What Kind Of Example Are You?

Alba 7-27-2025

WHAT KIND OF EXAMPLE ARE YOU?

I Corinthians 10:5-11

Have you ever been told, “Let that be an example to you”? There are many things we can learn from examples, some good and some bad.

On September 19, 1997, a Drivers-Ed teacher gave a lesson he would like to forget. The teacher had one student at the wheel and another in the back, when a car suddenly cut them off. The teacher went into a road rage. He ordered the student driver to pursue the other car. When the car pulled over, the teacher got out and went over and punched the driver in the face. The bloodied driver pulled away.

Amazingly, that wasn't enough for the Drivers-Ed teacher. He again ordered the student to pursue the car. Eventually the police pulled the Drivers-Ed car over for speeding, and the motorist with the bloody nose circled back to report what had happened. The Drivers-Ed teacher was arrested and charged with assault. He was later suspended from his job. Obviously, this was not a good example from a Drivers-Ed teacher.

(From “Setting A Good Example [Part Three]” by Derrick Tuper)

The question is, what kind of example are you? Now if you were one of the younger ones in your family, you could learn a lot just by standing back and watching what happened when your older siblings did something that got them into trouble.

Learning from mistakes and wrong things you have done is just a part of life. But when you can watch someone else’s mistakes or wrongs and learn from that, it’s much easier. As it turns out, much of the Bible is that way. There is much in Israel’s history that gives some bad examples. I Corinthians 10:11 says, “Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition.” We can learn from what they did so we will not commit the same mistakes or wrongs.

In First Corinthians 10:5-11 we are given five negative examples. And, if we pay attention, we can have a positive outcome instead. Actually the Israelites were a blessed people. God chose Abraham as the one through whom He would bless the world. That blessing would be the eventual coming of Jesus into this world. In the meantime, there were many descendants of Abraham. And when Jacob and his children went to Egypt in need of food, they settled there. And after a while, they were made slaves to the Egyptians who forced them to do back-breaking work.

When God heard their cries, He chose Moses to deliver them from slavery and bring them to a land of promise. After a miraculous delivery, God kept providing miracle after miracle to help them on their way. God miraculously brought them through the waters of the Red Sea. God provided the miracle of water from a rock, and manna for food. In spite of all that God had done for them, it seems that all they could do was complain and were often disobedient.

That's why I Corinthians 10:5 says, “But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.” A journey that should have taken much less than four months became an extended stay of forty years.

Despite their great deliverance and the blessings they had, they turned their backs on God.

So despite everything they saw, everything they experienced, and everything they received from God, the vast majority of that generation never made it to the Promised Land. In fact, the entire generation of twenty-year-olds on up who came out of Egypt, except for Caleb and Joshua, all perished in the desert. They continually showed themselves to be bad examples of what the people of God should be. Now if you don't want to make the same mistakes that the Israelites did, I have five questions to ask to find out what kind of example are you? Here is the first question:

What do you desire?

There are a lot of good things that can be desired, but there are a lot of bad things, hurtful things as well. So verse six of this chapter reminds us, “Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted.” Lust is a desire that goes beyond simply wanting something. You know what? No matter how good things may be, we all have times when we want something different. That may not be a problem, but it can be.

Many people have gotten themselves into some very wrong situations because they started to desire things they should not have. That was the case of the Israelites. They lusted after what they had left behind in Egypt. They missed the food in Egypt even though they ate it in slavery. They could not be satisfied. So God sent manna for them to eat in the wilderness (Exodus 16:4). All they had to do was go out and pick it up off of the ground. What could be easier? But in Numbers 11 it tells us they were tired of manna. They ground it up, baked it, made cakes out of it, turned into a gruel, but they weren’t satisfied. They desired what they had in slavery rather than the freedom God had provided.