Failure?
What does a God who is good do with people who fail?
The reality is, failure is a part of every person’s journey.
Let me say that again because I realize that we’re half way through January and most people by this point in the new year have already given up, already failed to keep up, their new year’s resolutions… so let me say it again and I mean this as a way of encouragement. Failure is a part of every person’s journey.
Every new year, the most common New Year’s resolutions always resurface. People want to loose weight, save money, eat healthier, connect or reconnect with good friends, and on and on.
And on January 1 people start the month and start the year encouraged, full of faith, full of hope, and full of determination to reach their goals and keep the resolutions that they’ve made.
But failure is a part of every person’s journey.
And just because you’ve failed to perfectly keep the goals and resolutions you set out to keep when this year began doesn’t make you a failure.
You’re Not a Failure
Here’s what happens, whenever we experience failure we almost always feel like a failure. We’ve confused what we’ve done with who we are.
But experiencing failure doesn’t make us a failure.
Experiencing a set back, a misstep, making a bad choice, or even flat out failing doesn’t make us a failure.
But for so many of us, it makes us feel like a failure. And what’s worse. It’s makes us feel condemned.
And right now, so many people are living life under a banner of self imposed condemnation. The very things they wanted to do, they haven’t done. And the very things they didn’t want to do… they’ve done.
And I’m just wondering if anyone is feeling that way today?
Because you’ve failed the people you love and because you’ve failed yourself, you feel like a failure. You’re living under the weight of condemnation.
Everybody Struggles
If that’s you then I want you to know that there is good news.
Failure is a part of every person’s journey but condemnation doesn’t have to be.
Paul, the same Paul who wrote over half of the Christian Bible, the same Paul who had more than one direct encounter with Jesus, the same Paul who was responsible for numerous church plants and spreading the gospel across the known world during his time wrote these words…
Romans 7.18-25
I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.
Ever felt this way?
I know we’re good at pretending we have it all together, that we don’t struggle and that we aren’t sinners. But can we just be real for a moment? Everybody struggles. Even the Apostle Paul. And everybody struggles with sin.
And more often than not, we know what we should do but we don’t do it. Or we know what we shouldn’t do, but we do it anyway. And when we don’t do what we should do or we do the very thing that we know we shouldn’t do… almost instantly we are filled with guilt, shame, and condemnation.
Paul says…
I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am!
Stuck & Miserable
This is where so many Christians get stuck. They get stuck believing in Jesus, absolutely convinced that Jesus is Lord and Savior, that He is who He says He is, but simultaneously stuck as a slave to sin feeling the weight of condemnation.
There is war within their mind. A power at work that overwhelms them. A force so powerful that far too often they given into the sin, they loose the war within their mind, and the guilt, the regret, the shame, the condemnation they feel… it makes them miserable.
And I don’t know if you’ve ever met a miserable Christian, or if you’ve ever been a miserable Christian yourself, but it’s a pretty miserable place to be. They can pretend like everything’s ok with the best of them. But generally, they’re pretty miserable to be around. They lack the joy of the Lord. They lack a real love for others, especially those with whom they disagree or those they don’t like or those who just annoy them. They don’t have any real peace and they don’t work for peace. They lack every fruit of the Spirit because they’ve lost the war with their mind.
At War with My Mind
Paul literally says, “there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.”
And this is our problem, too. We’ve given the enemy a seat at the table of our mind!
Satan is called the accuser and the father of lies in scripture. And too many of us have allowed him a seat at the table in our hearts and minds to spread negative thoughts, to convince us that we are not enough, and to make us believe that God is done with us.
You might wonder if there’s any hope, any good news, any way out, any way forward. There is. Paul continues…
Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.
And then Paul says…
“So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. 2 And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death.”
NO CONDEMNATION….
Let’s just pause and talk about that for a moment. So many of us are living under the sentence of condemnation over our life. The idea that because of what we’ve done God is finished with us.
Maybe that’s because we live in a world that is quick to pass judgement and quick to condemn. But Paul says something here that seems almost impossible. He says there is now NO CONDEMNATION for those who belong to Christ Jesus.
In a world of condemnation God says there is “no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.”
What do you say?
One time when Jesus was on the Mount of Olives outside of Jerusalem the religious leaders brought a woman before him. They had caught her in the act of adultery. Now, how they caught her in the middle of that… that’s another discussion for another time. Clearly, she was a victim of their desire to condemn her and simultaneously trap Jesus and condemn him. Their question, they thought, was smart.
“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
If you’re anything like me, when you hear this story you wonder… what if I was that woman? What if I was caught in the middle of my sin, what if I was brought before Jesus, before God, and my deepest darkest, most shameful secrets were brought out in the open?
Not only would I feel like a complete FAILURE. I would feel immediately CONDEMNED.
Jesus took a moment, then finally spoke and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone.”
As you might imagine, the crowd that had gathered to see this woman in her shame, to see the religious leaders trap Jesus, they all began to walk away one by one. No one there, with the exception of Jesus, was without sin. No one there, except Jesus, could condemn her.
What Does God Do with People Who Fail?
Jesus looked around after everyone had left and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
“No one, Lord.”
“Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”
Failure is a part of every person’s journey, but condemnation doesn’t have to be.
Like the woman who found herself condemned before the people Paul discovered there is no condemnation for those who belong to Jesus. And when He experienced the incredible love of God in Christ, He wrote…
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. – Romans 8.38
Romans 8 begins with NO CONDEMNATION and ends with NO SEPARATION.
WHAT DOES OUR GOOD GOD DO WITH PEOPLE WHO FAIL?
HE LOVES US.
Faithful to Love
The good news about our faithful God is that he is faithful to love.
So there’s no reason to fear, no reason to doubt, no reason to worry about your future, your eternity, or your position as a son or daughter in Christ. No one has ever loved you as much as God and no one will ever love you more that God. His love for you will never end, will never fail, will never give up on you.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote in his book Strength to Love:
Failure is a part of every person’s journey, but condemnation doesn’t have to be. And it’s my prayer today that if you need to get out from under the condemnation you’re carrying, that you’ll come to the cross and lay that burden down because there is Someone who loves us.
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