Sunday Service: 29/01/2023
Supporting Scripture: Genesis 12:10
Title of Message: Don’t Make These Mistakes!
Delivered by: Pastor Mercy
Have you ever heard someone say, “What a silly mistake I’ve made?”
We all do make mistakes! We might make them because we have poor information, or because we have bad judgment, or just because we are making the wrong choices.
Mistakes aren’t necessarily sin, but they can become sin, because of the domino effect. One mistake often leads to another as we try to excuse or cover up our mistakes. Soon we are getting in deeper & deeper, & a chain reaction begins.
Today I want to address 2 categories of mistakes, which we sometimes make in life.
Panic Prompted Mistakes
There are panic prompted mistakes that are made because we are in too much of a hurry, afraid that something wrong is going to happen, or we want something & we think it is taking too long to happen. Instead of letting God take control, we handle it ourselves & the result is that we make mistakes.
You remember the story of Abraham. God told Abraham to leave his homeland & go to a land that God would show him and where he would be greatly blessed. Abraham would become the father of a great nation, & all the nations of the earth would be blessed through him. Abraham gets there, builds an altar to God, & God tells him, “This is the land I promised you. Stay here, & don’t leave this land.” But Genesis 12:10 tells us,
“Now there was a famine in the land, & Abram went down to Egypt to dwell there, for the famine was severe.”
That is a panic prompted mistake. Abraham had promised God that he would stay put. But when a famine arose, Abraham was afraid that he & his family would starve. So, he panicked, packed his bags & family & moved down to Egypt. The first domino fell.
Mistake number 2 – vs’s 11-13,
“And it came to pass, when he was close to entering Egypt, that he said to Sarai his wife, indeed I know that you are a woman of beautiful countenance. Therefore, it will happen when the Egyptians see you, that they will say, ’This is his wife.’ and they will kill me, but they will let you live. Please say that you are my sister, that it may be well with me for your sake, and that I may live because of you.”
Now the dominoes are beginning to fall. One mistake led to another, & Abraham and Sarai fell into a dangerous situation in Egypt. Only the direct intervention of God saved them.
Let’s bring it down to today. People make panic prompted mistakes, example in the areas of romance, and the area of finance. How many times have we met people nearing the mystical age of 30, who haven’t met that “right someone” yet, & they start panicking? “I am going to be a bachelor, or an old maid forever. I’ve not met anyone yet!”
So, in panic, they grab the first person they find. They get married, or they throw away their morals in the hope of catching someone, anyone. The result is a domino chain reaction that makes the situation worse.
It can happen in our finances, too. It is so easy today to get into a financial fix. The use of credit cards. Companies lure us into using these cards and then the bills start piling up and we realize that we just don’t have enough money to pay all the bills. So, we panic. We run down to the “quick loan” place & get a “bill consolidation loan” at lower monthly payments. But the problem is that we now have just a little breathing room, soon it becomes worse than ever, & frustration sets in.
You see, panic prompted mistakes often start out as simple mistakes, but like falling dominoes, the momentum gets out of hand, & the result can be disastrous.
Mistakes of Neglect
Secondly, we make mistakes because of our neglect. An example of this is King David. David was a very special person. He was called a “man after God’s own heart.” But King David made many mistakes in his lifetime. For example, David had 8 wives, domino number one! 1 Kings 1:5-6a talks about David & Adonijah, one of his sons.
“Then Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, “I will be king”; and he prepared for himself chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him. 6a (And his father had not rebuked him at any time by saying, “Why have you done so?”
King David never physically punished his children, never smacked them and never disciplined them at any time! For this reason, Absalom his first son rebelled against his father and Adonijah David’s 4th son developed a selfish & rebellious attitude that one day led him to say, “I want to be king, & I want it now! I can take the throne away from my father, & I’m going to do it!” And one of the reasons why he was that kind of son was because of David’s neglect.
David made the same mistake that many of us have made, & maybe are still making. He became so busy being King, so busy being important, that he neglected his family.
Neglect is not limited just to family, either. It can affect our spiritual lives, too. (Hebrews 10:25)
“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.”
Christians get together to remember Jesus, to examine our own lives in the light of His Word, to rededicate ourselves to what God wants us to be, & to encourage one another. That is why gathering around the Lord’s table is such an important event.
It is so easy to get involved with other things & completely neglect our spiritual life, & the “assembling of ourselves together.” Spiritual neglect is a mistake that leads to sin, too.
I encourage us all to use the above examples I’ve given to check and see where we have fallen short and ask the Holy Spirit to help us correct them.