What if I Fail in the Time of Trial by William Carrol

I have a message that the Lord is laid on my heart and it's a very prominent message on my mind right now I've found ways to squeeze it into pretty much everything that I've been teaching over the last couple of days I want to talk to you on this basic question question is simply this what if I fail in the time of trial what if I fail in the time of trial we talk a lot especially as we go into economic difficulty and things of that nature about the day of trial and I've been studying with our friday-night group on the idea of being able to stand in the evil day and as I teach on standing in the evil day there is this one thing that comes across one thing that comes over my mind and that is very simply what happens if when a significant trial comes into your life what happens if you don't stand what happens if you fail what happens if things don't work out the way that you hoped that they would or the way that you planned it that they would or even the way that you insisted that they would so I'd like to take that into consideration tonight as we consider the word the Lord would you pray with me please father in the name of Jesus we stand in awe of you you are a good and a holy God we put all of our faith in you all of our trust in you and we ask oh God that you be glorified in the midst Lord we need you to speak to us we need you to trust us with your heart Lord we know that there are many people who try on some level or another to delve into your truth just to use them against you and against your body but God we ask that you would trust us with your truth Lord trust us with your heart we'll open your heart to us it's not enough for us to do another Bible study we want to hear from you we want to embrace you we want to love you that much more God would you simply stretch out your arms now and embrace us draws to yourself and speak to us O God we believe you for this and we thank you for it amen amen praise God you know in the Bible there is the very famous story of Peter the Apostle and how the Lord is beginning to prophesy to him about a day of testing a day of trial he tries to talk to Peter to some degree about the trial that the lord himself would go through but Peter wasn't really willing to listen I think it might have sounded a bit too extreme to him it was something that he wasn't really able to grab where the Lord was basically saying that for a little bit of time I'm going to allow my own glorious name to be mocked to be disrespected to be disregarded and I am going to allow my glorious person my glorious presence to be mishandled and mismanaged by thieves and by liars and by murderers and Peter just could not grasp that concept it might have gone on through his mind but Lord by nature you are glorious and by Nature you are to be exalted I can't even think that there would come a time in the future and in this case it was in the very near future that your name would be reviled that your glory would be mocked and that you yourself would allow it but the Lord went on to say to him something about his own trial that that Peter himself would go through and he said Peter Peter the devil has asked to sift you as weed and he said you're going to go through a kind of a trial and for a moment you are going to experience failure now that's a strange thing for someone who puts their faith in the Lord to even begin to understand or to even begin to feel might be possible but what Peter needed to understand was that there was a level of faith that he had placed in the Lord and there was also a level of faith that he put in himself and a level of trust that was based upon what he believed to be his own strengths and his own desire to do the right thing now the Lord says to him Peter this is going to happen the devil has asked to sift you as wheat I've given him permission and he said but don't worry I prayed for you and when you are converted in other words when you become a different kind of person then you will be in a position to strengthen the people around you now what Peter does is strange he begins to make promises and he begins to make vows before the Lord and he begins to say Lord I promise you that this is never going to happen now one time he had already taken Jesus by the lapels when Jesus was trying to talk about his own cross and say far be it from You Lord this is never going to happen to you now he's saying that about his own life this is never going to happen he said I don't care what else happens I don't care how many people turn their back from you I don't care how many people fail in this difficult time I will never fail he said I will follow you right to the cross now you got to understand he didn't believe that the cross was coming so he's making all these promises about following Jesus to a cross that he never expected to happen but he said I'll follow you to this cross and Jesus says to him Peter before the rooster crows three times you will deny me three times over four and in other words in the space of 24 hours before the morning comes you will have denied me now understand what's going on here Peter is making these empty promises to God now they're not empty from his perspective he means everything that he's saying Peter was not a man you must understand that was afraid to die Peter drew his sword against the temple guard that would be like you know taking out a peashooter against a SWAT team I mean the man was not afraid to die he was afraid of the cross he was afraid of that kind of death because there was no blaze of glory there there was shame there was ridicule and there was this idea of being under God's curse this idea of being someone that God is displeased with or someone who must acknowledge that there is something about them that God does not agree with and so he was afraid of the cross now understand he's making these promises to God that are exactly contrary to everything that God is saying to him so God is saying this is going to be the situation you're going to be tested you're going to be tried and there is an element in you that is going to fail I need that to happen so that you can be a strength to your brothers and he's saying no Lord that's never going to happen in essence he's saying Lord that doesn't have to happen you see Lord if you had known me a little bit better you would understand that I don't need to go through this trial I don't need this hardship in fact he might have pulled out his TV Guide and pointed out pastor such and such and so so as a person so-and-so said I don't need this kind of trial I never have to go through this kind of difficulty but the Lord said to him that you will go through this and you will fail and then you will be in a position to help someone now understand again the same man now making these vows and making these oaths about how he's going to walk with the Lord and he's going to follow him all the way to the cross give him a little bit of time a few hours later and here he is he's he's sitting out of fire he's warming his hands while his master is being being beaten and flogged and so on and so forth and somebody comes to him and they say I know you you used to walk with that Jesus didn't you now of course this man because he was who he said he was he rose up and said 'you better believe it and not only that but I am willing to go with him to the cross if anybody is willing to take me come and take me as I am no no no no no no no that's that's a different translation a different version nobody but the one that we read the one that we read we hear him the same man who made all these olds and vowels beginning now to make more ODEs and vows now all of a sudden he's making olds and vowels that are saying I never knew this man and the Bible says with the same vehement if you will that he made olds and vows about how he's going to do this and how he's going to do that and how he's going to be able to do this and I was going to be able to do that now he's making olds and vows that says I never knew him call him down olds on himself if I know this man made this happen to me or made that happen to me you see that's the power of making promises to God especially when God is trying to make a promise to us and we contrary to his promises begin to make promises going in the exact opposite direction of the promises that he's making the us see his promise to us is you're going to struggle you're gonna fail but I'm praying for you I'm making intercession for you I'm standing on your behalf and I guarantee you you will make it through this and when you make it through you will be a better person as a result and you'll be in a position to help other people hallelujah and so as you know Peter fails but instead of him recalling what the Lord said he became I believe overwhelmed with his failure he became utterly overcome by the fact that he wasn't who he thought he was he wasn't as strong as he thought he was he wasn't as dedicated as he thought he was he wasn't as capable as he thought he was and so the Bible kind of gives us some insight into the way his life went immediately after that failure the Bible says for instant initially when he began to deny the Lord Bible says the Lord looked at him as the Lord is being taken from one Mock Trial to another mock-trial beaten bloodied and being led and Peter warming himself by the fire looks at Jesus about says Jesus turned and looked at him and I don't know exactly what the look was that Jesus gave him but I'm taking it for granted that the look that Jesus gave him was the same look that he had always given him a look of tender love a look of acceptance a look of a father concerned about the welfare of his son and I think when Peter saw that I think if he had seen a look of scorn on Jesus face he might have been able to handle that like a man you understand him say you know if he's got some good yook some good reproof you know he just came to the altar maybe you know and everything would've been alright you know what I'm talking about but now he sees a look of great love and tender compassion and it just broke his heart I think it was this look that calls Peter to to weep bitterly I think he saw in Jesus eyes that Jesus was not shocked by his failure that Jesus didn't buy his platitudes for one moment all of his I will this and I will that and so on and so forth Jesus didn't buy that for half a second it's like that one prodigal son who kind of who kind of comes back home and he's and he's weeping he's crying he said I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that and I'm not worthy of this and I'm not worthy that the father really didn't enter in to any kind of conversation with him he simply loved him he simply embraced him and I think when Peter saw that he got a kind of glimpse into himself and he realized something all this time I'm thinking that I'm impressing the Lord and all this time I'm trying to live this life that says you know this is what I am when I really know this is what I am and I'm and I'm trying to live in the future today and I'm trying to convince myself that I am what I will be already he said and I'm trying to convince the Lord of it you know what I mean I'm trying to say to the Lord I'm already like this you don't have to do these things in my life I'm already like that you don't have to make changes in my life I'm already like this you don't have to bring me through any kind of difficulties or trial now he realizes that the Lord never bought any of those lines he might have been thinking that the Lord did you know how it is sometimes you get in your prayer clouds and you start lifting up all these highfalutin type of prayers and so on and so forth and you - you know you know a couple of these and thous and then you know a couple of you know I'm talking about and and then and then you and if you notice as you look into God's eyes the minute that you failed you realize he's not looking at you any differently than he did when you were making all those promises because he knew he saw so now Peter looks into the eyes of this great Savior and his heart just breaks he says I could have dealt with some reproof I could have dealt with some other thing I got to dealt with he had just turned away from me and ignored me I got to dealt with all that but I can't deal with this relentless love I can't deal with the fact that he won't leave me he won't forsake me I can't deal with that hallelujah I can remember times when I was out in the street and not gonna fool even though I knew what the right thing was and I would say to myself well if I do this I know God is gonna I know he's gonna turn his back on me now you know what I mean I know he ain't gonna be there you know I know he's not going to concern himself with me I know it you know if I could just shake him I don't shook everybody else you know what I'm saying and my thought is if I could just shake him too then I can go on and do whatever I want there won't be any guilt no compunction no no sense of condom a no sense of conviction nothing nothing nothing I would just tell myself everything is all right now but I couldn't shake him he would not let me go [Applause] hallelujah hallelujah praise God praise God and this is where Peter was I want to say to you that he probably went from that stage to the stage where they went when they kind of locked themselves in remember they they locked themselves into a room and they were hiding basically thinking that the same people that crucified Christ was going to come and try to crucify them and so they were hiding away from their responsibilities hiding away from the public hiding away from the call of God on their life and hiding from the Lord you know that one portion of scripture in the book of Revelation we're talking about the Lord knocking on the door and asking for people to open the door to I imagine he must have been knocking on the door wherever they were where they were hide before he finally just walked right through the door you know anything because they just would not let him in and that means they wouldn't let anybody else in either remember what the Lord said you know I was hungry you know to me and he didn't feed me I was I was thirsty you didn't give me anything to drink I was I was lost I was in prison I was I was making you didn't take care of me and this is where they were they don't they feel and I don't let Christ in we're not letting anybody in now there are times in our lives when we fail and the first thing that strikes us is the fact that God knew it all the time and he was never ever impressed by our platitudes by a highfalutin statements never impressed by because he knew what was going on another time is when we fail we find ourselves hiding from our responsibilities and hiding from people around us becoming less and less vulnerable and more and more impervious to other human persons and to the Lord Himself hiding behind these closed doors and it's like God can't get through and then other people can't get through because somehow we've convinced ourselves that because we failed everything has changed but the reality of it is is nothing has changed and the failure is only proof of that the failure is saying to us I know you said you are but let me show you who you actually are and let me show you where you need to change let me show you where you need to grow so we have sometimes a church full of folk who have these you know doors up because they think that everybody else is doing perfectly and then the only one that's going through a struggle and they don't want anybody in anybody to see and so Peter found himself behind closed doors and not only was he behind closed doors but everybody in the community everybody in the in the believing community at that stage was behind closed doors they were closed off from the from the public and I assure you they were closed off from one another because that's what happens when God is trying to bring a thing out in us and we because of this identity that we've erected in our own minds can't seem to allow him to do it we find ourselves hiding the next thing that went on was even after witnessing the resurrection even after recognizing what Christ had done in fact let's go back one step before we go there there is another case where people come to Peter and come and says you know the Lord has risen from the grave and for some reason Peter and the rest of the disciples just won't believe and so they say to these people that you're out of your mind and so on and so forth again this is the same Jesus that told them over and over I will rise again I will rise again they go to the grave they run to the grave and then Peter runs inside and he looks and he sees you know the the swaddling bands and so on is over and and then the Bible seems to suggest that when people tend to believe things about themselves that God is trying to disprove they can get to a point where they begin seeking if you will the living among the dead and they can get caught up you know another group of people went to to wrap his body you know they were going to anoint his body they were going to you know do all the things that you do to a dead Jesus and Jesus spoke to them and basically said the same thing why the seek the living among the dead you see when the Lord is trying to do things in our lives and we're not ready to receive those things we can get ourselves lost in religion in dead religion because we're trying to cover up what God is trying to do in our lives he's trying to say look I've allowed you to struggle I've allowed you to fail so that you could recognize that you cannot do this on your own you can't do this in your own strength it was never God's intention that we should do this in our own strength but instead of a sick knowledge in it and saying okay Lord I acknowledge that we've won as it were two dead works and dead religion and we do whatever we can to make a as it were a dead religion smells sweet because that's basically what they were going to do their idea was I'm gonna go I'm gonna find a dead Jesus because there is no there was no living Jesus he said nice things and so on it's over but when I go to this place of religion I know what I'm gonna find gonna find a dead Jesus but that's okay I got my perfume with me not at me because when we choose not to allow God to enter in here and make some changes and do what he wants to do we find ourselves getting involved in that religion and doing what we can to make it smell sweet well after that the Bible suggests that Peter says having seen all these wonderful things you know what I'm going I'm going fishing now the Lord had already come to Peter's ship and and told him follow me and I'll make you fishers of men and so on and so forth and they had already followed the Lord for years and after all of these signs and wonders and miracles the resurrection and so on and so forth Peter says you know what I'm look you know he doing what he didn't say for he didn't say I don't want to be a Christian anymore he didn't say I'm not going to church anymore he simply said I'm going back to business as usual he might have said something to this effect initially I was expecting some wonderful things to happen I was expecting this to sit on you know one of twelve Thrones as he said and so on and so forth and I was expecting you know that that the the kingdom was going to be brought back in with power and majesty and I was expecting this thing and I was expecting not see and because it didn't happen yet and because it didn't have in my way because he hasn't been changed in here yet he said I'm just gonna go back to normal it's not that I'm gonna stop going to church I'm just you know it's just that I'm that I'm not gonna have these high expectations anymore you know what I mean it's like that song we sing you know spring up or well within my soul you know you know we get that from that passage of scripture which says bring up a well but I think we've we grow you know we kind of grown into a church culture where we stand in front of a dry well you know to me and we come with and do the eyes when we say spring up and then we say oh well I'm not gonna get caught up in this you don't mean if it's not going to happen today that must mean it's not going to happen if it's not gonna happen my way that must mean is not gonna happen and so that's what Peter what but you see that's what the Lord was trying to bring out that's what the Lord was trying to deal with he said I go fishing and of course because of his position of leadership all the other disciple says I go fishing too because that's the way it is when you have influence in people's lives you know that mean and you don't allow God to change your life you influence people in ways that are not the best and so they said we're going fishing with you but an awesome thing happened during that time the Bible says and this is another indication of what happens when we allow failure to shock us and surprises as opposed to causing it to draw us into the presence of the Lord they began toiling again all night long and finding absolutely nothing you know how it is where you go from that place of rest to that place of toiling because somehow you're trying to solve your own problems what did I do wrong where did I go wrong and so it's all one how can I undo it and it's that the other where the Lord is simply trying to draw him into his presence and they toil all night again I can imagine the darkness of it I can imagine the desolation of it and they won't eat and they didn't need anything all that night because Jesus asked them later on children do you have anything to eat they said no so all night long their toil and all night long they are exerting themselves all night long they're trying to make something happen because that's what happens when we fail ourselves as it were when we don't live up to our own standard in our own power and our own promises when we don't live up to that we will starve ourselves sometime because now we don't find ourselves into it into the presence of the Lord we don't find ourselves opening up our Bible because we're punishing ourselves and we think that if we open our Bible immediately it's going to follow one of those judgment passages you know what everything and so we try to close it we try to go to those ones that we know we like you know I'm talking about even if we got the cut in case and make our little version of the Scriptures good huh because we think if we pray God's gonna say something mean to us and God is gonna be like ah man I thought you were better than you are I am absolutely surprised that you God is not surprised at us yeah he knows what we're about you know he's trying to change this he and now it's sort of toil all night and they don't eat anything and the Bible says that Jesus prepares a meal for them and particularly its breakfast we talk about the Lord's Supper this is the Lord's breakfast it's a very it's the same meal do you know what I'm saying it's the meal that bears witness to the Covenant relation that God has with his people and he prepares a breakfast from and the reason why I like the term breakfast that's there you know it's because breakfast and our language basically means to break a fast it means to begin to eat now there are good fats where we're standing before the Lord and then there are kind of fats that are not healthy you know what we're talking about you know I'm my pastor car dimensions about Paul and when they're on the ship in there and they're they're moving towards a shipwreck and they're being real to and fro and then and they won't eat and and Paul come to them with a word of encouragement and he says eat it's the first commandment that God gave to you person's eat before he said up this tree don't eat before he said that the bible says and the lord commanded the human person said saying of every tree of the garden you must certainly eat first he said to them eat then he said don't eat for us there was this thing where we remind ourselves that God has given us an invitation to eat and what he wanted Peter to understand was Peter if you and I are together in the holy place if you come and you sit with me if you partake of Who I am if you partake of what I offer you then everything else is secondary the primary consideration is that you stand with me in the holy place that you agree with me if the Lord says yes it's yes if the Lord says no it's no you must as pastor Carter reminds you must agree with God if God says that this is the case we can't call it by some other name and so Peter cannot call the pride that he was still holding on to he cannot call this religious zeal it wasn't religious zeal it was pride he kept saying or I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that but the bottom line was God was saying to him no you're not going to do this Peter not yet you're not going to do that Peter and Peter simply needed to say Amen instead of making a bunch of promises to God his only thing that he need to do was to receive the promise of God which is yay and amen in Jesus Christ to sit with Christ at the communion table of covenant relation and so the Lord calls him into this place of covenant relation he says come and dine come and have breakfast in other words I know you haven't been eaten because you've been feeling guilty I know you haven't been partaking of the Lord in the way that you know you ought to because there's some blockage there I know you haven't been singing your songs with your hands raised because you think that God is mad at you and you think that God was surprised when you fail do you think that God was surprised when you didn't have the strength that you thought you had but he was never surprised he already had this meal planned for you he already had this meal prepared for you so now he says to pee and to the disciples coming in now understand what's going on he asked them first before he invites them to eat he nut he must make a certain thing clear with them and he asked them do you have anything to eat so now he's coming to somebody who failed him and he's asking them a very simple question do you have what you thought you had all you who you thought you were a year ago two years ago three years ago when you thought you would be able to fight this fight in your own strength when you thought you might be able to like we sometimes fill up at a gas station you thought you might be able to fill up on a Sunday or or at a devotional service and then kind of make it through the week or are you hungry do you have a sense of need do you recognize how serious these trials are and how much you need to be at the communion table with the Lord do you have anything to eat and their answer was no Lord now you have to understand they weren't just fishermen but they were providers for other people as well they were professional fishermen which means they caught food not just for themselves but for other people and they had to acknowledge I don't have anything anything for myself or anything for anybody else now John recognized something that even Peter didn't recognize at the time he recognized that it was the Lord when the Lord said take the net and put it over the right side of the ship and and when they put it over the right side of the ship they caught more fish than they could handle and John recognized it even though when this happened prior it had happened on Peters boat and John had to tell Peter it is the Lord because Peter was still under a cloud I believe of his own failure so he didn't see it quite as clearly as John saw it at the time because sometimes when were under a cloud of our own failure we have a distorted revelation and we don't see Christ for who he is we don't see him with the clarity that we would ordinarily see him and so sometimes he have to speak to us through other people and when Peter if the Lord was still with him and the Lord was still speaking to him and the Lord was still working miracles in his life why he took his coat and he put it on because I think he recognizes the impropriety of his own life and and he put his coat on and now that's a strange thing ordinarily if a person had a coat on they would take it off and then jump into the water he put his coat on and jumped into the water but you have to understand there's still a little bit of Peter working in there because remember this is the same one that said I don't care if everybody else fails I'm going ahead and so he leaves all of his brothers in the boat and he swims out ahead of everybody again probably because he thought to himself man oh man okay okay I failed that's true but the Lord is still loving me in the Lord is still blessing me that must mean I'm doing something right that must mean that my way of life has had some fruit because sometimes that's the way it is with us God is trying to correct us but at the same time he's being gracious and merciful to us so we misinterpret that to say that God is pleased with the way that I've been acting let me do it again so he jumps into the water leaves his brothers behind and his in his zeal again he's basically making the same statement that he made before but he gets to the shore and Jesus feeds him strangely Jesus says to him at a certain point he says you know take the fish that you have you know Oh some of the fish that you have a and then you know again we see Peter zeal he goes out there trying to bring the fish in you know I mean he goes out he he takes the whole thing you know divinity just puts it over his shoulder and brings all the fish in you know because again he he's he's starting to get happy again his ideas yes yes God is still with me he's still working miracles I'm I remember the last time I threw that net over the right side of the boat and and it was filled with fishing and oh yes I know God is trying to work in my heart he's trying to do this in my heart but let me do what I do again let me get some more fish and let me swim really hard and let me show some zeal and maybe God will forget all the stuff that he's been trying to do let me get into some religious thing let me throw myself into some minute let me do this let me do that let me hand out some tracks and let me sing some songs it let me preach some sermons and Manion anything God might forget that there's some things in my heart that need to be dealt with so he just you know what I mean he gets back on his Peter mobile and starts doing all the stuff that he thinks is going to impress God and God invites him to bring his little fish you know put it on the fire even though the provision is already there whatever little fish he got he got miraculously because the Lord was merciful to him and then he sits down with him any it's sort of a taking me this is my body broken for you type of thing and basically what he's saying to Peter is Peter you don't have to impress me I know who you are and he says to him I love you see that communion table meant you don't have to be afraid of God you don't have to run from him you don't have to hide you don't have to lie to him you don't have to impress him you don't have to make him love you he already does and the idea halleluyah halleluyah the idea was he's going to invite the same Peter the same one who denied him to sit with him and to dine now as this is happening he takes Peter aside after he had nourished Peter after he had filled Peter after he had given Peter what Peter needed to be able to engage in this next conversation because we can never ever engage in the kind of conversations that God needs to engage us and if he doesn't give us the grace he gives us the nourishment but not only that he reminds us of this unbroken communion and then he says to Peter do you love me more than these because again Peters still trying to prove himself Peter doesn't say I love you more than me as he simply says you know that I love you and then he asks him again after saying feed my lambs he asked him again do you love me Simon son of Jonah do you love me aya Peter says you know I love you more and then he asked him the third time and the Bible says that Peter was grieved his heart was broken because I think he understood something the Lord was not asking Peter to express to him his own version of affection his own version of love so Peter reached deep inside and he said Lord you know everything now Peter could have been again lifted up some sort of theological platitude and say Oh Lord you're I'm Missy Anthony omnipotent and this than the other and so on and so forth when he said you know everything but I don't think that's what he was doing he wasn't making a theological statement who's making a very personal statement saying Lord you know everything that there is to know about me you know my ends and my outs you know my ups and my downs you know my successes you know my failures you know where I'm strong you know where I'm weak I don't have to lie to you now he said you know everything about me and yet you know this warts and all everything that I am is yours he said you know that I love you you know that I love you and then the Lord says to him feed my lambs in other words he doesn't say to him Peter if you love me prove it by feeding my lambs he says to him Peter since you love me now you're in a position to feed my lambs now remember what he had said to him in the earlier stages he said when you were converted strengthen your brothers but he goes on before that and says I've prayed for you as in I've provided for you I've fed you I've strengthened you I have befriended you and since you have received that since you've accepted my love and since you know that that is the basis of our relationship since you know that I'm not looking to be impressed by you I'm simply looking to love you I'm not looking to be bedazzled by your week I'm looking to bless you and love you it's essentially know that go forward in this as the Lord said to Gideon your strength because if you receive my love you embrace my love and you know that my love fully embraces you warts and all I know you then you will be able to bring my message of good news my gospel of peace to all men and women and they'll hear you as a person who has truly embraced the love of God because you're not going to talk to them and we're going to say to them no matter where you are no matter what you struggle no matter what your difficulty there is the Jesus who loved you and died for you and what they're going to say is how do you know and you're going to say because he loves me and he died for me wherever I happen to be whatever I happened to be going through whether I have times of success of times of failure he loves me now at a certain stage the Lord said to Peter there was a time when you pretty much set your own agenda you went where you wanted to go you did what you wanted to do so but now you're going to be a person who is in essence a prisoner of the Lord Jesus Christ that's what Paul called himself a prisoner of Jesus Christ says some people going to balance you by your hand they're gonna take you where you don't want to go he said but by this you're going to glorify God there comes a time in our lives where we like Sampson could break pretty much any bond that a person puts on us if we don't like it we just snap the bonds and go back into a provocated lifestyle we don't like the way it's going we just break the bonds and then go back and fellowship with the Philistines but they come to time when God will put bonds on you and on me the bonds of love and any given time you and I this is the way the bonds of love work at any given time you and I can break them at any given time you and I can say thanks but no thanks and I'm not talking about a person deciding that they don't want to be a Christian anymore you know me that's that's a much much creative decision I do believe that people can make that decision but if you do having loved the Lord but what I'm talking about is when God is trying to work on a specific thing in your life or a mine and every time he tries to bring us to that place where we're going to give glory to his name we always have the power to say no thank you but we also have the power to put our hands out we say Lord leave me where you want me to go we have the grace to do that why because we've eaten with him at the communion table we don't have that seat I'll say this in normal clothes Peter thought his strength was in his power to break bonds he hears that an enemy is going to come and try and put him you know and he said nah that's not a biggie for me why I'm Peter I mean I mean I can break any bonds but what Jesus said is that's not your strength the strength is that you are in a position where you can allow God to bring you wherever he wants to bring you even if he sometimes has a use in enemy to do it so that you can grow in him even though at any time you can decide I'm not going to go through this that doesn't mean that you can decide you're not going to go through a struggle it only means that you can decide you're not going to learn through it you can decide you're not going to grow through it you can decide you're going to be bitter as a result of it but you're going to be as stubborn as your enemy or as your adversary or you and I can decide that we're going to allow God to get glory out of this I can pray either God get me out of this or God get glory out of this and if I choose the prayer God get glory out of this it is for this reason only because I have been with him in the holy place because I have allowed him to feed me because I've allowed him to share his life with me to break the better the bread and the poor the wine if you will and to make it so that I can live this life I cannot do it in my own strength I don't have the power so in answer to the question what if I fail in the time of trial the answer is simply this come and dine if you fail in the time of child don't run from him don't hide from him don't lie to him don't pad your answers with him he is not impressed he loves you I tell my little daughter all the time I'm never gonna be shocked or surprised by anything you do she might think I'm shocked and surprised because she's drawing a picture in a whole mind and presented it before daddy and said this is the way I am so when she does something that she thinks it shocks me I'm like no no what I rejoice in is the fact that you're not afraid to come and give daddy a hug tell him the truth and tell him that you love him that's what Peter did finally what was Peter strength finally he was not ashamed to give his daddy a hug to come to him and say I failed I'm sorry but I love you and this is where I belong now there's someone in this room who hasn't lived up to their own self-image I'm not saying that you're not a godly person Peter was a godly man but you set some standards and you haven't lived up to it and you've been avoiding God as a result I don't say you stop coming to church obviously you haven't stopped coming to church although somebody might be listening online and maybe they have but you've been kind of skirting around these these words you can find certain ones that you know you know that you like and so on and so forth and in the prayer closet you've been very very timorous you've been kind of walking on eggshells in the presence of the Lord because you think God is mad at you I want to tell you tonight God is not mad at you God is not mad at you Halloween it doesn't mean that he doesn't want to bring some issues up in you doesn't mean that he want to talk about a thing of tea but he loves you so much now tonight we're going to pray at this altar it is an invitation to simply come and dine but very simply put he just wants to meet me think he wants to eat with you he wants to provide for you he wants to embrace you he simply wants to remind you of how much he loves you let's stand together in the house of the Lord if you haven't lived up to certain standards that you set or even standards that he set because you tried to live it in your own strength and you've been hiding as a result you've not been extended with him as you know you're supposed to be as you know you've been in the past your prayer life has not been a suite your Bible studies have been more sporadic you've been timorous in the church in the house of the Lord there's been walls kind of gone back to business as usual God is here tonight and he just wants to embrace you he wants to eat with you he wants to remind you of how much he loves you if God is speaking to your heart tonight come to the front of this auditorium we pray together we'll meet with God in this holy place will rejoice with him we'll eat with him and it will go on and do this thing that God has called us to do [Music] I survey the wondrous cross which the prince Oh Reid which is I Oh [Music] Oh [Music] content on Oh [Music] see heeey [Music] is me [Music] Oh [Music] if such love [Music] Oh thoughts huh both so we Oh Oh [Music] Oh [Music] [Music] Oh [Music] my great [Music] [Music] [Music] there's mice my Oh Hey [Music] Oh Oh [Music] Oh [Music] [Music] mikesh that's your [Music] [Music] [Music] ah hallelujah praise the name of Jesus it's a wonderful thing to concern yourself with the cross of Christ there is no Bible writer who writes more eloquently in my opinion about the cross of Jesus than Peter it was a big issue with him every time he had a serious struggle with Jesus it was about that cross and now he learns to embrace it because I said it's my only hope there are some people who are standing here the Lord spoke to my heart and basically said that the enemy is trying to parade your sin in front of your face and even as you're standing here and trying to embrace the Lord the enemy is trying to tell you why you don't have the right to but I suggest to you that you use that against him by first acknowledging your failure before the Lord and simply confessing your sin to him confess your fault to him and then allow him to draw you so near to him and to embrace you and to love you and say you're my son you're my daughter I know you he said I plucked you out of the fire with my own hand you're mine tonight the hand of God is upon you to strengthen you to encourage you to embrace you father in Jesus name we rejoice in you O God we don't rejoice in our own strength we don't rejoice in our own accomplishment and we will not be condemned by the lie of the devil with knowledge where we fall short but we recognize that you never fall short that your love never falls short we join you at the table of covenant relation we join you at this table and we partake of the bread and of the line we partake of your life poured out we partake of your sacrifice on Calvary we partake of you Olga and as a result Lord we are able to be who you have called us to be in this generation and for this generation and for your name's sake and for your glory but you said that we would glorify your name in the earth if it involves being bond servants of the Lord and it does then so be it that we won't lift ourselves up we won't lift our strength up we lift you up but we lift up your name and glorify you O God and we are asking Jesus name o God let your hand be on each one spirit of god embrace each one God is embracing to embrace each one God invited one to the table the table of communities we tender love God in Jesus name touch it you are letting no one walk away from this place unnourished undivided for God and Jesus maybe Jesus named strengthen encourage empower for your own namesake according to the Covenant that you made with the heavenly Father let the glory of God we poured out by the Holy Spirit and our Father in Jesus name we thank you we thank you for your son we thank you for what he did for us on Calvary's tree Jesus your sacrifice is enough and Holy Spirit we thank you for feeding us for strengthening us for encouraging us and now we ask that your name be blessed be praised be glorified we love you we bless you in Jesus name Amen [Music] [Applause]

Channel: SermonIndex.net

Views: 22,080

Rating: 4.8911567 out of 5

Keywords: William, Carrol, Revival, Repent, God, Sermons, Jesus, SermonIndex

Id: XQgK7kd_FH0

Length: 57min 43sec (3463 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 14 2009