How many of you have ever failed at something? If we are brutally honest we would all admit that we have failed more times than we would like to admit. However, I would like to suggest that there are two classes of people who fail: The ones who give up and the ones who use those failures as learning experiences. Consider some of these examples of great men who used their failure as learning experiences which would lead to their great successes. As a young man, Abraham Lincoln went to war a captain and returned a private. Afterwards, he was a failure as a businessman. As a lawyer in Springfield, he was too impractical and temperamental to be a success. He turned to politics and was defeated in his first try for the legislature, again defeated in his first attempt to be nominated for congress, defeated in his application to be commissioner of the General Land Office, defeated in the senatorial election of 1854, defeated in his efforts for the vice-presidency in 1856, and defeated in the senatorial election of 1858. At about that time, he wrote in a letter to a friend, "I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth." Thomas Edison's teachers said he was "too stupid to learn anything." He was fired from his first two jobs for being "non-productive." As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, "How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?" Edison replied, "I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps." Winston Churchill failed sixth grade. He was subsequently defeated in every election for public office until he became Prime Minister at the age of 62. He later wrote, "Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never, Never, Never, Never give up." Moses is another example of someone who failed miserably before succeeding. As we will learn Moses learned a great deal from his failures and the truth is so can we. Our goal today is to learn from Moses’ example of turning failures into learning experiences which will enable us to succeed in the future.
I. Things Moses learned from his failure.
A. It’s a bad idea to try to accomplish God’s will by our own means.
1. The narrative moves along very rapidly. Moses goes from being a child to being forty years old in the space of a few verses.
2. Moses now an adult is obviously aware that he is of Hebrew descent and has a soft spot in his heart for his people.
3. Moses makes a knee jerk reaction when he sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew unmercifully.
4. Moses probably realized that his decision to intervene was a bad idea as the dead Egyptian laid at his feet.
5. Moses was called to bring deliverance to the Hebrews but his actions were not a part of God’s plan.
B. Waiting on God is as important as taking action.
1. Not only were Moses’ actions wrong, his timing was wrong.
2. Moses’ sense of justice was not the problem, his rash actions and timing was the problem.
3. Instead of following the Lord Moses blew open the door and got ahead of God.
4. God enacts His plans at just the right time and it usually doesn’t line up with our timetables.
5. Not waiting on the Lord would cost Moses greatly.
C. Covering up our mistakes do not erase them.
1. Before taking action Moses looked all around to make sure that no one was watching.
2. After taking action Moses then tries to bury the evidence in the sand.
3. Here is the problem not only did fellow Hebrews see what Moses did, God saw it as well.
4. Moses attempt to cover up his mistake only served to make his failure that much worse.
5. Moses discovers that the cat was out of the bag when he goes the next day to settle a dispute between two Hebrews.
D. God calls us to the role of leader, we don’t call ourselves.
1. Moses assumed the role of deliverer for his people and as a result he was not able to deliver anyone including himself.
2. Moses discovers that instead of being viewed as a deliverer and leader he was viewed as a murderer and a meddler.
3. Moses finds out that although he sees himself as a leader, no one is willing to follow him.
4. Moses becomes keenly aware of the mess that he has made as his own people tell him to mind his own business and his adopted family seeks to punish him by killing him.
5. Moses feels that he is out of viable options and decides to pack up and leave the country.
II. How Moses turned his failure into a learning experience.
A. To be a leader one must first be a servant.
1. As Moses arrives in Midian once again we see his willingness to intervene on behalf of those who are weaker.
2. Moses rescues the seven daughters of Reuel (Jethro) as some shepherds drive them away from the well. Moses then goes as far as watering their flocks for them.
3. Moses learns an important lesson here at the well. To be a leader one must first learn to be a servant.
4. Here Moses not only begins to reflect on his failures, he begins to learn from them.
B. A leader must be willing to be out of the spotlight.
1. Apparently God felt that Moses needed to have his fiery temperament turned down a few notches.
2. Moses will begin a forty-year leadership training program that will teach him that in order to be a leader one must learn to follow.
3. As we will see with Moses, God often develops and perfects leadership skills away from the public eye.
4. God does have a plan for Moses but He will not begin to enact it until Moses is properly prepared.
C. Leaders must be willing to chill out and wait on God.
1. Moses learns that leaders need to relax and patiently wait on God to show them when to act.
2. The final verses of Exodus 2 do not mention Moses but we see God beginning to move and preparing the road for Moses to go into action.
3. Moses spends the second forty year period of his life simply doing life. He gets married, raises a family and works a job.
4. Moses simply chills out until God tells him that He needs him to assume that role that he felt called to.
5. Moses will learn that success comes when we follow God before expecting others to follow us.
III. Learning to turn our failures into learning experiences.
A. Look for what God wants to teach you from each failure.
1. When we fail it is usually because we have not included God in our plans.
2. The problem is that success often breeds self reliance and we no longer seek God’s will or give Him the credit.
3. Failure seems to open our hearts in way that we begin to pay closer attention to God.
4. Failure strips away the barriers of pride that keeps us from being teachable.
5. Through our failures we can hear God more clearly and learn to more consistently seek His will.
B. Understand that failures are not fatal.
1. Failures are not fatal even though they are painful and quite discouraging.
2. They do not disqualify us from God’s service or make us unforgivable.
3. Failures are dangerous because they dishearten us to the point that we consider giving up.
4. God realizes that we are going to fail on a regular basis and wants to pick us up, teach us and send us back on our way.
C. Understand that our failures should teach us obedience.
1. Failures are most often the result of us deciding to go our own way and deciding to do things our own way.
2. The problem is that many keep repeating the same mistakes over and over because they fail to seek God.
3. Insanity has been defined this way, repeating the same behavior and expecting different results.
4. When we are broken and bruised by failure we should have the desire to get our lives lined back up with God once again.
5. When we replace our will with God’s will we will soon discover that failures will become less frequent because we are striving to walk obediently in God’s will.
Conclusion:
Many people have heard the name Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Computers. Jobs passed away in 2011 but his life has taught many lessons. Perhaps the most profound lessons have been taught by his failures. Apple in its first generation brought innovation to the PC market, but nearly went bankrupt. Apple as a fully integrated, proprietary hardware/software company -- arguably with superior design -- was beaten out by a cannier software competitor and the network effects that that competitor managed to create. Failure taught Jobs to seek the lessons to be learned, then apply them and then adapt to prevent making the same mistakes once again. Now apple dominates the personal electronic markets with I Phone, I Pad and I Pods. Millions of people use Apple’s I Tunes to download a variety of media content. Steve Jobs was always a visionary genius, but what makes him so compelling to me is the fact that after creating great products that only reached the few, he returned, learned and adapted his vast creative talents to create whole new product categories, distribution models, creative platforms and customer experiences that have positively impacted the lives of millions.
