This is the time of year when students are either graduating, moving up grades, or finishing another tough year of school. It’s a season of reflection and transition. So, this Sunday, rather than giving you a deep theological message, I will simply share some life lessons—things God has taught me since I graduated high school back in 1981. Some of these lessons came through failure, others through time, and all of them through God’s grace.
John Adams said this: “There are two types of education: The one that teaches us how to make a living, and the one that teaches us how to live.”
Now, I’ll tell you, I learned from school how to make a living. But I have learned from God how to live.
LIFE IS NOT ALL ABOUT ME
Romans 8:8 says, “So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” The first lesson I’ve learned is that life is not all about me.
Now I went to high school at Hartsville High School. We were just a small school in Darlington County, and when I left high school and joined the Army, nobody cared at all what High School I went to, nobody cared what sports I played, or even what my GPA was. Life was no longer all about me.
What I learned early on is that when I started to depend on ME – I failed, and I usually failed miserably. And do you know why? BECAUSE LIFE WAS NOT ABOUT ME!
FAILURE WAS NOT THE END, IT WAS ONLY THE BEGINNING
The second lesson I learned was that Failure was not the end, it was only the beginning. Verse 4 says, “That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”
What I have learned is that after I have failed many, many times in this life (and will probably fail more), if I could simply learn to walk after the Spirit – God is going to take care me.
But there were things I had to learn, things I had to learn from experience. I’ve heard it said that “Experience is the greatest teacher.” God has allowed me fail, and to go through some very difficult things in my life, I believe just to show me that I needed Him more than I ever needed Him before.
I can tell you I have made some mistakes as a pastor. I look back over a certain period of my life when I would preach that if you didn’t dress a certain way, act a certain way, or use a certain version of the Bible, you probably weren’t saved. That was a perfect example of me following after the flesh and not after the spirit.
But, God allowed me to fail, and through my failure, God has shown me how much I needed Him. So listen, when I see people fail, I try not to be too hard on them, you know why? Because Failure is not the end, it’s only the beginning.
Listen to me, if you walk after the flesh – you will fail. I’ll tell you folks, if you follow after the Spirit, the Spirit will not lead you to places where you will fail.
Let’s learn to get back up and wipe ourselves off and realize Failure is not the end, it’s only the beginning!
I WILL NEVER BE A RETIRED SOLDIER
I loved the Army. It was very good to me and for me. I rose to be one of the finest trained soldiers in the Army. But something I realized after 14 years, spending my life chasing after a career in the military, was not in my best interest. And the sooner I realized it, the sooner I could get on to be all that God intended me to be.
Verse 6 says, “To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”
OPPORTUNITIES ARE NOT ALWAYS OPPORTUNITIES
Verse 14 says, “For as many as are lead by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”
When I first attended Bible College, I really felt back then that God was calling me to be an Evangelist. While I Bible College, I was selected to be part of a team that travelled all over Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virgina Evangelizing church and camp meetings. That had to be the will of God right?
But something I learned on that trip is that God’s plan for my life was not to travel all over the country – His plan was for me to be a pastor, a preacher of the Gospel to a local church. So, not every opportunity that comes your way is the opportunity God has designed and planned for your life.
THE ONE CONSTANT IN LIFE IS CHANGE
The one thing I have learned since graduation is that the One Constant Thing Is Change. You and I are to be conformed into the image of Christ. That means that we are constantly changing. I can tell you for a certainty that I do not look the same as I did when I was in High School. I don’t look the same, I don’t think the same – I have changed. I can also tell you that churches have changed. But you know who hasn’t changed? God hasn’t changed. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
THE THINGS I THOUGHT I NEEDED, I REALLY DIDN’T NEED AT ALL
Kim and I just moved recently, and in our garage are boxes and boxes full of stuff that at one time we thought we needed, only to discover we really didn’t need that stuff at all.
There was a time I thought I needed the big jobs and the big paychecks, only to realize all I really needed was God and my family. So I have learned the things I thought I really needed, were not the things I needed after all.
SOMETIMES IT TAKES 30 YEARS TO GO 120 MILES
I have pastored churches in Scranton, Lake City, Poston’s Corner, Lancaster and Spartanburg, only to discover that for the first time in my ministry, I’m right where God was developing me to be all along, right here in the woods of Pauline.
If you would have asked me when I left Bible College in 1995 where I would be in 30 years, Pauline South Carolina was not even on my radar. God had to spend 30 years preparing me to be the pastor of this church. If God would have brought me here 30 years ago, I couldn’t have been effective. He had to train me for 30 years.
It just reminds me that verse 28 says, “And we know that all things work together for the good of them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.”
I’M IN CLASS, JUST NOT IN SCHOOL
God is teaching me new things every day. One writer said, “You’ve earned some respect; you’ve sharpened your edge, but don’t fly off the handle of life, but keep the edge, and many adults loose their cutting edge because they stop learning the lessons of life.”
A BABY CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE
Verse 3 says, “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.”
I found out when Jenni and Josh were born, that kids can change your life. It changed my Dad’s life. My dad used to call and ask how I was doing. But after Jenni and Josh were born, he’d call and ask how the babies were doing. Children change your life.
But I also found out there is another baby who can change your life forever. That’s God’s son, who came to earth, took on the form of a man so that He could bear my sin and your sin on Calvary’s Cross. He paid a debt that you and I owed, so that where He is, there we can be also.
A Baby can change your life!
FINALLY, THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON I HAVE LEARNED SINCE HIGH SCHOOL IS THAT LIFE IS ALL ABOUT HIM
Verses 31-33, “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.”
Fighting for My Pea Patch 