Rising to the Occasion
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What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
For the last month, we have talked about the lessons we can learn from the exiles.
The men and women who had been cast out of the Promised Land because of their disobedience.
But God had promised to restore them to Israel if they repented and turned back to Him.
But there are so many more people in the Bible than just the exiles.
In God’s word, we meet people from every facet of life.
We see men and women.
Young and old.
Rich and poor.
In all these stories, we see these people going through vastly different circumstances.
The rise of kings.
The fall of empires.
We see the birth of the Church.
We see the persecution of believers.
And throughout these circumstances, we see how these people handle react to God during these times.
We find those who are devoted to God.
We find those who boldly defy God.
And we find those who just try to slip by unnoticed.
Life is filled with its ups and downs.
The happy and sad moments.
The achievements and failures.
And it’s possible to go through highs and lows at the same time.
Over here, this great thing is happening.
Over HERE, it’s all falling apart.
It is easy to let the bad things steal the thunder from the good things.
We get so caught up in the drama of the bad, that we forget to notice and enjoy the good.
We get down, overwhelmed, thinking that we can never get out of this hole we think we’re in.
Every person mentioned in the Bible was going through something.
And each one of them had a choice of how they would react to their circumstance.
The heroes of the stories are the ones who rose to the occasion.
Rising to the Occasion
Definition: perform very well in response to a special situation or event
It’s when you get knocked down, then get back up and move forward.
It’s when you are pushing against a wall of opposition, and every part of you wants to give up, but you keep pushing until you break through.
When we think of the heroes of the Bible, we like to think of the big names.
Abraham
Moses
Samson
Daniel
But some of these didn’t always rise to the occasion.
Two different times in Abraham’s life, while they were finding their way to the Promised Land, Abraham and Sarah passed through kingdoms where the king took an interest in Sarah because she was so beautiful.
Both times, Abraham introduced Sarah as his sister rather than his wife.
One of the kings went so far as to take Sarah as a wife, bringing a curse on his people.
Rather than trust God, Abraham went with the flow, and did whatever he thought was necessary to protect his own hide.
When Moses was a prince in Egypt, he thought that God would use his royal authority to bring a change for the Israelites.
In his arrogance, he killed an Egyptian who was hurting an Israelite.
That quickly went against him, and Moses ended up running away to the wilderness.
In the wilderness, Moses learned humility as he became a caretaker for sheep.
When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, Moses almost didn’t rise to the occasion.
Moses was filled with fear of what would happen to him back in Egypt.
The people won’t listen to me.
I’m not a good speaker.
So God turned Moses’ staff into a serpent.
He sent Moses’ brother Aaron to the wilderness to find Moses, bring him back, and do his talking for him.
Samson, who was called from infancy to be a protector of Israel, used his super strength for his own purposes.
He spent his time partying among his people’s enemies.
He took a wife from among these enemies.
And—surprise—his wife betrayed him to his enemies.
But there are lesser known people who did rise to the occasion.
Moses’ mother.
When Pharoah ordered all the Israelite baby boys be executed, Jochebed risked her life to smuggle baby Moses to the river, put him in a specially prepared basket, and set him adrift for God to take care of him.
Queen Esther
When Haman convinced the king to give him the power to kill all Jews, Esther risked her life twice to fight for her people.
She to the king uninvited, which could have been instant death.
She revealed herself as a Jew to the king and Haman.
If he didn’t really love her, the king could have let Haman take her and kill her with the other Jews.
She took a risk to do what is right, and trusted God to take care of the rest.
The Canaanite Woman
And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.” But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, “Send her away, for she is crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, help me.” And he answered, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.
This woman wasn’t even Jewish, but she dared believe that Jesus would save her daughter from her demonic oppression.
Knowing how the Jews despised her, she risked humiliation to ask Jesus to help her daughter.
When Jesus seemed to insult her with his comment about dogs, she took the insult without a fight and still found a way to believe Jesus could give her something to help.
Let’s go back to those heroes.
Abraham
Even though he failed God several times, kept following God.
God fulfilled his promise to give Abraham a son through Sarah.
Then God tested Abraham by asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac.
Not knowing what God would do next, Abraham obeyed.
He rose to the occasion.
Moses
Through his experiences with God, he gained a desire to know God better.
His reverence for God overcame his fear of other people.
He even asked if he could see God—literally!
God told Moses that to see his face would kill Moses, but he allowed Moses to glimpse of his physical presence.
When Moses disobeyed God out of anger, using God’s power in a way God did not approve of, it cost Moses the right to enter the Promised Land.
Moses could have fallen into despair right then and given up his leadership, but he didn’t.
He faithfully led the people right up to the the Promised Land, then handed the leadership to Joshua.
Even though he knew he would not get the reward he had originally hoped for, Moses stayed faithful to God and to the his people.
Moses rose to the occasion.
David
Before he was ever king, David was a shepherd boy who wasn’t even old enough to fight in the king’s army.
When he arrived at the battlefront with food for his brothers, and he saw the entire Israelite army cowering before the strength of Goliath, David volunteered to face the giant.
All David could think about was that this heathen DARED to insult the Most High God.
Goliath had to pay for that insult!
Then David said to the Philistine, “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hand.”
Samson
His arrogance and disobedience had cost him his eyesight and his freedom.
He was made to entertain the Philistines.
Thousands came out to see Samson humiliated.
But Samson humbled himself and asked God for help to stop the evil of the Philistines, even if it cost his own life.
God gave him his strength one last time, and Samson caused the building to collapse upon himself and the thousands of Philistines who were present.
Samson rose to the occasion.
It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you’ve done in the past.
Whatever the situation is that you are facing right now, you have a choice.
You can run away.
You can give up.
Or you can trust God and rise to the occasion.
When everyone else around you is compromising, you can stand for what’s right.
When you feel surrounded by the enemy, you can find courage and be brave.
Being brave doesn’t mean you don’t feel fear.
It means that the fear doesn’t control you.
No matter how unworthy you feel, you can believe God for a miracle.
We’ve just got to trust him to do it his way and in his timing.
How do we do this?
As it says in Romans 8:37, “... we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
God will empower you to do what’s right.
Whatever you are going through, God’s got your back.
You are more than able to rise to the occasion, to face it head-on, and crush it!
Of course, we have the confidence that God is preparing a place for us where there are no more tears.
But as the Psalmist said:
I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!
I don’t have to wait til I’m dead to see God’s goodness.
No matter what I’m going through, God’s goodness is all around me right now!
And I believe we are going to see God’s mighty hand move in this place.
I believe God wants to move mountains in each of your lives.
Who is ready to see miracles?
Who is ready to experience deliverance?
Who is ready to be an overcomer?
It’s time to rise to the occasion!
Let’s stand to our feet and start proclaiming God’s victory in our lives.
If you are feeling less than victorious today, if you feel that you don’t have what it takes to rise to the occasion, I invite you to come the front so that we can pray with you.