MULLIGAN
It’s said that when Aeschines the Greek spoke, the people nudged each other and said, “How well he speaks.” But that when Demosthenes spoke, they brandished their swords and cried out, “Let us march against Philip of Macedonia!”
This evening my prayer is that I would not come with enticing words but rather a spirit that moves you to action.
I realize that this message may not be for everyone right now… but I believe that in one way or another it will be for everyone eventually.
TEXT: Luke 13:6-9
How many have ever needed a second chance?
You’re in good company tonight because I would venture to guess that we all have.
In our text a land owner calls his gardener’s attention to a fig tree that has no fruit. By three years this fig tree should have been bearing two harvests each year. He tells the Gardner that it is just taking up space in his garden and that he wants to have it removed.
The gardener tells his to let him take care of it for one more year. That he would do everything in his power to make the fig tree fruitful.
Now there are a number of intriguing aspects to this particular parable. But none so readily seen as the fact that in spite of God having every right to dust us on the spot for our many and varied egregious failures… He is willing to step back give us some space and to actually help us try again.
I find this both profound and hopeful. (Expound)
Ezra 9:6-8 tells us,
“And said, O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens.”
“Since the days of our fathers have we been in a great trespass unto this day; and for our iniquities have we, our kings, and our priests, been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, and to a spoil, and to confusion of face, as it is this day.”
“And now for a little space grace hath been shewed from the Lord our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage.”
This is talking about the nation of Israel’s bondage in Babylon… brought about by their refusal to repent and serve God. And yet in spite of them bringing all of this upon themselves, God is still willing to give them another shot at it.
That’s good news tonight!
I. Imperfect By Nature
Why? Because you and I are imperfect by nature.
I’d love to be able to tell you that the moment that you got saved you would start life on a higher plain of existence… that you’d never make a mistake again… that you’d never have to feel ashamed… that your life and walk would be in total control. But that’s just not reality.
Failure is the legacy that we get to bare.
The theological circles our condition is referred to as “the natural depravity of man.”
We were created in a perfect state in the garden we chose disobedience of our own free will and destroyed ourselves spiritually.
And after thousands of years of willful, practiced failure… here we are tonight. A sight to behold.
The Bible is full of accounts of failure.
Abraham “the father of the faith” (lying about Sara)
Samson (anointed / judge / fell into sin with Delilah)
King David (where do we start with this guy / census / Bathsheba / Uriah)
Jonah (no misconceptions here / “Go to Nineveh” “No” / running from God)
John Mark (he gets upset and flat out quits the ministry / he leaves Paul and Barnabas hanging / “I’m outta here”)
Paul himself says in I Timothy 1:15,
“This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.”
He had previously written in Romans 7:14-24 says,
“For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.”
“For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.”
“If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good.”
“Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.”
“For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing:
for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.”
“For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.”
“Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.”
“I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.”
“For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:”
“But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.”
“O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
This should forever put to rest the misguided notion that the patriarchs and the fathers of the faith had some kind of superhuman strength that kept them from stumbling, falling, or otherwise throwing in the towel when things got to rough or unpleasant.
They did all of this and more. And if we’ll be honest tonight… so do we from time to time.
And I’m not talking about the “Oops, I forgot to say grace before lunch.”
I’m talking about the real deal. The stuff that God has every reason and the undeniable right to leave you as a bloody smudge for.
David is one of the Bible’s greatest heroes. He’s also one of it’s most regular failures.
He writes in Psalm 51:5,
“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”
There’s a story about a Gardner took great pride in caring for his lawn. But one year it grew full of dandelions. He tried every thing he could think of to get rid of them, but nothing worked. Exasperated, he wrote the Department of Agriculture explaining all he had done. “What shall I try next,” he wrote. After a few weeks he received a reply. He excitedly opened the envelope wondering what great words of wisdom they would offer him. The reply was shorter than he had hoped. It simply stated, “Try getting used to them.”
This side of Heaven we will never be perfect.
Don’t accept it… but understand it. Because this is no excuse to sin.
(Expound)
This is not about self-justification. And I am certainly not talking about habitual sin. If you live from day to day in a continued state of unrepentant sin, make no mistake… should you draw your last breath you will not go to Heaven. Period!
We’re talking about failures in life and the availability of God’s grace to give us another go at it.
This was the reason that the law was given in the first place.
Romans 5:20 says,
“Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound…”
Not so that it could be kept… it can’t… it was given so that you and I could get a revelation of how far we fall short of perfection… and how desperately we need a Holy God to come to our rescue.
Romans 3:19-24 says,
“Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.”
“Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”
“But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;”
“Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:”
“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”
“Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:”
II. Failure Isn’t Final
If you only take one thought home with you tonight, take this one… Failure isn’t final unless you let it be.
Henry Ford once said, “Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently
What makes failure fatal is not getting back up off your face.
Sure you’re down. Sure it stinks. Sure it hurts. But deal with it and go on.
Proverbs 24:15 & 16 tells us,
“Lay not wait, O wicked man, against the dwelling of the righteous; spoil not his resting place:”
“For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again…”
Here’s Elijah the great prophet of God. He’s fresh off a powerful visitation of God in which he stood against hundreds of false prophets and saw God send fire from Heaven.
I King 19:1-4 picks up the story,
“And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword.”
“Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to morrow about this time.”
“And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there.”
“But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life…”
And God says, “You pathetic loser!”
No He has mercy in Elijah’s time of weakness and failure. God’s plan is the ultimate redemption of every person and every situation.
The problem is that it’s here that the devil switches his attack from temptation to discouragement.
No that that he’s got you to take the bait… it’s time to set the hook.
“You’ve done it this time… you’ve gone way to far.”
“What makes you think God would want you back after this?”
“How can you show your face in that church after what you did?”
“You’ve got a lotta brass to lift your hands and praise God.”
“You hypocrite.”
The tragedy is that so many buy into the lies of Hell. And from there he leads them back into bondage.
“Why try. I’m a failure.” (Expound)
Q - Ever been there?
If you’ve been saved for any length of time you have no doubt seen it. They come drifting in… still reeking of the world… and you know instantly, that they’ve had a rough go at it.
Coming back from another taste of the world.
Proverbs 26:11 says,
“As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.”
(Expound)
“Wow, you’ve been back to the world haven’t you?” “Tic-tac?”
Let me tell you tonight… failure isn’t final.
I don’t care what you’ve gone through. What the situation has been. If you’ll get up, dust yourself off, and repent… you’ll find that God is anxious to help you try again.
(The prodigal son)
The key is repentance. True repentance.
I’m not talking about raising your hand for an altar call.
I’m not talking about crying big alligator tears.
Repentance is the Greek word “meta-nay-o” which Thayer’s defines as, changing one’s mind (heart) for the better, to amend heartily with abhorrence of one’s past sins.
Nelson’s says,
Repentance is “a ‘godly sorrow’ for sin, an act of turning around and going in the opposite direction. This type of repentance leads to a fundamental change in a person’s relationship to God.
God can do it. He’s willing to do it.
But in order for Him to do it… you’ve gotta get up from your failure with the desire that no matter what it takes you’re gonna keep pressing the battle to the gates and put everything you have into it!
III. Ultimate Redemption
My third point should be good news tonight.
Yes, we are all prone to failure. Yes, God is willing to help us if we’ll be willing to try again. And know this that if you will deal appropriately with your failure… God can turn it around and use it for good.
Don’t ask me how it works. Don’t ask me the dynamics of it all. Don’t even ask me why He does it. I just know that He does.
The end can be better than the beginning.
Consider Peter. He denied God three times. Finally to the point of swearing.
Consider that he was standing, called out with the rest of the twelve getting ready to be sent out to preach when Matthew records Jesus as saying,
“But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.”
In the face of direct admonition from Jesus he fails miserably. Pride, fear, doubt, whatever the cause he failed.
But that’s not the end of the story.
Matthew 26:73-75 says,
“And after a while came unto him they that stood by, and said to Peter, Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech betrayeth thee.”
“Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew.”
“And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.”
Like the prodigal he comes to himself. He’d failed. Horribly. But he picks himself up and throws himself into the grace of the Father and goes on. And he becomes a powerful minister of the word and eventually a martyr for the faith.
Turn over to I Chronicles 21. We’re gonna read something from there in closing.
(Read: I Chronicles 21:1-28)
A terrible failure to be sure. The temptation by Satan. Joab offering the way of escape. David refusing and commanding Joab to number the people.
God is not pleased. He comes to David and says, “Pick your poison.”
And David repents. He throws himself on the mercy of God. And although he reaps what he sowed, in the end God turns it all around. The land he bought from Ornan would later be the very same land that David’s son Solomon would build the temple on.
Once a place of bitter repentance turned so completely around that it is now the site of the greatest structure the world would ever see. Containing the Holy of Holies, the habitation of the presence of God.
Talk about redeeming a person’s failures.
Joel 2:12 & 13 in closing,
“Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:”
“And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.”
It goes on to say that if you will, God promises to restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten. God is into redemption and restoration.
