Series - "Living Life to the Full"
How to Fail Well (LTF-05)
2 Timothy 2:13
Have you wondered why we all love stories where, despite insurmountable odds and against unstoppable enemies, the little guy fights his way to the top and the bad guys get their comeuppance?
Nearly 35 years ago on October 30, 1974, Muhammad Ali and George Foreman squared off in the boxing ring in Kinshasa, Zaire. Ali had dubbed it "The Rumble in the Jungle." Foreman was heavily favored, and was considered to be the hardest puncher in heavyweight history - and he was fairly confident he could finish off this upstart Ali.
Ali, however, did something in that night that no other fighter had ever tried before. In a technique he called the "rope-a-dope." Mohammed Ali held up his arms against his face and leaned back against the ropes allowing Foreman to punch away at him for eight rounds. The strongest boxer (in the history of the sport) beat on Ali until he could punch no more.
When the right moment came, Ali bounced off the ropes and knocked out Foreman . . . sending him into retirement. The underdog won.
I am unashamedly a Rocky Balboa fan. His message is a message of hope despite failure and weakness, and it is a message we all need to hear. Despite our worries and our weaknesses, despite our fears and our failures, despite our up-sets and our set-backs, there is still hope.
Many, many years ago, there was another man, a confident man, a fighter. He feared nothing and no-one. His name was also Rocky - well that is what some of his friends called him. The Greek word for his name, ‘Petros,’ means rock or stone. When Jesus looked at his courage and conviction, when Jesus looked at his faith and his faithfulness, Jesus told him that he was indeed a rock.
- A rock of loyalty and of courage, and strength.
- A rock of conviction, commitment and faithfulness
- A rock who decided to stand beside Jesus no matter what.
I think that is why I like Peter so very much. Despite his failings and his failures, he was a success, he was victorious.
This morning I want to speak to you from the Word of God on How to Fail Well. Our series is entitled Living Life to the Full - and one of the most destructive lies that satan has sold the world in general and the Body of Christ in particular is that if you fail you are a failure. I want to show you from the Word of God this morning that that is not true. There is not a successful human being alive who has not made countless mistakes, again and again and again - yet they ended up being successful. There is nothing wrong with failing - but what I have got to learn to do is to fail well.
Open your Bible with me, if you will, this morning to the second letter Paul wrote to a young pastor named Timothy. 2 Timothy 2 and the 13th verse.
While you are turning there, I want to invite you especially to listen to me very carefully this morning if you believe you have made some great mistake in your life. Perhaps the world knows about - perhaps no-one does.
Perhaps this morning you are or were addicted to alcohol.
Perhaps your struggle is with drugs.
Might be you’ve gone through a divorce, and have struggled in the church ever since.
Perhaps you have committed adultery - or you are not married and you’ve lost your virginity.
Perhaps you are in a marriage that has failed - and you want out.
It could be you are addicted to pornography or your mind if filled with intense sexual thoughts.
Perhaps you’ve experimented with homosexuality or lesbianism, or are still struggling with these things.
Perhaps you got pregnant and had an abortion, or made a girl pregnant and simply upped and offed.
Perhaps your mistakes are more insidious - you are driven by fear or doubt or pride or regret.
The truth is that ‘failing’ touches every single one of us - past, present and future. So this morning I want to encourage our hearts from the Word of God, and I want to talk about How to Fail Well. I know you fail, but what I would like to do this morning is to teach you to be a better failure.
Read 2 Timothy 2:13 - Pray.
I. Failing Is a Part of Life
This first thing we need to recognize precious friends, is that everybody fails, not just once or twice, but all the time.
J. M. Barrie said, "We are all failures - at least, all the best of us are."
James recognizes this in 3:2 of his book when he honestly notes, "We all stumble in many ways."
Paul said, Romans 3:23, "For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God."
There is not a biblical hero when did not fail and fail many times. Why? Because failure is a part of life.
Ecclesiastes 7:20 sums it up well when it reminds us, "There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes mistakes." (GN)
My friend, if you do not see failure as a part of life, you set yourself up for disappointment and sadness.
Nelson Boswell commented, "The difference between greatness and mediocrity is often how an individual views mistakes."
Failing is not unusual, unexpected or inappropriate - and your failure does not disappoint God. He knows the dust of which you are made. He understands the weakness of the flesh corrupted by sin. He know the hearts desperately wicked and deceitful above all things.
I. Failing Is a Part of Life
Now notice secondly with me if you will . . .
2. Failure Is Necessary for Success
Do you realize that Vincent Van Gogh failed as an art dealer, flunked his entrance exam to theology school, and was fired by the church after an ill-fated attempt at missionary work? In fact, during his life, he seldom experienced anything other than failure as an artist. Although a single painting by Van Gogh would fetch in excess of $100 million today, in his lifetime Van Gogh sold only one painting, four months prior to his death.
Before developing his theory of relativity, Albert Einstein encountered huge academic failure. One headmaster expelled Einstein from school and another teacher predicted that he would never amount to anything. Einstein even failed his entrance exam into college.
Prior to dazzling the world with his athletic skill, Michael Jordan was cut from his sophomore basketball team. Even though he captured six championships, during his professional career, Jordan missed over 12,000 shots, lost nearly 400 games, and failed to make more than 25 would-be game-winning baskets.
Thomas Edison when he talked about all the 10 000 failed attempts that led up to inventing the incandescent lightbulb: "I didn’t fail ten thousand times. I successfully eliminated, ten thousand times, materials and combinations which wouldn’t work."
Before Peter ever was a success, he was a failure. Before he ever stood up for God to preach he backed down and denied Him three timers.
You see my friend, failure is designed to teach us what obstacles to remove out of the way of success. That is what failure does.
Proverbs 24:16 "For a righteous man falls seven times, and rises again, But the wicked stumble in time of calamity."
Failure is not intended to make you into a failure - it is designed to help you succeed. Without failure there can be no success.
I. Failing Is a Part of Life
2. Failure Is Necessary for Success
3. Failure Is Not Final
Precious believer - failing is temporary - it is giving up that makes it permanent. You fail when you give up trying to succeed - and you stop all resistance and just give in.
The only difference between the road to failure and the road to success is the road to success is more persistent.
Failure is not an option, it is a necessity.
Somebody said it well when they noted that "Successful people simply get up again and keep going." Successful people are very ordinary people who decided just one more time to give it a shot. The "righteous" described in Proverbs are not some super spiritual elite group - they are common men, with common failures, who also have this in common: They just keep on getting back up!
Let’s look at that Proverbs verse again.
Proverbs 24:16, "For though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again, but the wicked are brought down by calamity."
Watch this - 7 is the number of ‘completion’ in the Bible - so perhaps this verse is saying that when you feel like a complete failure, simply get up another time - and keep going.
You see my friend, the truth is that the price of success is perseverance. The price of failure is a whole lot cheaper!
I. Failing Is a Part of Life
2. Failure Is Necessary for Success
3. Failure Is Not Final
4. Give Your Failings to Jesus
Here is what I have learned. The only way to fail in Christianity is try really, really hard. Until you and I realize that the truth is we can simply cannot do it, we will continue to rely on our own wisdom, our own strength, our own ability. We have got to learn to take our failings to Jesus - because He is not disappointed - no matter what your mother or your conscience said.
So how do you ‘Give Your Failings to Jesus?’
a. Own Your Mistakes
You cannot learn from the mistake you will not own.
When people fail, they’re often tempted to blame others for their lack of success. By pointing fingers, they sink into a victim mentality and cede their fate to outsiders. When playing the blame game, people rob themselves of learning from their failures and alienate others by refusing to take responsibility for mistakes.
You always pass failure on the way to success. Go ahead, own them.
b. Learn What They Are Designed to Teach You
Failure will ask you the two of the most critical decisions - how badly do you want to succeed and have you now learnt that that way does not work?
God is teaching you to rely on Him, teaching you to use His strength. You failures occur in some of God greatest classrooms - and teach you some of God’s most precious truths.
c. Leave Your Failures at the Feet of Jesus
Precious believer - you were not designed to carry your failure around with you. Once you have owned it and learned from it - leave it at Jesus feet. Some people carry their failures around in such a way that it not only describes what they did but it defines who they are. Your failure is not about who you are but about something you did. God does not define you by your failure - so let it go.
How do you leave them at His feet? You simply accept His forgiveness, and choose in that to forgive yourself.
d. Get Up and Try Again in His Strength
Galatians 6:9 reads, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at a proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."
Success may be simply one try away - and it could be that that constant failure may be overcome by getting up one more time.
Conclusion
As the great, wise American scholar Rocky Balboa once remarked, "It’s not how hard you hit, it’s how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward."
Billy Graham said that when he was asked to preach his first sermon, he had four sermons prepared and he was so nervous he preached all four of them in under 10 minutes. Can you imagine if Billy Graham had said, "You know, I’m just not cut out for this. I don’t want to endure that kind of embarrassment again?"
This morning as we close, if you are anything like me, and I believe you are, then you have made mistakes, you have regrets, some of your choices have been very costly, perhaps they have hurt others. While there is no way to undo those things, you do not have to be undone by them.
It is time to let that go - stop defining yourself by that failure, and allow the God who loves you to fill that void of failure with Himself. He died to take the judgment of your failures away - so stop defining yourself by what you have done, and start to walk afresh in what he has done.
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