Victory, Mistakes or Defeat in our Walk with the Lord!
2 Corinthians 4: [8] We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; [9] persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
[10] We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
I. Paul acknowledged his troubles but not Failure!
A.) Yet we can fail, but not every failure points to defeat or sin Yet Job lost his family, home, belongings and he did not do anything wrong.
1. Jesus was seized, convicted and executed, He did not do anything wrong.
B.) We all fail at times.
1. Stephen Pile chronicled some of the biggest failures in modern history. The Incomplete Book of Failures.
2. The key is not let a failure defeat us.
3. We all can stumble.
4. When we admit and confess our failures, we are on our way to recovery.
II. We must be willing to accept God’s Forgiveness.
A.) Psalms 103:10-12
[10] He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. [11] For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him;
[12] as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
1.) There is no failure or defeat too big for God to forgive. (Forgiveness is God’s specialty)
a.) After we have acknowledged our failure and sin, we can accept Gods forgiveness, we can move on.
III Apply The Lessons of Failure Toward Success
A.) Learn from your failures in life. (Do not beat yourself, but learn something.)
A. Remember if God Has forgiven you, He never reminds you of it again. When God forgives He forgets.
1.) When we repent let us not return to our sin.
Proverbs 26:11 - As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.
a. We learned to walk by falling down. Fall down enough times and you will learn to walk just by a process of elimination.
Even though we fail, that does not mean we are failures.
IV. Accept Victory over sin as a Way of Life.
(1 Cor 15:57 KJV) But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
A.) Peter the disciple knew all about failure and victory.
B. He failed the Lord Jesus but two months later he preached one of the greatest sermons in Christianity and 3,000 people got saved!
V. If you fail, slip or sin, arise From Failure and Start Again.
(2 Cor 2:14 KJV) Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.
A Scottish preacher, Alexander Whyte said saints, they fall down, they get up, they fall down, they get up...all the way to heaven.
Conclusion:
Acknowledge our failures.
Accept God’s forgiveness.
Accept Gods victory for your life through the Word and Holy Spirit.
Look at some of these who in the natural were told they could not overcome or succeed.
Thomas Edison teacher said, he was too stupid to learn;
Albert Einstein teacher said, He (Albert) was mentally slow, unsociable and adrift forever in his foolish dreams;
Decca records rejected the Beatles
The newspaper editor who fired Walt Disney because he lacked ideas....
How much more can with succeed in the Walk with the Lord when we can say with Paul: (Rom 8:31 KJV) What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
(Rom 8:37 KJV) Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
God bless you and yours.
On behalf of this generation,
Your friends in the service of Christ,
Tony and Marge Abram
Abundant Life Crusades
www.abundantlifecrusades.com
