What is Success?

What do Noah, Moses, Jeremiah, and Jesus all have in common?

They would all have been considered failures if they would have been in ministry today.

Noah preached for 120 years and the only people saved were his immediate family.

Moses led people that grumbled and rebelled against his leadership and God for forty years. He didn’t lead them into the Promised Land.

Jeremiah preached for forty years and no one listened. He was rejected as much as any spiritual leader has ever been rejected.

Jesus had one of His own followers betray Him and it was only after His death that growth really occurred.

So were these men failures? - Not in God’s eyes!

Noah was a man who found favor in the eyes of God. - Genesis 6:8

The favor here means grace. God looked upon Noah with grace. God accepted Noah.

In Genesis 6:22 and 7:5, God’s Word says that Noah did everything God commanded him to do.

Genesis 6:9 says this about Noah, “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, he walked faithfully with God.”

Hebrews 11:7 says, “By faith Noah when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.”

According to God’s Word Noah experienced God’s grace and was obedient, righteousness, and faithful.

That looks like a successful man.

In Exodus 7:6 it says, “Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord commanded.”

In Exodus 33:15 we find Moses praying to God and telling Him that without God’s presence Moses wasn’t going to lead the people.

And in Exodus 33:17 God says that He will do what Moses wants because He is pleased with Moses.

In Numbers 12:3 Moses is described as not just humble, but as “more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.”

In Numbers 14 God was ready to destroy the nation of Israel for their continual complaining against Him and their disobedience to Him. Moses interceded on the people’s behalf and asked God to destroy him, not the people. Moses is concern was for God’s honor.

The writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 3:2, “He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house.”

Then in Hebrews 11:24 we are told, “By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter.”

God’s Word shows us a man in Moses who was obedient, focused on following God, devoted to God’s people and God’s honor, very humble, faithful, and willing to sacrifice to do God’s will.

That looks like a successful man.

In 2 Chronicles 36:12 we are told that Jeremiah “spoke the word of the Lord.”

In fact thirty-three times in the book of Jeremiah it says in some form that “the Word of the Lord came” to Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 20:8-9 says, “Whatever I speak, I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction. So the word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long. But if I say, ‘I will not mention Him or speak any more in His name,’ His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed I cannot.”

Then in Jeremiah 13:1-10 there is the story of God telling Jeremiah to go and buy a belt. After Jeremiah has bought the belt, God tells him to go bury the belt. Then God tells Jeremiah to dig up the belt and God uses it as an object lesson for the people of Judah. Jeremiah all through the story simply obeys God. He does things that seem to make no sense. He does it all without complaining or questioning God.

Jeremiah is pictured in God’s Word as a man whom God trusts with His Word and who has a passion to share God’s Word. He is pictured as a humble preserving man.

That looks like a successful man.

Jesus is humble, loving, totally focused on doing God’s will, forgiving, and one who puts others before Himself.

That looks like a successful man.

So why is there such a difference in the way God views these men and the way the world does?

The difference is because we have wrongly defined success.

The world sees success from the perspective of results.

For people, that means wealth, power, position, achievement.

For the church, it means budgets, baptisms, and buildings.

Let’s be honest. You and I are never going to have books written about us. We are never going to have a movie made about our lives. We are never going to have a street or a building named after us. School children are never going to study about us in history.

But we can be people who change the world.

In Acts 4 Peter and John are arrested for proclaiming Jesus. Acts 4:13 says, “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.”

We can be unschooled (ignorant, unsophisticated ), ordinary people but if we have been with Jesus we can shock the world with what He is doing in our lives.

In Acts 17:6 followers of Jesus are referred to as “These that have turned the world upside down.”

They turned the world upside down because they were letting Jesus live His extraordinary life in and through them.

Micah 6:8 simplifies what God wants from His people. It says, “He has shown you, O man what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”

If we act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God, we will help to change the world.

I am a nobody. I have no great talents or abilities. Few people in the world know who am or care. I am not wealthy. I don’t have great human power or authority. I pastor a faith family that I love but we are located in a part of our state that is rural and remote. Most people aren’t sure if we are even part of the United States.

But according to Psalm 17:8 I am the apple of God’s eye. You are too.

Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls is about making a difference in our community, our nation, and the world.

Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls is about not depending on our abilities or our personalities to do the changing, but depending on Jesus.

God has chosen the foolish things, the weak things, the nothing things to blow the world away.

An Ordinary Person with Jesus Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
Joe