Winning at the Moments of Testing

Hi, everyone. How are you? Good? It's a beautiful day. It's a long weekend, so we're a little thin today. I was looking at how everyone was seated, you know, the little gaps here and there. I promise you, the Fouches are lovely people. They're just sort of all by themselves, right? Right there in the middle. So, at least talk to them afterwards, since no one's sat by them. Have you ever had a moment in your life where you realize, you know, it's a big moment. This is big for me.

A changing moment, if you would. Not necessarily, you know, like this big event, you know, graduations or parties or weddings, but a moment that you know from here on out, you're going to be different. Have you ever had a moment like that? Sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad. And from that point on, for the rest of your life, you'll carry that with you. Have you ever had a moment like that?

Here's what I'm talking about. I'd like to talk a little bit about the story of Saul, King Saul. Let's go ahead and go to 1 Samuel. Saul was the first king of Israel. He was kind of an unlikely king, too. He was from the tribe of Benjamin. And this is what the Smith Bible Dictionary says about Saul. His character is in part illustrated by the fierce, wayward, fitful nature of the tribe. That was the first king of Israel.

That's interesting. We'll see as we come through the message, you know, that that comes out. Wayward, fitful nature. Israel wanted a king. They wanted to be like every other nation around them. They wanted a king that they could see. No matter how fantastic and miraculous God had saved them in the past, they wanted to look like everybody else. They wanted someone to look to. Well, let's go to 1 Samuel. And to get the story of Saul, we need a little bit of backstory.

And two verses in chapter 10, 1 Samuel 10. So at this point, Saul was already secretly anointed as a king. He's later presented to the people. Samuel had corrected the people for wanting a king, calling them out, saying, you know, you had God as a king. He called them out on it. And Samuel has a couple instructions for Saul here in 1 Samuel 10, verses 7 and 8.

And let it be when the signs come to you. Now, here, actually, let's get up to verse 5. That's the signs. You shall come to the hill of God where the Philistine's garrison is, and it will happen when you have come to the city, that you will meet a group of prophets. OK, so he's going to be in front of the Philistines.

And then we can pick up in verse 7. Let it be when these signs come to you that you do as the occasion demands, for God is with you. You shall go down before me to Gilgal, and surely I will come down to you to offer burnt offerings and make sacrifices of peace offerings. Seven days you shall wait till I come to you and show you what you should do. OK, so now he's given him some instructions. You're going to be at Gilgal. The Philistines are going to be in front of you. Wait seven days. I'll be there. I'll be there to offer peace offerings to God. OK, let's skip over to chapter 13.

So at this point now, Saul had a group of men who were a small army. Jonathan led a small group to attack the Philistines. This gets the Philistines all riled up. Now we're in the situation that Samuel had told him about previously. 13, verse 5, the Philistines gathered together to fight with Israel 30,000 chariots, 6,000 horsemen, and people as the sand which is on the seashore in multitude. And they came up and encamped in McMash to the east of Beth-Avon.

Jump down to verse 8. Then he waited seven days, according to the time set by Samuel. But Samuel did not come. He didn't come to Gilgal. And the people were scattered from him. So Saul said, bring the burnt offerings of peace offerings here to me. And he offered the burnt offerings. And now it happened, as soon as he had finished presenting the burnt offering, that Samuel came and Samuel went to meet him, that he might greet him. And Samuel said, what have you done? What did you do? Saul said, when I saw that the people were scattered from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines gathered together at McMash, then I said, the Philistines will now come down on me at Gilgal.

And I have not made supplications to the Lord. Therefore, I felt compelled and offered the burnt offering. I felt compelled. He was given very strict directives. Wait seven days, I will be there to offer the burnt offerings. He was being tested in faith. For the rest of his life, from here on out, this was a moment that changed him. Verse 13, let's see how it changed him. And Samuel said to Saul, you have done foolishly.

You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God, which he commanded you. For now the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. He would have. He would have established your kingdom forever. But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for himself a man after his own heart. And the Lord commanded him to be the commander of the people, because you have not kept what the Lord had commanded you. Verse 13 says that Saul's dynasty would have gone on forever. And however God would have worked that out, you know, family's bearing, he would have had someone as family on the throne forever.

And it all changed with one snap judgment. One moment. He felt compelled, so he did the opposite of what he was told to do. And just a moment. Everything had changed. There are moments in our lives that can shape who we are, where we're going, and what will carry with us for the rest of our lives. There are moments. We have to be aware that there are these moments of testing, so that life just doesn't wash us by, and that we can be changed by them. That we can be transformed by them. That we can grow. The culture that we live in today, it's easy for us to look past the lessons that we experience.

It's so easy, because, you know, we do something, and we're on the next thing, and we're on to the next thing. You know, moments are going by with very little time to reflect, with very little time to consider. You know, God is working with us every day. A part of our lives, He is working with us. There are moments every day for us to learn from, to change, and to grow.

And they can shape who we become from here on out. Are you being transformed by those moments in your life? Those testing moments? Those moments of faith? Are you succeeding when those moments come up? You know, who else in the Bible can you think of made a snap judgment call, and from here on out, things were different? Eve? Cain? Moses hitting the rock?

God gave him directions. Water will come out of this rock. All you have to do is just talk to it. But he was angry, and he made a snap judgment call.

Didn't get to see the Promised Land. I'm sure you've heard the phrase that we are some of the choices that we make. You ever really thought about that? You are some of the choices that you've made.

You know, in essence, everything that we've decided from here on out, that's who we are. Decisions we've made along the way. Decisions we've made as a young person. Decisions we've made as a young adult in our 30s. They shape who we are. They shape our experiences. They shape, you know, our life experience, our worldview, by decisions that we've made.

We're a direct result of our experiences and choices. Like Saul, we have these moments where a decision has to be made.

Saul could have decided, I will wait, regardless. Whatever happens, I will wait.

But he made a different decision. But the choice was there for him to make.

His life was different from that point on.

We want to succeed when these moments come up. I do. I want to succeed when they come up. I don't want to fall short.

I don't want to make a decision that's going to hurt me, hurt my ability to grow spiritually from here on out.

I want to win. I want to win at those moments. Every day, we have a moment, moments throughout our day, that we can grow from, that we can learn from, and moments that will change us.

When I was growing up, my brother had a friend, and he was a really funny kid, actually.

He would come over and visit us, and he was always nice. He did pretty well in school. He moved away when we were, I don't know, middle schoolers.

But he had told my brother, you know, I remember you guys always had dinner on Friday nights. You know, he didn't recognize it was the Sabbath, you know. But he said, you know, now with my family, I make sure that one night a week, we always sit down, we have dinner, because I thought that was so cool.

You know, he was a good kid.

What happened to him, though, is that his older brother always was a bit of a negative influence on him.

Even as a kid, I remember him, you know, not always making the best choices when he was with his older brother.

One night, after a few drinks, his brother talked him into going in and breaking into a house. This was a good kid. Made good grades, had a family, and his brother said, no one's in there, we'll just go in. I just need, I want to take one thing from that. I know that it's in there.

He didn't know that his brother was carrying a gun with him, either.

So, they break into the house. It wasn't empty. Somebody was in there.

Somebody was in there.

So, they start running away from the house. They're chasing him away from the house. And his brother, to ensure that they won't be followed, starts shooting a couple shots to the side. Not at the people, but they're afraid they're going to get caught, so he shoots a couple shots to the side. So, now you have breaking and entering.

And now they're being tried for attempted murder.

He's a good kid.

He's a good kid growing up.

He made one bad call.

And now his life is different for not only him, his family, his children.

It's terrible. It's an extreme case, but it's an example that things come up. And we get ourselves into situations that emotionally, his brother seemed to always have this effect on him.

But we get ourselves into situations because of emotions, choosing the wrong friends to be around, desperate situations. We might make bad choices.

Lack of trust in God.

But there are moments that we're always going to have to make judgment calls because things are going to change from here on out because of those choices that we've made.

I've been here for five years now, and when I moved here, the television program is called Beyond Today. And I always thought it was this vague reference.

It's just another way of saying the world tomorrow, basically, you know, because of our history.

But Aaron Booth was the one who actually came up with the name and submitted it. And if you talk to him about it, it's fascinating because, you know, there's an element of that in the meaning of Beyond Today, but that's not, that was not his intention. It's really great to talk to him because he gets fired up about it if you know Aaron.

But he said that he was praying about what we can name the program because, you know, people have lives and sometimes they're struggling. And what could help them is that, is that they would just stop and think about the consequences of their choices. They would just stop and think beyond today.

If they would just stop and reflect on the moment that they're in, maybe they wouldn't buy that extra thing on their credit card.

If they would just stop and think, maybe they wouldn't have that extra drink that really got them in trouble.

They just thought beyond today.

Maybe they wouldn't, you know, tell that little white lie that trickles down and changes the course of their lives. They would just stop and think beyond today. It's kind of cool because if you think about that, it really changes the meaning because that's helpful today. I can stop and just think, and I have control over the choices that I make.

And that's what it means.

Let's be honest, God doesn't put a hedge around us. We're out here. We're being tested right now.

You know, He says the blessings will come, and that's true. But there are also very difficult times as a Christian.

And choices have to be made. But what does He give us? He gives us the Holy Spirit.

He gives us a very clear understanding of why He's doing what He's doing in our lives.

But there are moments where the choice is up to us. This story of Saul's example, shows a moment where his life changed from here on out because of a judgment call. That's not the only way that moments can come, where we can be changed in a moment. There are moments when we're close to God, and we can sort of have a revelation or an understanding or clarity. Have you ever had one of those moments?

We can be changed in a moment, you know, and have like, oh yeah, now I get it. This is going to change me. Have you ever had one of those moments?

David was a man after God's own heart, but he wasn't perfect.

He had a lot of interesting moments in his life. Let's go to 2 Samuel.

We'll talk about the first king and now the second king of Israel. Second Samuel.

Second Samuel 12.

This is a familiar story that I like to rehearse because there is something very important in a moment when David has a bit of clarity and understanding. You know the story. You know what happened with David and Bathsheba. You know what choices he made afterwards to his husband, to her husband Uriah.

So God has a plan. The Lord sent Nathan to David, 2 Samuel 12.1. And he came to him and said, David, there were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had exceedingly many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing except one little eulam, which he had bought and nourished. And he grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food and drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom. And it was like a daughter to him.

And a traveler came to the rich man who refused to take from his own flock and from his own herd to prepare for the wayfaring man who had come to him. But he took the poor man's lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.

So David's anger was greatly aroused against the man. And he said to Nathan, you know, you can almost see him just pacing. Here's the king of Israel. He's hearing this story. This rich man wouldn't even give of his own flock. You know, he's pacing around. David gets angry. As the Lord lives, the man who has done this shall surely die.

And he shall restore fourfold the lamb because of the thing he did, because he had no pity.

And Nathan said to David, you are that man.

You did it.

This is the very thing that you did to Uriah.

That says, the Lord God of Israel, verse 7, I anointed you king over Israel and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave you your master's house and your master's wives and your keeping. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah.

And if that had been too little, I would have given you more.

You were that man.

This is a moment where change can happen.

Now it's in David's court.

What's he going to do? There's a few ways that he can react. He's the king of Israel. Get out of here, Nathan. I'm the king.

I could do what I want.

Verse 13, so David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.

I have sinned against the Lord.

This is a moment where David could be changed.

This is the moment when he said, David, you are that man. You are the one who did this.

This is a moment of clarity and understanding.

To us, it seems like, hey, it's obvious.

You committed adultery and you murdered. Was he distracted with being king? What was it? It doesn't matter. This is his moment where he had to change. And you know what? David reacted in the best way possible.

He reacted in the best way possible.

I have sinned against the Lord. He had a moment of clarity and understanding. And then today, we have one of the most personal psalms of repentance because of this from David.

He didn't blow this off. He was changed. He used a moment to learn and to change.

He allowed himself that.

He was being corrected.

And you know, it's interesting because there are times when moments come, you know, not from just reading the Bible, sitting in services. They can come from someone else. God can use a moment with someone else to show you, hey, here's the truth of the matter.

What are you going to do about it?

It's tough. You know, sometimes I think about, you know, how God has called you. Look at us. We're all different. We all come from different places, especially here in Cincinnati.

He brings us all together and he says, all right, get along. You're my church.

I'm going to do great things with these people.

You know, sometimes we have to give someone a nudge. Hey, come on. We're going this way.

You need to do the right thing as well. And that's okay. We need to allow those moments to happen so that we can change.

These moments aren't always negative in our lives. You know, you think about in the Bible, you know, Joseph had a few moments where he made the right decision right at the right moment.

Potiphar's wife didn't matter. He went to prison. He did the right thing.

There's another Saul who had a moment of clarity.

His name is the Apostle Paul.

He was changed quite dramatically.

He allowed that moment to change him. So how do you ensure that when you are in these moments of life, that you make the right choice? How do you ensure that in the situation, when it comes, you put God first? How do you do that?

Let's go to Matthew 6. Very familiar Scripture. It's always exciting to read no matter what.

You know where I'm going? Verse 33. But seek first the kingdom of God. That's the part. Sometimes we stop right there.

But to ensure that we are being changed in those moments of life, it's the second part that's important here. And His righteousness.

Yes, seek first the kingdom of God, but as well as that, we seek His righteousness.

It's more than just about the goal. The kingdom of God is out there. God has given it to us so that we have something that we are aiming for. But there's also a process that we're in the middle of right now. Just as important as the goal is the process that we're in right now. And that process is putting on righteousness. It's growing.

It's being able to learn and be able to make the right decision when those moments come. Isn't it? It's a process. We are looking to the kingdom of God and putting on righteousness as we grow.

The kingdom is out there, but we cannot forget about the now and what we're doing now. And the process that we're going through. We should never get to the point where we're just sort of like, okay, we're just holding on. We're just waiting until the end.

We're just holding tight. The process still goes until the very end.

The process of transforming ourselves.

So one way to ensure in life's moments is that we know that there's a process going on in our lives and that we are being transformed by putting on righteousness as we grow and get closer to God. Let's go to Proverbs.

Proverbs 1 verse 7.

Another familiar one? I'm not saying anything new to anybody in this room today. Proverbs 1 verse 7.

The situation for David would have been a lot different if he reacted differently. He would have been more the second part. The fools despise wisdom and instruction. He received instruction. He had a moment when Nathan said, David, you are that man. But David did fear God.

And that's the beginning of knowledge, as it says here.

So when it comes to ensuring that in life, in those moments that come up for us, where we're being tested, where things can change for us from this point on, remember that fearing the Lord is just the beginning of the knowledge.

Another way, let's go to 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 10.

How do you ensure that in life's moment you will succeed? 2 Corinthians 10. 1 Corinthians 10.

Verse 3.

Now, that's difficult.

That's difficult. Especially for the culture we live in. To bring every thought into captivity, our attention is always distracted. I'm always distracted. Sometimes I'm so distracted that when I'm praying, the first thing I say to God is, I need help focusing. My mind is all over the place.

We're supposed to bring every thought into captivity as part of our spiritual warfare. In life's moments when we are being tested, it's difficult. It's very difficult this day and age.

When was the last time that you really just sat down and thought quietly?

With no distractions?

There's a name for that. It's called meditation.

It's difficult.

I sit down and my phone's buzzing, and kids are calling. It's hard.

What gets in our way? Netflix?

My classic clowns' village?

It's distracting, right? It's all distractions.

We're supposed to bring in every thought into captivity.

Do you remember the scene in Wally? Who's seen Wally? Anybody? Anybody not seen Wally?

A couple. You should remember Wally. It's a cute movie.

So, you know, in Wally, you know, the world was full of trash, so everyone basically goes on this big, you know, intergalactic ship, uh, cruise ship, right?

But when you get up there, everyone's like in these lounge chairs, and they have screens in front of them, and they're talking, and, you know, they don't see anything around them. They're just on their screens all day, you know, and even though they're talking, and it seems like things are going on, really nothing of value is happening.

And I remember, you know, Wally sort of bumps the one lady, and like her screen turns off, and she looks around, you know, she's like, oh, she looks around, she couldn't believe all this stuff was going on around her, and she gets off the train, she's like, I didn't know we had a pool!

She's distracted, just with what? With meaningless stuff.

You know, we're distracted, unless we're really diligent about it, it's easy to be distracted, and this weakens our ability during those moments when testing happens, because we're not thinking about anything deep, and they're just shallow.

Just shallow thinking. A couple years ago, you know, at the feast, you know, we drove 12 hours to Panama City, you know, we unpacked, you know, we're trying to get there for opening night, you know, we get the kids settled, you know, we get into our room, you know, just do you know how busy it is?

Well, we run out, I get some Chinese food, and the lady at the counter, you know, I order the big order from our family and my parents, and the lady's like, oh, why are you here? I'm just at church convention, I pull out my money, and as soon as I said it, I realized what had happened.

This was a moment for me.

I wish I had done better.

You know, I was so busy, it was distracted, you know, with things going on, things happening, and, you know, I got to get the camera set up. I minimize God's feast of tabernacles.

That moment has changed me from here on out.

I feel bad that I did that.

I could have told her, you know, even if she would have said, okay, feast of tabernacles, whatever. But, you know, that was for me. That moment was for me to change. I told her I was at some random church convention, which has no meaning whatsoever.

Just shallow, right? Anybody can be at a church convention.

I am celebrating something that God has in store for all of mankind. Do you let those moments change you? Do you stop and reflect on those moments?

Because if you don't, you're on to the next thing, and then you're on to the next thing, and then you're on to the next thing, right?

This is a moment. Every Sabbath, this is a moment.

You know, where is our... where is your focus? You know, is it here? You know, are you doing this? Okay, I'm here because God has prepared a message for me to hear.

You know, I'm just Rudy. I'm nobody. God prepared a message through whoever's giving the message or my thoughts on what I'm doing tonight. I got to make sure I get home because I forgot to thaw the chicken. You know? It's hard. We're all distracted. We have to allow ourselves to stop. And be taught and focus on the deep things. God called us to something very, very important. This small group of people here throughout all of Cincinnati is who God's working with. I hope you believe it because He's going to do something very big in a moment. And I'm going to give you a moment to think about He's going to do something very big in a moment when He calls up His saints.

Life is full of moments where we are tested and we're shaped and we're giving understanding. How are you doing? Are you just riding along, letting life just happen? Making plans just as they happen? Or are you living very deliberately? Are you a very active Christian?

Times will come when you're expected to act on your feet and if you're not ready, you'll do like I did at the Chinese food restaurant.

What I'm thankful for, though, if you go back to the book of Psalms, is that we serve a very loving and patient and merciful God who is along the way in our process as we put on our righteousness as we're ready ourselves for His return. We're talking about these moments of changing. Psalm 30, verse 4, Sing praise to the Lord, you saints of His, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name. For His anger is but for a moment. We mess up, we fall short. I fell short at the Chinese food restaurant. His anger is but for a moment. His favor is for life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. That's encouraging. That's encouraging. As these moments come across to us, these moments of changing, these moments of clarity, these moments where judgment had to be made, they come along. But we serve a God who favors life. He'll forgive our shortcomings, but we want to make sure that when we come along these spiritual battles, that we succeed. We want to be victorious when those moments of faith come up.