God Does Not Waste Our Mistakes | Joshua 9

Hey, hey, sane city. Whoa, whoa, sorry.

I'm going to back up a little bit.

I know I come out with a little bit of energy and I don't want

you guys to be totally just blown away by the Energizer

Bunny. That is my preaching style.

Good morning. Glad you guys are here and I

don't know you. My name is Brandon.

I am glad that you are here. I'm glad that you're worshipping

with us. We're going to be book of Joshua

this morning. If you don't have a Bible, you

can get to that on an app on your phone.

We are totally good with that. But if you want a physical copy

of God's word, we actually do have Bibles on the seats nearby

around you. It'll be on page 184 is where

I'll be today. We'll get to God's word in just

a moment. First, I just want to say thank

you to the many of you who are sacrificing to make Easter a

reality for not just the people in this room, but the people who

are yet to experience same city, who are, as we say it here,

rolling up their sleeves and serving others with a dirty

towel. We say around here the dirtiest

towel wins, which means it's just our heart to serve others

because Jesus Christ came not to be served, but to serve.

And so thank you to those who are serving a Good Friday at

Easter Saturday morning and jumping in on one of our served

teams for Easter Sunday. I just want to say thank you as

your pastor. We couldn't do without you guys.

So thank you for having dirty towels and sacrificing so others

would know. Jesus.

Hey, mistakes are inevitable. Not just as a preacher, but for

me, especially as a dad. I've had my fair share of

mistakes as a father. I'm going to go in a quick

little list here just so you guys can understand just how bad

of a dad I can be #5 on the list of the quick little power

rankings. Often times it'll be time for us

to pick up. And my wife, Maddie's a very, an

extremely organized person and my kids have taken after her.

And that, that's a good thing. Their dad, not so much.

So I will go to go put things back like the Legos or the dolls

and my kids will look at me and go, Dad, that is not where that

goes. So that's a mistake I regularly

make in our house. Also, when it's time to make

breakfast, I will regularly make the kids cereal or pancakes or

eggs. But when it comes time for

oatmeal, my kids have a very particular way with which they

enjoy oatmeal. And I've learned that Dad,

that's not how that goes. You can't make it like that.

That's not how mom makes it. I've gotten that too many times

to count. So please pray for me, my

breakfast making. But also, the mistakes get

bigger than that as a dad. Mistakes that I wish that I

could go back and not look at. So many much regret.

How much time I've spent on my phone through screen addiction,

like a mistake I've made as a dad is how often I've spent time

just staring at some nonsensical thing on my phone instead of

being present with my kids. Not only that, there are times

where I will put others the kids over my relationship with Maddie

and that's bad fathering as well because I can only be as good of

a father to them as I am a husband to my wife.

But I think the most grievous of my mistakes is a dad.

The one that stings the most when I think about it is 2017

Maddie and I got married and 2 1/2 months in Maddie woke up and

decided to take a pregnancy test.

I didn't know this was coming. And Maddie, through tears and

joy and excitement, wakes me up and says we're pregnant.

And I wish, I wish I would have been the husband on that day,

the father on that day that looked her in the eye with joy

and with a smile. But I think the words that I

said is, how is that possible? It's kind of funny now, but as I

look back in that moment, that blooper reel is still in my mind

because on that day I really hurt my wife.

And it began A2 year journey where I was figuring out that

kids are not a burden, they are a blessing.

And that was a day Maddie dreamed of her whole life.

And I can't get that back. I can't take it back and I can't

go back over the eight years I've spent being a dad, being

better, being stronger, being more attentive, being more

engaged as a father. That their mistakes are going to

happen as a father, They're going to happen as a person, as

a wife, as a worker. You are going to experience

mistakes in this life. In fact, maybe you're here at

church today and the biggest mistake you've ever made is

right now at the front of your mind because spring break just

happened and you can't believe what you just did.

College student that some of you are looking back and thinking

about a conversation you had with a loved one and you can't

take those words back. It is a haunting memory, a bad

decision. So much are some of you feeling

this right now that it almost kept you for coming into church

today because of how much regret and shame you feel over

something that's happened in your life, something that you

did. May I just announced to you

today the big idea of the sermon, the sermon in a sentence

that might just blow your mind. It's the truth of Joshua Chapter

Joshua 9 · chapter mention

9. It's this that God does not

waste our mistakes. They do not go to waste.

They are not without meaning that God in his power and in his

might, that though we might make mistakes in our life, and I

don't know what the mistake that you have made or mistakes pile

that you have built up, but I know this.

I know a God who does not waste them, who can redeem them, and

that's the God of Joshua Chapter 9 that we're going to learn

Joshua 9 · chapter mention

about today. Would you pray with me?

And then we get into the Word together.

God, I just pray for every heart here right now, that they would

open up their mind and their hearts and their ears to hear

just how amazing you are. God, that though they are not

the person they could be, nor are they the person they should

be. God, there is an opportunity in

Christ to not be the person they once were, and I pray that the

truth and the grace and the mercy of God would be

overflowing in this room today. They would hear the hope of

Joshua 9, the hope of Jesus, and then hear it through a broken

messenger like me. God, would you do that?

For your glory and our good, we pray.

Amen and Amen. All right, Joshua Chapter 9.

Joshua 9 · chapter mention

Here's what we're going to be discovering together is what do

we do after we realize we've messed up?

What do I do after I realize I've messed up?

What's the message in our mistakes?

Well, God's going to show us through these 27 verses just who

He is in the midst of our mistakes.

And I want to break it down like this.

I want to talk about the mistake, the moment, and the

message. The mistake, the moment and the

message where Joshua Chapter 9, verse one.

Joshua 9 · chapter mention

If you're there, say I'm there, all right, as soon as all the

kings who are beyond the Jordan, in the Hill Country and in the

lowland, all along the coast of the great Sea toward Lebanon,

you got a list of people, the Hittites, the Amorites, the

Canaanites, the parasites, the Hivites, the Jebusites, the

Termites. So I'm just kidding.

That was not in your Bible. Heard of this verse 2.

They gathered together as one to fight against Joshua and Israel.

You have all these nations, Six Nations in fact, who have formed

a confederacy against Israel. They have realized, wait,

Jericho couldn't stood against them, couldn't stand against

them. AI couldn't stand against them.

Literally no army or weapons or walls can hold these people

back. Perhaps if we form a

confederacy, perhaps if we unite against them, we can beat them.

That's what these 6 tribes are thinking.

But then verse 3, when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what

Joshua had done to Jericho into AI, they're like, you know what,

if you can't beat them, join them.

Verse 4, they on their part acted with cunning and went and

made ready provisions and took worn out sacks for their donkeys

and wineskins, worn out and torn and mended with worn out patch

sandals on their feet and worn out clothes.

All their provisions were dry and crumbly.

Basically they're saying, hey, I want it to look like we came

from far away, like we've been on a long journey, so they don't

think we're neighbors. And they went to Joshua, verse

6, in the camp at Gilgal and said to him and to the men of

Israel, we have come from a distant country, so now make a

covenant with us. Verse 7, the men of Israel said

to the Hivites, perhaps you live among us, but then how can we

make a covenant with you? They turn to Joshua and said,

hey, we are your servants. And Joshua said to them, Hey,

who are you and where do you come from?

They said to him, from a very distant country, Your servants

have come because of the name of the Lord your God.

For we have heard a report of him and all that he did in

Egypt, and all that he did to the 2 kings of the Amorites who

are beyond the Jordan, and to Sihan the king of Heshbon, and

to Odd, king of Bastion who lived in Ashtaroth.

So to our elders and all the inhabitants of our country said

to us, hey, take provisions in your hand for the journey and go

meet and say to them, we are your servants.

Come now, make a covenant with us.

Here's our bread. It's still warm and we took it

from our houses as our food for the journey of the day.

We set out to come to you and now behold, it is dry and

crumbly. These wineskins were new when we

filled them and behold, they have bursts.

These garments and sandals of ours are worn out from the very

long journey. They're pointing to their ruse.

They're pointing to their trick and saying, hey, look at how

messed up our stuff is, how worn out is Clearly we had to come

from far away. Verse 14's really pivotal.

Look at it in your Bible. So the men of Israel took some

of their provisions but did not ask counsel from the Lord.

And Joshua made peace with them and made a covenant with them to

let them live. And the leaders of the

congregation swore to them. Joshua just made a big mistake.

People he was supposed to go to war against have now become a

part of his people. He's let the enemy in.

He believed a lie from an enemy. I think we can make a similar

mistake. In fact, jot down this note that

after I realized I've messed up. Learn from the initial mistake.

What's our job? How can we see the God who will

not waste anything in our lives? What is our responsibility in

that? What we can learn from the

initial mistake. You see, Joshua's initial

mistake is one that we often make ourselves, is that he did

not expect lies in enemy territory.

He was not expecting deceit in the middle of war.

It caught him off guard. It caught him by surprise.

Friends, that's where we live. We live in enemy territory.

We are aliens on this earth. If we are Christians, we don't

belong here. We belong somewhere else, but

we're here in enemy territory and enemy occupied territory

trying to overthrow this rule and reign because we actually

believe and follow a king who rules and reigns over it all.

And if we don't expect lies, we can find ourselves in a similar

situation. There's a lie that I think many

of us can be persuaded of, a lie that might make this feel like

real life. There's a lie going around right

now that to be loved, I have to be supported by you.

That for you to love me, you have to support me and the

decisions I make and the way that I handled that conversation

and the lifestyle I've chosen, and however I responded to that

moment of that conversation, that to love me, you have to

support me. You have to validate what I did

that is actually a lie. That's not true.

That love, it says in First Corinthians 13, does not

celebrate wrongdoing. It rejoices with truth that we

can as people, be persuaded, that people have to support

every single one of our decisions, that we can't be

challenged. And let me just tell you, if you

are a guest here, we do love you.

We are so glad that you are here.

Genuinely, we love you. But if you think you will be

without challenge here, you're in the wrong room.

This is a place where we come to God's Word and we let Him

challenge us by His very words. And it'll be unloving of God to

not challenge us because guess what?

We have things in our life that are holding us back to becoming

all He intended us to be, Sin that is entangling us and

holding us back from running the race of godliness as fast as we

can. We need to set it aside and God

will get in your grill a little bit.

He's going to confront all of us.

There's patterns and portions of our life that God has to speak

to because we've been persuaded by the lies of this world.

We've believed lies in enemy territory.

We should expect lies. When I was growing up, I would

play this game often with my family.

It's called Mafia. Anybody ever played You got It

Might. It goes by a number of different

names, but here's the premise of the game.

You draw from a deck of cards and you get assigned various

roles, whether you are the nurse or the doctor, you are the

sheriff or you are the mafia, which means you get to kill

people, which is fun, or you get to be a talents person.

You each have a various role. And at some point along the

game, in my family's playing of it, somebody decided that a

regular pattern of the way we played the game was that

somebody would be assigned to the sheriff, which means they're

the ones who can find out who the mafia is whenever his eyes

are closed. But I would regularly pretend I

was the sheriff. So we would get to a point where

it's the circle time and somebody go, I'm the sheriff.

That person is the mafia. I wouldn't even be the mafia.

I'd be a regular talentsperson that had no role in the game.

But my role was now to be the fake sheriff.

You know, I'm the sheriff and that person is not the mafia.

You're the mafia. That's what I would say all the

time, just to cause chaos and drama and fun in the game, just

to see who is lying. It's fun.

Y'all play Mafia with me. Sometime I will lie to your

face. Maybe I shouldn't do that with

our church. I don't know.

The thing is, in Mafia you are expecting people to lie.

It is a part of the game. You are expecting when you get

there that people are not telling the truth.

So you have discerning ears in a different way.

You're listening to how they talk about what happened or why

they made decisions because you're expecting them to lie.

Listen to me in this world. You need to expect deceit to be

rampant in this world. Ideas and philosophies and

ideologies, they are rampant in this world trying to convince

you of something that is untrue. And people might be believing

the lie and telling you thinking it's the truth.

But guess what? That's why we have God's word,

so we can know what's actually true.

In a world full of rampant deceit, God is not so unkind to

leave us. In a world full of lies and

betrayal and deceit, without the truth of His very words, God

cannot lie. He does not lie.

He will not lie. And therefore, in an enemy

occupied world where people lie, guess what?

We need to seek the truth before we speak.

We need to seek truth before we speak.

That's there, His other air. Look back at verse 14.

Some of the men took the provisions but did not ask

counsel from the Lord. His mistake was not only not

expecting lies, it wasn't seeking God.

It would be like Anakin Skywalker ignoring Obi Wan

Kenobi, but times a million. You have a guide in your life

for a reason. You have a teacher in your life

for a reason. To ignore their counsel is utter

foolishness. And I think we can be guilty of

this too, if we're honest that we can assume God's will without

seeking God's voice. We just assume that's the open

door He wants us to walk through just because we prayed about it

a little bit. I'm not saying that's not

seeking God. I'm saying there's more

components to seeking God than just you having a conversation

with God, telling Him what you want for your life.

And you will perceive open doors because that's just generally

what you want rather than what He said.

We can assume God's plan without seeking God's voice.

That is actually the fast pass to making mistakes.

We need to seek before we speak. So here's a quick little like

diagnostic for you if you're trying to seek God's direction

and His plan for you when you're making decisions in your life.

First, does it align with God's Word?

Does it align with God's Word? God has already spoken a whole

lot and there's things he's very clear about that you're like,

hey, I'm making this major decision.

What has God already said? If it aligns with God's word,

then you're on a good trajectory.

OK, that's door number one. OK, it aligns with God's Word.

Second, does it align with God's heart?

Does align with God's heart? His heart is for unity.

It's his heart is to build one another up.

It's so that you'd speak the truth in love with one another.

His heart is for his name to be great, for him to be glorified.

So when you're making major decisions, what do you do?

You go wait, Does this align with God's heart?

Is this who God? Is this how God moves?

Is this how God speaks? Because if it doesn't sound like

God, it's probably not God. It's just you, and that's the

third thing. Does it lead to God's glory?

Because if it's aligned with God's Word and it's aligned with

God's heart, you've checked that with others as well.

You checked in with your church family or your community group

leader, your spiritual leadership here at the church.

You've checked in and gone, Hey, am I thinking about this right?

Is there any blind spots you see in this decision?

If it aligns with God's heart and it brings Him glory, then

guess what? Now you've done the thing,

you've sought Him before, you've spoken for Him.

You've not assumed His plan without listening to His voice.

We're intended to seek God personally and interpersonally

together. So we're people.

So after I realized I've messed up, learn from the initial

mistake, learn from Joshua's mistake, and learn from yours

and keep moving forward. Second, after I realized I've

messed up, what's the second thing that we're going to learn

from the text is that we make it right.

Don't make it worse. After I realized I've messed up,

make it right, don't make it worse.

Watch what Joshua was going to do here.

It's actually a really good example to follow in the text.

He makes it right, he doesn't make it worse.

We're going to pick back up in the text of verse 16 at the end

of three days after they had made a covenant with them.

A covenant is between like, like a marriage.

It's two people coveting before God, saying God, you're a part

of this. OK, So they're saying Joshua and

these Gibby Knights made a covenant before God, that they

were their neighbors. They heard, excuse me, that they

were their neighbors and that they lived among them.

It's like, oh, shoot, that deal that just went bad.

It went real bad. They're not just from a faraway

country. They're here because there was

nothing in the Torah law, there was nothing in Leviticus or

Numbers or Deuteronomy that told Joshua he couldn't make a

covenant with distant neighbors, only near neighbors.

So he got deceived, and now he makes the covenant with these

neighbors and the people of Israel.

Verse 17, they set out and reached their cities on the

third day. Now their cities were giving

Kapyra B Roth and Curious Jerem, but the people of Israel did not

attack them because the leaders of the congregation had sworn to

them by the Lord the God of Israel.

That's a big deal. Joshua said, hey, I did a wrong

thing. I made a deal with them.

But now since the deal is in place, I'm not going to go back

on my word. I'm going to keep my word to

them because my word wasn't just to them, it was to God.

But all the leaders said to all the congregation in verse 19, we

have sworn to them by the Lord the God of Israel, and now we

may not touch them. This we're going to do to them.

Here's where he makes it right. Let them live, lest wrath be

upon us, because of the oath that we, the oath that we swore

to them. And the leader said to them, let

them live. So they became cutters of wood

and drawers of water for all the congregation, just as the

leaders had said of them. Joshua summoned them and he said

to them, OK, let's have a conversation.

Why did you deceive us, saying we're very far from you when you

dwell among us? Because that has consequences.

Therefore you are cursed, and some of you shall never be

anything but servants, cutters of wood and jars of water for

the House of my God. They answered Joshua, because it

was told to your servants for a certainty that the Lord your God

had commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land and to

destroy all the inhabitants land from before you.

So we feared greatly for our lives because of you, and we did

this thing and now, behold, we're in your hand.

Whatever seems good and right in your sight to do to us, do it.

So he did this to them and deliver them out of the hand of

the people of Israel, and they did not kill them.

Joshua kept his word to the Gibeonites.

He didn't make it worse. He responded rightly.

He could have tried to cover his failures here.

He could have said, you know what?

I got duped. I was a victim of a phishing

scam in the year, whatever this is 1800 years before Jesus.

And you know what I'm going to do?

I'm going to make myself feel better about my my mistake.

I'm just going to wipe him out. Now, he could have done that,

but Joshua, he's got the people clamoring for them to do it.

He goes, no, I'm going to do what's right right now, and

we're going to let them live because that's what I said I

would do to not only them, but to God.

When you make a mistake, you have an option to double down on

the mistake or do the next right thing.

Don't make it worse. Obedience after failure is

costly, but it is still right. Your integrity will come with a

price, but don't lose it just because you did a wrong thing

and just because you're living in shame.

Just because you made a mistake, don't make another mistake.

Don't sign up for a lifetime of that relationship just because

you made a sinful choice one night.

Just because you had a really hard conversation with that

family member that you really said some things you wish you

could take back, doesn't mean you should just shun them

forever. Go be humble, go be repentant.

Go make it right. Don't make it worse.

One of my favorite TV shows is The Office.

One of my favorite episodes is going to shock a lot of you who

like The Office. It's Scott's Tots.

I think it's an absolute master class in cringe storytelling and

when I say it's cringe, it is the cringiest episode I think of

The Office. So if you are unfamiliar let me

update you. So Michael Scott is the main

character and he is known for being overly optimistic about

what he can achieve. And in this episode, he it is

come to light that Michael has promised when a group of

students were in elementary school that if they graduated,

he would not only take care of them, he would pay for their

college tuition. This is the kind of school that

graduating itself was an accomplishment.

So he said, you know what I'm going to do?

I'm going to be rich in 10 years.

Let me do this. Let me promise them I'll pay for

all their college tuition. The years go on, and Michael

Scott is still the manager of Dunder Mifflin, which means he

does not have abounding resources to take care of

college students. And so year after year goes on,

Michael could have called the school and updated them on his

progress or lack thereof. He could have, you know, walked

that back and said, hey, I'm not going to pay for college.

Let's figure out another plan to start saving for something else.

But no, no, no. The whole episode is actually

Michael's showing up to this school where he promised kids

college tuition, and he makes it worse.

The whole time he gets into a room, they're singing him a

song. Hey, Mr. Scott, what you going

to do? What you going to do, make our

dreams come true? I mean, they are literally

dancing on this man's optimism grave before his very eyes.

And he just doesn't let it stop. And so the time comes for him to

deliver the money. It's the climax of the episode.

And what he tells them is this. He makes it worse.

Oh, it's so bad, but it's so funny.

He makes it worse. And he goes, you know what you

need for college? I can't pay for your college

tuition. I'm sorry.

Huge let down to the whole room. But what I can do is every

single one of you needs computers to go to college.

And what you need for a computer is a lithium battery.

Y'all, You've never seen the show.

It's funny. OK, But he could have made it

right? He just kept making it worse.

Listen to me, some of us are living in a Scots taught state

of mind that if we just keep pushing it off and the longer we

wait, guess what? It is just going to be made

right all in and of itself. No, the longer you wait to obey,

the worse it gets, not the better.

It's only going to get worse after you've made the mistake.

It is not a time to keep pushing off doing the right thing.

That makes it worse. Go make it right.

So keep your word in a lying world.

St. City, that's our job.

We honor God by keeping our word in a lying world.

Even when people lie to us. Guess what?

We'll keep our word even when they wronged us.

We're going to keep our word even when they betray us.

We are going to keep our word in a lying world because that's

what the people of God do. And wouldn't the world be a

better place? Wouldn't St.

City be a better place if we are people who are striving after

keeping our word? If we are people who strived

after telling the truth and meaning it?

I just think that's a wonderful place to be.

And what I find also amazing is guess what?

In the church, guess what? There are going to be mistakes

made in our relationships amongst one another.

We're going to fail each other. We're going to say something the

wrong way. We're not going to deliver on

the thing we said we would do. We are going to communicate

poorly. We are going to gossip.

We're going to do things that are going to hurt one another.

But listen to me. One of the best things you can

do after your mistake is having the humility to own it.

That's a part of keeping your word.

It's that you're not a perfect person.

And that's OK. In fact, some of us, some of us

are missing out on one of the greatest opportunities to tell

others about Jesus because we hide our mistakes instead of

showcasing God's grace inside of them.

We get show so ashamed of our story and our past and the

things that we've done that some of the people in our life are

missing out on the trophy case that we are of God's mercy and

power because we're too ashamed to share what God has done in us

since then. You don't need to hide it.

You can confront it after you realize you've messed up.

Make it right. Don't make it worse.

Don't pretend it didn't happen. Don't be stubborn.

Be humble. Finally, after you realize

you've messed up, let God redeem what you regret.

Let God redeem what you regret. What I regret, what we regret

after you've messed up, realize your mistake is not the end of

your story. Look at verse 27.

Joshua made them that day. Cutters of wood and drawers of

water for the congregation and for the altar of the Lord to

this day in the place that he should choose.

These people that give you nights they go along.

They actually survive with Israel throughout their whole

history. They never go on to make war

with them. They're never really a problem.

They're just among them. And not only that, they actually

begin to serve with the Levites in the temple.

That's what it means by cutters of wood and drawers of water for

the congregation. Their job was to serve in the

temple so that people can worship God.

And though we don't have a direct lineage or anything like

that, we know this. Undoubtedly Gibeonites from

this, from Joshua, keeping his word and trusting in his God.

Guess what? Gibeonites were saved by the

grace of God because they were around the temple and

worshipping. They assimilated into the Jewish

people. We know that giving Knights were

saved as of Joshua's unrelenting passion to honor God.

And Joshua in that moment didn't know that God was going to

redeem what he regretted. But it is serving for us as an

example that guess what, God can do that God does not waste our

mistakes. He has the power to make broken

things beautiful. He has the power to take the

worst part of your story and make it a beautiful part of your

story. And that's sometimes it's

impossible to imagine in the pain, in the heartache and the

sin of it. But guess what?

That's who God is. He's the God who is the better

Joshua, the one who doesn't actually have regrets to pay

for, but the one who is able to step in for us in the place of

our regrets and shame. He's the better Joshua who is

never deceived, who never listened to the lives of the

enemy, but rather he stood true and he listened to God's every

single word and he honored it and obeyed it.

That means Jesus had no sin of his own to pay for.

He was tempted, just like you and I, but guess what?

He never made a mistake, and He went to a Roman cross to hang

there, dying for every sinful mistake you ever made.

And he paid for it in full. In fact, his word on the cross

that He used it means paid in full.

That means He paid for your sin in the past, the sin that right

now you're looking back on with such regret.

Guess what paid in full? The sin of today.

Maybe right now, fresh in your mind, is a decision you made

last night. Listen to me.

Jesus paid for that too. And there might come a day where

you make a choice that you can't even imagine I'm making now, but

one day you might get there. Listen to me paid in full.

That when Jesus saves, he clears the check for all of your sin

for all time, and that his blood cashes against the wages of sin,

that is death. And he wants to set you free

from the shackles of sin forever.

And the way that he did that was dying a sinner's death, rising

over the grave and sitting right now in heaven, never to die.

Against that, all who call upon his name could be redeemed from

every regret. This is the hope that we have in

Jesus. That's all.

We have confidence that Joshua 927 is true, that all this

craziness that happens. The Old Testament God

continually redeems and finds its full and final fulfillment

in Jesus Christ. The Son who came to pay for

every Gibeonite and every deceived Israelite.

That's who Jesus is. He took the condemnation for our

worst mistakes. And there's a New Testament

character who's a perfect picture of this moment, too, One

of Jesus best friends. Peter, you might have heard of

him. The Catholic Church loves him.

But Peter, he, he wasn't always known as a spiritual leader.

In fact, there was a moment you might not be familiar with where

Peter denies Jesus not once, not twice, but three times.

Like, it'd be one thing for Peter to go Jesus.

Yeah, we were kind of friends, but yeah, he's dead now.

Like he clearly wasn't who he said he was.

He takes it a step further and he goes, I didn't even know that

dude wasn't with him. Spent three of years of his life

following this dude everywhere and denied he even knew him.

And in his devastation, Peter, he's looking at a fire and he's

just so obviously ashamed and full of regret that he didn't

have the strength to say he knew and loved Jesus.

And one morning he's out fishing and Jesus has resurrected this

point. And Peter's return to his former

life of being a fisherman and he sees Jesus standing on the shore

and he can't help but stop what he's doing and jump out of a

boat, which if you're familiar with Peter is so on brand.

He jumps out of the boat, swims and he starts running on the

shore. In fact, John notes for us that

when he's writing this story, one of my favorite details in

all the Bible is John's like, I'm faster than Peter.

And he like literally he's telling the stories like we both

ran, but I beat him. And so they run to Jesus as fast

as it can. What is picturing for us this

exact moment that you can go from regret and running from

Jesus to actually running to Jesus that God does not waste

our mistakes. In fact, that very moment Jesus

going to look Peter in the eye over some fish tacos in a fire

and say, do you love me more than these?

Do you love me? Do you love me?

And Jesus isn't giving him the cold shoulder.

He's not saying go fix it. Go tell all those people all the

things you did wrong. He's just asking him a simple

question, Do you love me? And maybe that's all you need to

hear. If you're stuck in regret and

shame today, maybe that's all you need to hear about the

gospel as Jesus is sitting here with open arms today asking you

the same, Do you love me? Will you live for me because I'm

here for you? Let God redeem what you regret.

Bring it to him. Go running to Christ, get back

up and walk in forgiveness. Don't let it keep you down any

longer. You will make mistakes.

And after you mess up, you have a choice.

You can try to redeem it, or you can let the Redeemer try to

redeem the mistake you made. And you might think to yourself,

you're a pretty good problem solver.

But I know a better one. His name's Jesus, and one day

He's going to make all things that are wrong, right.

Every mistake has already been paid for every single sin he's

taken care of. I was at a moment in my life not

so long ago where I was at one of the lowest moments of my

life, one of the darkest hours of my walk.

I had made a huge mistake and a lot of people knew about it, and

I couldn't believe that I was such a failure.

Actually, that's how I thought of myself as a failure.

One of my friends wrote me this letter I want to share with you.

Is that OK? It's one of the most encouraging

things I've ever read, he said. I want to tell you something, be

that you might not need right now, but I believe the day could

come where God will use it to keep you going.

One of the most remarkable things to me about God is his

ability to forget over and over again.

We're told in the Bible that God not only forgives our sins, but

He forgets them as well. He hides them behind his back.

He remembers them no more. However, that works.

Somehow He chooses not to call them to mind as He looks and

thinks about us. Amazing.

Now you don't have that ability unlocked yet.

It seems that in heaven will. We will because we're told that

we will know even as we are known.

Until then, we are left dwelling on our mistakes and focusing on

our failures. It can be debilitating.

Nothing will rob you of your courage and zeal as the reminder

of all the stupid things that you have done.

The devil loves to keep our blooper reels on repeating our

minds and he turns the volume up anytime we start taking steps to

activate Our Calling. I can't tell you how many times

I've been trying to take a big step of faith and woken up in

the night haunted by sins that I committed in the past.

These are times be where we have to take hold of the truth that

there is no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ,

even though our own heart is condemning us and even though

our own heart is condemning us, He is greater than our heart.

In these moments, you have to remind yourself that you are not

only forgiven, but God doesn't even remember what you can't

forget. You can't let yesterday's

failure keep you from today's victory.

As I look around Scripture, I see example after example of

people who didn't let their mistakes keep them from getting

up and going big. And he cites this chapter.

Joshua Joshua is going to pray in chapter 10 for the son to

stand still after he failed at AI and prayerlessly made a truce

with the Gibby Night. Samson killed the most

Philistines of his lifetime after giving up the secret to

his strength, leading to his humiliation in his eyes being

poked out. Jonah participate in the revival

at Nineveh after he ran from God and pouted for three days inside

of a giant fish. Peter preached and saw 1000

saved after denying Christ three times.

And I believe, Brandon, with all my heart, that even if you have

made a massive mistake, your greatest day could be a waiting

just around the corner. Get back up, walk and

forgiveness. Don't let the devil keep you

from dwelling out what God has already forgotten.

It's a new day because God is awesome.

He wastes nothing in our lives, and your finest hour could come

after your biggest failure. We all need friends like that

who can help us have hope in the middle of our regret, who can

help us endure when the days are hard?

Who can help us believe that God wastes nothing, even our

greatest mistakes. Would you pray with me, God?

Thank you for the grace of Jesus that we are not our mistakes, we

are not our failures, we are not our shameful decisions, but

rather God. We are who you say we are, we

are yours. We are holy, we are blameless,

we are not condemned, we are sons and daughters, We are

purchased by your blood, We are adopted, we are clean, we are

forgiven. God, we are all these things and

more because of Jesus Christ. And when you see us, you don't

see us, you see Him. And that is only true, Lord, for

all who have called upon him for salvation, all who said, I want

to put my righteousness as Jesus's righteousness.

I want my hope to be Jesus. And I pray for every person here

that Lord, they would not be defined by their past or their

present or their future sins, but God, they would decide today

to set their face like Flint towards the reality that God,

you will not waste anything, even the things we wish you

would throw away. I wish you would delete it, God,

I wish you would get this out of my brain.

But God, if you can redeem it, I'll still praise you.

I believe you can redeem it. I believe you can heal this

relational wound. I believe God, you can redeem

that choice I made. I believe it.

So help my unbelief. Help me to believe God, that you

can use even the worst parts of our story, that you can take our

mess and make it a miracle, our trial a testimony.

We believe in you God, because you are great and you can do it

in Jesus name, Amen.