From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: God wants you to fear him, but he doesn't want you to be afraid of him. When you're afraid of God, you're not going to get close to him because you feel like he is going to wipe you out at any moment. You feel you need to keep your distance from God.

God doesn't want you to be afraid of him. When you're afraid of him, you flee from him. God doesn't want you to run from him; he wants you to run to him.

Guest (Male): This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve. Welcome to the broadcast as we discover if there is hope after failure. That's the title of today's message from Pastor Jeff's new series, Leaving a Legacy: Lessons from the Life of Samuel.

Have you ever wondered if God can still use you after you've failed him? If that were true, then none of us could be used. In today's powerful lesson from 1 Samuel chapter 12, we'll be reminded that when sin brings consequences, it never cancels God's mercy. No matter how far you've fallen, God's forgiveness runs deeper still.

If you missed part of this message today or can't listen for part two tomorrow, you can easily go online to fromhisheart.org and download a free MP3 of any broadcast. Just click the listen link. Open your Bible now to 1 Samuel chapter 12 as Pastor Jeff asks and answers this vital question: Is there hope after failure?

Dr. Jeff Schreve: What do you do when you fail so greatly? There are three insights from this great passage in 1 Samuel chapter 12. Insight number one: You must face the reality of your failure. That is what Samuel is doing with the people. He is showing them the reality of their failure.

No sin is a minor issue, but some sins are as serious as it gets. The people didn't really realize how serious their sin was in asking for a king. But he says in verse 12, "When you saw Nahash the king of the sons of Ammon came against you, you said to me, 'No, but a king shall reign over us,' although the Lord your God was your king." You rejected Jehovah God, Yahweh God, in favor of Saul. You have to face the reality of your failure.

Insight number two: You must cling to the truth of God's goodness and grace. When you face the reality of your failure, as those people had to face the reality of this sin of asking for a king, that was serious stuff. They had rejected God. When you come to grips with what you've done, you realize you are in such serious trouble.

When you come to your senses, you begin to hate yourself for what you've done as a believer. You start to even doubt that you're truly a Christian because you wonder how you could have done this if you were really saved. All these thoughts and feelings come flooding in.

The rain came and the thunder, and the people were scared to death. The people said to Samuel in verse 19, "Pray for your servants to the Lord your God," not the Lord our God, the Lord your God, Samuel, "so that we may not die; for we have added to all our sins this evil by asking for ourselves a king." They had enough sins to begin with, and then they added this massive sin.

Samuel said to the people, "Do not fear; you have committed all this evil, yet do not turn aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart. You must not turn aside, for then you would go after futile things which cannot profit or deliver because they are futile." I like that. He tells the people who were scared to death and thinking God was going to strike them dead for what they did, "Do not fear."

In Exodus 20:20, when the Lord came on Mount Sinai to give the law, there was thunder, smoke, an earthquake, and the sound of a trumpet. God visited Mount Sinai, and the people were scared to death. They said, "Moses, you speak to us and we will listen, but let not God speak to us lest we die."

Moses said, "Don't be afraid. God wants you to fear him, but he doesn't want you to be afraid of him." When you're afraid of him, you flee from him. God doesn't want you to run from him; he wants you to run to him. He wants you to know that he is good and ready to forgive.

God wants to forgive even when you commit terrible, horrible sin. He wanted to forgive them even though they had spit in his face and said they would rather have Saul than the sovereign King of the universe. God wants you to know that he still loves you. That's a key truth: God still loves you.

He says in verse 22, "For the Lord will not abandon his people on account of his great name, because the Lord has been pleased to make you a people for himself." It pleased the Lord to redeem Israel. It pleased the Lord to select them as his touchstone to share the good news of the greatness of God with the world. He wanted them to be his people.

It pleased the Lord to save you. When you are saved, you become a child of the King. You have passed out of death into life, and as we have shared numerous times, you can never lose that. If you've truly been saved, you're saved forever. You can fall out of fellowship with God, but you don't ever fall out of sonship or daughtership with God.

Jude says, "Keep yourselves in the love of God." How do I do that? I abide in his love. I have to remind myself that if I fall and fail in a terrible way, even though my feelings will tell me God doesn't love me anymore, that's a lie because the Lord does love me.

Jesus said in John 15:9, "Just as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you; abide in my love." Think about how much the Father loves the Son. Jesus said that is how much he loves you. I have three daughters, Jill, Amy, and Sarah. If my girls were to do something terrible or something that brought tremendous shame upon our family and broke my heart in a thousand pieces, we would never stop loving them.

They may do some things that we don't condone. We would never say it's okay because they are our daughters. We would say it's wrong, but we would never stop loving them because they are ours. That is what God says about us. We belong to him, and he will never stop loving us.

I was reading something years ago and refreshed it this morning. My friend Guy Dowd, who was the National Teacher of the Year in 1986, had a testimony that was so powerful it was played on Focus on the Family by James Dobson. Guy told me that became the number one selling cassette that Focus on the Family ever had.

Guy was in our church some years ago sharing that testimony, "Molder of Dreams." He talked about being a teacher and pouring your life into the lives of your students. He talked about never really having a date. He was just a fat kid from a poor family. He really hated himself because of how he looked.

Then he was led to the Lord by a teacher, Heinrich Kopka, who was a teacher at his school and a retired missionary. Guy learned that the Lord loved him. He said in his own words, "I learned that Jesus loved me. Fat, slob me—he loved me."

Fast forward: He's married in 1980 and becomes National Teacher of the Year in 1986. Everything is taking off, and his testimony is taking off. He's sharing it all over the place. He's doing very well financially. He and his wife Tammy have four kids, but his marriage is not good. Guy had a serious anger problem, and his wife dealt with it until she couldn't anymore.

She said, "Guy, we've been to counseling. I've talked to you about this over and over and over again. I'm done. I want a divorce." He said those were not the words he wanted to hear. He wanted to work it out, but she was done. Guy said that he was at a conference, and this was weighing on him.

He knew so much of the marriage problem was his fault because of his temper. He couldn't control it. He said he just felt so far from God. He was a motivational speaker, yet he was hitting the bottom. He prayed that God would show him in a fresh way that he still loved him because Guy didn't feel like God loved him anymore.

He was going through the hotel lobby to get ready for his speech. There was a shoe shine guy who said to him, "Hey, Mr. Guy, come get your shoe shine." Guy Dowd thought, "How does that guy know who I am? He doesn't know me. Calls me Mr. Guy." Then he thought the man probably calls everybody Mr. Guy.

Guy decided to get his shoes shined. He climbed up in the chair, and the man was working on his shoes. Guy asked the man how he was doing. The man said he was almost done. Guy asked, "How are you doing in life?" The man stopped and said, "I woke up this morning, and my heart was still beating. I walked to the restroom, and my legs were still working. I went to the fridge, and it was still running. And Jesus still loves me."

Guy said when that man said that, the tears began to brim in his eyes. He realized he desperately needed to hear that Jesus still loves him. Maybe you need to hear that too.

Guest (Male): Pastor Jeff will continue detailing exactly how we can face our failures with three practical steps in just a moment. You're listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve today and the lesson "Is There Hope After Failure?" where we're beginning to learn that while sin brings consequences, it never cancels God's mercy.

No matter how far you've fallen, God's forgiveness runs deeper still. There truly is hope after failure because he loves you with a never-ending love. Hope is your legacy when you are in Christ. This message is from the new eight-message series Leaving a Legacy: Lessons from the Life of Samuel, and it's our special gift to you to say thanks for your support this month to From His Heart of any amount.

All lessons on either a USB flash drive, CDs, DVDs, or an MP3 download are yours when you make your gift today. Your support keeps From His Heart going and growing to reach even more people around the world each year. If this ministry has blessed you, we'd like to ask you to simply stop and pray about what he might have you do to come alongside us.

When he speaks to your heart, obey him and call 866-40-BIBLE or go online to fromhisheart.org and make that gift and request the new series Leaving a Legacy. Now, let's continue with the lesson "Is There Hope After Failure?" part one.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: You have to face the fact of your failure, and then you cling to the truth of God's goodness and grace. Thirdly, you must respond rightly to the mercy and grace of God. These people had committed this terrible sin. They asked Samuel to pray for them, and he says in verse 23, "Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you; but I will instruct you in the good and right way. Only fear the Lord."

Don't be afraid of him, but fear him. "Only fear the Lord and serve him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things he has done for you." You have to respond rightly to the Lord. You failed. You've blown it. You've asked for a king. You've rejected the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Receive that truth. It might crush you because all of a sudden you realize you have sinned so greatly. As Isaiah said, "Woe is me, for I am undone; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips." Then you remember what the Lord says about himself: He's good and ready to forgive and abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon him.

Respond rightly to him. Fear him. The Bible says that's the beginning of wisdom, the beginning of knowledge, and the beginning of everything. To fear God doesn't mean to be afraid of him; it means to be in awe of him. It literally means you give God his rightful place as King and Master in your life.

You recognize that God is God and you're not. You're not on par with God. You're not just a little below God. You're so far below God. The Bible says that heaven and even the highest heavens cannot contain God. God is so great. And the great eternal invisible God is intimately acquainted with all our ways.

Collectively, we are the size of a pimple on a flea compared to God. And yet he cares for us. It doesn't make sense, but that is what he tells us. We're to cast our cares on him because he cares for us. When you fear the Lord, you give God his rightful place as King, and you take your rightful place as servant, as slave, as *doulos*. That's the Greek word.

Sometimes it's translated "servant." "Well done, my good and faithful servant. You were faithful in a few things; I'm going to put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master." The Greek word there is *doulos*, and a *doulos* is not a paid servant; a *doulos* is a slave. A *doulos* is somebody that was owned.

In scripture, Mary refers to herself as a *doulos*. "Behold the bondslave, the bondservant of the Lord; be it done to me according to your word," she told Gabriel. Paul calls himself the bondservant, the *doulos* of the Lord. James, the half-brother of Jesus, calls himself the *doulos* of the Lord.

Jude and Peter both call themselves the *doulos*, the bondservant of the Lord. You give God his rightful place as King, and you take your rightful place as his slave, and we exist to do his will. "Fear the Lord," he says to them. As Solomon said at the end of the book of Ecclesiastes, the conclusion, when all has been heard, is "fear God and keep his commandments," because this applies to every person.

The Lord will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil. Give God his rightful place. Then seek the Lord and develop a heart for him. "Only fear the Lord and serve him in truth with all your heart; for consider what great things he has done for you." God wants us to walk with him with all our heart, not just most of it.

If there are parts of your heart that are committed to other things and not to the Lord, you need to take inventory of that. You can't have areas of your heart that are off-limits to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. At a hotel, they have those little "Do Not Disturb" signs.

We do that sometimes in our hearts. We have areas of our hearts where we say, "That's my social life, Lord. Don't go in there. Do not disturb, because I want to be master of that arena." We do the same with our business life. You can't have that if you're going to serve the Lord in truth with all your heart.

You've got to take all the "Do Not Disturb" signs off and say, "Lord, I open up every door of my heart. You be Lord of all, and you do the work that needs to be done in here so that I would please you and walk in your ways." You want truth in the innermost being. David said in Psalm 51, "Behold, you desire truth in the innermost being."

1 John chapter 1 says, "This is the message which we have heard from him and announce to you, that God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, us with God, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin."

You've got to get everything into the light. You've got to take all the iffy stuff and the sins you try to rename and bring it all out of the shadows and into the light. Decide to walk in the light with God and serve him with all your heart.

Consider what great things he's done for you. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. And the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. It's the vertical and the horizontal. The greatest commandment is to get right with God and love him with all your heart, and then love your neighbor as yourself.

We love because he first loved us. As I consider what great things the Lord has done for me, I let my mind go back to Calvary where Jesus hung on a cross and suffered and bled and died for me. He loved me and delivered himself up for me. I consider how he has provided for me.

My heart was still beating as I woke up this morning, my legs were still working, the fridge was still running, there's food for me, and Jesus still loves me. Take time during the day to remember how good God has been to you. Consider what great things the Lord has done for you. Don't focus on what you don't have; focus on what you do have. God doesn't owe you any of it. It's all a gift.

Remind yourself of the cost of refusal, the cost of saying no. Verse 25 says, "But if you still do wickedly, both you and your king will be swept away." The Easy-to-Read Version says, "But if you are stubborn and do evil, God will throw you and your king away like dirt swept out with a broom."

We need to heed what the Lord is saying. You might feel you have fallen and can't get up. You're here today, and it's not an accident. You might know there is sin in your life. You've given your heart and life to Jesus, but you've gotten away from him. You've gotten involved in sexual sin, shady business deals, or bitterness. You don't know what to do.

What you need to do is fear the Lord. Confess your sin to him. Get up off the ground and come to him. A righteous man falls seven times and rises again. When you fall, the devil will say to give up, but God says to get up and come to him. When you come to him in repentance and faith, you'll find his arms open wide ready to embrace you.

If you want to get right with God, you can today, but you have to take a step of faith and respond to his mercy and grace. Will you do it?

Larry Nobles: If you think you've failed too much and God just can't forgive you, then this message is likely hitting home with you. Pastor Jeff has written a timely and impactful booklet that will help you through this time of doubt. It's called Not Guilty, where Pastor Jeff explains the deep truth from Romans chapter 8 that tells us there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

You can find the booklet called Not Guilty by going to fromhisheart.org, clicking the "Free Stuff" link, and downloading it right there. Thank you for joining us today on From His Heart. I'm Larry Nobles, reminding you that From His Heart is a listener-supported broadcast ministry of Dr. Jeff Schreve, reaching the world with real truth, real hope, and real love.

Tomorrow, Pastor Jeff will continue the message "Is There Hope After Failure?" Join us on Wednesday when we'll again open up God's word that reminds us that we are not guilty when in Christ here on From His Heart.