Restored From Failure

Introduction

Between now and the end of June we have two new preaching series lined up, starting today with the first of four messages about restoration. We’ll, I’m saying that they are about restoration because it is technically true and because it sounds a lot nicer than saying that we’re going focus on failure. But that’s is what we’re doing. Four weeks of failure. Bring your friends for a fun time!

Seriously though, why focus on failure? Well, because it’s something that we need to grapple with and understand in a healthy way, and the world around us isn’t going to teach us to do that well. In our culture we often minimize the ways that life is hard and suffering is normal and one of the reasons I suspect that too many people are anxious and depressed is because nobody properly prepared them for this basic reality and how to live through it.

Failure is a part of life – personal failure, living through the failure of groups and organizations, the failures of our leaders, and the failures of plans and projects. Failure is all around us. How we respond to our failures and the failures of the people and systems that connect to us will play a big role in our ability to experience peace and happiness, and it can be one of the ways that we show ourselves to be set apart as followers of Jesus.

One of the reasons I think that the Bible comes across as authentic and helpful is that it doesn’t shy away from describing the failures of the major figures it speaks about.

Moses reluctantly led his people out of Egypt, learned a lot of leadership lessons the hard way, and ultimately wasn’t allowed to enter the promised land himself due to his failure.

King David, at his best, was a man after God’s own heart, and at his worst was a rapist and murderer. Those are hard ideas to hold in tension.

Jonah was given an assignment by God and promptly bought a ticket on a ship going in the opposite direction.

Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery.

Solomon, despite his gift of godly wisdom, collected so many wives and the idols that came with them it corrupted him and his kingdom.

That’s just a sampling, and I haven’t even gotten into the New Testament!

You would think that if Jesus’ disciples wanted to be taken seriously as the leaders of the early Church they wouldn’t be eager to talk about their failures. But the Gospels, which get a lot of their content from the disciples themselves, tell us that those disciples often failed to understand what Jesus was saying, failed to do what Jesus asked of them, jockeyed for position to try to be Jesus’ favourite, and otherwise bumbled and stumbled along a lot of the time.

Why is all this failure in the Bible? Besides a desire, I believe, to be truthful, I think these examples of failure are everywhere because this is a book written to human beings who will also fail and be affected by the failure of others. Learning from these examples can help us grow in wisdom so that we avoid some of these same mistakes while also ensuring that we don’t forget about the grace of our God who chooses flawed people to do His work in the world.

For our journey into personal failure today it’s Peter we’ll look to. Art teed us up nicely last Sunday when it comes to Peter, describing him well as a man capable of some incredible highs and some very low lows. Peter was brash and often overconfident. He was sure that he was the most loyal of all the disciples, telling Jesus that he would never leave Jesus, no matter what, even if that meant dying for Him.

When Jesus was arrested Peter tried to defend Jesus with his sword – a brave act even if Peter misunderstood what Jesus wanted in that moment. And Peter attempted to stick close to Jesus after His arrest. Peter got as far as the courtyard outside of the High Priest’s home where Jesus was being put on trial.

Peter stood around a charcoal fire with servants, slaves, and guards, waiting and wondering what has happening to Jesus. But when he was asked if he was one of Jesus’ disciples his courage left him and he said “no.” And later he denied it again. And then a third time, just as Jesus had said.

I think it’s worth taking a minute to consider the extent to which this likely broke Peter. He had set himself up on quite the pedestal, thinking he was the shining example of faithfulness, and then he denied knowing Jesus. He imagined that he would be Jesus’ right-hand man in whatever kingdom Jesus was bringing about, until he found himself abandoning His friend, who Peter believed was God’s anointed one.

How do you recover from being sure that you are a loyal, faithful, and brave, only to suddenly when the pressure was on, that you aren’t any of those things?

The timing of this series is interesting because after I had already mapped it out I travelled to Moncton for a two-day leadership seminar that is part of a training program I’m enrolled in with the CBAC. One thing we spent some time on was self-knowledge, which we explored using a tool called the Enneagram. If you don’t know anything about it the Enneagram is a way of sorting the various personality types that people have and gaining some insight about what each type looks like when they are healthy and when they are unhealthy. In this system there are 9 types, each with their own tendencies and strategies to make their way in the world.

The connection between this and Peter is that my dominant type, the Type 1, is extremely motivated by failure. Or, rather, type ones have a strong fear of failing, or being blamed for things not going well. Type Ones are very driven to do what’s right and do things the right way. Nothing wrong with that! But when they are unhealthy, Ones become very anxious, overbearing, over-working, and angry with anyone not doing enough to help them get everything just right.

Maybe my “one-ness” gives me some extra appreciation for what Peter might have been experiencing internally, because if I were in Peter’s shoes and the risen Jesus sent word to go to Galilee to meet Him after Easter Sunday… I would have been very tempted to travel in the opposite direction.

I’m quite capable of dwelling on medium-sized screw-ups for months, so it’s hard for me to imagine what it would take to get past what happened to Peter. Jesus is back, which is the best, most incredible thing you can imagine! But what good are you to Him, having run away as soon as the going got tough? What are you good for?

That’s where this gets personal, because nobody gets through life unscathed. People get fired, miss out on promotions, or start businesses that go under. People make bad financial decisions that cost them and their family dearly. People lose relationships because they neglect or mistreat others. They let their bodies fall apart from bad habits or overwork.

To be a parent is to grow accustomed to daily failure as you struggle to be patient and kind and set the right boundaries and make decisions without any clear sense of how they will play out. You hope and pray that your genuine love can overshadow your shortcomings.

Some of you are not where you wanted or expected to be at this point in your life, or you took painful detours to get here. Some of you promised yourselves that you wouldn’t make certain mistakes in your life, and then made them anyway.

All of us have had moments where, like Peter, we were forced to confront the fact that we were not as good, or smart, or faithful, or brave, or loving as we imagined ourselves to be.

And if you were raised in a religious environment that was high on guilt and light on grace, you may have even been told or convinced yourself that you were now too tarnished to be fully loved by God, or too broken to be able to serve God for a good or beautiful purpose in this world.

This is an especially nasty lie, because even when a person doesn’t accept it outright it can still seep into your soul, causing us to doubt your value. I think this is a favourite lie of our enemy, Satan – the Father of lies.

“You’ve failed too many times. God is mad at you. God can’t use you. You’ll never overcome this. Just give up and accept that you’re not good for much.”

These are demonic lies, and they are very easy to believe if we don’t allow God to speak into our lives through His Word and His people and through prayer and service.

Let’s return to Peter and Jesus. Jesus certainly didn’t think Peter’s failure disqualified him from His love, let alone from service or leadership in the Church.

It seems to me that, right on the top of Jesus’ priority list, was to move Peter from failure to restoration. Shortly after meeting all of the disciples in Galilee after the resurrection Jesus went to Peter 1-on-1 with some questions.

“Peter, do you love me more than these?” Put another way, “Peter do you still believe you love me at least as much as these other disciples do?” or “Are you still my number 1 apprentice?”

And Peter says “Yes, Jesus, you know that I do love you.”

And Jesus doesn’t say “OK then, you’re forgiven” or “Great, we’re all good then, don’t worry denying you ever knew me.” Jesus says “Feed my lambs.”

And then, Jesus does it again. “Simon, son of John do you love me?”

“Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”

“Take care of my sheep.”

Then a third time. “Do you love me?”

Now I think Peter is getting a bit heartbroken – does Jesus not believe him? “Lord, you know all things; you now that I love you!”

“Feed my sheep.”

Peter denied Jesus three times. Jesus has Peter re-affirm his love three times, and added a command. Feed my lambs. Look after my sheep.

I think this is always what Jesus had in mind for Peter – he was a leader. Peter was meant to take his enthusiasm and confidence and passion for Jesus and use it to build up the church as one of its key figures. But I don’t think the old Peter could have done it the way Jesus wanted.

The old Peter was brash, prideful, and too eager to play the starring role. That Peter would have enjoyed the spotlight and the influence too much, thinking that what Jesus wanted was for him to take charge. But that’s not what Jesus said. He said “feed and look after my flock.” Shepherd them. Serve them. In the example of Jesus we see that to be a leader means being a servant.

Before the resurrection, before Peter’s failure, I don’t think he understood this. But, having been broken by failure, Peter was ready to really hear what Jesus was saying. Jesus didn’t simply forgive Peter for his failure, Jesus restored Peter to the work He was meant to do now that he was ready to do it. And going through this process of failure and restoration was, I suspect, needed for Peter to fulfill the assignment Jesus was giving him.

We also shouldn’t miss that Jesus then tells Peter the cost of accepting this assignment. “When you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”

It might not sound that way to us, but the first readers of John’s Gospel would have known that this was a prediction that Peter would be martyred. In fact, Peter had likely already been executed by the time John’s Gospel was circulating.

When Jesus says “follow me” that’s what He was inviting Peter to follow Him into. Peter had once boasted that he would die for Jesus. Jesus is warning Peter that following Him will mean that he’ll get another chance to do exactly that.

So, like all proper Baptist sermons I have three points of application I’d like to send you away with today.

1) Don’t let your faith be superficial.

There’s a reason that Jesus doesn’t let Peter off easy here. There’s a reason Jesus asks if Peter loves him three times, and I suspect it’s not just for the symmetry of Peter having denied Jesus three times. Jesus doesn’t want the quick and easy answer. I think Jesus wants Peter to really wrestle with what He’s asking. Does Peter truly want to try again to become the person he thought he was – the person who would stand by Jesus no matter what?

There’s lots of superficial faith. “Believe in Jesus and he’ll make you healthier and wealthier and give you a mansion in heaven.” To some people Jesus is little more than a lucky rabbit’s foot or four-leaf clover.

Jesus’ promise of eternal life is wonderful and beautiful and a source of incredible hope. But to receive it Jesus asks us to fully trust Him with our lives. All aspects of our lives.

We’re supposed to be born again – we die to our old life and Jesus gives us a new one, one in which He is Lord. As Lord it’s His right to ask a lot of us. He will ask us to do things we don’t want to do, just like he made Peter confront his failure and face his future. But we trust that Jesus, who gave His very life for us, won’t ask anything of us that isn’t ultimately for our good, even if it doesn’t feel good as we’re experiencing it.

That brings to mind Romans 5:3-5: We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. 5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

2) Be Gracious.

Failure is inevitable. A wise, Spirit-filled person can avoid any sin at any particular moment, but nobody will manage to avoid every sin at every moment. That’s true for us, that’s true for everyone around us, and it’s why God doesn’t just suggest that we be gracious, He commands it.

In Mark 6, right after teaching His disciples the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus said: “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

I should say that failure and sin are not the same. You can fail without sinning. If I fail to complete a marathon in a certain amount of time that’s not sin, that just not achieving a goal I set. At one point when working on this sermon I accidently closed the file without saving and lost a couple of hours of work. That’s a mistake and maybe a failure, but not a sin.

But for our purposes and in Peter’s situation the failures we’re talking about are largely failures to do what Jesus asks of us, and when that’s the case failures usually are sin, or caused by sin.

But our Good News says that God forgives, and not only does God forgive our sins – He helps us grow through our failures. Like Peter, they can lead to necessary transformation. God is the business of second chances and renewal. He can restore what’s broken where nothing else or nobody else ever could.

That’s a reason to extend grace to the people around you. But, depending on your personality type, you may actually struggle more with forgiving yourself. We can tell ourselves awful stories about who we are in the wake of failure.

Be gracious to yourself in failure. Learn the lessons you ought to learn, but don’t simply dwell on failure and convince yourself that it means you’re no good, or good for nothing. You are just as loved by God immediately after the worst failure of your life as you were right before. And the character you gain if you actually grapple with failure, God helping you, may allow you to bless someone or serve in some way that would never have been possible otherwise.

Hebrews 4:15-16: This High Priest of ours [Jesus!] understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. 16 So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

3) Find The Beauty In The Life You Were Given

Everyone will have failures, but we don’t tend to think of ourselves as failures until we start comparing ourselves to others. Constantly comparing yourself to other people is probably the fastest way to trade peace for anxiety or hopelessness.

At the end of today’s scripture lesson we see that this is exactly where Peter’s thoughts go. Jesus tells Peter what it will look like to follow Him and the first thing Peter does is point to another disciple – probably John – and ask “What about Him? Will he be martyred too? Is he going to get a better deal than me?”

Peter still had a lot of growing to do! Instead of experiencing gratitude for Jesus restoring Peter to relationship and leadership, or feeling sobered by the commitment he was making to follow Jesus in His death, Peter starts to wonder how he measures up, or whether someone else is going to get something he isn’t.

Life is not fair. And I don’t think becoming a Christian makes it more fair. Some people succeed for no apparent reason, while others are suffer in all kinds of ways that I certainly don’t understand.

But, in faith, I believe that life is a gift, and that there is beauty to be found in it. Some days, for some people, it is a sincere act of worship simply to get out of bed. Other days we may see, with a special clarity, just how blessed we are by the people and opportunities all around us.

But every day you are a person created in the image of God, you are loved by God, there is happiness and satisfaction to be found in life that comes from God, and there are valuable things you can give to those around you, God helping you.

None of that changes based on the people around you and whether or not they seem like they have it easier, or have things you wish you had, or haven’t suffered some failure that you have, or because of any other way we might compare ourselves to others. Jesus doesn’t ask you to be like somebody else. He simply says “Follow Me.”

Conclusion

I don’t know if a sermon that uses the word “failure” fifty times can come across as uplifting or encouraging, but I hope that this wasn’t depressing. Jesus’ restoration of Peter is a beautiful moment, but this passage invites us to put ourselves in Peter’s shoes.

Like Peter, we’re all a mixture of faithfulness and failure. We have many good intentions, but sometimes our follow-through is lousy. And that can weigh on people at times, or even convince them that God isn’t very happy with them, or that God doesn’t want them involved in what’s He’s up to in the world.

Everyone will have some low moments, and that’s when we need to turn to God. Jesus went to Peter in his low moment, and He’ll be with you in yours if you’ll let Him. He’ll be there to remind you that He loved you enough to give His life for you, that He delights in who you are, and that He’s there to forgive you and help you step back into your complicated life a little wiser than you were before.

To do that requires faith that isn’t superficial. You have to be serious about following Jesus, but if you are you can come back from anything.

To do that requires grace. You need to be gracious with yourself, and when you can do that it will grow you’re the people all around you who will have failures of their own that affect you at times.

And to do that requires that we see the beauty in our own lives instead of poisoning ourselves by comparing ourselves to others. Live faithfully as only you can, and find the blessings God intends for you along the way.

I think mature Christians know that they are restored failures. They don’t live in guilt and shame for what they’ve done wrong once they’ve done what they should to make it right and received God’s grace. But they don’t forget how easy it is to made poor decisions and mess things up, which gives them compassion for others. Let’s pray to our Lord who renews and restores all those who belong to Him.