is a new day for overcoming failure and success

8/13/2019 Is a New Day for Overcoming Failure and Success

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Its a New Day for Overcoming Failure and Success

Sometimes I am really hard on myself and in many ways I am my own worst enemy,

especially when I fail. And I have failed plenty. On the other hand I have enjoyed

some success. But in the last few years, the Lord has been putting his finger on a

driver that swirls around both success and failure in my own life: shame.

I really want to say a hearty AMEN to the recent focus in Jameys preaching that

keeps bringing in the key teaching on the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We have been

on a journey together and I have continually been impressed by how much I am

finding this theme everywhere I turn.

Through our failures and successes, the Father himself reaches out to us through his

two arms of love: his Son Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit.

Failure is an inevitable part of life. But it doesnt have to define us.

Jonas Salk200 attempts at vaccine to cure polio.

Thomas Edison 1093 pattents, each one represents hundreds of failure.

WD-40, why? 39 failures.

Albert Einstein was unable to speak until he was almost 4 years old; his teachers

said he would never amount to much.

Michael Jordan after being cut from his high school basketball team went home,

locked himself in his room and cried.

Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper for lacking imagination and having no

original ideas.

Oprah Winfrey was demoted from her job as a news anchor because she wasnt fit

for television.Steve Jobs, at 30 years of age was devestated after being unceremoniously removed

from the company he started.

The Beatles were rejected by Decca Recording Studios, who said, We dont like

their soundthey have no future in show business.

Its a New Day for Overcoming Failure ... and Success

The Main Thing: Receiving God's love in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit is the constant

that helps us to overcome our own failures and keeps our success from destroying us.

The overwhelming feeling attached to failure is shame. It doesnt matter whether the

failure is a moral failure (sin) or a failure that comes about through accident or poorjudgment or planning. Shame is likely to shroud our hearts and with that feeling of

separation comes a loss of connection to others and, especially, with God.

Jesus himself endured the shame of the Cross for us:

Heb. 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let

us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with

perseverance the race that is set before us,


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Heb. 12:2 looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of

the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has

taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.

What was the shame of the Cross? He was beaten, naked, thirsty. He was

considered cursed by God. He was condemned and killed along with common

criminals. All his work was considered a complete and utter failure. His ownfollowers left him abandoned him. He felt all these things and with it he himself, if

even for a moment felt that perhaps God had abandoned him. But it is important to

realize this next fact. God never turned his back on Jesus. It is true that Jesus cried

out, my God, my God, why have you for saken me? But we need to recognize that

God did not forsake his Son, not even in the worst moment. Rather, we need to settle

it in our spirits that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.

2Cor. 5:17 So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has

passed away; see, everything has become new!

2Cor. 5:18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has

given us the ministry of reconciliation;

2Cor. 5:19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not countingtheir trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

I have heard it said that, since God cannot look upon sin, he turned his back upon

Jesus because he carried my sin. But that is a terrible lie. I have heard sermons argue

this point, using Habbakkuk 1:13 Your eyes are too pure to behold evil,

and you cannot look on wrongdoing; the reasoning is, that since God

cannot look upon evil, he turned his back upon Jesus. But this passage says no such

thing of God, in fact this passage is a complaint against God saying that he is way too

tolerant of evil and why doesnt he do more about it? It would be the worst news in

the world to hear that God turned his back on Jesus on the Cross, at Christs moment

of greatest failure. He did no such thing. When Jesus said, My God, my God, why

have you forsaken me? he was quoting Psalm 22 in the way Rabbis typically quotethe beginning of a passage of Scripture expecting that everyone who hears will

know the rest of the passage. Psalm 22 is not a whimper of defeat, but a Psalm that

processes apparent defeat through and ends with a cry of victory. Jesus expects you

to look it up and find out the rest of the quote. No, God never abandoned Jesus even

if for a moment Jesus felt abandoned. But he never was. And that is the essential

thing in becoming fully human to sometimes feel abandoned but never being

abandoned by God.

Jesus was never abandoned by God, even in the terrible moments of the Cross.

Hebrews 9:17, when I read it as if for the first time in 1998 was a revelation for me.

As if the pages of Scripture parted and the light shone through:

Heb. 9:13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a

heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified,

Heb. 9:14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit

offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to

worship the living God!


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There is so much in this passage, but I want to key in on one short phrase who

through the eternal Spirit offered himself. Christs offer of himself was supported

all along the way by the Spirit in loving communion with the Father.

Because Jesus knows this, he can say to us: John 16:27 for the Father himself loves

you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.

1Pet. 2:24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins,

we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

Tale of two girls.

Who deserves redemption?

Think of Bob Grene, Jonathan Lerher,

Jesus' Sparrow Principle:

1. God sees you and has never forgotten you.Luke 12:6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is

forgotten in Gods sight.

2. No one is ever apart from_______________ _______________ ________________

________________. (answer: the Father's loving presence)

Matt. 10:29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will

fall to the ground apart from your Father.

3. God sees you as worthy of life, love and connection with others.

Matt. 10:31 So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

I want to linger for a moment over my choice of the word worthy. There are

two types of worthiness one has to do with merit, the keeping of a

performance check list. But there is another kind of worthiness, the

worthiness of value. Jesus calls upon the humble sparrow to instruct us about

our value to the Father. What do you call the emotion expressed in seeing

someone, caring for someone, never forgetting someone and giving value to

someone. That is what we call love and so we can confidently say that we are

worth the love and care God gives us because the fact that God loves and

cares for us gives us value.

Failure is a necessary part of _________ ________ (answer: being human).Henri Nouwen

The Parable of the Father and His Two Sons


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Questions for cell:

1. Share something that has happened in the last week you are thankful for that

reminds you of God's constant love.

2. How can the Sparrow Principle help you see that discouragement is only

temporary?Choose one of the next two questions and pray for one another:

3. How did the Father help the younger son overcome his shame for what he had

done?

4. Describe the emotional "far country" inhabited by the more "successful" older

brother. Have you ever felt that way?

Matt. 10:29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to

the ground apart from your Father.

Matt. 10:31 So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

Luke 12:6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is

forgotten in Gods sight.

is a new day for overcoming failure and success

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