Lost and Found Series 2

Strengthening Our Grip
Last time we looked at finding our Zing.  Today I want to look at Strengthening our Grip – how to deal with failure.
I was angry.  Very angry.  I had been told off for some minor infraction and sent to my room, without tea.  When I was growing up I lived in an oval shaped road and our house backed onto a park.  I sat on the window sill looking at my friends playing in the late afternoon sun.
Mr Day, our neighbour, came out of his back door and looks up at me sitting in the window.  “Don’t sit there,” he says, “you’ll fall out!”  A little while later he went back inside.  But that had panted a seed.  I did not belong in my room and I certainly would be having more fun with my friends.  So I look down the back wall.  At the bottom was a lean-to, a miniature shed affair that we’d built, but it was about five foot high with an angled roof.  I then noticed some rusty old nails sticking out from the walls.  I figured I could lower myself through the window, put my feet on the nails, and then lower myself onto the lean-to, and then I’d be free.
Everything went great!  I lowered myself over the metal frame of the window and began searching for the nails with my feet.  Just one problem: I couldn’t find the nails and I couldn’t pull myself back in.  I was stuck, but boy, I was not going to cry out for help.  So I just hung for a while.
My hands started to ache.  My fingers were in agony as I was holding onto the thin rim of the metal window sill.
Just then, Mr Day came out again, and looks up.  “I told you so!”  he says and walks back into his house.
I hear a commotion downstairs.  Now, understand something here, I did NOT want rescuing for I was ached of getting into even more trouble.  I hear footsteps and then my step-father bursting into the room and grabbing me just as I fell.  He pulls me in, scraping my short clad legs on the metal sill.
Two things:  When things go wrong we need a strong grip.  When things go wrong we need help.

Read 2 Kings 6:1-7.

1.  Releasing Our Grip

Making Mistakes
This guy is training to be a prophet, not a lumberjack.  But he still volunteers.
Adversity happens when we are doing God's work.  Have you ever noticed how that we can have things go wrong when we're trying to do right?
Did you notice that God allowed the accident to occur?  This didn't mean the building project was out of God's will.  Accidents happen.

Enthusiasm’s is great, but how do we treat people that fail?

I have been in enough churches over the years to know that sometimes we are the most unforgiving people around.  People will say things like, “How can you allow so and so to do this or that, when they have sinned…”  When we dig deeper we discover that the sin or problem happened years ago, the person has done their best to show fruits of repentance (Matt 3:8) and are battling on.

Could this be why, after David had sinned by taking a census that he did not want to be handed over to people?  David is given three choices (2 Samuel 24):

God used David's sin and the resulting chastisement to reveal David's heart and wisdom.  His choice of the following three options would test David:

• Seven years of famine: This would surely be the death of some in Israel, but the wealthy and resourceful would survive. Israel would have to depend on neighbouring nations for food.
• Flee three months before your enemies: This would be the death of some in Israel, but mostly only of soldiers.  Israel would have to contend with enemies among neighbouring nations.
• Three days' plague in your land: This would be the death of some in Israel, but anyone could be struck by this plague - rich or poor, influential or anonymous, royalty or common.

Sin and failure affect everyone in the community – even in the church.  One hurts, we all hurt (1 Cor. 12:26).
David makes a choice:
2 Sam. 24:14: David said to Gad, “I am in deep distress.  Let us fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but do not let me fall into the hands of men.”
This meant that David chose the three days of plague. In the other two options the king and his family could be insulated against the danger, but David knew that he had to expose himself to the chastisement of God.
Do not let me fall into the hand of man: This meant that David chose the three days of plague.  In the other two options, Israel would either be at the mercy of neighbours (as in the famine) or attacked by enemies. David knew that God is far more merciful and gracious than man is.

2. Resigning Our Purpose

Let’s look at the idea of the axe being borrowed.  The word axe head is not actually in the original text, it has been translated this way to make sense to our English ears, but the phrase used is ‘the iron.’  From this we can assume that the axe and handle fell in the water – he lost his grip.

"Borrowed" is too weak a phrase,  ‘begged’ is closer to the Hebrew (Russell Dilday) and implies a struggle to get an axe in the first place.
We need to understadn something about our Primary and Secondary ministry:
The lost axe head was borrowed.  That meant somebody would have to pay for the replacement of the axe.  The young prophet that lost the axe head would most likely become someone's servant until he had worked off the debt of this axe head.  And in the 8th Century BC iron was a valuable commodity; that meant he was in for a lengthy time of servitude.

You see we have a guy here whose primary calling is to the realm of the prophetic but he is house building. He knows the value of finding and serving in his calling but also that he is to help where he is needed.

How often in church life do we hear folks say, “That is not my gifting”?  It is great to know your call, but we recognise the importance of secondary ministry too – that where were needed to serve.

But here is the point – the failure in his secondary ministry could end his primary ministry!  Why, because he’d be required to give the full value of the axe back plus 20% for the inconvenience, this would mean he’d spend the rest of his life trying to make restitution (Lev 6:1-7).  The idea of restitution is still carried over in the NT with Zaccheaus (Luke 19:1-10).

So we have this guy who has tried to serve but failed, and failed in such a way that he fears he will never be able to serve God again!

I wonder how many of us have said. “I tried once and it didn’t work, so I will ever be involved again.”  I wonder how many of us are like the axe head owner and say, “not only do you have to make it up for me, but you have to go beyond the value of what you did!”

3. Removing our Pride

Verse 6: Where did it fall?

For some of us we feel that we can never admit failure, but all of us are going to fail at some point.  The problem is that we cannot get over the pride issue.

But this young man shows us some steps to take:

• Remorse (5): Oh my lord...  He shows remorse as he does not try to cover up his failure. Yes, he may be worried about his future, but he does not run away.
• Repent (5): it was borrowed…  He goes to someone he trusts and explains.  You see if it belonged to him then there is nothing to repent or confess, except ineptitude to swing an axe.  But it was entrusted to him.
  Ministries are not ours by right; they are entrusted to us by God.
• Re-visit the problem: where did it fall… when we revisit we are not trying to dig up the details, we’re looking to make sure the same thing is not repeated. 

If we keep repeating mistakes we have not truly learned anything. 
We revisit the area after remorse and repentance because we need to ensure that we place the boundaries in our lives that are required.

It has been said that it is better to have a fence at the top of a cliff than an ambulance at the bottom.

We have to deal with the problem that led to the failure in the first place – otherwise another failure will follow.
This happened to me when Barbie had an operation when Matt was a few weeks old.   Anyway, Barbie comes home and she is tired.  About 20 minutes later the phone goes and it’s a friend from church who is having a tough time, part of a regular cycle.  Now I am not the pastor of the church but was on the wider leadership team.  He says to me, “I need to chat to you now, come over.”  I can hear he’s desperate.  So I relay to Barbie whilst I am on the phone what’s going on.  She says, “Go, I’ll be fine.” 
So off I go but what I hadn’t realised is that I’d dropped an axe head right there by leaving her at home with a small baby within minutes of her coming home from surgery – you see the question should never have been put to her (because I knew she’d say yes because of her giving nature) and I should have said to my friend, “not today, tomorrow maybe.”  I'd left her unable to lift and comfort our baby.

Sometimes we can look noble to everyone else but actually we have let our primary responsibility slip.
So I was remorseful, repented, and revisited in this area and now I put Barbie first – she has a priority in my diary.

4. Regaining Our Future

Go Pick It Up!
The idea of grace is that it is restorative. 
The unrecoverable can be recovered.
Grace is brilliant because it is restorative.  It is designed for us failures to be able to pick up something that we lost and to recover it in a pure way.
Grace doesn’t mean brushing things under a carpet – it means helping people though the process of remorse, repentance and revisiting because that is what God offers to us.

Gal 1:1-2: Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently.  But watch yourself, or you may also be tempted. (NIV)
Gal 1:1-2: Live creatively, friends.  If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself.  You might be needing forgiveness before the days out. (MSG)

We all know that we have sinned and that God has justified us. 
Romans 3:23: For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…But that is not the whole truth.
Romans 3:24: …and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
There cannot be a Romans 3:23 without a Romans 3:24 – otherwise we have a condemning gospel with no hope.

What does it mean to be justified?

A wealthy man buys a Rolls Royce.  He is in love with this car and decides to celebrate by driving across Europe.  He enjoys the sumptuous leather, the deep carpets, the smoothness of the engine.  He travels through France, into Italy and right in the southernmost part of Italy the Rolls Royce breaks down.  So he calls Rolls Royce and says “I’m stuck!”  Next thing he knows Rolls Royce puts him up ain a five star hotel, flies out a mechanic out to him with a part, fixes the car and flies back.  The guy carries on his trip but when he arrives back in England he gives Rolls Royce a call.  “Hello, I just wanted to know when I will be getting the bill for the repair service to my Rolls Royce when I was in Italy?”  “I’m sorry,” says the representative, “We have no record of a Rolls Royce ever breaking down.”
The man protests, “But you put me in a five star hotel, sent a mechanic who worked on the car for two days, flew him back and sent me on my way!”
“I’m sorry,” says the representative, “We have no record of a Rolls Royce ever breaking down.”

That’s justification – as though it never happened.  God has no record of you ever failing!
The word for some of us is this: it will now be as though the failure never happened!

5. Relying on God!

Deuteronomy 33:27: The eternal God is your refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms.

Work with God's plan to restore your loss.  Elishaintructed the young man in verse 7, "Lift it out," he said.  Then the man reached out his hand and took it.

The axe head needs to be picked up and employed.  Put the axe back into the hand of your life.  If you've lost the anointing you need to reclaim it and replace it. 
Reclaim your cutting edge through remorse, repentance and revisiting!