rasputin, that you don't call him something really cool and suave.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: You got to call his name Jesus.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: The Lord named me when I was still in my mother's womb.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: All right?
17:21
SPEAKER_00: And that was fulfilled in the life of Jesus.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: The second thing that happens in verse 2, he made my words like a sharp sword, he hid me in the shadow of his hand.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: He made me like a sharpened arrow, he hid me in his quiver.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: What is the Lord Jesus saying here?
17:39
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, secondly, that he prepared me and he gifted me for a speaking ministry.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: He made my words penetrating and incisive and cutting and, you know, nailing the heart, nailing the conscience.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: He made me like a sharpened arrow so that what I said, you know, zoomed away from me like an arrow and just penetrated people's hearts.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: He prepared me for a speaking ministry.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: I was prepared.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: I was gifted, and you find that that was really true with the Lord Jesus, wasn't it?
18:13
SPEAKER_00: He spoke to a demon-possessed man in Matthew chapter 8, and what happened?
18:17
SPEAKER_00: Nobody else could get that demon out, but his word was like a sword, and it just dove in there and it just dug that demon right out of that man.
18:26
SPEAKER_00: Or then he spoke in Matthew chapter 9 to a group of people, and his words cut them to the quick.
18:31
SPEAKER_00: And in chapter 10, he said to one of the worst people of all the Jewish race, Zacchaeus, the tax collector, who was ripping off his fellow countrymen, he said, Follow me.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: And that word went up into the tree like a sword, and it nailed him, and it brought Zacchaeus down, and he went to his house.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: Yes, the Lord Jesus Christ was prepared and he was gifted with a speaking ministry that was penetrating and incisive to the heart and to the conscience, because the word of God is alive and active and it's sharper than any double-edged sword.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: And in the second half, so this is A, B, C, D.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: So the A and C parts of 49, 2 tell us that he was prepared or gifted.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: The B and the D parts tell us that at the same time he was being prepared, he was being concealed.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: He hid me in the shadow of his hand.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: He hid me in his quiver.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: What's this talking about?
19:30
SPEAKER_00: It's saying he was concealed during this part of his life.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: He was not involved publicly.
19:36
SPEAKER_00: People didn't know about him during this time of his life.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: Sort of like what K-State and KU's coaches are doing right now.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: Their practices are not open to the public for the next three days.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: But they are preparing their teams for the climax of the year, which is the NCAA tournament.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: And they're telling their teams that if they can just win the next six games, then they will be crowned the national champion.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: Don't hold your breath.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, little faith.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: I can hear it now.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, okay.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: So I I did this bracket with dozens of people.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: If you want to send in a bracket that picks KU or K-State all the way, I welcome you.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: So that'll be great.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: That's all extra.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: Why did I say that?
20:21
SPEAKER_00: So um anyway.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: So oh wait, but listen, listen, it's like parents.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: If you're parents and you have children between the ages of one, two, three, four, five before their kindergarten.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: Are they public?
20:32
SPEAKER_00: Not really.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: They're not in kindergarten, they're not public in school.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: What you're doing is you're preparing them.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: You're teaching them how to treat other kindergartners when they get in.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: They're teaching them not to throw their peas or forks or whatever to write on the walls, and you're also preparing them maybe by teaching them phonics, and while they are with you, they are concealed and they are protected, and you are preparing them, right?
20:53
SPEAKER_00: For when they get out in public.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: Now, how long was this concealment and preparation period for the Lord Jesus Christ?
21:02
SPEAKER_00: Answer about 30 years, wasn't it?
21:06
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus Christ was prepared.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: He learned obedience by the things that he suffered.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: He was prepared in the carpenter's shop, he learned hard work, he learned all sorts of things.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: And during this period of time when the Lord Jesus Christ was growing up in the carpenter's shop, what was happening to him?
21:22
SPEAKER_00: We learned, Luke chapter 2, that he was growing in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: And he was this speaking ministry, his speaking gifts were being honed and being sharpened.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: That's how he was going to reach the world.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: Alexander the Great was going to conquer the world with a sword.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus Christ has conquered the world, not with military might, but with words.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: That was why he was being prepared at the same time he was being concealed.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: And verse 3, we get to it number four.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: He said to me, You are my servant Israel, in whom I will be glorified.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: There's several moving parts here.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: You're my servant.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: This is why these are called the anonymous servant or the suffering servant passages, the servant prophecies, or the servant oracles, or the servant songs.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you start Googling this stuff, you can Google any of these things.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: They're called servant songs, maybe most commonly, sometimes servant oracles.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: Servant is what?
22:21
SPEAKER_00: Servant is a person who has a task to achieve for his master, right?
22:27
SPEAKER_00: And the task he's supposed to achieve involves glorifying his master, which is really interesting, since when does a master ever ask his servant or his slave to bring more glory and honor to him?
22:40
SPEAKER_00: But that's what's happening here, because this ain't no normal servant, right?
22:44
SPEAKER_00: And he said to me, You are my servant Israel in whom I'll be glorified.
22:48
SPEAKER_00: So having told us that he was called, having told us that he was prepared or gifted, having told us that he was concealed while he was being prepared, he now says, I was commissioned, I was sent.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: The Father, his master, sent him to go do a job, right?
23:06
SPEAKER_00: And what was that job?
23:08
SPEAKER_00: To do what?
23:09
SPEAKER_00: Why was he being sent?
23:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, we can look two verses later.
23:13
SPEAKER_00: This is cheating, but we can find out what his job was, what the Lord Jesus Christ was sent to do.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: Get this, this is very important.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: The Lord formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob, it's a title for Israel, to bring Jacob back to him so that Israel might be gathered to him.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: The servant was sent with a task to bring Israel back to God.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: He didn't come for you.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: That was not his main task.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't sent for you.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: And for me, if you're Jewish, he was sent for Israel, to bring Israel back to God.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: So what the Lord Jesus is saying here is, I was sent to bring God glory, right?
23:58
SPEAKER_00: By bringing Israel, his chosen people, back to him.
24:03
SPEAKER_00: That was my job.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: And that's why when Gabriel came to Joseph, and Gabriel said, You shall call his name Jesus, his next words were, for he will save his people from their sins.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: That's why Jesus came.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: He didn't come for you, didn't come for me.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: He came to save his people, Israel, from their sins.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: That was his mission.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: That was his job.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: That's why he was called, that's why he was gifted, that's why he was concealed and sent to bring Israel back to him, back to God.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: So there we go.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has his mission.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: He understands his mission, by the way.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: He gets two titles here.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: Let's ask this question.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: You're my servant, Israel.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: Even today, the rabbis will tell you that the servant here isn't the Messiah, because it looks so much like Jesus.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: No, the servant is really the nation Israel.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: And then you go, wow, uh-huh, called, named, womb, and you're supposed to, whoever the servant is, is going to bring Israel back to God, and so Israel's gonna bring Israel back to God.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: You see how silly that gets after a while.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: This is an individual person, this servant, this anonymous servant, who we can tell as we add up these four servant songs, actually is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ, our Messiah.
25:23
SPEAKER_00: So why is he called Israel?
25:25
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is Jesus is called Israel for the same reason that at times he was also called David, he's also called Jacob.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: It is a title, sort of like Uncle Sam stands for America.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: Jesus stands for Israel.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: He's the ideal, he is the representative, he is the essential Israel.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: The way that we could say perhaps Abe Lincoln or George Washington is the essential America.
25:50
SPEAKER_00: All right?
25:50
SPEAKER_00: So these are two titles.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: This does not mean that the nation Israel is being spoken of here.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: It's the individual person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: And now we come to the turning point of the passage in verse 4 with the word but.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: But I myself said, so this is the servant talking to his father, talking to God, talking to his master.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: He says, I have labored in vain.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: I've spent my strength for nothing and futility.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: Notice, I have labored.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: So this is speaking about a time in Jesus' ministry after a couple years, shall we say, when he had given it all he had to win Israel.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: He had done those miracles.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: He had gone to the house of Jacob and he had spoken to them, his penetrating words.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: He had done his best to bring them back to God.
26:40
SPEAKER_00: And what does he say about it?
26:43
SPEAKER_00: He says it was vain.
26:44
SPEAKER_00: It was nothing, it was futility.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: He piles up the words for failure here.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: It was vain.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: That is, if you've studied Ecclesiastes, it was emptiness.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I worked hard and so forth.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: I held out my hand at the end, and I really hadn't won hardly anybody to Christ.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: And some of you know what this is like.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have had a speaking ministry, a Christian ministry.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: Either teaching a Sunday school class, maybe you've tried to witness to your family or witness to your friends, maybe you've been a missionary, and you ended up feeling like a total failure because no one in your family or among your friends trusted Christ, despite how well you prepared and how well you tried to speak, or maybe in your teaching nobody comes, right?
27:25
SPEAKER_00: Every one of us who is a pastor, I can tell you feels like an abject failure at times.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, when more than a third of you are asleep on a morning, I know, you know, that's and what we do is we all tell ourselves, we all quote, well, his word shall not return to him void.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: Oh, give me a break.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: So that's only if he's speaking his word, okay?
27:45
SPEAKER_00: That's really the truth.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes, of course, people can speak the word of God to emptiness, even our Lord Jesus Christ.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: I've labored in vain, I've spent my strength for nothing in futility.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: I take it that a couple of years into his ministry, the Lord Jesus Christ felt like an utter failure, and this is a prayer, this is a discussion he had with his father on one of those mornings when he went up into the hills and he prayed to his father.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I think I can point in the Gospels, in the four Gospels, to the exact point when this happened at every time, because in the first three Gospels, they're called the synoptics because they have the same optic, they look the same.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: You get to chapter 12 of Matthew, chapter 6, and Mark, chapter 9 in Luke.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: And what happens is that the Lord Jesus Christ has done everything he could do.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: He's done the miracles, he's done the teaching, he's used the sharp sword of his tongue, and he's done some incredible stuff.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, in all three of those gospels, basically, he's got Israelites, some Israelis who are following him, but the religious leaders as a whole, at that point, say, you know what, we don't buy anything you do at all.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: From now on, it's all happening by the power of Beelzebub.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: You're doing it by the devil.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: And in fact, in the fourth gospel, it's very similar.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 8, what he does is he does this miraculous healing of the blind man's eyes, and the blind man starts telling everybody about it, and the Pharisees unload on him, and then they tell this guy, Jesus is doing this by the power of the devil.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: He's demon-possessed.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: And at that point, Jesus says, You've just committed the unpardonable sin.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: You've locked yourself up into unbelief.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: We worry about whether we commit it.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: If you're worried about committing it, trust Jesus as your Savior.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: You won't have committed it because it's the sin of unrepentant unbelief.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: And at those points, Jesus says, it's too late.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: And then the next lines are basically, and from that point on, Jesus turned from Israel and he began to tell everything in parables to conceal it from these religious leaders.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: It's at that point, I believe, that Jesus had said to his father, listen, I've done my best, but I feel like an abject failure.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: I just I just feel like I can't succeed at this.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: And I've blown it.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've I've found this as I was, I this was a passage, by the way, these six verses I devoted hundreds of hours to in advanced Hebrew and seminary.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: This was the passage for some reason I chose.
30:14
SPEAKER_00: I could not believe what I was reading when I read this passage and read the statement of failure by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, a statement of failure that I personally knew I had experienced, both as an evangelist in high school, a total failure in so many parts of my life, and you've felt the same thing in yours, haven't you?
30:35
SPEAKER_00: At times felt like a failure in your life?
30:41
SPEAKER_00: So many good people have.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: You've heard of A.W.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: Tozer?
30:45
SPEAKER_00: You like him at all?
30:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, he wrote constantly in his personal journal, using the word failure, feeling like a total failure.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: Somebody who lived just a few years before him, Dwight Moody had really did fail.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: Dwight Moody was a great man of God.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: Started Moody Bible Institute, had crowds of 10,000 anytime he would speak, and yet D.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: L.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: Moody had a temper.
31:07
SPEAKER_00: And one day he got so mad at a guy, he hauled off and he slugged him.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: At the top of the steps, the man fell down the steps.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: It became a cause celeb in Chicago.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: D.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: L.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: Moody had to apologize on the pages of the Chicago Tribune and apologize in public before thousands upon thousands of people.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: It hurt his ministry for a while.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: You know what's even worse?
31:28
SPEAKER_00: Alexander White, maybe the greatest preacher that Scotland has ever produced just before D.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: L.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: Moody.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: Alexander the White.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: Alexander White totally blew it.
31:38
SPEAKER_00: He was this soft-hearted man, he's a sweet man.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: His sermons are just great.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: It's just fun to read his sermons.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: You can look up one online and read it, you know.
31:45
SPEAKER_00: Though the Scottish part is no good.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, um, so uh, no, yeah, I can't read that stuff.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so Alexander the White.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: So a guy, a guy comes in, an Eastern guy comes in.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: He comes into Scotland.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: The guy is from the Baha'i religion.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: Baha'i religion, for those of you that don't know, is sort of like the Unitarianism of Eastern religions.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: In other words, uh, peace, joy, love, everybody's fine.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's getting there, which to Baha'is isn't heaven.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: It's who knows.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, this guy came in, he's really sweet.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: He appealed to Alexander White.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: Alexander White brings him into his home and he keeps him there, and he begins to sponsor in public, and he says, this guy, what he says is just right, and so forth, and all these other preachers and theologians and so forth, come to Alexander White.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: So go, Alexander, we love you, man.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, this is crazy.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: Here's the Bible, here's the Baha'i religion.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: Where is the connection between these two?
32:31
SPEAKER_00: And Alexander White's eyes were open.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Oh my goodness.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: And now he was publicly humiliated, his ministry was in shambles for a little while.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we don't ever think about him that way again, but here's a guy who, here's a guy called of God, who failed.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: And we have a story here about the greatest person who ever lived, who said, God, Father, Master, I have failed in the job that you gave me to do.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: I labored in vain, I spent my strength for nothing and futility, and yet, notice how he ends his statement to his father, and yet my vindication is with the Lord, and my reward is with my God.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: Or I could put it in my own words, when he failed, Jesus trusted God, knowing, get this, that it is better to fail in a cause that will ultimately succeed, than to succeed in a cause that will ultimately fail.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: For the Lord Jesus Christ knew that the mission to Israel would ultimately succeed, that as Isaiah says, and Paul quoted in Romans 11, that one day all Israel will be saved.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: It's just that Jesus is saying, I failed at it.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: It was my task, it was my job, and I failed, but I trust you.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: I trust you, God.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: And now we come to the most astounding part of this, the last two verses.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: And now says the Lord, so here's the response from his from the master back to the Messiah, Lord Jesus, says the Lord, who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, so that Israel might be gathered to him, for I am honored in the sight of the Lord.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: In other words, he's not throwing me in the trash.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: My God is my strength.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: Here it comes.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: He says, It is not enough for you to be my servant, raising up the tribes of Jacob and restoring the protected ones of Israel.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: I will also make you a light for the nations to be my salvation to the ends of the earth.
34:35
SPEAKER_00: Let's take a closer look at that.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: What God said to the servant, the Lord Jesus, was you know what?
34:43
SPEAKER_00: The job I gave you was actually too small.
34:45
SPEAKER_00: The one you failed at, that's just too small a job.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: It's not enough for you to be my servant, raising up the tribes of Jacob, destroying the protected ones of Israel.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
34:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna recommission you and give you a bigger job.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: I will also make you a light for the nations to be my salvation to the ends of the earth.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: Why are you sitting here this morning?
35:10
SPEAKER_00: Why am I here this morning?
35:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm not Jewish, I'm not Israel.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: It's because Jesus failed at his job, and when God responded to his failure, he responded with extending his responsibility.
35:27
SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't know about you, but I was not really good at this as a father.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: When my children failed, disappointed me.
35:37
SPEAKER_00: My tendency was to respond in three ways.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: Actually, I didn't.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: I was perfect.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: But this other person I'm thinking of would respond with anger, criticism, and punishment.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: I'll say those words really quickly because they're embarrassing.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: Anger, criticism, and punishment.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: Anger, you have embarrassed me in public.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: Criticism.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: I can't believe you did that.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: Punishment.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna limit your opportunities in the future, because if you failed at uh, you know, this thing, uh, you know, which is a 10, I'm gonna have to cut you down to a four or five so that you don't want to embarrass me as much if you fail at the next thing.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
36:12
SPEAKER_00: And here we find God's response to failure.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: I was studying this, I couldn't even breathe.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: I was so shocked.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: As I am going through these Hebrew words letter by letter, and I'm going, oh my goodness, God the Father's response to failure is not anger, criticism, punishment.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: His response to failure is understanding forgiveness and recommission.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: Understanding forgiveness and recommission.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: He gives him an even bigger job.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: I I've got to tell you, I could not believe what I was seeing.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: And the implications of this for Jesus, of course, were huge.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: And so that's why, and this is the sixth and final point, the servant says, I was sent again with a bigger mission.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: I was sent again with a bigger mission.
37:09
SPEAKER_00: So, what do we learn from this?
37:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, of course, I have some lessons.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: I have three lessons.
37:13
SPEAKER_00: Okay, listen, here's the first one.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: You may have failed, but God's not done with you.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: You know the big problem, the danger when we failed?
37:23
SPEAKER_00: C.S.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: Lewis pointed this out in screw tape letters.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: The big danger when we fail is we focus on the failure and we decide that we are failures.
37:31
SPEAKER_00: Right?
37:32
SPEAKER_00: We sort of internalize it.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: I am a failure.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: Rather than I failed at that thing, I am a failure.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: That's why John took his life.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: Right?
37:44
SPEAKER_00: We somehow think that we are completely off, you know, in the trash or or on the higher shelf.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: He puts us aside.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: He's done with us because after all, why would God want to use a failure?
37:59
SPEAKER_00: I was talking with a guy in Tucson actually yesterday morning.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: He's a basketball coach in Missouri, actually.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: His name's Luke, and he's a good basketball coach.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: Coaches in a middle-sized school, 3A, and so forth.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: And he's usually a really good coach.
38:15
SPEAKER_00: He has an ability to take normal, average athletes and to bring the most out of them, and he's usually done really well.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: But he said, Jim, this is the worst year of my life.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely horrendous year.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: I nearly gave up halfway through the year.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: Really?
38:28
SPEAKER_00: Tell me about it.
38:29
SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, I'll tell you about the lowest point.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: We'd only won four games all year.
38:33
SPEAKER_00: I had a couple of guys on my team this year who were talking about quitting.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: And he said, and then my former assistant came into my own high school with his team in mid-January and beat us by 30 points.
38:49
SPEAKER_00: He says, I didn't know what to do.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: I went home, he says, Well, I got a wonderful wife, but she knows she can't really help me at times like this because she's tried.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: She says things like, Oh, you're a good coach and you're so nice, but she doesn't know basketball, she's not an athlete or whatever.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: And so he said, I went, Thank you, and so forth.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: But he said, you know what?
39:06
SPEAKER_00: She went into the bedroom.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what she was doing.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: She was in there crying and she was praying for me.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: She said, Lord, I've never seen my husband so low.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: I need you to do something.
39:18
SPEAKER_00: I need you to help him.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: I need you to encourage him in a way I can't.
39:22
SPEAKER_00: And he said the phone rang.
39:25
SPEAKER_00: Because my assistant coach had just spanked me that night.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: And he said, How are you doing?
39:31
SPEAKER_00: I said, Not very good.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: He said he could tell I was at the end of my rope.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: I told him I had a couple players were thinking about quitting.
39:41
SPEAKER_00: I didn't see any future for the team.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what to do.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: And he said, you know, we talked for an hour.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Luke, he says, everything I know about coaching, I learned from you.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: He said, Remember, I I was with you there just two years ago.
39:55
SPEAKER_00: These were the very players that we had coming up, and we said, Man, their ceilings seemed pretty low.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: He said, You've brought the most out of these kids.
40:03
SPEAKER_00: And he said, We talked for an hour.
40:04
SPEAKER_00: He said, I don't know what happened, but the Lord used him, Luke told me.
40:08
SPEAKER_00: His tears were filling his eyes.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: I said, The Lord used him.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: And he says, you know, by the end of that talk, I can't tell you.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: I was just like a new person.
40:15
SPEAKER_00: I felt as though I could start over.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: I was re-energized.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: He said, I'm not telling you whether we ever became a good team.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: He said, one of those players did quit the very next morning.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: But he said, Yeah, we won more games, though, the rest of the year than we should have ever won.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: And he said, you know, the players ended up with good attitudes.
40:32
SPEAKER_00: And he said, but I was utterly and totally energized because of that one phone call.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, you may have failed.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: You may legitimately really have failed at something God called you to do.
40:48
SPEAKER_00: But take it by faith, God's not done with you.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: He isn't.
40:52
SPEAKER_00: And the second point is that while you may have failed, but God's not done with you, he's going to give you another task.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: He may give you an even bigger assignment.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: He did that for Peter, you know.
41:05
SPEAKER_00: Peter, what a failure Peter was.
41:07
SPEAKER_00: Peter goes, Lord, I'll follow you anywhere.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you die, I will die with you, and so forth.
41:12
SPEAKER_00: But then Jesus just goes on trial.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: Peter denies Christ.
41:16
SPEAKER_00: Here's the cockroom.
41:17
SPEAKER_00: Remember the rooster crows, and Peter is absolutely devastated, and he goes back.
41:22
SPEAKER_00: And that's why on resurrection morning, Peter's sitting at the back of the room.
41:26
SPEAKER_00: He's not at the tomb.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: When the women come back to report to the disciples that an angel has said that Jesus is risen, I'm thinking I know what Peter's thinking.
41:34
SPEAKER_00: He's thinking, wow, uh, you said uh if someone denies you before men, you will deny them before your father in heaven.
41:42
SPEAKER_00: You said that.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: Wow, I'm done for.
41:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm a failure.
41:46
SPEAKER_00: I have absolutely no hope.
41:48
SPEAKER_00: My career is over, my ministry is over.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: And then, can you imagine how he felt when the words that came out of the girl, the women's mouths where we came back from the tomb and an angel spoke this?
41:59
SPEAKER_00: What'd the angel say?
42:00
SPEAKER_00: The angel said, Go tell the disciples and Peter that I've risen from the dead.
42:09
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine?
42:10
SPEAKER_00: You know, the neck lash, the whiplash that Peter got as his head went up and he thought, What?
42:18
SPEAKER_00: God's not done with me?
42:20
SPEAKER_00: God actually is gonna give me another chance, and sure enough, just a few days later by the Sea of Galilee, Jesus says, Let's take a walk around the sea, and he recommissions him, says, Feed my lamb, feed my sheep, makes him the leader of all the disciples in the early ministry.
42:37
SPEAKER_00: God will give you another task.
42:39
SPEAKER_00: He may give you an even bigger assignment.
42:45
SPEAKER_00: I won't tell you who the couple is.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of couples in fertile who have trouble having children, you know, at our church.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: This couple tried and they tried and they tried, I they tried year after year after year, and they went through all of the rigmarole and they tried so hard and they couldn't do anything about it, and finally they gave up and they decided that they would adopt.
43:04
SPEAKER_00: So they went to an adoption, filled out the paperwork, did the home study and everything, went through all of that stuff, and then all of a sudden, here you go.
43:11
SPEAKER_00: Here's another year, here's another two years, and they're not getting a phone call.
43:14
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, what?
43:16
SPEAKER_00: We got married thinking we were gonna raise up a future generation to advance the kingdom of God, to honor Him by being good parents and so forth.
43:23
SPEAKER_00: Wow, what's going on here?
43:24
SPEAKER_00: And their world's getting darker and darker, and all of a sudden, light shone in the darkness.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: She got pregnant, and they were so happy, they were on top of the moon, they were shouting to all their friends.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: We're just so thrilled, and we all praise the Lord with them.
43:40
SPEAKER_00: Of course, they were praying at the same time, Lord, please keep this baby safe, please keep this baby safe.
43:46
SPEAKER_00: And one day at work, he gets a phone call, and it's his wife, and she's sobbing on the phone, and he knows what she's gonna say, and she says it.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: She says, uh, honey, we lost the baby.
43:58
SPEAKER_00: I miscarried this morning.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: He goes home and all they can do is hold each other and cry.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: While they're holding each other and crying, the phone rings.
44:11
SPEAKER_00: And the voice on the other end says, This is the adoption agency.
44:15
SPEAKER_00: I know it's all of a sudden we have a baby for you.
44:21
SPEAKER_00: The guy's sobbing as he says to me, you know, that for us is the greatest sign that God hadn't put us on the shelf.
44:29
SPEAKER_00: Happening the same moment we found out we lost the baby.
44:34
SPEAKER_00: That's the way God works.
44:37
SPEAKER_00: You think you're at the end of your rope, you think God doesn't care.
44:39
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
44:40
SPEAKER_00: If you'll hang in there, and that's the third point, if you'll hang in there, he'll give you another task.
44:46
SPEAKER_00: He may even give you a bigger assignment.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: So never, ever, ever throw in the towel.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: Get back in the ring again.
44:51
SPEAKER_00: Say, Lord, send me.
44:52
SPEAKER_00: I'm willing.
44:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I did blow it.
44:56
SPEAKER_00: I did fail you, but I'll trust you if you want to use me again.
45:03
SPEAKER_00: And God says, No, I haven't given up on you.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: I got another assignment for you.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you should make your favorite verse, that one from Proverbs 24, verse 16.
45:15
SPEAKER_00: Though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises.
45:21
SPEAKER_00: She rises again.
45:27
SPEAKER_00: Let me repeat those three lessons really quickly and then pray and let Jeremiah summarize this all with a song.
45:33
SPEAKER_00: You may have failed.
45:34
SPEAKER_00: You may.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: But God is not done with you.
45:39
SPEAKER_00: God will give you another task.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: He may even give you a bigger assignment, so never throw in the towel.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: Get back in the ring again and say, Lord, send me.
45:50
SPEAKER_00: Will you do that?
45:52
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
45:56
SPEAKER_00: Our father, like the servant, we come to you and we say, uh, thank you for giving us an opportunity.
46:04
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for trusting us with that.
46:06
SPEAKER_00: But frankly, we laid an egg, we uh didn't pull it off.
46:14
SPEAKER_00: We couldn't lead him, we couldn't lead our friends to salvation.
46:20
SPEAKER_00: We said just the wrong thing.
46:27
SPEAKER_00: We're not giving a job.
46:40
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.