First Southern Baptist Church

Here’s Hope by Jerry Rea
Success/ Failure

I’ve been thinking this week about times in our lives when things go wrong. Have you ever been there? What about times when you just know that something is God’s will, but it doesn’t “work out?” Have you ever witnessed and were not “successful”? In other words, the person you spoke with rejected you, or your message. Were you wrong to witness then? Here’s another example. You often pray about things (and even name the outcome to God). What if what you ask for does not happen, does that mean you were wrong to pray? Is success a larger Sunday school class, or a larger church? What if you as a parent did everything right, but your child still turned out wrong? Were you wrong to take them to church, pray over them, and instruct them in God’s ways? We all know that our children have minds of their own. We all know that they often reject what they’ve been taught. Were we wrong then to teach them?

Now might be a good time to remember the story of Job. Twice the Bible tells us that he was a “righteous” man. I’m sure he wasn’t perfect, and neither are you. The taking of Job’s “blessings” was not done by God, but God did allow Satan to do it. For chapter after chapter the righteous man endures hard times. Remember now, these were not just minor hard times; they were extremely hard times when he lost family members and all he owned. He struggled alone under the heavy weight of the burden of suffering. He struggled so very much that when we think of this “righteous” man we immediately think of agonizing suffering. Maybe that reminds you of Jesus. The Garden of Gethsemane was very painful for Jesus. After He suffered in prayer, He was taken, beaten, nailed and speared. Does that mean that Jesus did not “succeed”? Was Job wrong to be “righteous”? Are you wrong to pray, even though you don’t get “answers”?

As you meditate on these things, factor in the “way of the cross.” By allowing Jesus to be crucified God Almighty saved the world. This was the way of the cross. The way to win on the field of sports is to crush your opponent. The way to win in life is often different. Sometimes you go to a cross and give your life even if people don’t understand and don’t want you to go. Sometimes the way of the cross does lead home. Sometimes the way of the cross is the way to victory.

Do you remember that Jesus asked you to take up your cross? This is a different way of thinking than the way of the world. You don’t have to be the biggest to be right with God. You don’t have to have the acclaim of men to succeed in the eyes of God. At the end of the day, our goal is not to succeed in the eyes of men. A word comes to my mind. The Bible teaches that Jesus endured the cross for the joy set down before Him (Heb. 12:2). It doesn’t say that the cross was fun, or did not cost Him. It says the opposite. Jesus was right to go to the cross. He was right to suffer and die. He was right to be rejected and murdered. Sometimes the same is true for us.

At the end of the book of Job, God circles back around and rewards Job for his faithfulness. God will reward you.

I love you! - Hang in there!
Jerry Rea

Matthew 7:12 (NIV)
12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Isaiah 58:1-12 (NIV)
1 “Shout it aloud, do not hold back.
Raise your voice like a trumpet.
Declare to my people their rebellion
and to the descendants of Jacob their sins.
2 For day after day they seek me out;
they seem eager to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that does what is right
and has not forsaken the commands of its God.
They ask me for just decisions
and seem eager for God to come near them.
3 ‘Why have we fasted,’ they say,
‘and you have not seen it?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and you have not noticed?’
“Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.
4 Your fasting ends in quarreling and strife,
and in striking each other with wicked fists.
You cannot fast as you do today
and expect your voice to be heard on high.
5 Is this the kind of fast I have chosen,
only a day for people to humble themselves?
Is it only for bowing one’s head like a reed
and for lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Is that what you call a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?
6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

Meet & Greet at the Woods on River Road Restaurant Tuesday night.

Matthew 6:22-23 (NIV)
22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

2 Timothy 3:2 (NIV)
People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy.

Romans 12:1-2 (NIV)
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Genesis 25:19-24 (NIV)
19 This is the account of the family line of Abraham’s son Isaac.
Abraham became the father of Isaac, 20 and Isaac was forty years old when he married Rebekah daughter of Bethuel the Aramean from Paddan Aram and sister of Laban the Aramean.
21 Isaac prayed to the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was childless. The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. 22 The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So she went to inquire of the Lord.
23 The Lord said to her,
“Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples from within you will be separated;
one people will be stronger than the other,
and the older will serve the younger.”
24 When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb.
Footnotes

Exodus 2:1-10 (NIV)
1 Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, 2 and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. 5 Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. 6 She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said. 7 Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” 8 “Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”