Keep Pressing Ahead - Facing Personal Failure, Part 2

The most difficult of all situations for most people to endure are the ones that come from their own hand. Personal failures, destructive choices, a tragic action, a hateful fit of words that spew out poison and ruin relationships.

What do you do when you've blown it, when you've made the mistake? How do you get restored to God and others? Stay with me. Thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram.

Living on the Edge is an international teaching and discipleship ministry motivating Christians to live like Christians. In just a minute, we'll wrap up our series, Keep Pressing Ahead. We pray Chip's study in the book of Nehemiah has encouraged you and reminded you that with God, we can get through anything. To help others hold on to that same hope, take a minute after this message and share this series with someone, would you?

You can do that through the Chip Ingram app or by sending them the free MP3s that you'll find at livingontheedge.org. And thanks for spreading the word about how this teaching impacts you. Well, here's Chip with part two of his talk, Facing Personal Failure.

He begins in Nehemiah chapter eight, walking us through the conditions for spiritual restoration. The second condition isn't just returning to the word. They didn't just listen. They didn't just hear it. They didn't just pray a prayer.

Notice the second condition is we must respond to the truth. Look what they do in verses nine through 12. When Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and the scribe and the Levite who were instructing the people said to them, this day is sacred to the Lord your God, do not mourn or weep. For all the people were weeping as they listened to the words of the law.

When they saw who God was, when they saw why they were where they were, when they saw the consequences, when they looked around and said, we've married foreign wives, we've disobeyed, we don't honor the Sabbath, we have our priorities out of whack, we've leveraged ourself, we have amazing debt. All the things you've said that you would bless, you said to us, live this way, there'll be blessing. Live this way, there'll be a curse.

Before you today, I give you life or death. They're hearing this and they're realizing we chose death and they're weeping. They're weeping. For some of us, it would be I'm experiencing this depression because I'm in disobedience. My marriage broke up because of my disobedience. My kids are experiencing this because of my disobedience. When you face that kind of stuff, you weep.

You're broken. But notice what they're doing. Nehemiah said to them, go and rejoice, enjoy choice food and sweet drinks and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve for the joy of the Lord is your strength. And the Levites, now they're coming out in these I think medium sized groups and they calmed all the people saying, be still.

Stop crying. For this is a sacred day. Then the people went away to eat and drink and to send portions of food and celebrate with great joy because here's the key word. They now understood, they didn't just hear, they understood the words that had been made known to them.

Now, you read this the first time and I don't know about you, but this is like wacky, isn't it? Like you hear how holy God is. This is what He word says and these people are weeping. At least from my perspective, the right response is you need to be weeping people. You really messed up and God's really mad and you need to get it right.

Isn't that the kind of God that you think about? That's not the response. You need to know something about the Jewish calendar.

You might have skipped over. It says it's the seventh month, the first day. That's when the new year starts and God commanded the new year starts on October 1st in the Jewish calendar. They were to, the harvest is coming in and so on that very first day, what obedience looks like is the harvest is coming in and it's a day to celebrate and rejoice what God has done and what He's provided. I want you to go home and I want you to eat choice great food. I want you to have some great sweetened, it means the best of your drinks.

Then I want you to, anybody who doesn't have enough food, invite them over. Basically, this is a party day. Rejoice in the Lord. It's to look back. It's like their new year's day. And the people understood they can't focus on all their past failure because God's will on this day from His word is this.

And it's to celebrate. And it says the reason why is the joy of the Lord is your strength. The word strength there, the joy. When you experience the connection, the byproduct of being reconnected with God, it is that connection with Him that gives you strength. That word strength can mean fortress. It can mean it puts you on a mountaintop. It means it will rescue.

It's when David said, he's my hiding place. When you take those baby steps of obedience and you begin to get reconnected and the Spirit of God begins to enliven your heart, even though there's these issues, that is your strength. That's how you go forward.

Notice what exactly that they did. Number one, they wept over their sin. And for some of you, an application is going to be to maybe open your journal and write out, you know, God, I got to deal with some stuff. Or you sit down with a close friend or possibly a counselor. And you may find yourself weeping.

And that can be a very healthy thing. Second, they received a word of grace. God said, you just don't understand. I'm a just God. But the will of God today is I want to bless you.

I want to love you. Romans chapter two has this great line. It is the kindness of the Lord that leads us to repentance. Most of us have a view of God that his arms are crossed, his toe is tapping, he has a long bony finger. And anything you've ever done, he's really ticked off and just can't wait for you to come. And he's going to take you to the spiritual woodshed.

Now, I told you not to do that. See, this wouldn't happen if it wasn't. I don't know where you got that picture of God or where I got it. And don't get me wrong, he doesn't gloss over sin. But whenever a person has a contrite heart, whenever a person is genuinely, deeply sorry and you own your stuff and you blow it, the Lord is near to the broken hearted and those that are crushed in spirit. And whenever a prodigal like you and a prodigal like me comes and says, God, I am so sorry for what I've done. I'm so sorry I've been thinking those thoughts. I'm so sorry I said those things.

I'm sorry that I have just squandered the money and trusted me. I'm so sorry that my greed or my pride or my addiction or my... And when you come like that, you will meet a God who's like this, who loves, who forgives, who cleans you off, who puts his arm around you. Oh, he'll deal with the consequences, he'll be fair, but he'll go through it with you.

And notice they experience the joy of obedience. See, for many of you, the next step, God's will for you is just to take the next step of obedience. What is it that he's showing you? You return to his word. The next step is I'm going to get in his word.

The next step is I'm going to deal... Even as I speak, it's an amazing thing how God works. I can just tell you right now, like little lights flashing over the top of your heads, is the Spirit of God showing different people, uh-oh. And he's bringing things to your mind. He's bringing things to your mind, not because he's down on you.

He's bringing things to your mind, it's called conviction, so that you could own them. And you could bring them, and you could turn from them. That's what they did, but notice how they did it. They responded from the heart. This wasn't perfunctory.

This wasn't, oh yeah, God says this, I guess we're supposed to do that. This was deep. This was honest.

This was real. You know those different times you have in your life and I have in my life? You know the times where, dear God, this is Chip, and I know I'm really supposed to pray, I'm not going to say it like that, but could you help so and so and so and so and so and so and so and so and so?

And so, and it really helped me today, and I got a big meeting and da da da da da da da da da da da da. And I don't want to talk about this one area and this attitude or being ticked off at my wife or this area that keeps coming up every time I read because I don't want to feel guilty. So we're not going to talk about that as I pray.

I'll catch you later. And your prayers are short and they're superficial and you're playing games. And you don't have a deep connection with God.

You don't hear those little promptings that he gives you. And many times what it is, he keeps bringing the same thing back over and over and over. I don't know what it is with you. You know, for some, deal with your anger. For others, deal with your weight. For others, deal with your marriage. For others, get in my word. For others, forgive your dad. How long are you going to live with that? But it's a sensitive issue and you don't want to deal with it.

And so you keep the superficial thing going. And then you've had those times like I have where you get before God and you call it what it is and you see it for what it is and the tears come and you own it. And you just feel like the lowest, worst person.

I am desperate and I'm sorry. And there's this guilt that comes and there's this amazing release as you bring it to him. And you experience, none of this surprised me.

I love you. Now we're going to make progress. You been there? The scary part is you can learn to do the kind of moral life instead of the Christian life and look pretty good on the outside but never from the heart. Notice they focused on God's mercy rather than on their failure.

Isn't this amazing? Their focus wasn't on, well, I know God forgave me but I can never forgive myself. Have you heard that a lot? Well, I know this happened but I'm such a terrible person and I've done this. I've had one abortion, I've had two abortions. I haven't had just one bad marriage. I've had two bad marriages. I abandoned my kids when they were small. I stole from my company.

No one knows it now. I'm a leader in the church. I'm a leader at this and I'm leading a Bible study and I log on about three nights a week into triple X porn.

My husband doesn't know it but I've been in my old high school on my Facebook and I'm kind of chatting and flirting with my old high school boyfriend. I'm going to a Bible study but I'm living with a guy right now. Right? And so that's all you can focus on. God knows that stuff.

Once you get real, you need to focus on His mercy. And how great a love the Father must have for regular people like you and me. That He's called us His children.

And so you own your stuff and then you focus on what He's done. This is the Luke 15. This is the son who has squandered his life and realizes he brings nothing. He doesn't deserve to be a son. But the moment he turns from the pigsty, the moment from his life and he returns to the Father.

What's the Father like? What was Jesus' picture there? What was He trying to tell you? That wasn't some story.

That was for you. What's He want you to know? He can repair people that have had affairs. He can repair people that have addictions. He can repair people that have squandered and your greed has cost you your life fortune. He can repair people that are gossips and workaholics and people pleasers and codependents and sex addicts and rigid, narrow, Bible-thumping Pharisees who are judgmental of other people.

All of us. You come and when you come to that Father, what's He do? He's waiting and He puts a ring on your finger and sandals on your feet because you're not a slave, you're a son and He takes His robe and He wraps it around you and He walks through it with you. Notice what they did, they obeyed God's Word for today. We have this mental catalog that we play is that you know you need to return to God, you know you need to get right with God and then the catalog is you sort of have this list of 17 things that need to be addressed and it's like, okay, I'm going to go number one, number two, number three, number four, number five. I'm only on number seven, God.

When I get down to about 16 or 17 and I feel a little bit better about myself, I'll really come back. That's a lie from the enemy of hell. They just obeyed, you obeyed today. What's God saying today? What's His will today? And so they did. And their today response was what?

Today we're supposed to, it's the first day, it's the new year, we're to thank God for the harvest, we're to thank God for this, and we're to look forward in faithfulness and celebrate. So where do you need to respond to the truth? What's the next step? You want to hear the answer to a prayer that comes like really quick? Pray this prayer in your heart and mind right now. Dear God, please show me the next step. Whatever you show me, I will do. And I don't care if you don't listen to me the rest of the time. Dear God, show me just the next step. I will tell you. Now, many of you will not like what the next step is. And many of you actually already know what the next step is.

But you're playing this game, I don't want to do it, I don't want to do it, I don't want to do it, I don't want to do it. I hope this guy is messing in my wheelhouse. I hope he shuts up soon and I can get out of here because... Right?

Right? Don't miss God's grace. See, you don't deal with it today. If you're fortunate, it'll come back around in a month. If you're fortunate, it'll come back around. But it may not. Sometimes God says, you want your own way?

Here it is in spades, with all the consequences that come with it. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and he'll be back to continue our series, Keep Pressing Ahead, in just a minute. But let me quickly tell you that we are more than a broadcast ministry. Every day, all around the world, we're supporting pastors who are discouraged and desperate for help. Let me encourage you to stick around after the teaching to learn more about this work and how you can be a part of it.

Well, with that, here again is Chip. So we return to the Word in our response to personal failure. Then we respond to that truth from the heart. And then third, we must apply it to our lives.

We've got to get it operational. It's when you act on the Word. It's when you abide, when you take the step. Jesus says that's when you'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

So let's find out what they do. Pick it up at verse 13. Verse 13, now notice it was the first day of the seventh month.

Now it's the second day. The heads of all the families, along with the priests and the Levites, they gathered around Ezra the scribe to give attention. Literally, the phrase is literally to gain wisdom, to give attention to the words of the law. And so as they got together, I mean, it's day one happened, and day two, can you imagine hearing all this stuff that you're not doing? Feeling like you're a dad, you heard Deuteronomy 6, you think, man, I am out to lunch. And so the next day, this is like the very first advanced Bible seminar. And all the leaders and the heads of the family say, hey, Ezra, before we go on, could we talk? Because we've got to figure out how to apply this to our lives. So they found written in the law of the Lord that Moses had commanded that the Israelites were to live in booths during the feast of the seventh month.

Of course, they're in the seventh month. And they should proclaim this word and spread it throughout their towns and in Jerusalem. Go out into the hill country and bring back branches of olive and wild olive trees and from myrtles and from palms and shade trees to make booths.

And this is written. So what did the people do? The people went out and they brought back branches and built themselves booths on their own roofs and in the courtyards and in the courts of the house of God and in the square by the Watergate and by the one by the gate of Ephraim. And the whole company that returned from the exile, they built booths and they lived in the tent. And from the days of Joshua, the son of Nun, until that day, the Israelites had not celebrated it like this.

And their joy was very great. And then notice the very last line. Day after day, from the first day to the last, Ezra read from the book of the law of God. So what started as a one-day, six-hour reading with some explanation, followed with the leaders coming and saying, hey, Nehemiah, what do we do about all this? They hear, hey, there's something that's supposed to happen this month. They go out and do it.

And then a new pattern evolves. Every day, he reads from the word and then notice there's this joy. And they celebrated the feast for seven days and on the eighth day in accordance with the regulation, there was an assembly.

So what did they do? The fathers and the leaders came to be equipped. It wasn't just some emotional, oh, God, I messed up. I really want to do what's right and I repent. It's one thing to be the prodigal, come back to the father, but now you need to, how do I walk with the father, right? How do we do this new life together? And so the fathers come and the leaders, they say, we need wisdom. And wisdom is how does this actually play out? So for some of you, you can say, okay, so how do I do relationships? So what do I do with my money? So how do I break an addiction?

How do I become less judgmental? Wherever God's speaking that truth, he's gonna use a community of people and his word to help you on the journey to become. But you gotta get equipped. And notice the second thing is they discovered a command to obey. What you found is day one was the feast of the trumpets, the shofar, they'd go, and something like that. And the people go, oh, it's the feast of the trumpet and we're gonna supposed to be really rejoicing and thankful today.

Well, then the 10th day would be the day of atonement. And then on the 15th day, they were supposed to go out and get these branches and they build these little huts and they would sleep outside. The kids thought they were camping out and everyone would sleep outside for seven days to remind them of their wilderness wandering.

Now notice how this all ties together. Why did the people of Israel end up in the wilderness? Can anybody remember? Because they disobeyed God, right? So the wilderness wandering is what? A time of discipline.

It's 40 years of you know what? This was my great plan for you. You didn't want it. So here's your plan that's not so good. And so what they learned was we're supposed to do this every year to remember that God wants us to be in the promised land but if you disobey, part of our heritage is our fathers failed to believe and trust and take the steps of faith. And this is what happens. So I mean, think about this as a kid. You're going out and you get these branches and you build it on the roof and you sleep out one night. Hey, this is fun.

Then you sleep out the next night. Dad, why do we do this? Well, son, actually, I just learned about this. You know, we've sort of blown it and now what's happening?

The story of God is being told from family to family to family. And guess what they do? They obey.

They went out, notice, immediately. They built it on the roof. They built it in the courtyards. They built it in the house of God. Well, then how did they do it? First, they recognized their need for spiritual insight.

They got it. They understood this is not a religious moment. We need not to just be aware and turn. We need to learn to turn to God, to God turned from sin, but we need insight. We need the wisdom to walk in this new life. Second is they focused on present obedience instead of past failure. See, if they were in a modern counseling session, they would have been unpacking the last hundred years of how they got there. I did this, I did this, I did this, I did this, I did this, I did this, and I think this is the reason for that. Now, there is a place and a time personally, but some of you, you could spend the rest of your life unpacking baggage and remorse.

There's a thing called the cross, and it covers your sin, and you come to the cross and you receive the atonement or the covering of your sin, and then the thing is, what's obedience look like today? Well, I'm upside down financially. I'm gonna get out of debt.

I'm living with someone. Ah, let's see, I'm not real, actually, I am real sure. That's not part of God's, but we love each other.

Yeah, yeah, those are my excuses. This is God's will. You know what it is, right? Obey immediately today.

What's the next thing he wants you to do? And by the way, when you take a step of obedience, that joy kicks in. Is it hard? Of course it's hard. Did you get where you're at overnight? No. Is everything gonna change overnight?

No. But it starts with this first step, and then notice they developed a pattern of intake and obedience to God's word. So day after day. Some of you need to make some big steps, but all of us need to begin to walk. For some, you're here today, and this is the greatest day of your earthly life. You just didn't know it when you got up.

I'm serious. You came, it's about adversity. You know, you're getting some help, but you're outside of Christ. If you were to die today, you'd be eternally separated from the living God because no amount of your being nice or a little bit more moral than other people, God does not grate on the curve.

Sorry. You have to have 100 points of absolute perfection to have a relationship with an absolutely holy God. You can be a 96, a 97, or a minus 10.

It's pass, fail. And the only way you can have 100 points is to allow Christ to do for you what you can never do for yourself. When he died upon the cross, he paid for your sin, my sin, and the sins of all people of all time.

He atoned, he covered for them. And he says, whosoever would believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life. And for some, the will of God, the next step in this room, is right now for you to say, God, I need you.

I've missed the mark. I have sinned. I've got lots of stuff in my life. And I want you to know I wanna turn from that sin.

I'm gonna ask you to come into my life and make me your son or your daughter. And I want a new life. And he will do that. And you'll need to tell someone. And about 80 or 90% of the people at some point in their life have done that. And they have all the same struggle as you. And I do. But I will tell you, they're new people.

There's been a transformation. And he wants that for you. For others, you've been thinking the whole time I've been talking and fighting with it.

You need to decide. You ask God, what's the next step? Is it getting into his word? Is it deal with the sin issue? Is it getting...

I don't know what it is. You take that step and the process of restoration will occur. Before we go on in today's program, you have a very important decision to make. Are you going to focus on your past failure?

Or are you going to focus on your present obedience? I know that many of you don't feel worthy. You feel like you need to get your act together. That you feel covered with shame. You've done things you just feel terrible about. You've hurt people. You feel like there's no hope and there's an enemy that is just, you know, whispering in your ear. You know, you don't deserve this.

It can't be this simple. But the fact of the matter is that the greatest men and women in all of scripture failed miserably. David, the great king, committed murder and adultery. Moses, the man who brought the Ten Commandments, committed murder. The apostle Paul was a murderer. Rahab was a prostitute. James and John were people with deep anger management issues who wanted to call down fire from heaven.

Peter was a person who was so prejudiced that he wouldn't even offer the gospel, the free gift of God, to groups of people because of their ethnic background. I want you to know that God specializes in taking people who have failed miserably, who honestly repent and come to him broken, and forgiving, restoring, and using them. Right now, right where you're at, tell God, I need you.

I want you. I've blown it. I've sinned. I believe that only the death of Christ on the cross and his resurrection can pay for my sin, and right now I invite you to come into my life. I mean, just do it in your own words right now.

Invite him into your life. Turn from your sin, and then tell the greatest Christian you know. In fact, tell us. Send me an email.

Let me know. You know, I prayed today with you to receive Christ, and we have some resources there on the website that can help you grow. Dave will tell you about that in a minute. And then for those of you that are followers of Christ, I think for some of you this is even more difficult because you know better. I think some of the most difficult times in my life have been after I became a Christian and I did some things I knew were so blatantly wrong, I just thought, oh, you know, how could God ever forgive me? Well, he forgave Peter, and he walked with him for three years, and he betrayed him. He wants to forgive and restore you. Get off your focus off of you and your past behavior and get on to present obedience. Let God be God.

His blood covered your sin. Turn to him. Ask for forgiveness. Get back on track, and let your life say a big thank you by the way you live.

Tell someone today the big decision. Get help to stay with it, and let us know how God has worked in your life. God bless you and keep pressing ahead. We'd love to hear how God is working in your life. Email us at chip at livingontheedge.org.

That's chip at livingontheedge.org. Well, Chip's still with me in studio, and Chip, you know, many of our listeners know how passionate you are about the 21st century pastor. You've led churches and shepherded congregations for decades, so you know the challenges these leaders are facing. Take a minute, if you would, and talk about how we're supporting pastors because so many of them are discouraged right now. Well, that's right, Dave, and I just have to tell you that coming out of the pandemic, it was a crisis with pastors all around the world, and we reached out and ended up in 60 countries, first online, and then we realized we needed to go to them on the ground.

And so we started out with our Anglo teams, and now we have nationals in places like India where churches are burned throughout Africa, 30 cities in Mexico, and we took what we called the art of survival. It started out as just a little three-part message, and then it became a booklet and videos that were translated in 27 languages, and we went to villages in Kenya, in Malawi, throughout India, Mexico, South America, and then we had these pastors in groups, and what we saw was tears and weeping and encouragement and pastors who said, We won't give up. We will not give up. We will consider it all joy. We'll ask for God's wisdom. We're going to lead our churches forward. And so what I would ask our listeners to do, you listening to me right now, would you prayerfully consider giving $50 a month so we can train these global pastors? Your monthly gift of $50 will help 60 pastors be equipped and encouraged with the art of survival, and then they go back, as we've watched in tens of thousands of churches, and they will teach their churches.

You really can't grasp the impact that this has had. This month alone, our goal is to resource 60,000 additional pastors. Would you prayerfully consider $50 a month joining the team and helping some of the most hurting people in some of the most devastated churches all around the world?

Thank you so much for whatever God leads you to do. Thanks, Chip. If you're feeling called to partner with us in this meaningful work, go to LivingOnTheEdge.org or the Chip Ingram app. Your monthly gift of $50 will help us support 60 pastors for an entire year, as we aim to reach 60,000 more pastors in 2024. To join us, go to LivingOnTheEdge.org or the Chip Ingram app today, and thanks in advance for your generosity. Well, before we go, I want to remind you that the Chip Ingram app is an easy way to share messages or complete series with others. So whenever you're encouraged by what you hear, I hope you'll pass it along to a friend or loved one who'd benefit from hearing it, and be sure to tell them how it made a difference in your life. Well, from all of us here, I'm Dave Drouie, thanking you for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge, and I hope you'll join us next time. 🎵