I Want You To Fail

I Want You to Fail

Biblical Text: Luke 15: 11-14

11 And he said, A certain man had two sons:

12 And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.

13 And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.

14 And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.

For a few moments I want to speak to you on the subject, I Want You to Fail. You heard me correctly, I want you to fail! I know what you are thinking, how is it that tonight is Education Night, I came up through the Christian Education Department, I currently serve as YACM Central Regional Chair and I am telling you that the message that the Lord gave me to give to you is, I want you to fail? Here we are all excited and fired up and the message I have is that I want you to fail? How in the world can this be true when 7.4 million people every day watch “The Ellen Show” to get good advice but tonight, on Education Night your message is that I want you to fail?

This doesn’t make sense. Everybody knows that failure should be avoided. 13 Billion dollars are spent every year on seminars, self-help books and weight loss diets” and you are telling us you want us to fail? You didn’t come to Alsip, Illinois to hear about failure. Some of you fought hard to get to conference. You triumphed over financial problems at church, not enough money to send your delegate and the Pastor to conference and we aren’t even going to talk about General Claims and unallocated claims that we are expected to pay and the word of encouragement that Lord gave me to give to you is “I want you to fail?” YES! Without fear of contradiction, I am not going to bite my tongue and forth rightly I do want you to fail.

President Robert Kennedy said, “Only those who dare to fail greatly can achieve greatly!” You have to understand, President Kennedy was saying that in order for you to be successful at something you first have to fail. There is something to be said when you understand that failure is the price tag we pay for being successful. People who are really successful learned about success from first being a failure. That is why so many of our youth and young adults don’t come to church, because the church has a strong case of spiritual amnesia. Once we get saved, we act like we have never have failed at anything:

1. So we have Youth Directors that act like they have never had a one night stand.

2. We have preachers, pastors and bishops that act like they have never had any gin and juice.

3. We have parents that act like they have never smoked weed.

4. Choir directors that act like they have never failed a class.

However I am so glad that I have some folks in here that are not ashamed to admit that they had some failures. I am glad there are some folks in here who came to the realization that their failure was not falling, but true failure is staying down after you have fallen. All of us have fallen short. I’ve fallen short. You’ve fallen short. Everyone you admire, everyone you’ve put on a pedestal, everyone you look to as an example has fallen short at some point in their lives. You might not have seen it. You might not know about it, nobody told you about it, but if you could hear their whole story, you would find out that they, like you, have fallen short. The failure was not falling. The failure is staying down and not getting up. When you fall down and stay down, that’s when you give the devil the victory. He rejoices when he can keep you down, keep you feeling like a failure.

This is why it makes no sense to be jealous of anybody. If you knew that person’s whole story, how often they had fallen or what it took for them to pull themselves up, you might not be so envious of what they have or what they’ve accomplished. If you had to go through what they’ve been through in order to be successful, you just might say, “Forget it, it’s not worth the suffering.”

Jer 9:23 says, “23 Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: 24 But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord which exercise loving kindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the Lord.”