HEROES: 2
Why We Need Heroes Part Two
(When We Fail)
February 4, 2007
Pastor Paul W Newell

“HELP! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” That phrase from the commercial has been bantered around for years, mostly because it pretty much describes how we feel a lot of the time and why we need heroes. I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!

We need heroes! We need heroes because sometimes we fall down.

I don’t want to fall down. I don’t want to fail. I don’t want you to fall down. I don’t want you to fail. But...inevitably we stumble. Sometimes we fall. Sometimes we fail.

I do not want to sound depressing this morning, it’s just the truth: sometimes we fail.

It’s not like traffic court. You know what I mean... “I’m pleading guilty, Your Honor, but I have an excuse. ‘Guilty with an excuse...”

It doesn’t work that way in real life. There are no excuses. There are lots of reasons, lots of good reasons, but no excuses. Failure is failure, excuse or no excuse. Failure; we have to deal with the consequences of failure.

OK, now here’s the good news: there are heroes out there; heroes who can help us when we fail.
There are heroes out there who can illustrate for us how to be heroes ourselves and how to overcome the consequences of failure in our lives.

Last week we started discovering why we fail, why we need heroes. It boiled down to not trusting God in the valleys.

God is looking for heroes who will trust Him in the valleys.

We want to trust Him when it’s easy (easy = when we can pretty much do it ourselves), but don’t really want to trust God when it’s hard. So we don’t and we fail!

This morning I want to talk for a little bit about when we fail, when we need a hero.

Here's the point:God is looking for heroes who will give their failure.

Inevitably we will fail. Then what? God brought the Israelites to a moment like this. Joshua, their leader was getting old and there were still battles to face. For the first time in years they were facing real failure. The consequences of incomplete obedience were starting to hit them hard in the face.
The first chapter of Judges is the story of failure. Sure, there are a few minor victories, but always incomplete victory. They never really finish the job God called them to complete.

Remember this: incomplete obedience always means to incomplete victory.

Judges chapter two is literally a “Come to Jesus meeting.” God brings the Israelites face to face with their failure and its consequence. Read with me...

“And the angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bokim with a message for the Israelites. He told them, “I brought you out of Egypt into this land that I swore to give your ancestors, and I said I would never break my covenant with you. For your part, you were not to make any covenants with the people living in this land; instead, you were to destroy their altars. Why then, have you disobeyed my command? Since you have done this, I will no longer drive out the people living in your land. They will be thorns in your sides, and their gods will be a constant temptation to you. When the angel of the LORD finished speaking, the Israelites wept loudly. So they called the place “Weeping,” and they offered sacrifices to the LORD.” (Judges 2:1-5)

That’s harsh! That was tough. Here they all come together and God’s going to speak to them. After all they are ‘God’s chosen people’. They are living in the Promised Land, enjoying the benefits. God brings them all together and lays out the big one: You failed Me. You failed yourselves. You’d done pretty much everything I told you not to do and failed to complete the job I gave you. YOU FAILED!

And they got it. God’s words hit them like a two-by-four between the eyes and shook them all they way to their souls. They had failed God. They were left there weeping, bawling their eyes out. They offered “sorry offerings” to God and cried. So much so that they renamed the place Bokim or “Weeping”.

Man, could they use a hero now! But it turns out that they were the heroes after all. You see, even at the point of failure, God wasn’t finished with them yet. If you read on a little farther – say down to verse six you see what happens next:

“After Joshua sent the people away, each of the tribes left to take possession of the land allotted to them. And the Israelites served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and the leaders who outlived him-those who had seen all the great things the LORD had done for Israel.” (2:6-7)

Talk about a turnaround. The Israelites had a wake up call and they answered it!

God had laid out the consequences of their limited obedience (limited obedience is nothing more than disobedience – period) and they repented.

Here’s the big point: God will use your failure – if you’re willing to give it up. God is looking for heroes who will give their failure.

God is looking for heroes who will give up their failures. God will use your failure if you are willing to give it up.

The Israelites had failed, now would they give up that failure or hang on to it?

Way too often we hang on to our failures. We fall. We fail. But, instead of learning from our failures (what John Maxwell calls Failing Forward) we just live in them. We accept failure as the end instead of the process. We don’t have to fail, but when we do, we certainly don’t have to stay in failure mode. The Israelites, at this point, certainly didn’t.

They gave up their failure. God will use your failure if you are willing to give it up.

Giving up your failure means...

#1. Accepting God’s CONSTANT. (2:1)

Look again at verse two: “I said I would never break my covenant with you...”

God made a promise. He made the promise to Abraham hundreds of years before this moment. He reaffirmed that promise over and over again. These were God’s chosen people and He was not leaving them. Yes, they had failed Him. Yes, they were going to lose out on some of the blessings God really wanted to give them – but they were still His people.

When we fail we need to remember that! God never stops loving us. When we give our lives to Him and accept His forgiveness and eternal life –it’s for keeps. God never lets go! God’s love is the one constant thing you can count on.

You may fail – but God never does.

Giving up your failure also means...

#2. Admitting our INCONSISTENCY (2:2)

As sure as God’s consistency is, we need to be honest about our inconsistency. No matter how hard we may try – we mess up. That’s not an excuse to mess up, it’s just a reality.

“...Why then did you disobey my command...” (2:2)

One sure way to fail is to assume you never will. When we take on the attitude that we’ve got it all under control, that’s when we are most vulnerable.

The Apostle John wrote it this way:

“If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth.” (1 John 1:8)

The solution is not to deny, but to confess. John goes on to say,

“But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong.” (1 John 1:9)

Still want to deny your inconsistency? Read on...

“If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.” (1 John 1:10)

God will use your failure if you are willing to give it up. That’s means accepting your failure!

It also means...

#3. Assuming the CONSEQUENCES (2:3)

Verse three is tragic...beyond all tragedy:

“Since you have done this, I will no longer drive out the people living in your land. They will be thorns in your sides and their gods will be a constant temptation to you.”

It’s that first part that sends goose bumps all the way to my bones: “Since you have done this...”

That’s almost too much for me. I’ve failed. I’ve even repented, sought God’s forgiveness, been granted forgiveness – but still, I must face the consequences for my sins. (the scares)

THAT’S WHY THEY ARE CALLED SINS! THEY HURT. THEY CAUSE DAMAGE.

God’s wasn’t just going through all of this for practice – His commands to drive out the people, destroy their altars to false gods, refuse to make alliances with the enemy – all of that was for the Israelite’s own safety. The Canaanites were dangerous, wicked people. They were all under a death penalty and Israel was just sort of letting them be. (They had a whole bunch of death row inmates that they were treating like misdemeanor offenders.)

They had been told to wipe out the wickedness from Canaan and they had only done a partial job. Now the very things that they thought didn’t matter, the things they overlooked as harmless or too hard to deal with – those were the things that were going to cripple them and be a constant source of temptation.

Listen – if you don’t deal with sin, sin is going to deal with you! That’s the consequence of sin. You think it’s fun. It ultimately destroys.

If you’re going to give up your failure then you have to accept the consequences of your failures.

Thorns and temptations don’t kill – they just cripple. You can pull thorns out and you can overcome temptation. (We saw that a few weeks ago. See Lose the Weight of Temptation)

God is looking for heroes who will give their failure.

(Check out the Sermon Supplement in your Discovery Pack “Why Does God Use Consequences” See below )

You have to accept God’s Constant – He will never quit on you!

You have to admit your inconsistency

You have to assume the consequences

Finally, giving it up means

#4. Avoiding the cycle (2:8)

There is a sad reality that settles in after verse seven...it’s the reality that often people forget.

“another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the LORD...” (2:10)

If you read a little farther you seen the ultimate consequence of forgetting:

“Then the Israelites did what was evil in the LORD’s sight and worshipped the images of Baal...Every time Israel went out to battle, the LORD fought against them, bringing them defeat, just as he promised. And the people were very distressed. Then the LORD raised up judges to rescue the Israelites from their enemies. Yet Israel did not listen to the judges but prostituted themselves to other gods, bowing down to them. How quickly they turned away...” (Judges 2:10-17)

Did you see the cycle? They turn away from God and wallow in sin. They reap the consequences of their sin and failure. In distress they cry out to God who sends them a hero to deliver them...but soon they are right back where they started...turning away again.

It’s a vicious cycle.

But, get this, you can break the cycle! At any point you can stop it. You can give up your failures and allow God to use them to keep you close to Him.

Accept that He won’t fail you. You can trust Him enough to obey Him.

Admit you’re inconsistent. Don’t assume you can go it alone.

Assume the consequences and realize that God uses them to teach and test you.

And then avoid the cycle. Don’t go far down that path.

We need heroes.
Next week we will begin to visit some of the ordinary people who allowed God to use them in extraordinary ways.
But this week – you can!

Closing Prayer:

Why does God allow the consequences of sin to effect our lives?

Isn’t God powerful enough to alleviate the consequences of failure and sin? Why does God do this?

The answer to those questions won’t help us. Even if we fully understood the mind of God – we couldn’t change it.

God has a powerfully loving reason for allowing us to suffer through the consequences of sin. God’s reasons are always rooted in love and concern for you and me. If he allows us to endure the result of sin, it is because in His loving understanding He knows that is what is best for us.

Seems rather bogus, doesn’t it? God lets us suffer the effects of sin because He knows that’s what’s best for us. How are we ever to understand such reasoning?

If we slow down and really look though, we can gain a small glimpse into God’s reasoning that says not all bad consequences turn out bad. If you read through the end of Judges chapter two you might be able to pick them out some of God’s purposes.

Let me list three for you:

THE CONSEQUENCES OF FAILURE CAN BRING US BACK TO TRUST.

When we deal with the consequence of failure it should cause us to trust God more.

The Apostle Paul explained it this way:

“I have received wonderful revelations from God. But to keep me from getting puffed up, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from getting proud. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My gracious favor is all you need. My power works best in your weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weakness, so that the power of Christ may work through me.” (2 Corinthians 12:-9)

Some commentators assume that Paul’s weakness was some kind of physical ailment, (maybe addiction to Diet Dr. Pepper), but I sort of lean in a different direction. I think the Apostle is referring back to Judges Chapter Two. I think Paul’s thorn may have been the consequence of a past failure.

Now he’s having to face not only the failure, but trust God to help him through the consequence of that failure and also to help him keep from falling backward into the failure again.

God uses our failures to help us trust Him more.

CONSEQUENCES OF FAILURE CAN BE USED TO TEST.

God often uses our failures to test us.

God speaks again at the end of chapter two: “I will test Israel-to see whether nor not they would obey the LORD...that is why the LORD did not quickly drive the nations out...” (Judges 2:21-23)

God tests; Satan tempts. God’s tests are designed to bring out the best in us. Satan’s temptations are meant to bring out the worst. Failure can either draw us to God or drive us away. Obviously God wants to bring us back to Himself.

I will never know what God can accomplish through me without testing. Testing is God’s way of showing me that it works when I trust Him!

THE CONSEQUENCES OF FAILURE CAN BE USED TO TRAIN.

God uses our failures to train us.

Chapter three begins with an explanation: “The LORD left certain nations in the land to test those Israelites who had not participated in the wars of Canaan. He did this to teach warfare to generations of Israelites who had no experience in battle.” (Judges 3:1-2)

The only way to grow strong is through exercise. The only way to exercise our faith is to have our faith tested – most often in battle.

Look at this: the more you overcome temptation and failure – the stronger your faith becomes. No tests, no battles, equals weak faith. Don’t assume just because everything is going smoothly that that’s a good thing.

Trust, test and train – those are three powerfully loving reasons that God uses even what we assume is the bad stuff and turns it into good in our lives.

When we suffer the consequences of failure and sin we should never blame God; they are not His fault. Consequences are our fault. However, when facing the hardships that failures often bring, we can accept the reality that God will always us those consequences for our ultimate good if we will allow Him to do so.

“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” Romans 8:28