Failure?

Good morning to everyone! I really missed being in yesterday's worship service with you all but I'm sure that the Lord was with you . Thanks for your prayers as Bro. Juan and myself travelled to Sandia, TX for the men's retreat (and yes, we did eat sandia in Sandia).

The theme at the men's retreat was "Da lo mejor al Maestro...not the leftovers". I was able to share as one of the guest speakers at the men's retreat and one of the points that I made was that before we worked at becoming a success in our Christian journey as disciples, we had to first be a failure. A failure!?! No one wants to be a failure. No one likes to think about being a failure. In fact, it is absurd to consider the possibility of being a failure. So, what possible failure can be "good" failure?

I shared that we needed to fail in the following areas (and there are many other areas as well):

• Self-righteousness - "I think that I'm good enough", "I'm not that bad", etc. We need to fail in having a self-righteous attitude when confronted with the holiness and mercy of God, just as Isaiah did in Isaiah 6:5, "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty." Isaiah "failed" at self-righteousness before God.
• We also need to fail in abandoning God's ways in the face of social pressure, family pressure, or even "religious" pressure. We need to fail in having a double-mind when it comes to God, and succeed in resolving to choose God's ways as did Joshua, "But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD" (Joshua 24:15).
• We need to fail at living a life of sin, of practicing sin. Our desire each day should be to live closer and closer to God and follow His ways, and further and further away from a sinful lifestyle that will hinder our walk with Christ. The Apostle Paul addressed it this way on one ocassion, "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?" (Romans 6:1-2) We need to fail at "living in sin any longer."
• We further need to fail at allowing the "world" or secular thought to dictate the drumbeat we as disciples will march to. Our ultimate source or "drumbeat" is God's living Word (Jesus) and his written word (the Bible). But we must fail at allowing the secular and popular opinion to form who we are, what we do, and how we think. Again, the Apostle Paul declared, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will" (Romans 12:2). The New Living Translation version puts it this way, "Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is."
• And finally, we need to fail at thinking and believing that we achieve this merely by our own efforts. "For it is by grace you have been saved...not by works..." (Ephesian 2:8) We can't "fail" on our own; we don't have to "fail" on our own. It's all because of God's grace, it's possible because of God's grace.

We can begin to succeed in our walk as disciples of Jesus when we fail at self-righeousness, abandoning God's ways under pressure, practicing a sinful lifestyle, allowing the secular world to dictate our Christian pace, and thinking that we have to do all of this on our own. God wants to help us succeed in our walk with Him. He wants to help us truly fail at living without Him, but we need to truly fail at those things that do not please God.

Are you ready to fail at sin? God's grace is sufficient for us.

Prayer: God of grace and love, we all want to be a success. I'm ready to fail at sin in order to succeed in my walk with You. It's not easy, it never is. But I trust in your grace today to be sufficient for me. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

By grace alone,

Pastor David