YOUR FAILURES AND GOD'S GRACE
Freedom From Your Fears - Part 3 of 10
10-02-11 Sermon
Today we're going to continue in the series Freedom From Your Fears. I did a little research and discovered that there is actually a Phobic Society of America for people with different fears. They have 3,500 members; at their convention last year only 200 showed up because they're all afraid to go -- flying, large groups, etc.
It's interesting to me that we have different fears. We're all frightened by different things. Some have fought in combat but they're not about to visit a dentist. Others climb mountains and cliffs but if somebody were to ask them to speak in front of 15 people it would kill them. Some are men who have tremendous business decisions they make every day -- million dollar decisions -- but when things go creak in the night, they send their wife!
We do have different kinds of fears. Today we're going to look at the second greatest fear that came up on a survey -- the Fear of Failure. In America we idolize success. Failure is almost the unpardonable sin. Nobody wants to fail. Some people would do anything to win -- lower their morals or whatever. It creates great stress on people. Magic Johnson's said he wouldn't coach the Lakers any more because he couldn't stand the stress of losing. Most of us can identify with that.
The fear of failure has many different faces. It can cause you to be indecisive. You can't make decisions because you're afraid you're going to make the wrong one. The fear of failure can make you a workaholic. You never slow down, never rest, never relax because you're afraid of failing. The fear of failure can make you a perfectionist. You're never satisfied. It's never just right.
Research has shown that the more successful you are the more you tend to fear failure. The fear of failure, experts say, is most severe among talented people.
The Bible tells us there are four antidotes to the fear of failure.
1. REMEMBER THAT EVERYBODY FAILS.
Have you ever made any mistakes? Welcome to the human race. It just validates your humanity. James 3:2 "We all stumble in many ways." I hear people say, "What if I fail?" I want to say, "What do you mean "if?" The facts of life are you have failed many, many times in life. You may be failing in some areas of your life right now and you're going to fail a whole lot more in your future.
You're going to fail, so welcome to the human race. We all stumble in many ways. The Bible says "There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes a mistake." Nobody is perfect. The closest you're ever going to get to perfection is when you're filling out a job application. That's the perfect you right there. Nobody is perfect. We all make mistakes. We all stumble. Even superstars. The average NBA player only makes 50% of his shots. That means they miss every other time. The guy with the best batting average flirted with the 400 mark. Nobody has done that since Ted Williams. He didn't get there. That means 6 out of every 10 times he went to bat he walked back to the dugout and he was the best in the league. Even superstars strike out. Everybody fails. Failure is going to be a part of the rest of your life. It's Ok, it's normal, it's part of being human. The Bible says it like this, "All have sinned and fall short..." [A pastor said one time he was preaching on this verse "All have fallen short..." and he said, "Thank God that He forgives our falling shorts!"] But it's true! We all have falling shorts! or short fallings!
When you let go of your image of being perfect the fear of failure will let go of its grip of you. Just realize: I have failed, I am failing, and I'm going to fail but it's part of being a human. I'm not God. God says, "I'm God, you're not!" Everybody fails.
2. REALIZE IT'S NOT FATAL
We vastly over exaggerate the effects of failure. We blow it all out of proportion. Failing is not the end of the world. It's probably not going to kill you. The fear of failure is far more damaging than failure.
Proverbs 24:16 "No matter how often an honest man falls he always gets up again." Even good guys stumble. Even the righteous. Even the people who are trying to do what's right, they make mistakes, they blow it, they stub their toe. Even good guys make mistakes. Successful people are not people who never fail. They're people who get up again and keep going. Successful people just don't know how to quit. They keep on keeping on.
Paul is a good example of this. "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed. Perplexed but not in despair. Persecuted but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed." God says, I'm going to take care of you. You don't need to be afraid of failure. Paul says, I take my lumps like everybody else. Great people are simply ordinary people who have an extraordinary amount of determination. They just keep on going. They realize that you're never a failure until you quit. You're never a failure until you give up.
How do you reduce that fear of failure? Redefine failure. What is failure? Failure is not failing to reach your goal. Failure is not setting a goal. Failure is not, not fulfilling all your dreams. Failure is not having a dream. Failure is not falling down. Failure is refusing to get back up again. Failure is refusing to try. That's the greatest failure of all. Refusing to try. Paul says, I get knocked down but I'm not knocked out. I keep on going.
Did you hit the ball the first time you took a swing? No. How many of you have ever missed a meal? Does that mean you're a failure at eating? Do you give up? If you can't be consistent do you just not do it? No. You just keep on going. Everybody fails. It's not fatal.
Some famous failures:
George Washington lost two thirds of all the battles he fought. But he won the war and later became president.
Napoleon graduated forty-second in a class of forty-three. There's hope! Then he went out and conquered Europe!
In 21 years Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs but he struck out 1330 times. He struck out nearly twice as often as he hit a home run.
John Creasy the famous novelist got 753 rejection slips before he published 564 books. How would you like to be rejected that many times?
R.P Macy failed seven times at retailing before starting Macy's department store.
You just keep on going. If at first you don't succeed it's no big deal. You're never a failure until you give up. You recognize that everybody fails. You realize it's not fatal.
3. YOU RECOGNIZE THE BENEFITS
We usually think of failure as being a negative experience. But wise people that the Bible talks about in the book of Proverbs know how to take advantage of failure. They learn from it. They make the most of it. They use it as an education. One of the tools that God uses in your life to make you what He wants you to be is failure. What possible good is failure in your life?
1. God uses failure to educate me. Mistakes are simply learning experiences. There are some things we only learn through failure. And through failure some of us are highly educated! For some, that's the only way you learn. Proverbs 28:13 "A man who refuses to admit his mistakes can never be successful." Circle "mistakes" and "successful". They are in the same verse and they go together. How do you learn to become a success? By learning what doesn't work and not doing it any more.
Thomas Edison had many experiments in making a light bulb. Most of them were not successful. When he was asked if he felt like a failure due to the lack of results, he said, Results? Why, man, I have gotten lots of results. If I find 10,000 ways something won’t work, I haven’t failed. I am not discouraged because every wrong attempt discarded is often a step forward. He also said, Many of life’s failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
You should probably be making at least one good mistake a week. If you're not making any mistakes you're not growing. You're not learning. If you make the same mistake every week, now you're in trouble! But you should be making a new one every week. If you're not taking any risks you're not growing. The freedom from the fear of failure is the freedom to grow. God uses failure to educate me.
2. God uses failure to motivate me. Proverbs 20:30 "Sometimes it takes a painful situation to make us change our ways." A lot of times we change, not when we see the light, but when we feel the heat. When you fail, maybe God's trying to get your attention and saying "I want you to go in a new direction. I don't like you going that way, I want you to go another way." There's the story of Elijah in the Old Testament where he goes down by the brook and the ravens were coming down and feeding him, the water was there. But one day the brook dried up and he gets mad. "God, why did the brook dry up?" Sometimes that happens in your life. The brook dries up. The resources aren't there anymore. God said, "It's real simple. I don't want you there anymore." As long as the brook was there, Elijah was going to hang out there. It was comfortable but God said, "I want you to move on!" So God lights a fire under us. Sometimes it takes a painful situation to make us change our ways.
3. God uses failure to cultivate me, to build my character. Romans 5:3-4 "We can rejoice when we run into problems and trials." Is this really your typical reaction? No, not really. "... for we know that they are good for us. They develop strength of character." Circle "strength of character". Failure has a way of softening our hearts. It helps us grow up and be mature. It makes us sensitive to others. Failure makes you less judgmental, helps you be a little more sympathetic to people around you who are hurting. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to live with you if you had an unbroken string of successes? You'd be some pompous jerk! You'd think you had the Midas touch. If you never had any failures you'd be impossible to live with! We couldn't live with you. God uses it to cultivate us.
Failure does not automatically grow your character. Failure can make some people bitter. Failure only builds your character when you respond to it correctly, when you learn from it, when you grow from it, when you say, "What didn't work here and what can I change?" You've got to respond correctly.
4. I NEED TO RELAX IN GOD'S GRACE.
Psalm 103:14 "God knows what we are made of. He remembers that we are dust." God isn't surprised when I fail. He expects it. He knows what I'm made of. He knows I'm just human. He doesn't expect me to be perfect in every way. He knows our frame and He isn't surprised. Even if you do fail, God's not going to stop loving you. If you think that you have to be perfect in order for God to love you, you've missed the central message of the Bible. The central message of the Bible is this: God loves you not because of who you are but because of who He is. Not because of what you do, but because of what Christ has already done. He made you. He loves you. It's settled. You can't make God love you more. You can't make Him love you less. He loves you just as much on your bad days as He does on your good days. Because his love for you is not performance based. That's called grace. And it is amazing. God looks down and says, "I choose to love you. And you can't make Me stop loving you." Sometimes we might try to make Him stop loving us, show Him what a jerk we can be. God says, "No, you can't make Me stop loving you." It is amazing grace. When you realize that's the way God treats you then you can relax because no matter how many times you fail God isn't going to stop loving you.
Have you ever had an area in your life that you habitually failed in? The first few times you really felt bad about it. "God, I'm really sorry! I blew it. Help me with ...." Then you blow it again and you come back, "God, I'm really sorry. Please forgive me." And after three or four times you start thinking, "I don't want to go back and ask for forgiveness because I'm just doing this over and over." You think God must be getting real tired of it. God never gets tired of you talking to Him. And He's never too busy. You can relax in His grace. It's unconditional love. It isn't dependent upon you.
Maybe you grew up in a home that were performance based. It was deeply ingrained in you. "If I fail, it means I'm worth nothing!" Success is everything. Getting the A's. Making the grade. Doing the right thing. Success means I'm valuable. Failure means I'm worthless. That's a wrong idea. Please don't transfer the image of an unpleasable parent onto God. God doesn't treat you that way. You can relax in His grace. When you do that, you don't have to fear any future failure because you know God's never going to stop loving you no matter what. You can face the future.
Colossians 2:14 "God canceled our debt which listed all the rules we failed to follow... Circle "all the rules we failed to follow ... He took away that record with its rules and nailed it to the cross." The Christian life is not a mistake free life. But it can be a guilt free life. It's not a mistake free life. You're going to make mistakes. God knows our frame.
I love the Bible because it always tells the truth. It doesn't just gloss over people’s failings. When you read biographies a lot of times it only shows the good side. But the Bible, when it tells about these great believers in history, it also tells us about their failings. It tells us how God saved the world because of one guy named Noah and then after the flood was over it says he got drunk and got naked and blew it all!
God tells us David was a man after his own heart, yet it also tells us David had an affair and a child born as a result of that.
The Bible tells us Moses was a great man and he led the children through the Red Sea but it also tells us he killed a guy and one time he got so mad he threw down the Ten Commandments and they broke. Another time he got so mad he struck a rock instead of speaking to it and his anger kept him out of the promised land. The Bible tells the good and the bad. God chooses ordinary people. If God only used perfect people what do you think would get done in this world? Zip! Nothing. People who fail are the only kind of people that God uses! So relax in God's grace.
We are all trophies of God's grace. To those of you who are believers consider this: Just maybe our primary witness in this world is how we handle mistakes. Maybe if you claim to be a believer, maybe the greatest witness you have is how you handle your failures. How you respond to it when you blow it. Do you evidence and revel in God's grace?
What is so amazing about God's grace is not just that He forgives our failures but He gives us the power to start over. What have you always wanted to do but you were afraid because you might fail? What would you attempt for God if you knew you couldn't fail? God wants to rid you of this fear of failure by just saying I've failed, I am failing, I will fail, but God uses people who have failed!
The worst effect of the fear of failure is that it paralyzes your potential. It locks you in a self imposed prison. It stifles your creativity. It keeps you from being what God meant for you to be. It causes you to miss God's best because you don't even try.
I want to suggest that whether you've got five or fifty years left, you make the rest of your life the best of your life by saying, I want to do everything I do in love -- love for God and love for other people. That's the great commandment, "Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself." If you do that it really doesn't matter what you achieve because you can never be considered a failure if you're doing it in love because love never fails. When you get to heaven, God's not going to say, "How many trophies do you have on your shelf?" He's going to say, "Did you love? Did you love Me? Did you love anybody else?" Love never fails.
Here are some words for on your tombstone: "At least he tried. Or At least she tried." We may not accomplish all the goals we set but it really doesn't matter. Norman Vincent Peale once said, "I'd rather attempt to do something great and fail than attempt to do nothing and succeed."
Jesus told the story one time about the fear of failure. There were some guys that the master divided up talents among them. Two of them doubled their talents. The third guy did zip. He hid it. The master asked, "Why did you do that?" The guy said, "Because I was afraid and I hid my talent." Are you doing that? Are you letting the fear of failure keep you from being all God wants you to be? My advice is Don't.
Part of my responsibility as your pastor is to kick you out of your comfort zone, to light a fire under you. Emerson once said "A true friend is someone who forces you to do what you can do." I see so much potential in you. I know the talent in this church and I know how God's blessed you. I see what God wants to do in your life. I just want you to see it and to let go of that fear of failure. Go for it! Go for it! Don't let the fear of failure keep you from being what God wants you to be. Relax in His grace. You're going to fail. Who cares? We're trophies of God's grace. But you'll have some successes too.
Write this one down—Failure is an event, not a person. Failure is something that happens. It is not who you are. You will fail, many times. But you are not a failure. That is not your identity.
There is only one failure you need to fear. Hebrews 12:15 "Be careful that no one fails to receive the grace of God." It's possible to reject what God wants to do for you. It's possible to go your entire life without getting in contact with your creator, with the one who made you, who loves you, who died on the cross for you. What a waste!
Some would say to me, "Jesus is your crutch!" Jesus isn't my crutch; He's my breathing machine. I couldn't live a day without Him. It's great knowing Christ.
Prayer:
The answer to your fears is a person, Jesus Christ. Will you accept His amazing grace? He'll not only forgive your past failures, He'll give you the power to start over, wipe the slate clean. Try differently. Just talk to God. It doesn't matter what you say. It's your heart that matters. Say something like this in your mind, "Dear God, I want to accept Your grace in my life. I don't understand it all but I thank You for sending Jesus Christ for me. Help me to understand more. As much as I know how, I want to give You my life. Amen."
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