Pastor Elwin Ahu
September 5, 2004 - W0436

We all hate to fail tests but let’s see how well we follow directions. Dentists have told us to brush our teeth after every meal and floss daily for good oral hygiene. How many of us do that? Marriage counselors and pastors have advised us to tell our spouses we love them daily, everyday. How many of us do that? This next one requires you to be very honest. How many of us always drive within the posted speed limit? We all seem to fail at something sometime, don’t we? It happens to all of us, even pastors. Failures stretch across the spectrum from the simplest to the most significant things in our life however it is through our seasons of failure that we grow in our faith with the Lord.

1.      GROWING THROUGH YOUR FAILURE BEGINS WITH MAKING A CHOICE.

We all go through seasons where we make mistakes. We have seasons of failures in our relationships, at our workplaces, with our families and our finances. These seasons can be the most painful and loneliest times in our lives but they can also become the richest times of our lives.

Chaparrals are arid and desert-like areas where only short, small brushes grow. The extreme dryness invites frequent wild fires which scorch and burn everything in the area. Researchers found that, while destructive in nature, these fires are sometimes necessary to produce life in these deserts. One researcher calls this life “chaparral vegetation” which is fire-dependent plants. Seed of these plants require the heat of the fire to burn off their thick outer covering in order to expose what is within to germinate and produce life. Furthermore, the burned vegetation releases nutrients into the soil thereby encouraging new plant growth. In turn, these new plants attract deer and other wildlife. Interestingly, this researcher suggests the fires do not eliminate the wild life habitat but rather change it. 

That should be like our life when we hit seasons of failure and pain. God can use those seasons of failure to burn away our old, outer shell to reveal the new life he has for us. God intended these seasons to change our life, not eliminate it. That’s what this scripture says: 

“I am glad…because the pain caused you to…change your ways.  It was the kind of sorrow God wants His people to have…[for] God can use sorrow in our lives to help us turn away from sin and seek salvation.  We will never regret that kind of sorrow.  But sorrow without repentance is the kind that results in death” (2 Cor. 7:9-10 NLT).

What our Lord is saying is that pain with change leads to growth, but pain without change leads to death. These seasons of failure are a process through which we can continue growing in our walk with the Lord. So often, we wallow in the past and remain in a pit of self-pity. The Lord wants us to move beyond that and grow through our failures by making a choice to do so.

The Bible is full of stories of people who have failed. Peter said he would never deny Jesus and would even die for Him yet he denied the Lord three times the night Jesus was arrested. Peter felt like a failure. After Jesus was crucified, Peter went back to fishing again. He was unfruitful until Jesus came to him and told him where to place his nets to catch the fish. When Peter recognized Jesus, he swam to Him. Jesus asked him three times, “Do you love me, Peter?” He wanted Peter to make a decision…to make a choice. He asked Peter, “Do you love me more than these?” By “these”, Jesus may have meant the fish or nets but what He was really asking Peter was if he loved Jesus more than his past. In other words, did Peter love Jesus enough to make a change in his life right now and move forward rather than remain in the guilt of his past. Peter made that choice and, as we see from the New Testament, Peter became one of the greatest leaders in the Bible bringing thousands to the Lord in one day. His willingness to change catapulted him into a brand new season of life and it all started when he made a choice.

David was another. He was victorious over Goliath and was a man after God’s own heart but when he became king, he also failed God. He committed adultery and had the woman’s husband murdered. When he was told his son that was conceived out of sin would die, he was overcome with despair. However, after a while, David made a choice…

“But when David…perceived that the child was dead…[he] arose from the ground, washed, anointed himself, and changed his clothes; and he came into the house of the Lord and worshiped.  Then he came to his own house…and he ate” (2 Samuel 12:19-20).

David knew he couldn’t change the past so he needed to make a choice to change or remain the way he was. One of the first things David did was to confess and worship before the Lord.  He knew he could do nothing else. 

When we dwell on the past, we condition our minds to believe we are limited to what we’ve done. If we refuse to move beyond our past, we become no more than whom we were and we disregard the potential God has for us. But the Lord instructs us to forget the past. 

“Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it?” (Isaiah 43:18-19)

If we don’t position ourselves to receive what God has for us, we will continue to live in our past. If we don’t make the choice to move beyond that, we limit the potential God has for us. So how do we choose to move forward?

•     FOCUS ON THE PROBLEM SOLVER, NOT THE PROBLEM.

Focusing on the problem keeps us in the past. Instead, we should honor the fact that God is the problem solver no matter what has happened to us. The Lord can bring us through these times and resolve our problems. It means taking our eyes off of our circumstances and placing it where it belongs…on God. It’s not what we can do that frees us from our past but what He can do to free us from our past. There is so much freedom when we allow His spirit to be in us. 

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17).

There is freedom from our past mistakes, insecurities, rejections, and feelings of unworthiness. When we are willing to make that change:

2.      BE INTENTIONAL ABOUT WHAT YOU CHOOSE TO PLANT.

Be intentional about what you choose to put back into your life. God takes time during your seasons of failure to burn away things that aren’t desirable in your life such as envy, unforgiveness, and impatience. When that happens, it’s the time to plant new seed…spiritual seed. Imagine a field that has been burned away by a fire. If nothing new is planted, old seed would germinate and grow again, simply by default. Unless we take time to till and cultivate our ground and plant new seed, only old things are going to grow back. 

When I had gone through my divorce, I wanted to make a new life for myself so I got a new place to live and got into a new relationship. I changed everything around me and I changed my circumstances but there was nothing new going on in me. And although there was a passage of time, I had not placed anything new in my heart and the same old me kept coming out. As a result, I ended up getting another divorce. It wasn’t until I came to Christ that I realized that changing my circumstances wasn’t going to change me. I had to plant Jesus Christ in my heart and become a new person before my life would truly change. So I took all my old “stuff”, threw it away and never looked back. When I started planting new things in my heart through Jesus Christ, a new life grew from me and my life changed.

“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.  For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the spirit shall from the spirit reap eternal life”  (Gal. 6:7-8).

This simply means you can’t fool God. We can’t say we want to change and still sow the fleshly things in our lives. If you do that, God won’t touch it. God will not battle against the flesh again because He already won that battle. When Jesus died on the cross and rose again, He conquered and won over flesh. God will give you a life beyond your imagination if you sow spiritual seeds in your life, but it has to be your choice, not God’s.

“Cast away from you all your transgressions which you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!  For why will you die, O house of Israel?”  (Ezek. 18:31)

So where do spiritual seeds come from? You will find seeds of the spirit during worship and  when you’re praising God. You will gather spiritual seeds through your daily devotions when you consider how you will be different based on what you read in your devotions today. Others will feed you spiritual seeds when you participate in Small Groups or Care Groups. Another way to receive spiritual seeds is through serving. When you are willing to serve, it shows that you are willing to be humbled by God, and then God can work with you and change you.

Once you’ve made a choice to grow from your failures and plant spiritual seeds, then…

3.      SET FAITHFULNESS AS YOUR GOAL.

Everyone wants to be successful as they come out of a season of failure but how do you define success? What if your spouse chooses not to attend church with you? Does that mean you are not successful? What if your child chooses to be a part of this world and walks away from the Lord? Does that mean you’ve failed? God looks at success differently. God is more interested in how faithful we are than what we can achieve. He looks at the faithfulness of our heart: our willingness and courage to be obedient to the process we are going through regardless of the outcome. In the midst of uncertainty, are we still willing to be obedient? You are successful if you remain obedient to what the Lord has asked of you in this new season.

Mother Teresa ministers in Calcutta, raising up the sick and tending to their needs. Someone once asked her, “Don’t you feel like a failure? Every time you pick up one sick person, ten more drop.” Mother Teresa responded, “God never asked me to be successful. He asked me to be obedient.” Mother Teresa has the right heart. 

“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant!  You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.  Come and share your master’s happiness!’” (Matthew 25:21 NIV)

That is success to the Lord: faithfulness and obedience. It’s not reaching a result, a status or a position. I’ve counseled men who have asked me, “If I make these changes, will my wife come back to me?” I tell them, “Make these changes and be faithful to the Lord and the other things in your life will fall into place.” Businessmen, be faithful in your business and you will see results and be prosperous. That is what God is looking for as you move beyond seasons of failure. “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalms 34:7).

When you set faithfulness as your goal and it becomes the foundation of your heart, then God can build on that foundation. Then, He can take you from a season of failure into a season of fruitfulness. “A faithful man will be richly blessed, but one eager to get rich will not go unpunished” (Proverbs 28:20 NIV). 

So when you go through a season of failure, remember it is a time of renewal but you must choose to grow by focusing on God, the problem solver, rather than the problem. And when God clears out the undesirable things in your life through this season of failure (and sometimes pain), be sure to use this time wisely to sow spiritual seeds that will bring about new life. Set your goal as faithfulness and obedience that God may bless you richly and turn this season into a season of fruitfulness.

DISCUSSION TOPICS

1.      We all have had seasons of failure. Describe one of your seasons of failure?

2.      Describe a time when you made a decision to move from failure into a season of fruitfulness?  What happened?

3.      How would you define success for your life? How do you think God would define it?

4.      What steps can you take to move out of a season of failure towards faithfulness and obedience to God?

Much mahalo to Deborah Chang, a new writer with the Sermon Notes Ministry, who is helping to plant spiritual seeds across the web!  Great job!