HOW DO WE DEAL WITH FAILURE?
Text: Genesis, Chapters 12 and 13
One of the most famous stories of all time in college football is the story of Roy Riggles. Riggles became infamous and was known by the name of “Wrong Way Riggles”. This all came about when Roy Riggles, along with the rest of the U.C.L.A team, squared off against Georgia Tech in the Rose Bowl game of 1929.
Roy Riggles recovered a Georgia Tech fumble, became confused, and started running the wrong way! He ran 65 yards toward his own goal line instead of the right goal line for a touchdown. He ran the wrong way down the field until his own teammate tackled him—before he could cross the wrong goal line and score for the opposing team!
UCLA went 3 and out and lined up to punt. Georgia Tech blocked the punt and scored a safety, which would be the margin of victory for Tech in the Rose Bowl game of 1929.
What happened at halftime?
Everyone was wondering what Coach Nibbs Price would do with Riggles. The players left the field and filed into the locker room and sat down on the benches and floor—all but Roy Riggles. Roy put a blanket around his shoulders and sat in the corner. He held his face in his hands and cried like a baby.
Coach Price normally had a lot to say at halftime—but that day, he was quiet, trying to figure out what to do with Roy Riggles.
The officials pounded on the locker-room door and called out, “Be on the field for the 2nd half in 3 minutes!” The Coach looked at his solemn team and at Roy Riggles, and he said, “The same men that played the first half will start the second half.”
The players got up and started out onto the field. One player didn’t move—he just sat in the corner. Coach Price went over to him and said, “Roy, didn’t you hear me? The same team is starting the second half.”
Roy looked up and replied, “Coach, I can’t go out there again, even to save my life. I’ve ruined you, I’ve ruined the University, and I’ve ruined myself. I could never go out there and face that crowd!”
Then the Coach put his hand on Roy’s shoulder and said, “Roy, get up and go back in the game, because the game is only half over.”
So, Roy went back out on the field, and the people who saw the game—particularly the Georgia Tech players who were on the field with him—said they never saw a man play football like Roy Riggles played during the second half of that game!
Roy’s one failure didn’t warrant him being called “Wrong Way Riggles” in history. The people who watched him play knew that—his Coach knew that—and, in the end, Roy knew it too!
It took quite a Coach to evaluate the situation, put his frustration aside, and to say, “Roy, get up and get back into the game!” He treated Riggles the same way loving parents treat their children—or concerned teachers—or our own Coach.
It is the same way we would all want to be treated during some critical time of our lives. It is the same way God treats us, when we belong to Him. Here’s the question for us to answer this morning—
If
we have a failure in our lives, does that mean we are a total failure?
Man was created for success from the very beginning. We were created perfectly and lived in a perfect environment, which in the Book of Genesis, was called the Garden of Eden. Things were perfect, because mankind was in perfect fellowship with God.
In our previous lessons in the Book of Genesis—the Book of Beginnings—we learned that Adam and Eve were given freedom of choice. They chose to fail when they chose to violate God’s commandment to not eat of the “tree of Good and Evil”. This was the event that brought sin into the world, and since we are all of the nature of Adam, the Apostle Paul tells us that we too have also sinned.
Adam and Eve were put out of the Garden of Eden and life change for all of mankind. They were put out of the Garden of Eden, but with the promise of God’s Grace for the future (Genesis 3:15). This is the earliest revelation of God’s plan to reconcile man back to Himself. God was going to turn them from being total failures into successful beings, if they chose to be. In Genesis 3:22, there is an indication of how that would come about.
Genesis 3:22
---22---“Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he stretch out his hand, and take also from the Tree of Life, and eat, and live forever.’ ”
Mankind should take also of the “Tree of Life” or he will die. If man could be reconciled back to God through the “Tree of Life”, it implies that God would provide a “Tree of Life”. We just quoted from the first book of the Bible—Genesis—and, if we move generations into the future to the last book of the Bible—Revelation—we read about a City.
Revelation 22:2
---2---“…in the middle of its streets. And on either side of the river was the Tree of Life…”
The question for all mankind is how do we get to that city? How does mankind move from point “A” to point “B”?
Answer: God will move man from point “A”—Failure—to point “B”—Success.
How would God do that?
Noah and His Family.
Adam had a son, Seth—and one of Seth’s descendants was a man named Noah.
In the days of Noah, we find that mankind is continuing to fail, because mankind continues to sin. Sin becomes rampant throughout the land, and we find Evil everywhere. It was so bad, God decides to wipe His creation from the face of the earth with a great flood. God would bring judgment on sin.
Noah found “Grace in the eyes of the Lord”, and God saved Noah and his family from the waters. God did that because Noah was a man of Faith. Sin brought judgment—but Faith brought Renewal for mankind.
Now we go back to Revelation 22:2, and to the City with the Tree of Life. In that same scripture, we notice what the Tree of Life gave mankind.
Revelation 22:2
---2---“…in the middle of the street. And on either side of the river was the Tree of Life, bearing twelve kinds of fruits, yielding its fruit every month and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.”
How Did We Get Nations?
We have to go back to Genesis to find out how we got nations. In Chapter 9, God makes a covenant with Noah and his sons that never again will He destroy the whole earth with a flood. God set the bow in the sky to remind mankind of this covenant. God told Noah’s sons to be fruitful and multiply.
Genesis 9:19
---19---“These three were the sons of Noah; and from these the whole earth was populated.”
At first they all stayed together in the land of Shinar. They decided to build a city and a tower that would reach to heaven. God said this was not good, so He confused their languages so they didn’t live together; and, they spread out all over the world and nations were formed.
Now man was divided into nations, languages, and ethnic make-up. But God cared about all of them. There was a song we used to sin, “He’s God the Whole World in His Hands”.
When you think about God’s creation—now with all its divisions—there is only one thing that brings us all back together. It is that we are all of the same blood—whether we are Americans, Russians, Africans, Chinese, etc., we still all came from the same blood.
We’re able to see this when we look at all the things we have in common.
· “We are of common origin.” We owe our very existence to the life-giving decision, power, and Grace of God.
· “We have the same essential needs.” We are trying to find the meaning of life, which God gave us. We need to know the meaning of “loving” and “being loved”.
· “We face common problems.” Sin threatens to destroy us—to separate us from God—to alienate us from one another—to take the meaning and purpose from existence.
· “We anticipate a common fate.” We know we are mortal and our bodies will die some day.
· “We have a common desire.” We all desire immortality.
God desires that we all be brought together.
Ephesians 1:9-10
---9---“He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him;
---10---With a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, and things in the heavens and things upon the earth.”
God’s Plan.
That brings us back to God’s plan for mankind. God’s plan now focuses on a man names “Abraham”. The Book of Genesis introduces us to Abraham.
Genesis 12:1-3
---1---Now the Lord said to Abraham,
“GO FORTH FROM YOUR COUNTRY,
AND FROM YOUR FATHER’S HOUSE,
TO THE LAND WHICH I WILL SHOW YOU;
---2---AND I WILL MAKE YOU A GREAT NATION,
AND I WILL BLESS YOU,
AND MAKE YOUR NAME GREAT;
AND SO YOU SHALL BE A BLESSING;
---3---AND I WILL BLESS THOSE WHO BLESS YOU,
AND THE ONE WHO CURSES YOU, I WILL CURSE,
AND IN YOU ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH SHALL BE BLESSED.”
Here was a man who had no reason to cut his ties with his past, electing to do so. He wasn’t running from a bad situation. He wasn’t trying to escape his past; and, what he did was based on his Faith in God.
In the NT, the Hebrew writer tells us about this great man of Faith.
Hebrews 11:8
---8---“By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.
---9---By Faith he lived as an alien in the Land of Promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise;
---10---For he was looking for the City which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”
What city was he looking for? Do you think it might be the same city that had the “Tree of Life”, whose leaves were for the healing of all the nations?
Now Abraham was called a Great Man of Faith, but was he a perfect man of Faith? Did he ever fail? If he did occasionally fail, would we say that he was a failure in life?
A Closer Look at Abraham.
Scriptures tell us, in Genesis 12:8, Abraham entered Canaan and came to Shechem, “…he built an altar there to the Lord.” Moving from there to the region of Bethel, in verse 8, we’re told, ---8---“… he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.”
No wonder the Bible calls Abraham a great man of Faith—when God speaks, Abraham listens—when God commands, Abraham obeys. Every step along his journey is marked by worship of God.
But then comes a terrible episode in Abraham’s life. Into every life, a little rain must fall… Read with me from Genesis 12:10-15.
Genesis 12:10-15
---10---“Now there was a famine in the land; so Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.
---11---And it came about when he came near to Egypt, that he said to Sari, his wife, ‘See now I know that you are a beautiful woman;
---12---And it will come about when the Egyptians see you, that they will say’, ‘This is his wife’; ‘and they will kill me, but they will let you live.
---13---Please say you are my sister so that it may go well with me because of you, and that I may live on account of you.’
---14---“And it came about when Abram came into Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was beautiful,
---15---And Pharaoh’s officials saw her and praised her to Pharaoh; and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house.”
The word “famine” is a harsh term. Whether in ancient or modern times, the prospect of being empty-handed and without food for one’s dependants can turn a good man into a desperate man.
It really appears that the famine in Canaan had this effect on Abraham. There is nothing in scripture that tells us God sent Abraham to Egypt, from the land to which God had brought him (12:5).
After Abraham came to Canaan in (12:7), God appeared to him and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.”
God gave Abraham and his descendants the land of Canaan; however, when times got tough Abraham left and went down to Egypt. This reaction isn’t so different from what we might experience.
· Say we got an “F” on the very first test in college—so we drop the course.
· Or maybe it’s our job and we really don’t like our boss—so we quit the job.
· Or, say we get married and we find it difficult to live every minute; and, we have a child and find out parenting isn’t easy either—so we just throw in the towel and get a divorce.
Is it possible that Abraham—a great man of Faith, but not a perfect man of Faith—reached what seems to be a natural human conclusion? Abraham might have thought, “God brought me to Canaan, but things are not working out here because of the famine; and, I’m going to move South.”
I believe—and in my opinion—there’s good reason to question what Abraham did. After all, look what happened in Egypt!
Abraham’s spiritual situation began to deteriorate very quickly after he left God’s land. Thinking so much about his own safety, he was willing to jeopardize Sarah’s safety. He got her to join him in the conspiracy of a lie—or at least a half-lie, for she was his half-sister.
Either way, they were playing a game of deception with Pharaoh, and that was dangerous. After all, let’s face it, Abraham did this because he was afraid for himself. He was suffering from a failure of his nerve.
At any rate, the situation unfolded as Abraham planned. The Egyptians saw Sarah’s beauty and she went into the harem of Pharaoh. In Genesis 12:16, we’re told that Abraham was “treated well”. It appears, at this point, that things were going to work out for Abraham. But the story doesn’t end here…
God’s Faithfulness to His People.
In spite of the way in which Abraham mishandled this situation, God did not abandon him. God did not revoke His covenant promise about making Abraham great and giving him a large posterity. Neither did God leave Sarah in the harem of Egypt’s ruler.
Genesis 12:17-18
---17---“But the Lord struck Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife.
---18---Then Pharaoh called Abram and said, ‘What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife?’ ”
We’re not sure how the Pharaoh knew Abraham was the source of his problem, but he knew. Pharaoh expelled Abraham, Sarah, and their company from Egypt. In Genesis 13:3-4, we’re told where Abraham went after this bad episode in his life.
Genesis 13:3-4
---3---“And he went on his journey from the Negev as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,
---4---To the place of the altar, which he had made there formerly; and there Abram called on the name of the Lord.”
Because of God’s faithfulness—and in spite of his own serious lapse of faith—Abraham had his feet set back on solid ground. He was in Canaan again. He was building altars again. He was leading his family in calling on the Lord’s name. Abraham was back on track with God’s will for his life.
Your Failures Don’t Mean…
If this episode from the life of Abraham seem familiar, perhaps it’s because it parallels experiences in our own lives. There are times when we all have made bad decisions and acted with a lack of faith. We, like Abraham, begin trusting our own ingenuity rather than God’s promise of deliverance.
Can we deal with these times of disloyalty and moral failure so as to rise above them?
Can we get our lives back on solid ground?
The lesson we need to learn from this episode in Abraham’s life is that God is greater than our failures!
A failure in life does not mean we are total failures. A failure does not mean we are worthless people—it does not mean life is without meaning—and it does not mean that we are no longer important in God’s eyes.
To fail at something simply means that we have failed at something! It doesn’t mean we’re useless, insignificant, or meaningless to God.
Matthew 10:29-30
---29---“Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And, yet, not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.
---30---But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.”
A failure in life doesn’t mean that you are finished!
James Arnett flunked out of Tennessee Tech several years ago. His father, an ex-Marine, told him he would have to get a job and pay back the $1,400 tuition cost. Arnett was afraid that his failure in college was going to lead him to be a “total loser” in life. However, he took the wake-up call and went out to make something of himself.
Arnett went to work cooking hamburgers in a restaurant called “Shoney’s” for minimum wage. He cooked, he swept up, and—in short—he did everything there was to do in a restaurant.
Arnett rose up to “Kitchen Manger” and then to “Store Manager”. Today—20 years later—James W. Arnett is President and Chief Operating Officer for all Shoney’s restaurants throughout the country. He would not allow a failure in life make him into a total failure in life!
Our failure doesn’t mean God has given up on us. God is the good shepherd who searches the open country, looking for one lost sheep (Luke 15). God is the Father of the prodigal son—he waits for His son’s return (Luke 15).
Did Abraham have a future with God after this episode of weak faith? Yes. He did, and we are all blessed because of it. The city Abraham was looking for is available for us today. Its architect was God. We can enter it and take hold of the Tree of Life, which is for the healing of the nations. It is the place God reconciles us back to Himself, in Christ.
Hebrews 12:22-23
---22---“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the City of the Living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels;
---23---To the general assembly and Church of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven…”
God brings all together in the Lord’s church.
Some may ask, “Well, I failed once, but after I got back on track, I failed again. Should I just give up?”
We would all like to think we won’t fail again—it just won’t happen again. Abraham probably thought that as well. However, if we read Genesis, Chapter 20, we find out this same scenario was played out again in the land of Gerar with King Abimelech. But Abraham got back on track again; and, God didn’t give up on him. Abraham became a great man of Faith.
If we reach a low point in our lives, remember “Wrong Way Riggles”. Thank God the game is not over! Get back on the playing field and try again!
