Making the Most of Our Mistakes
• It seems sometimes that we have so many opportunities to mess up in life –
• We do things we know we shouldn’t – and we make mistakes.
Translation Mistakes
• When industry tries to expand to other countries, there are plenty of opportunities for mistakes.
• When GM tried to introduce the Chevy Nova into South America, they neglected to notice that in Spanish “No va” means “No go.”
• Needless to say, sales were poor for a car that wouldn’t go.
• The National Dairy Association had great success in this country with their “Got Milk?” Campaign.
• But when they took this slogan into Mexico they were informed that their Spanish translation read, “Are you lactating?”
• When Coca-Cola was introduced in China, their attempts at finding a phonetic equivalent in the Chinese language resulted in a drink called “bite the wax tadpole.”
• Pepsi didn’t do too well either with their Chinese advertising.
• Their “Come alive with the Pepsi generation” slogan translated into
• “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave.”
The point is We All Make Mistakes
• Some of them are more public than others,
• But we’re in good company when we make mistakes.
• We may try to deny it.
• We may even call it something other than a mistake.
• If a driver makes a mistake, it’s an accident
• If a teacher makes a mistake, it’s a new theory
• If a barber makes a mistake, it’s a new hair style
But when we try to deny our mistakes, that is when the trouble really begins.
1 Corinthians 10:12 says,
If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall.
• Often we think we stand – and that’s our first mistake.
• When we think we’re doing all right, we stop being cautious, and we start make mistakes.
In Psalm 30, David admitted:
6 When I was prosperous, I said,“Nothing can stop me now!”
• When things were going great,
• I thought I had it made.
• Nothing can touch me! I will never be moved!
But then in the next verse David admits the real truth:
7 Your favor, O LORD, made me as secure as a mountain.
Then you turned away from me, and I was shattered. (Psalm 30:7, )
We stand or fall by the grace of God.
• When we believe in ourselves and our prosperity, our abilities,
• When we think we stand, that is when we make the most mistakes, and fall hard.
• Peter is one of my favorite disciples.
• He was a guy that made mistakes – and Jesus still loved him.
• That’s an encouragement to me.
Get Behind Me Satan - Matthew 16:21-23
• When Jesus told his disciples that he was going to suffer in Jerusalem and be killed and then rise again,
• Peter says, "God forbid it, Lord! This will never happen to you!”
• Jesus reply is not too comforting in this instance.
• Now He says, "Get behind Me, Satan!
• You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”
How would you like for your mistakes to be a stumbling block to Jesus?
Even the apostle Paul was a mistake maker.
In Romans 7:19, he tells us
19 I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.
• We all struggle like that.
• Even when he knew what was good and right,
• Paul still made mistakes and choose to do the wrong things.
• His only salvation from such a dreadful cycle was Christ – and the same is true for us.
• So when we make mistakes, we need to understand that we are in good company
What we need to do Learn from our Mistakes
• If you’re a surgeon or a pilot, you might want to try not to make mistakes.
• But if what you do isn’t a matter of life and death – even if you think it is –
• We find that mistakes can be some of the most important things that can happen to us.
• Rather than fearing mistakes, we should try to learn from them.
• Because “Mistakes are the portals of discovery.”
• Post-it notes were invented by mistake.
• Teflon was a mistake.
• The discovery of America was a mistake.
Back in the 1970’s there was a car called the Gremlin.
• With a name like that, what can you expect?
• Even though it was a failure
• It was also the predecessor to the popular hatchback.
• So if you want to put a positive spin on it,
• It too was, in its own way, a portal of discovery.
• There is a time to move on and leave our mistakes behind us –
• But as we do, we need to hang on to the lessons they have taught us.
Thomas Edison
• Thomas Edison is famous for his tolerance of mistakes.
• Did you know it took him 10,000 attempts to create the light bulb? 10,000 Attempts.
• While he was still making mistakes a reporter asked him,
• “How many times are you going to fail at creating the light bulb?”
• Edison’s reply was, “Son, I haven’t failed!
• I’ve simply discovered another way not to invent the light bulb.”
What a great attitude!
• IBM apparently liked that way of thinking too –
• It’s rumored that their motto when it comes to mistakes is “Fail Faster.”
• When we let our failures become a path to learning,
• We can find success a whole lot sooner.
Now for some of us, that path can be a long one.
• But whether it is cars, light bulbs, math tests or marriage,
• Building our faith or building our family,
• We all make mistakes that shouldn’t stop us in our tracks.
• Whatever we make a mistake, we should realize that we are learning.
• We are learning how not to live – so that we can learn how to live.
Jesus Knows We’re Going to Fail:
• At the last supper, Jesus told Peter that Satan would “sift the disciples like wheat.”
• Peter’s response was a characteristically bold declaration,
• He said “I’m ready to go both to prison and to death!”
• Then Jesus informed him that, before the rooster crowed the next morning, Peter would have denied Him three times.
• And he did. Jesus knows we’re gonna fail.
Thankfully, God is in the restoration business.
• He uses our mistakes and failures to bring about His intended results.
• It’s often through our mistakes that He is able to teach us and to transform our character
• But only If we will let Him.
Now Peter was pretty low after the rooster crowed Because he realized what he’d done.
• He hadn’t stood by Jesus the way he’d promised.
• He wasn’t even as good as his word.
• He was learning how not to live.
But Jesus didn’t leave him there feeling hopeless
• And He won’t leave us either,
• If we are just willing to listen to Him.
• When He rose from the dead, Jesus sought Peter out.
• They were eating breakfast by the sea, and when they finished,
15 Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these? “Yes, Lord,” Peter replied, “you know I love you.”“Then feed my lambs,” Jesus told him.16 Jesus repeated the question: “Simon son of John, do you love me?”“Yes, Lord,” Peter said, “you know I love you.”
“Then take care of my sheep,” Jesus said.17 A third time he asked him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”Peter was hurt that Jesus asked the question a third time. He said, “Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.”Jesus said, “Then feed my sheep. Jn 21:15-17
Jesus told Peter, you made a mistake – 3 times in fact.
• Let me tell you three times that I know your heart, Peter.
• And even though you failed, and declared things you could not live up to,
• Because I know your heart is right, I still have work for you to do.
• Don’t let your failures stop you. Tend my sheep.
• Teach and encourage the church.
• Do my work when I am gone. You know what it feels like to fail me
• So now you are ready to lead others who struggle with failure and insecurity.
• Feed my sheep. Jn 21:15-17
Sometimes we fail and we think we can never go on again.
• Maybe we think we could never be forgiven because we have done such terribe things.
• But this is just another mistake.
• God desire is that everyone will be saved
• And that includes people who make mistakes.
• Even people who deny Him.
Sometimes there are consequences for our mistakes.
• Maybe it’s lost sales. Maybe it’s brokenness. Maybe it’s loneliness.
• Maybe it’s jail time.
• A while back, Martha Stewart spent time in jail – even if it was a really nice jail.
• But if you look at her today,
• She certainly doesn’t seem to have let her mistakes be her downfall.
• If we are going to make the most of our mistakes, we have to learn the lessons that they teach us,
• Peter went on to be a pillar in the early Christian church.
• Through his mistakes, he learned to walk with Jesus,
• And he was able to teach others to do the same.
• He learned the restorative grace of God.
• He learned that we can move forward and do mighty things
• If and only if we let our past mistakes be our teachers instead of our tormenters.
Replace Error with Truth
• And as we learn from our mistakes, one of the things we should look for
• Is where the error occurred.
• If we don’t know what we did wrong, we are destined to repeat our mistakes.
• If we repeat them too often, they can become a habit.
• But if we know where the error is, we can replace it with truth
• When we learn other languages, it is easy to make mistakes.
• But if we don’t learn the correct way to speak,
• We make the same errors over and over again.
Learning Spanish
It is very easy to make mistakes on the endings.
I read a story about a girl who worked at a Mexican restaurant.
She tried really hard to speak Spanish correctly whenever she could,
but she often messed up.
Whenever she did, she would declare her stupidity saying, ‘Me stupido!’
One day a coworker had compassion on her and took her aside. She said, “No, no, you are not stupido. You are a girl. You say, ‘Me stupida!’
Truth will set you free
• In John’s gospel, we read that the “truth will make [us] free” (Jn 8:31-32).
• But as President Garfield once said,
• “The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.”
Exodus 8:2-10 – frog plague
• But let’s not get comfortable in our misery. Because That’s what Pharaoh did.
• The Pharaoh who ruled Egypt in Moses’ day was a man who repeated his mistakes over and over again –
• And he got pretty comfortable in his misery.
• Pharaoh was considered a god, and he didn’t like being challenged by a real God.
• His heart was hardened, and he repeatedly refused to let the Hebrew people go and worship.
• Because of that, many plagues came upon Egypt and her people.
• The second plague was the frogs.
• This part of the story is amazing in many ways.
• Pharaoh refuses again to let the people go and the Nile swarms with frogs
• They come up into the houses and into the beds and into the ovens and the kneading bowls.
• They are everywhere.
• If you think about this for a moment, it’s pretty disgusting.
• The people, including the Pharaoh, can’t lie down to sleep because their bed is covered with frogs.
• They can’t eat because frogs are everywhere in their kitchens.
• Then Pharaoh’s magicians then go and make more frogs – like they needed anymore.
• Finally Pharaoh calls for Moses and Aaron and says,
• “Ask your God to take the frogs away!”
• Moses says, “When do you want me to do that?”
• And Pharaoh in the hardness of his heart says, “Tomorrow.”
Tomorrow!
• If his subjects didn’t think he was a god, they probably would have rebelled.
• Who wants to sleep with the frogs?
• This was a man who didn’t learn from his mistakes.
• 10 plagues later, after the death of his first born son,
• Pharaoh is finally convinced to do what God wants him to do.
• But his error remains, and he is destined to make more mistakes.
Pharaoh’s error was in his heart.
• He didn’t want to admit that the Lord God was ruler of heaven and earth.
• He didn’t want to do things God’s way.
• Every time a new plague came, and every time God took it away,
• Pharaoh was reminded of the truth –
• But it made him miserable to think there was a God more powerful than him.
• And he wallowed in his misery,
• Rather than letting the truth replace his error.
• He preferred to sleep with the frogs one more night, than to let the truth set him free.
No More “If Only’s”
• We shouldn’t wallow in the misery of your mistakes.
• Instead, we need to let your mistakes be a stepping stone to victory.
• We all make mistakes in life.
• Some are silly language mistakes, and some are serious.
• It isn’t always easy, but the truth can set us free from repeated mistakes,
• Even if we feel miserable discovering the truth.
When we realize our mistake, we so often say, “If only I’d done it this way.”
• We replay the things we did wrong in our mind.
• We think about how we should have done it.
• And that’s good – to a point.
• Thinking about how we could have done better helps us to see our error and follow truth.
• But eventually we need to leave it behind and turn our “If only’s”
• Into “Today I will do it this way.”
Jesus told his disciples
31 Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. 32 And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
(John 8:31-32,)
Jesus was taking about freedom from sin.
• Some of the worst mistakes we make are sinful ones.
• These mistakes range anywhere from theft and adultery,
• To worry and failure to trust God, on the other.
Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” (John 14:6)
• The truth is, if we try to follow Christ, studying His Word and doing what He says,
• Then His truth will set us free.
• But we have to do more than mentally acknowledge the truth – we have to follow it,
• We have to pursue it.
• And then we won’t have to continue in our cycle of sin and mistake and failure.
• And when we do fail, we can have the confidence to keep trying.
If we grasp onto Christ, and give our lives to Him,
• He promises us that His Holy Spirit will dwell within us.
• And when we have the power of the Holy Spirit, all things are possible – even moving forward after our mistakes.
Conclusion:
It says in Hebrews (10:38) My righteous ones will live by faith.
• The people of God shouldn’t live by waiting for everything to be lined up perfectly
• We shouldn’t say, “I can’t serve God because I’ll just make mistakes.”
• And we shouldn’t say, “I’ll serve God flawlessly once I’m perfect.”
• Because If you wait for that, the journey will pass you by.
• Whatever mistakes you make in life, let them be a place of learning.
• Whatever error you see, replace it with truth.
• And whatever else you do, live by faith
• Faith that you will make mistakes
• And faith that God will see you through it,
• God will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation.
