We All Stumble

Good morning, children of God! I am grateful to be here today. If I have not told you recently, I am grateful for you. You have given me the honor and privilege over the years to share the Word of God with you and to come up beside each-other in our walks. I have done a lot of reflecting and thinking about the last several years. Man alive, a lot of us have been through some storms. Some of us are in the midst of a storm right now. I believe that within those storms, we have learned that when we truly follow Christ, we experience victory in and through Christ, but we are human, and sometimes we stumble along the way. When I say “we,” I mean everybody stumbles sometimes.

I can not tell you how often I have seen, and I have done this myself, that we will make a mistake, or we find ourselves caught up in sin, and we feel shame. Let me tell you the difference between guilt and shame. Guilt says “I made a mistake.” Feelings of guilt can be a good thing. It tells us there may be something we need to correct. Shame says “I am a mistake.” You are not a mistake. God does not make mistakes. Shame is a tactic of the enemy.

When we experience shame, one of three things typically happens: we lash out at others, we deflect fault to someone else, or we isolate ourselves. I am here to tell you this morning that is exactly what the enemy wants: to divide God’s people. To get each of us alone, in a place, away from God, marinating in our heads, and listening to the lies. It is all a head game with the enemy. I am sick and tired of it!

Jesus Christ did not go to the cross for us to punish ourselves or to punish other people. I was speaking with a sister last week about this very topic. Someone will stumble in their walk, and then they will beat themselves to a bloody pulp. And then, because they are in emotional pain, they will lash out at others, deflect, or isolate. Ask me how I know! Because I have been in every one of those dark places.

Thank God for God! Thank God for His Word! Thank God for Jesus! Thank God for the Holy Spirit! Without all of them, I would venture to say most of us would live in absolute wreckage. Each of them instruct and guide us on how to avoid stumbling and what to do when we do stumble.

One of the things that can cause us to stumble is if someone says or does something that offends us. Scripture tells us that we are to go directly to the person who has offended us. Jesus himself told us this in Matthew 18:15

Matthew 18:15 NLT

“If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back.

This verse tells me that God is greatly concerned with peace among his people. This verse can be difficult for both the offender and the offended. There are times that I do not know I have offended or hurt someone until they tell me. None of us are mind readers. If I think someone has sinned against me, or if someone has offended me, I have to get real honest with myself and ask myself a few questions:

1. What did they do to offend me?”

2. Did I do something that hurt them in some way?

3. What sin do I have in my life?

Believe it or not, I have found that there were times I did not have all the information, and I verbally attacked someone who had no idea they did anything wrong. How do you know that the person has any idea that they hurt you? You go to them. We are obligated to “go’ to them, not wait for them to come to us. It is incumbent on every believer to work toward a peaceful resolution.

Now I know nobody can relate to this. Other times, I have found that I was looking for a reason to get upset with someone. It may have been someone I did not like or someone I secretly wanted to see fail. Christ tells us that we are on the hook as believers to handle these situations correctly, regardless of the circumstances or how we try to justify our behaviors.

What is crazy is we can quickly go from being the one offended or hurt to being the one offending or hurting someone else. It is a thin line sometimes. We can get so tied up in our feelings that we miss an opportunity. To Jesus, it is not about winning an argument. It is about reconciliation. We are called by the LORD to approach all situations with meekness and gentleness. Jesus told us “Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God.”

I would challenge every believer to bookmark Matthew 18:15-17, read it and then read it again. If, as believers, we all practiced what Jesus taught here, there would be far less heartache, far more inner healing, and far more sharing of the gospel of Jesus Christ with this world.

Now, you all know I love the Apostle Peter. Just six verses later, Peter did something I would probably have done. Peter tries to find a loophole with Jesus. Look at what he asks Jesus.

Matthew 18:21 NLT

21 Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?”

What’s funny is Peter was being generous here, Rabbinic teaching held that you only had to forgive someone who sinned against you three times, not seven. So Peter was probably thinking “Uh huh, look how good I am.” Peter was not expecting the response he recieved from our Lord and Savior.

Matthew 18:22 NLT

22 “No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!

I can’t do that math in my head, so I used a calculator. That is 490 times. If the person repents and does it again, I have to forgive them 490 times! I think we all know that Jesus was not putting a number on forgiveness. We are to forgive with no limit. I would even go so far as to say since he used the number 7, which represents completion in scripture, that forgiveness is to be limitless. Like God’s forgiveness.

I can tell you this: I have been forgiven by our Heavenly Father much more than I could ever have the opportunity to forgive a fellow brother or sister in Christ. If God showed you a list of all that He has forgiven you for and you compared it to a list of what you have forgiven others for, who would have the longer list? I can not speak for you, but the list of things I have forgiven others for would be a speck next to what God has forgiven me for. Prior to this discussion, Jesus Christ told His disciples:

Matthew 6:14 ESV

14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you,

The Greek word for trespass that Jesus uses here is paraptoma. Paraptoma means to stumble, fall, or slip. In this statement we see that Jesus knows every person needs forgiveness. He said “your Heavenly Father will also forgive you.” We have all transgressed God’s law. Even the most mature believer fails to keep God’s law perfectly. We all stumble, fall, and slip. We probably stumble more often than we would like to admit.

I am often asked what forgiveness should look like.

We are not critical

We do not become bitter or hostile

We do not plan to take revenge

We do not gossip or join in rumors

We pray for the person

We do not approach forgiveness with a self-righteous attitude. The goal is reconciliation and peace in the body of Christ.

Matthew 6:15 ESV

15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

It is hypocritical if I am not willing to forgive another believer when I so often need to repent and seek forgiveness myself. I am asking God to do something for me that I am not willing to do for another believer.

It is important that we understand something about this verse. God’s forgiveness of sin is not based on you forgiving others. This verse is not about our salvation from sin. It is not about losing salvation. This verse has everything to do with personal fellowship with God. A believer can not walk in true fellowship with God if he or she refuses to forgive others. When we recognize that we have been forgiven our sins, and that we are called children of God, it frees us to forgive others.

When we do stumble, we do not stay down, we get up as quickly possible. Let the Word of God encourage your heart this morning.

Romans 8:38 NLT

38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.

The Apostle Paul is declaring that you may stumble, you may fail, but God does not fail. God is not going anywhere. Sure, we can turn our backs, we can make poor decisions, we can make mistakes, but He is there to pick us back up when we do stumble. And like I said in the beginning, we are provided an opportunity to learn and avoid the same hazards in the future. In the verse just before this, the Apostle said:

Romans 8:37 NIV

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

This is a promise with no conditions attached. Jesus gives us victory after victory! We are responsible for making a plan to avoid the hazards that cause us to stumble. Holy Spirit guides us and walks with us through this life, but if we are making a bee line for the stumbling blocks, for the danger, what do you expect Him to do? Let me tell you about my extension cord incident. Yes, I said extension cord.

I had an extension cord running down the hallway at home. I would trip over that thing every morning. It would catch my foot, and I would stumble into the wall. Well, this went on for some time. One day I thought to myself, “What am I going to do!” I decided to move the extension cord. Do you know what happened? I stopped tripping over it.

Our walk is no different. We convince ourselves that there is nothing we can do or that we failed so much we should just give up! That is not what God says. God says that you are more than a conqueror! It is our responsibility to have a plan in place to avoid those things that we know will bring us harm or cause us to fall. If we don’t have a plan, if we do not make changes, we will continue to stumble over the same things.

There is another thing that many of us do not do enough of that would keep us from stumbling. Seeking wisdom in a multitude of council. Look what Solomon, one of the wisest men who ever lived, said:

Proverbs 15:22 NIV

22 Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.

Those who are wise know that they do not have all the answers. They will consult others and seek their advice, even if they do not like what they are being told. I will tell you that the last thing I want to hear when I have poured myself into something is “You may want to think about what your doing.” But we all need help, we all need sound advice, especially in our Christian walk. It is the reason, as different as we are from one another, that Jesus put us together! To learn from and to help one another during our time here on earth.

We have to be objective when we seek counsel. We can not let our personal feelings cloud what the person is sharing. Seek counsel from those who are honest and forthcoming. If you find yourself stumbling, seek wisdom from the LORD and from those the LORD has put in your life.

I want to leave you with this today. Abba Daddy loves you. If you have stumbled, if you have fallen, if you are dealing with sin in your life that you feel like you can not escape from, the LORD your God is with you! He tells you the same thing this morning that He told Joshua.

Joshua 1:9 NIV

9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Your strength and victory come from the LORD. Claim it this morning! God bless you.

Alter Call