"Ignite" Forward Motion, Session 3 10-12-11

Bottom Line: Celebrate the steps you take in your relationship with God, and celebrate the steps others take as well.

Inward Focus
*1 Samuel 17:33-37

The battle between David and Goliath is a classic story in the Bible. Giant threatens army and throws down a challenge. No one will fight him. Shepherd boy enters the scene and says, “I’ll take him on.” Boy goes out armed only with stones and a sling. Giant mocks him. David brings giant down. Giant gets head cut off and no longer mocks anyone.

When we hear that story, it sounds like David had to make a pretty huge leap of faith. Yet, for David, it was really just another step.  When trying to convince King Saul that he should take on Goliath, David said: “I have been taking care of my father’s sheep . . . When a lion or a bear comes to steal a lamb from the flock, I go after it with a club and take the lamb from its mouth. If the animal turns on me, I catch it by the jaw and club it to death. I have done this to both lions and bears, and I’ll do it again to this pagan Philistine, too, for he has defied the armies of the living God! The Lord who saved me from the claws of the lion and the bear will save me from this Philistine!” (1 Samuel 17:34-37 NLT).  

God had guided David before, and David knew God would walk him through this step as well. He knew how to celebrate every step with God. And the God who helped him kill the lions and bears would help him kill the giant. God was preparing David through those steps along the way, long before David knew what the next step would require.

            Tonight we are focusing on celebrating every step that we take to get closer to God. Why do you think that would be a positive thing to do?

Because we tend to be a people that regularly points out flaws, but hardly recognizes our spiritual advances.

            Because we have an enemy that would rather have us living defeated Christian lives, than victorious ones that honor Christ and are celebrated.

            Let’s look at it this way; have you ever done something of which you were really proud? You get excited and hope that someone will notice. But what happens if someone not only ignores it, but they point out one of your failures. What happens to your excitement? It gets deflated like a popped balloon.

            I think sometimes we view God in that way. Instead of thinking that He will be excited about our steps toward Him, we think He focuses more on the areas we still mess up. Don’t you feel like that sometimes? I do. I have to be constantly reminded that God doesn’t hold a grudge. 

*Psalm 103:6–13

⁶  The Lord works righteousness

and justice for all who are oppressed.

⁷     He made known his ways to Moses,

his acts to the people of Israel.

⁸     The Lord is merciful and gracious,

slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

⁹     He will not always chide,

nor will he keep his anger forever.

¹⁰    He does not deal with us according to our sins,

nor repay us according to our iniquities.

¹¹    For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

¹²    as far as the east is from the west,

so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

¹³    As a father shows compassion to his children,

so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.

            When you come to God with a repentant heart, does He still hold whatever you had done against you? Is that true forgiveness? No! He wants to celebrate the fact that you are back in His arms again. God does not take our accomplishments and shove them to the side because of our shortcomings.

            If God wants to celebrate your steps of faith towards Him, why don’t we? Why do we focus on the negative? Because that is exactly where Satan wants us to be.

            Do you measure yourself by what others think or by what God thinks? Last Wednesday I handed out your letters that you wrote a year ago. Did you focus on what you actually had accomplished over the past year, or what you failed to do? I’ll admit it. There was one area that I wanted to be doing better, but I have not made too much progress. While there are others I feel I have seen some fruit. What should I do? Feel bad about the little or no movement in one area? Or celebrate that I have made some changes to move towards God in a few different areas?

            We need to gain a new perspective on our lives and how God views us. How different would your life be if you focused on celebrating your steps towards God than on your failures to do so?

Outward Focus

What if we not only celebrated the steps in our own lives, but in the lives of those around us? What if we acknowledged every movement, every step towards God made by the people we encounter? It would certainly change the way we view accountability. We wouldn’t be so concerned with pointing out other people’s failures. Instead we would be more concerned about pointing out those times when he or she steps forward--no matter how small that step is.

Do you think that people would be different if we really did celebrate with them on accomplishments rather than tear them down because of our own pride?

Celebrating other people’s accomplishments doesn’t always come naturally. How do we begin taking steps to do so?

Have you noticed that we tend to see others offenses before we see their accomplishments? Let me put it to you this way; what if a pregnant high school girl came in to the youth wing on a Wednesday night? Would you see her sin before you saw that she was here looking for God? If we point out her sin and don’t celebrate her taking steps towards God, how will that affect her?

What other situations like this have you seen or heard about?

What if we quit looking at our lives and our faith as an accomplishment, and start looking at the actual journey and relationship that brought us to where we are? What if we quit seeing the steps we have yet to take, and start celebrating the ones we have already taken?

*2 Co 13:11 ¹¹ Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.

Truth

Where you think you should be in your relationship with God--or where others think you should be--could be completely different from where God thinks you should be. Writer Dallas Willard says that we expect to go out and perform like Michael Jordan as Christians, always acting as Jesus did. But when we watch Jordan play, we forget that his game is the result of years of practice. To become like Jesus, we have to understand that every step we take is part of that “becoming” more like Him. You see, nothing is ever random with God. Every step, every success, every failure--every one of those shapes who you are, how you view the world and how you function in that world.

Maybe you know more about David’s story. Maybe you know that after he became king, he slept with another man’s wife, got her pregnant and had her husband murdered to cover it up. David took some pretty huge steps in the wrong direction. But the incredible thing about David was that even when David took a step away from God, he knew that he could still step back. Psalm 51 is David’s plea for God’s forgiveness. David cried out to God and he realized that the distance he felt between himself and God was not because God had rejected him, but because he had stepped away from God.

It’s not just the “right” steps we take towards God that are worth celebrating. Every one of us will step away from God at some point. But that step back to Him is worth celebrating too. And just like David, when we do step back, we find that although we may have stepped away from God, He never steps away from us. Yeah, that’s worth celebrating.

God heard David’s pleas. Not only that; the Bible says that God forgave David.

As great as that is, it’s hard to believe God is that gracious. He is. But for some of us, it’s even harder to extend that celebration to those around us.

What if we quit looking at our lives and our faith as an accomplishment, and start looking at the actual journey and relationship that brought us to where we are? What if we quit seeing the steps we have yet to take, and start celebrating the ones we have already taken?

There are people around you who are taking steps, and you’re oblivious. There’s someone in our youth group, your neighborhood, your family, who is taking steps toward God, but you don’t notice because they are not the steps you expect. They don’t worship the same way you do. They don’t know as much about the Bible or attend as many youth group functions as you and your friends. But they may be taking steps toward God--steps that may not meet your standards, but steps that God is using to grow them.

What if we let up on those people? What if we celebrate their small steps? What would that do to their next step? Would they be more likely to take it? You bet they would.

And what about you? What if you set aside your expectations of what your relationship with God should look like and let it be what He wants it to be? What if you not only saw the small step or steps He asks you to take every day, but you also took them--and when you did, you realized just how huge those small steps were?

You see, all of our steps are different. What steps do you need to start celebrating?

Application:

            Is there someone that you need to give some slack? Do you just need to start viewing yourself the way that God sees you? Take some time and pray about what God wants you to do because of hearing this.

            Let’s celebrate together that God doesn’t hold grudges, but that He loves us right where we are right now.