How God Uses Failure (Exodus 2:11-25)
“HOW TO LEARN FROM FAILURE
Some Powerful Steps How to Overcome Failure in Life and Bounce Back
Life of Moses/Peter Luke 22:54-61 john 21:3
• Shame over past failures and sins can haunt and inhibit us in many ways.
• And Satan seeks to steal and destroy our faith by shoving our failures in our face. But Jesus intends to redeem us completely
• There are many people in Scripture who have failed miserably and been restored and re-commissioned by God.
Such people were assigned important tasks in the kingdom of God and achieved great things for God by His grace.
God is in the business of using people who have failed.
• Noah got drunk and exposed himself.
• Abraham lied twice about his wife being his sister.
• Isaac did the same.
• Jacob deceived his father and cheated his brother out of the birthright.
• David sinned with Bathsheba and had her husband murdered.
• The disciples all abandoned Jesus at His crucifixion and then doubted the resurrection.
• Peter denied Jesus and later waffled on the gospel out of fear of the Judaizers.
• Mark bailed out on the first missionary journey.
God is the God of second chances!
Scripture is full of examples of failures and the church is not a club for perfect people.
We are human and will make mistakes;
• we all have weaknesses. Therefore, we must learn to live with our failures.
• Strong character is developed in accordance with how you deal with your mistakes and move on from them.
• Remember that failure is actually important for your development.
Mistakes can teach us vital lessons about what to do differently in the future, which helps us avoid repeating them! It is within your weakness that He is best able to teach and strengthen you: “Realize that God’s work is not limited by our failures.
He does not reject us in our weakness but rather embraces us so that we can receive strength to be all He intended us to be.”*
• The more successful you are, the more failures you will go through. We have all heard about this
• The key is that we must learn how to overcome failure, in life and at work.
• The fear of failure can make force you into making decisions not to try again or move forward.
Moses was one of the greatest men in the Bible.
- He was used of God to free Gods’ people.
- He was used by God to deliver the 10 Commandments.
- He was used of God to build the Tabernacle so that God could dwell with His people.
- Yet Moses didn’t start out that way. He was raised to believe God, but he chose to take matters in his own hand and he failed.
And in our text, Moses murders an Egyptian, is rejected by his countrymen, flees for his life, and lives in the desert for the next forty years.
This story gives us hope that God can use us even after we’ve failed.
• D. L. Moody said, “Moses spent his first forty years thinking he was somebody.
• He spent his second forty years learning he was a nobody.
• He spent his third forty years discovering what God can do with a nobody.”
Moses he went out to visit his brethren and killed the Egyptian taskmaster
Why would Moses side with the Hebrew slaves and risk his place in the Egyptian court by killing this taskmaster?
This action caused Pharaoh now to see Moses as a traitor who needed to be killed.
Hebrews 11:24-26 tells us why Moses did this: “By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward.”
So Moses’ intentions were right when he went out to help his suffering Hebrew people.
• He had given up position, pleasure, and prosperity to take his stand with God’s people
• But he went about his mission in the wrong way, resulting in a forty year detour.
• From a prince in the palace of Egypt, Moses became a shepherd in the barren wilderness of Midian.
• From being in the limelight of Pharaoh’s government, Moses went into isolation and obscurity.
• From being a “somebody,” he instantly became a “nobody.”
• The forty years in the desert was God’s school to prepare Moses for his later more difficult assignment. This story teaches us that …
Our text breaks into three main sections:
1. God uses imperfect instruments who fail in their attempts to serve Him (Exodus 2:11-15a).
Moses’ failure reveals 5 ways we fail:
A. We fail when we impulsively act on right commitments based on emotions.
• Seeing the injustice of the Egyptian beating this poor Hebrew slave made him angry.
• He rightly thought, “This is wrong!”
• But he acted on impulse, wrongly thinking that the time had come for him to liberate God’s enslaved people.
• Example:-That doctor is murdering babies. It’s right to be angry about such injustice. But killing the doctor is not right.
B. We fail when we attempt to do God’s work by human strength.
• There is a huge difference between acting in our strength versus acting in the power of God.
• At first, like Gideon, whose 32,000 troops had to be reduced to 300 before God could use them,
• Moses was too strong for God. He was well-gifted and well-trained, but he had not yet learned that the battle does not depend on our skills, but on God’s Spirit.
• There is no indication in the text that Moses was trusting in God when he took this drastic action.
C. We fail when we are more concerned about what others think than about what God thinks.
• We read (Exod. 2:12), “So he looked this way and that, and when he saw there was no one around, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.”
• As many have pointed out, Moses looked this way and that, but he never looked up!
D. We fail when we impetuously attempt to do God’s work at the wrong time.
• Moses had no direct word from God at this time to take this drastic step of killing the Egyptian. He was running ahead of Gods plan.
• Never run ahead of Gods plan
Others in Scripture failed in a similar way.
• Abraham and Sarah were getting worried about their advancing age without having the son that God had promised, so he had relations with Hagar and produced Ishmael.
• The world is still experiencing the bad consequences of that hasty mistake!
• King Saul got nervous that his people would desert him when Samuel didn’t come on schedule to offer the sacrifice.
• So he “forced himself” and offered it himself (1 Sam. 13:12). But he acted foolishly and as a result, God took the kingdom away from him and gave it to David.
• On at least two occasions after David was anointed to be the next king, he had the opportunity to kill King Saul and claim the kingdom he had been promised.
• But he wisely waited to let the Lord remove Saul in His timing (1 Sam. 24:1-15; 26:5-25).
As a rule, if you haven’t waited on the Lord in prayer and sensed that it is His time to take some major action, keep waiting on Him.
E. We fail when we try to cover up our sin and hide it from God and others.
• Moses buried the Egyptian’s body in the sand, but apparently there had been witnesses to what Moses had done. News like that spreads quickly.
• Apparently Moses learned his lesson. Years later, he warned the tribes of Gad and Reuben, who wanted to settle across the Jordan, but promised to help the other tribes conquer
• Sometimes we try to hide our sin from ourselves by denying that it really was wrong. But God uses His Word to expose our sins.
• Ever since Adam and Eve tried to hide their sin from God, our tendency is to do the same.
• But God knows everything. He wants us to confess our sins and turn from them.
As Proverbs 28:13 tells us, “He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion.”
2. God shapes and prepares imperfect instruments before He uses them (Exodus 2:15b-22).
? Moses fled to the land of Midian, which was either on the far side of the Sinai Peninsula or perhaps across the Red Sea on the western side of Arabia.
? It is a barren wasteland. The contrast must have been jarring! From having every convenience and luxury in Pharaoh’s palace, with servants waiting on his every desire,
? From being surrounded by all of the important, educated, influential people in Egypt, now his only company was a nomadic shepherd family.
? After earning his Ph.D. in Egypt’s most prestigious university, now his job was to watch a flock of sheep that didn’t even belong to him.
? After he helped defend Reuel’s seven daughters against the aggressive shepherds, he settled down to live there, eventually marrying Zipporah.
? During the forty years, he had two sons there: Gershom (Exod. 2:22, meaning, “a stranger there”); and, Eliezer (Exod. 18:3-4, “my God is help”).
? Moses’ forty years in the wilderness was better schooling than his education in all the learning of the Egyptians.
? He had a lot of time alone to spend with God. Between his family and his shepherding duties, God used those years to develop a servant’s heart in Moses.
? It prepared him for the next forty years to lead God’s people in the same desert.
? Failure opens our hearts to our need to learn from God how to overcome the next time.
? God uses failure to teach us our weaknesses so that in the future we trust in His strength.
3. God’s gracious covenant faithfulness prepares His servants for His people and His people for His servants (Exodus 2:23-25).
• Exodus 2:23-25 takes us back to Egypt. The Pharaoh who sought to kill Moses had died.
• This is the first mention of God in Exodus 2.
• Verses 24 & 25 mention God’s name and His action four times:
? God heard their groaning;
? God remembered His covenant;
? God saw the sons of Israel; and,
? God took notice of them.
He always hears, remembers, sees, and knows His people,.
Conclusion
Although Moses failed at first in his mission of delivering God’s people,
Everybody fails but it is not failure unless you give up.
Those who succeed are those who pick themselves up, dust themselves down and start all over again!
Real failure is refusing to try again or refusing to try at all.
Perseverance
? No matter how many times we fall we must get up again and get back in the race.
? Our mistakes can potentially teach us and cause us to grow.
? God does not just leave us in the place of failure.
? Even ordinary decent parents in the natural sense do not abandon or forsake their children for their errors.
One of the most beautiful passages in Scripture is where Jeremiah goes to the potter’s house and watches the potter working at the wheel.
o He sees the potter take the vessel that is marred and remake it.
o He refashions something useful and even beautiful from that same clay!
That is what God can do for us!
? He can take our broken lives;
? our failures and faults and reshape them and remake us.
? He doesn’t give up on us when we fail.
? Not only does God not give up on us when we fail but He uses failure to motivate us.
? He makes us change our ways and to think again about His purpose for our lives.
? God can take all the negative things in our lives and make them positive.
God is not surprised when we fail.
The psalmist reminds us that, ‘God knows what we are made of and He remembers that we are dust’.
God knows that we are human. He knows our frailties and doesn’t expect us to be perfect.
Importantly, God does not stop loving us when we fail.
He does not see us by the world’s standards or judge us as others may do.
Sometimes others can judge us harshly but God’s love is not dependent on what we do; it is dependent on who He is!
We are valuable to God because He has made us and He has redeemed us and we belong to Him.
? We are more than His possessions; we are His people.
? We are more than His people; we are His family.
There is nothing we can do to make God love us more. There is nothing we can do to make God love us less.
Yes, That is grace!
? He accepts us as we are. But He does not want to leave us as we are. He has a plan and purpose for our lives.
? We all have areas of failure in our lives.
? Some may be more habitual or conspicuous than others. We stumble and stumble and stumble again.
? But God picks up and gives us a new beginning when we come confessing our faults and failings and asking for forgiveness.
? He never gets tired of forgiving us if we are spiritually sensitive enough to ask.
? God has nailed all our sins and our failures to the cross of Christ.
Jesus died so that we need no longer fear the failure of our sins.
? The Christian life is not a failure–free life; rather it is a life of grace!
? Grace is the heart of the gospel and it is the heart of discipleship.
? God deals graciously with us.
I will never tire of telling this to saints and sinners.
? Saints are redeemed sinners who still err.
? We are holy by God’s grace; not because we live sin-free lives.
What is the failure in your life that is bothering away at you?
? Is it failure at work?
? Is it failure in relationships?
? Is it financial failure?
? Is it some other personal aspect of your life?
? Is it failure as a Christian?
There is only one failure you need fear in life and that is the failure to find the grace of God.
? Some people think that because they have failed that life is at an end.
? We should be thankful that God is the God of new beginnings.
That new beginning is on offer to you today.
We must persevere, in spite of our frailties. People who refuse to give up tend to achieve things.
Humpty-Dumpty
The nursery rhyme says:
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
That was the end of Humpty Dumpty. His fall destroyed him. But our King is able to put us together again!
? The example of Peter shows how God deals with the repentant disciple.
? He graciously forgives and restores to a place of usefulness.
? The proof of that is confirmed by God’s choice of Peter to deliver what is perhaps the most important evangelistic sermon in the history of the church.
God doesn’t hold our failures and mistakes over us; he gives us limitless grace and mercy.
His love totally outweighs any mistake you have made, so you can begin to forgive yourself in this knowledge.
And He designed you to have a loving relationship with him. Thus, “failure” in God’s sight is your living outside of the way He intended you live
You Are Not Defined by Your Failure
? Your history and your mistakes do not define who you are.
? Your identity is in Christ, not in any event or words said in the past.
? Letting go and moving on from failure can be achieved through the love of God, which leads to your acceptance and pursuit of the person He intended you to be.
whenever you experience some failure in your life ask these 5 questions
(1) What caused the failure? What went wrong? Why did I fail? Poor planning? A bad attitude? Pride? A foolish risk? A failure to think about the consequences?
Sometimes your problem is deeper than it seems on the surface.
(2) What successes are contained in the failure? Even in the midst of failure, there is usually something good that resulted from the problem. Bible commentator Warren Wiersbe writes, “A realist is an idealist who has gone through the fire and been purified. A skeptic is an idealist who has gone through the fire and been burned.” Use failure to purify you.
(3) What can I learn from what happened? This is the big question. No matter what setback, shortcoming or adversity we face in life, there is a lesson to be discovered. But you must be teachable. Willing to see it. And ready to learn.
(4) Who can help me with this issue? Seek advice from others who can help. An older, wiser friend. A professional counselor. A preacher. Pastor. Or spiritual advisor. Humbly listen. And learn.
(5) Where do I go from here?
Dr. Ronald Neidnagel says, “Failure isn’t failure unless you don’t learn from it.” Don Shula and Ken Blanchard, in their book, “Everyone’s a Coach,” share this advice, “Learning is defined as a change in behavior. You haven’t learned a thing until you can take action and use it.”
Finally, realize that God cares about your problems, challenges and mistakes. The Bible says, “Cast all your care upon him, for He cares for you (1 Pet 5:7). “Cast your burden upon the Lord and He shall sustain you” (Ps. 55:22)
Just because you’ve failed, you’re not a failure! Don’t give up! Get up! Get going! And give it a new effort!
Here are 11 ways you can bounce back from failure and get back on track again.
1) Accept what happened.
? The first thing to do after you have failed is, accept it and come to terms with it.
? Don’t ignore it, deny it or hide it.
? You have failed, there’s nothing you can do to reverse it now. Accept it. It’s okay. Failure happens all the time.
? It’s no big deal if you accept it and decide to do something about it.
A lot of people thought that failure is the opposite of success. Failure is not something good, but what failure truly is, is that it is a part of success.
2) Take total responsibility.
Be brutally honest and learn from your mistakes
Own your failure. There’s no shame in it. Everyone fails sometimes.
? Things won’t always plan out the way you want them. But the sole responsibility should always be yours to take.
? You must be accountable for your actions, choices, decisions.
? Never blame others and hold them responsible for your debacle.
? Passing the buck is a sure recipe for disaster.
3) Analyze what happened.
? You cannot undo what happened but by taking stock of what happened, you can dispassionately assess and gain insight into what went wrong and where.
? It will also enable you to understand what worked and what didn’t so that you can begin with a whole new approach.
? This will go a long way in helping you revise your strategy, better prepare yourself, work on your weak points and improve your future performance.
? It will also give you the confidence to bounce back and begin more confidently.
4) Learn from your mistakes.
? Failure teaches you like none other can teach you.
? You must learn from your mistakes and ‘heed the lessons of failure’ as Bill Gates put it. Make the best of your mistakes. Embrace them, learn from them and never repeat them.
? Identify your weaknesses, work on them and turn them into your strength.
5) Don’t dwell on Failure.
? The worst way to deal with failure is to take it to heart.
? No amount of crying, complaining, regretting can help you overcome it. So stop ruminating over it, constantly thinking about it or re-running it in your mind and feeling sorry for yourself.
? It will not serve any useful purpose and will only take you deeper into sorrow and unhappiness.
6) Get over it; move on.
? Failure is ‘a temporary detour, not a dead end’ Denis Waitley, the American bestselling author is once known to have said: Failure only lasts until you succeed again.
? So don’t let failure become permanent and scar your psyche.
? A negative feeling cannot have any positive outcome.
? It is best forgotten.
? Wipe the slate clean and make a fresh start.
? Look ahead. Move on. Give yourself a chance to recover and rebuild yourself.
Manufacture hope and see the possibility
? The University of Kentucky published a list of extraordinary people who have successfully overcome big setbacks and failures in life.
? The list includes:
? Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he succeeded.
? Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” He went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland. In fact, the proposed park was rejected by the city of Anaheim on the grounds that it would only attract riffraff.
? Charlie Chaplin was initially rejected by Hollywood studio chiefs because his pantomime was considered “nonsense.”
? Van Gogh sold only one painting during his life. And this to the sister of one of his friends for 400 francs (approximately $50). This didn’t stop him from completing over 800 paintings.
? Charles Darwin gave up a medical career and was told by his father, “You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching.” In his autobiography, Darwin wrote, “I was considered by all my masters and my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard of intellect.” Clearly, he evolved.
? Tom Watson was founder and managing director of I.B.M. One of his most memorable moments in leadership occurred when a junior executive lost an enormous amount of money ($10million) on a risky venture for the company. Watson summoned the man into his office and as the man entered he nervously blurted out, “I guess you want my resignation?” Watson replied, “You can’t be serious. We’ve just spent $10 million educating you.” Just think how much God has spent on your education!
? Alexander Whyte who was a minister of St. Georges Edinburgh in the late nineteenth-century and principal and New Testament professor of New College Edinburgh in the early 20-century, once said of Christians: “they fall down, they get up, they fall down, they get up…all the way to heaven.”
? Thomas Edison is remembered for having invented the light bulb which brought light to this physical world but we too are engaged in a great endeavor; to bring spiritual light to this dark world. His perseverance was exemplary. He is often quoted for having said, ‘I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work’
7) Develop mental toughness to triumph over failure.
? Setbacks should not dishearten or break you.
? Failure is not an end in itself.
? Don’t let it steal your confidence or lower your self-esteem.
? Train yourself to take bad hits in life. Use failure to learn, grow and better yourself.
? Maintain positive attitude in the face of failure. That’s how you can strengthen your mental toughness muscle.
8) Jump into a positive frame of mind. Adopt a Godly mind
? When you face defeat, you are engulfed by fear and self-doubt.
? Failure brings with it a dark cloud of negativity. You begin to question yourself and start to doubt your ability. Positive thoughts are the last thing on your mind.
? But that’s how it is. Recovery and rebounding takes time. To facilitate and fasten the process you must fight all negative thoughts that cross your mind and keep yourself in a positive frame of mind.
? Read about other people in the bible how they dealt with failure.
? Look back and reflect on your own life how you faced past failure and overcame it. Nothing inspires you more than your personal experience and your own success story with God.
9) Let go of fear.
? When you experience failure, one thing is sure. The worst has struck you. Things can’t go bad from here.
? When you fall down, you can’t go further down. So what is there to fear? From here you can move only in the Gods direction.
? So get up, gather your broken pieces and start building yourself again.
? Success is achieved by those who don’t fear failure.
? Don’t let failure hold you back or stop you from manifesting your dreams.
10) Focus on bettering yourself with God.
? Everyone faces failure but how you look at it and what you do about it is what makes all the difference.
? Most times failure happens because you were not prepared well, didn’t plan properly, were ill-equipped, lacked the required skills, were not up to it or were just plain unlucky.
11) Begin again.
Start over again, with an edge this time
My friend, you have a choice. When you fall, you can choose to:
1. Stay there, or
2. Get up, dust off and try again.
What you choose to do is up to you.
But I suggest you go for the second option. You can fall down 7 times, but choose to get back up and do it again for the 8th times.
? You are a real failure when you choose to stay there after you fall.
? As long as you get back up, learn, improve, and do it again, you still stand a chance to achieve what you want, with an advantage.
? You become wiser and you know what works better and what don’t.
This is how all the successful people did it.
The first 3 rocket launches from SpaceX were failures. But Elon Musk didn’t give up. He and his team learned the lessons and came back wiser. The fourth launch was important to the company because they were running out of capital and it was SpaceX’s last hope.
In 2008, SpaceX launched their 4th rocket successfully. The missile successfully completed the flight and went into orbit with the weight. And thus, the existence of the company was secured.
As you can see, failures only make people wiser and stronger.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
? So don’t give up. Choose to relaunch and start over again.
? You have already put in the effort before, although that you have failed, the previous effort that you poured in becomes your experience.
? That means your failure actually contributes to your success.
Your failures are your experience. So leverage on your experience to create better result the next time.
Thus, to be successful, you must gain experience. And experience usually comes from failure.
? So, without failure, you will never have the experience.
? Without failure, you will never learn and become better.
? without failure, you will never be successful.
Failure can devastate you if you allow it to. On the other hand, failure can help you rebuild yourself and embark on your success journey again. After all, there can always be a next time.
Failure doesn’t have to mean the end of your dreams, goals and aspirations. Harness the power of failure to motivate you to chase your goals.
Conclusion:-Use failure to take a fresh start, make a new beginning. Let failure make you stronger, tougher and more resilient so that you don’t just survive failure but bounce back stronger with God.
The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall
Change your thinking. Treat failure as part of success. And choose to think that there are no failures, only lessons. Thus, turn your failures into lessons and improve yourself to become a better person worthy of success.
