Sermon Tone Analysis

*“Turning Failure into Victory”*

Introduction to Mark                                                                          Pastor Bruce Dick

Various Scriptures                                                                               March 11, 2006

            At some point, every one of us feels like a failure, am I right?

There’s not one of us who cannot remember a time when we have failed with someone or something.

It seems like failure is a part of life.

Here are some synonyms for failure:  insufficient, fall short, deficient, negligent, bankrupt, default.

No one here needs a reminder of what it feels like to fail.

And the power of failure is that the memories are so strong and long-lasting.

It was painful and while you never wanted to remember it, you can’t help but do exactly that.

Perhaps my strongest memory of failure (or what felt like failure) was our farm auction sale on April 15, 1998.

By that time, I had been serving here at Bethel since the previous fall, but my dad, brother and I decided to have our auction the following spring.

Trudy was 8.5 months pregnant with Chandler and that day was also her birthday!

There we were on our farm, all of our machinery shiny and polished, watching piece by piece to go near and far.

My dad was having the time of his life.

This auction validated his farming career and was a celebration of success.

For my brother and me, both in our mid-30’s it felt like nothing of the kind.

I remember my nephew, who was then 9 years old, sitting at the top of the steps of our favorite combine, a combine we had let him drive, by the way, and just sitting there with his head in his 9-year old hands.

The way he looked was how I felt inside and tears came to my eyes.

At the age when all my peers were expanding their farming operations, mine was ending.

Now understand this; we absolutely knew God was calling us out of farming and to Bethel; that was not the issue; what hurt was the feeling of failure that day.

I remember coming back to work at church the next day and walking into Pastor Marty’s office and saying, /“I can’t read, I can’t study, I can’t do anything and I don’t know why.”/

Wisely he said, /“Bruce, you have just experienced a ‘death’ and you’re going through stages of grief.

Take whatever time you need; do as little or as much as you are able and in time you’ll be back 100%.”/

It was some of the wisest council I had ever heard.

I felt like a failure and I needed time to grieve.

Have you ever felt that way?

It might have been a test in 5th grade that you can still remember.

My high school students in Sunday school class have been taking ACT tests and feeling all kinds of emotions.

It might have been when you were let go from your first job.

There are a number of you here who have been divorced; any chance you have felt failure?

Sure you have.

Some of you are getting close to retirement and you don’t have the nest egg you hoped.

Some of you have health issues you never counted on and you can’t do what you wanted to do.

Failure comes in many shapes and sizes.

Today I am going to introduce you to two men who were failures – and BIG failures at that.

They appear in the Bible and the magnitude of their failures is pretty large.

But they both give us hope because God turned their lives around and used their lives for his glory.

In fact you could argue that their failures were part of the process that God used in their lives to give them more impact AFTER their failure than they would have been WITHOUT it.

That’s an important statement, so I’ll say it again.

God can use failure to give you r life more impact AFTER the failure than you would WITHOUT it.

Now that’s not to say that we go looking for failures to be involved in; I’m just saying that since failure is part of each life, then let’s see how greatly God can use it to accelerate and expand our spiritual depth.

I have shared this line with you before that would fit nicely with failure:  /“God cannot use a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply.”/

Pain and failure are often “tools” that God uses in our lives to make us more than we could have been without them.

And the two men I’ll show you today are great examples of that.

I’ll also say that this Sunday marks the beginning of a significant sermon series that will last us for at least the next several months.

It is a study of the Gospel of Mark, one of the 4 Gospels that tell the story of Jesus Christ’s life on earth.

His story is one of 4 told by 4 different men.

Each one of these 4 men tells essentially the same story but through different lenses.

Two were disciples themselves two were not.

Each one wrote to different audiences; did you know that?

Each one had a different reader in mind when they wrote.

Let me just share that with you.

*Matthew* wrote to a Jewish audience and thus portrayed Jesus as the prophesied King, the Messiah they were looking for.

So he emphasized Jesus’ sermons and messages.

*Luke* wrote to the Greek audience, the shapers of culture and language of their days, portraying Jesus as the perfect man, which they were obsessed with and so he used a lot of parables of Jesus in his Gospel.

*John’*s gospel is most unique and most unlike the others.

John was writing to the broadest audience of all – all people of all generations; he had a message that transcended culture, race, religion and time and he focused heavily on Jesus’ teachings, which did just that, transcended time.

*How about Mark*?

Mark wrote his gospel for the Roman audience, not just those who lived in Rome, but particularly those Christians who were being hunted and tortured and killed by the Roman Empire.

His gospel is one of action and power and impact; his is the shortest and there is a sense of urgency as he writes; they need this gospel and they need it now!

So miracles and actions of Jesus are all over the place.

THIS IS A GUY’S GOSPEL!

The power of God is on display through Jesus Christ and these suffering Christians needed to be reminded of that power.

Now all of that is to say this:  I’ll bet that many of you didn’t know that the 4 Gospels each have a different audience and purpose and flavor.

But here’s where we are headed this morning:  I am convinced that when you know Mark’s story and the other example of failure that I am about to share with you, your appreciation for this gospel will increase.

My hope is that in the coming days and weeks, you will pick up your Bible and read it on your own.

Read it in different translations, get a commentary and read what’s going on behind the obvious and immerse yourself in this amazing story as I have done.

I want to let you know that the background study I have done on this gospel is one of the most amazing adventures biblical adventures I have ever been on.

My only hope is that I can translate that not only into information but enthusiasm and even transformation as God stirs in your soul as he has in mine.

Now let me introduce you to our two “failures.”

You know one – Mark; the other is none other than the apostle Peter.

Yes, that Peter.

Let me begin with him, because he comes on the scene before Mark does.

If you know Peter at all, you know that he was eager, aggressive, bold and outspoken, and as one writer said, “/with a habit of revving his mouth while his brain was in neutral.”

/(John MacArthur, p. 12.

He is referred to by this same writer as the “/apostle with the foot-shaped mouth!”/

His real name was Simon Bar-Jonah, meaning, Simon, son of Jonah.”

But when he met Jesus for the very first time, these are Jesus’ first words to him:  /“So you are Simon the son of John?

You shall be called ‘Cephas’ (which means Peter).”/

(John 1:42)  Petros is the Greek word for “rock or stone.”

Cephas is the same in Aramaic language.

That became his nickname, of which sometimes it was true and sometimes it was the furthest thing from the truth.

He made promises he couldn’t keep and lunged headlong into things he had to bail out of, but at least he went into things with both feet.

Calling him “rock” as Jesus did, was more a goal for him than a statement of fact.

He needed to become a rock rather than a person who would jump and ask questions later.

Peter is the one that when asked by Jesus who men say that he is, Peter is the first to reply, /“You are the Christ.”

/(Mark 8:29)  Amazing!

He got it but then he dropped the ball.

In the very next verses, Jesus says that he’s going to suffer, be killed and after 3 days raise again, to which this very eager Peter takes Jesus by the arm, away from the others and tells him, “/Don’t say things like that Jesus!

It will hurt morale on the team.”/

(My paraphrase, since it doesn’t say).

Jesus replies to Peter, /“Get behind me Satan!

For you are not setting your mind on things of God but on the things of man.”/ (Mark 8:33)  Failure #1 – why does he run off at the mouth?

But his most serious failure and the one he is most famous for, occurs the night Jesus is arrested.

That evening, Jesus celebrates the Passover meal with his disciples for the last time while he is alive and as that evening is ending, Jesus tells the 11 that are left (Judas has gone) that they will all scatter when he is crucified, to which Peter replies that while the other 10 might, he never would!

Jesus turns to him and says, /“Truly, I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.”/

(Mark 14:30)  And Peter can’t let that one go either so he says emphatically, /“If I must die with you, I will not deny you.”/

But you know how that turned out later that night, don’t you?

What did he do?