A Gentle Whisper: Listening for God in Failure

Well, we're going to talk about failure today.

This semester came out a little bit different than we planned.

We lost one chapel for snow day.

You all got credit, so that worked out pretty good.

Everybody didn't have any snow, and that was nice.

And then the chapel before spring break, you know, we just stopped

what we were doing to focus on our grief together over the death

of Natalie Black and talk about heaven and talk about death

and hard topics that need to be talked about.

So we had four topics left for the semester in this series, and

we're only going to have time for two of them.

So today I'm going to talk about failure.

How do we hear God in times of failure?

And then next week, how do we hear God in confusion when you don't

know what to do, when you don't understand what the purpose

of life is, when you don't have to make that decision about

what's the priority?

How do you figure that out?

We're going to talk about that next week in our final chapel of

the semester.

So that's kind of where we're going to finish up this today, though.

We're going to talk about listening for God in failure.

Now, the scripture says we have all sinned and fallen short

of the glory of God.

So everybody has failed.

You can call it sin, you can call it failure, call it mistake,

you can put whatever term you're comfortable with there, but

they all are the same thing.

So we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

We've all failed.

And so when you fail, you got three options.

The first is you can beat yourself up and commit to trying

harder and struggle through the Christian life.

And there's a lot of people who do that, and that's as good as

it gets.

For them, the Christian life is just a battle.

It's a struggle.

It's an everyday thing.

It's just kind of grinding it away.

The second option you have when you fail or you sin is that

you can normalize the guilt.

You can desensitize yourself to the guilt so that you don't feel

it as much.

And in the process, you can block out God.

And that's an option, and a lot of people take that option.

But the third option is the way we should go, and that's to listen

and let God speak during times of failure.

How do we do that?

That's what we're going to talk about today.

So let me pray for us and help God.

Ask God to speak to us during these next few minutes.

As we look, how do we hear God during failure?

Let's pray together.

God, you do speak during failure.

But so often we don't hear it because failure hurts.

It hurts us and hurts people around us.

You didn't expect we were going to be perfect because all your

people have failed at times.

But you did expect us to follow and so help us to know.

In those times of failure, how do we better follow?

You teach us to learn from these critical times so that, like

those heroes of faith we heard about this morning, by faith we will

honor your in spite of failure.

In youn name we ask it.

Amen.

Well, what is failure?

Let's define it to begin with or sin, what is it?

If you missed the last second shot and you lost a game, is that

failure?

No, that's a disappointment.

Big disappointment.

But it's not failure.

If you get rejected for a job that you really want and prepared

for, is that failure?

Probably not.

If you blow a class because you didn't put in the effort and

you didn't try, is that failure?

Probably because either you or your family put money in to make

that possible and you had an opportunity most people in the world

don't have to get an education.

And I know donors put in money to make it possible for you to get

that education.

And you let everybody down.

If you live in ways that don't honor God, is that failure?

Definitely.

Definitely, that's failure.

Now, in the Bible, there's a long list of sins and those are wise

counsel.

You need to read that.

Some of this stuff's kind of.

You can't believe people live that way.

Yeah, there are people who live that way.

And so a lot of these sins are kind of detailed out in the Bible

and they're wise counsel.

But there are two measures for failure or sin that are better than

those that I want to recommend to you.

Because you're never going to remember everything on the list.

Was that on the list?

Can I do that?

Can I not do that?

No, it doesn't work that way.

Here's two measures that are better.

The first one is very positive and that is a positive objective

about the measure of success.

Because against success you can measure failure.

And it's the fruits of the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

gentleness, and self control.

There is no law against these things.

The fruits of the Spirit are how we should live, how we demonstrate

that God lives in our lives and the Holy Spirit is filling our

lives.

And when we don't measure up to that.

Or we do things that run counter to these fruits of the Spirit.

That's failure.

But look at the key phrase, the Holy Spirit produces it.

It's not by your grit, it's not by your determination, it's not

by your trying to keep the rules that you live like that.

It's when the Holy Spirit is invited to live in your life and

take control.

So ask God for the Holy Spirit.

Now, you remember God is in three forms, the Trinity.

It's a hard concept, but there is God the Creator that we think

about of earth.

And then there's Christ who came to earth.

Jesus, who was the resurrected Christ and is God incarnate in person

form.

And then there is the Holy Spirit.

Remember, Jesus said, I have to leave so the Holy Spirit can come.

Why?

Because God can't be in two places.

There are two parts of him, three parts of him and the other

part need to come.

The Holy Spirit.

And the Holy Spirit is with us just as much Jesus was with those

disciples during those days.

And it's the Holy Spirit that overrides our sinful nature and allows

these fruits of the Spirit to grow in us.

But there's a second way to measure our failure.

And it's a verse from James that I just love that really captures

it well.

James says it this way.

It is a sin to know what you ought to do, then not do it.

Pretty straightforward.

It's a sin if you know what you ought to do, but you don't do

it because you chose not to.

That's failure.

Imagine relationship with the person you love the most.

Your family, if you're married, your spouse, that person

you love the most.

What if in that relationship you purposefully did what they didn't

want you to do and you knew ahead of time it would hurt them

to do it, but you did it anyway, even though you knew it hurt

the relationship.

That's what God is saying.

It's a relationship with God.

It's not keeping a list of sins out of your life.

It's about a relationship.

And when we sin knowing what we ought to do and then not do it,

that is breaking that relationship.

It's a standard of sin, is to remove that from our life so we can

grow in Christ.

And so we need to find this measure, this positive of the fruits

of the Spirit and measure that also against what we know we ought

to do and don't do it.

And in that we will find that place for growth.

And by the way, it says, you know, sin, it's a sin to know what

you ought to do.

Well, everybody's perspective is a little different.

So what?

Failures to you may not be failure to somebody else.

So let's stop putting all our energy into trying to define everybody

else's sins and failures, because we all got enough of our

own to worry about.

And when we do, God will speak to us better.

So we start there.

At that point, well, we all failed, and we'll all fail again.

Failure is one thing we have in common.

We have all failed.

And the good news is, the farther you grow in Christ, the deeper

you grow in relationship with Christ.

The failure times become less and less and you have fewer and fewer

of them.

But even when we fail, we have a distorted view of failure.

And that's why we don't hear from God.

We have a distorted view of how we see failure versus how God

sees failure.

I love this quote from Max Lucado.

He said, God sees our mistakes differently than we do.

We see our mistakes as a reason to give up.

God sees them as a reason to turn to him.

Don't give up in failure.

That's when you need God the very most.

And if you have failed and you're facing failure in your life,

maybe you messed up over spring break, maybe you did.

That's okay.

God loves you.

And we're going to list at six ways in which we can grow back in

our relationship with God and use failure to grow closer to him.

So the first is this.

Listen for God and block out the world.

Failure of the world's standards may be success in God's

standards.

What the world holds as success is often failure in the eyes

of God.

And unfortunately, we live in a world that bombards us with triggers

for judging our personal value against an idealized standard of

how rich and wonderful and full and fun life ought to be.

And people around us put up this image.

You hear it, you see it.

It's in social media, it's on TikTok, it's on Instagram, it's on

all the places where you look.

And people put up this image that they live this idealized life.

And when you look at that, you can feel like a failure even when

you're not.

You know what?

I deal with it too, a little differently.

I remember when I was early in my college presidency, a long time

ago, there was a great book that came out, said, keep your armor

on straight.

It was a year in the life of a university president, so very president

of an American University in D.C. and this guy wrote kind of what

he did every day.

And it was an amazing book.

And here I was, a young president trying to figure out this

job and how to do it.

And I read that book and I thought, I will never ever measure

up to that.

He was having breakfast meetings at 5:30 in the morning,

followed by his second breakfast meeting at 8:00', clock,

followed by huge donor events, speaking at big events, going to

the Kennedy center, being engaged with politicians in Washington

while in the faculty, with great speeches, all this kind of

stuff.

It went on and on and on and.

And he projected this image of how amazing he was to keep his armor

on all the time.

There was only one problem.

Eighteen months after the book came out, he was arrested.

He was arrested because he was spending his night, about midnight

every night in his office making lewd phone calls to people

all over Washington D.C. his armor wasn't on straight.

It was fake.

And the people you watch who think they got it all together, they're

fake too.

They don't.

The standard is the fruits of the spirit.

The standard is knowing what we ought to do and do it.

Not some perception of what the world gives us for success.

It's often just fake.

Well, the second thing is.

There we go.

Know that God will not be silent when we fail.

There's a tendency to think and we assume that when we fail,

God doesn't want anything to do with us.

We just messed up.

We knew what we ought to do and we didn't do it.

And we hurt the relationship.

And so God, we're trying to get away from God.

We're not trying to run to God.

But God will not be silent when we fail.

God spoke to Elijah at his lowest moment.

Remember the first chapter?

We talked to Elijah.

He ran away, finally hid in the bush, in the cave, and the whole

thing.

God came and found him there and spoke to him in that quiet, still

voice.

God spoke to Peter after his greatest failure.

Peter, the night before Jesus was arrested, stood up the strongest

leader of the disciples, the guy who was always in charge when

Jesus was in charge, and said, I will never betray you, I will never

deny you.

I will always stand for you.

And within 12 hours, he denied Christ three times.

One because a little girl saw him at a campfire and said, aren't

you one of their followers?

He said, not me.

I don't have anything to do with them.

Miserable failure.

And God spoke to him during that time.

Jesus did.

God spoke to Jonah when he tried to run from him.

God will speak to us and not be silent in our failure.

Why?

Because remember, I'VE told you this many times, I'll tell you

it many times more.

There is nothing you can do to make God love you more.

There's nothing you can do to make God love you less.

Your failure doesn't change anything from God's perspective other

than he wants you to do better because he knows you can be better.

He made you to be better.

He doesn't love us less, but he's ready to make us stronger out

of our times of failure.

So God will not be silent during these times.

Thirdly, take responsibility for your failure.

The root of all failure, the root of all sin is selfishness.

It all comes down to selfishness.

You can cut it any way you want.

Get the list of sins in the Bible.

It all comes down to selfishness.

Doing what you know you ought to not do and you do it anyway comes

down to selfishness where the fruits of the spirit are completely

unselfish.

Selfish people though, blame others for their faults and so when

they fail, their initial reaction is to blame somebody else.

It wasn't my fault.

Blame the circumstances, blame this, blame that.

But your toughest times is when you can make your biggest gains

if you take responsibility.

And if you don't, the cycle of the failure will just continue.

But it starts with taking responsibility.

Well, King David story we have been detailed more than about anybody

else in the Bible.

From the time he was a shepherd and killed Goliath all the

way through becoming king and all the great things he did.

And then his horrible fall where he got into adultery, he got

into cover ups, he got into murder to try to hide his sins.

David did some really, really bad stuff.

But David finally took responsibility.

It didn't come overnight, it took some time, but he took responsibility.

And he records that taking responsibility in Psalm 51:1 Most

Psalms 51:1

beautiful passages of the Bible.

David says, have mercy on me, O God, because of your great compassion.

Blot out the stains of my sin, wash me clean from my guilt, purify

me from my sin, for I recognize my rebellion.

It haunts me day and night.

Against you and you alone.

I've sinned.

I've done what's evil in your sight.

You have proved right in what you say and your judgment against

me just David took complete responsibility for it.

He repented for it, he admitted it and he asked forgiveness.

And there were no excuses.

None he could have said, I'm under tremendous pressure of being

king.

I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done it, but I got reasons has happened.

No, there were no excuses in this confession and repentance and

then he goes on.

Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean.

Wash me and I'll be whiter than snow.

Create and be a clean heart, O God.

Do not banish me from your presence and don't take your holy

spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of my salvation and make me willing to

obey you.

David took responsibility.

He repented.

He confessed.

He was restored, and he was transformed.

And there were no excuses given.

There was no covering up the sin.

And that.

That right there is why we don't hear from God in failure.

Because we're so busy making up the excuses, placing the blame

on somebody else, and trying to cover up what we did.

When we just admit it and confess it to God, then he can speak

into our lives and help us to grow in significant ways out of our

times of failure.

Well, then that brings us to the fourth part of this.

Don't let failure define you.

God doesn't define you by your failure, so why should you?

But too often, many people feel defined by their failures, by

their sins instead of their failures and sins.

God recounted the heroes of faith in the scripture, saying, it

was by faith they did these things.

By faith, they made it happen.

Everybody on that list we heard this morning, everybody on

that list had failures.

But it was despite their failures they became heroes of faith,

every single one of them.

Abraham was deceptive, and Noah was a drunk, and Moses got angry.

Jacob was a cheater.

David was a murderer.

Gideon made idols.

Samson was a womanizer.

The Bible is filled with people who have failed.

Filled with them.

Peter, we just talked about, denied Christ.

Paul, who wrote so much the New Testament, persecuted Christians

before he became one.

They are not heroes of faith in the Bible because they never failed.

They're heroes of faith because by faith, God did great things

in their lives.

It was their faith, not their failures, that define them.

And so don't let failures define you and your life.

Define it by your faith.

For us, when we fail, we have a memory.

We often have consequences.

Sometimes the bigger the failure, the more the consequences.

And sometimes you don't clean that stuff up for a long, long time.

That's why David said, it haunts me day and night, the consequences,

the failure, the.

The memory of it haunts me day and night.

But with God, he cleans it up and he forgets.

David said, create a clean heart in me, O God.

It was gone.

It was clean.

So don't let failure define you, because that's not how God defines

you.

God uses damaged people because if God didn't use damaged

people, there wouldn't be anybody to use.

And there's no excuse for why you won't let God use you just because

you're damaged, because everybody else is too careful to

not let failure define you.

The fifth part of this is, accept the grace of God's gift.

Accept the grace of God's gift.

God forgives us, and that comes pretty easily when we confess

it.

But the hard part is forgiving ourselves.

So you have to let the grace wash you clean.

It's the image that David used to be.

Washed clean.

Let the grace wash you clean.

See, grace is like water.

Think of grace as water.

It flows downward and it gathers at the lowest point.

Grace goes deep into our lives, to our most hidden secrets,

to our regrets, to our fears, to our dark sins.

Grace gathers right there.

But you know what?

That's where sewage goes, too.

To the lowest point, to the lowest point.

And in the filth and muck of our sewage of life, God's grace comes

in and takes over.

Accept God's gift of grace, and in that gift, God will cleanse

and make us new, as he did for David and he wrote about.

Well, then the last part is, ask God to help you grow in your

failures.

In your failures, you can grow the very most if you'll listen to

God.

Or you can begin a downward path where failure becomes a pattern

of life and you become used to it and the guilt doesn't bother you

as much over time, and your life essentially gets wasted.

If we will listen to God, in times of failures, it's the hardest

time to listen.

But it's the time we need to listen most.

Don't let the shame keep you from going to God.

You know when you fail, when you really mess up, Maybe you did

over spring break, you want to hide.

Maybe you go, man, I did that.

And I shouldn't have done that.

I knew better than that.

But nobody knows.

Oh, I'm so thankful.

Nobody knows.

Well, God knows.

You can keep it from him.

God knows.

Don't let the shame keep you from God, because God's already part

of the shame.

He's in there with you where the grace flows.

Learn to listen in the quiet aloneness of fail.

Failure.

When we fail, even though there's noise all around us and all

the friends are around us and all the chatters going on, there

is an aloneness that happens because the failure has our focus.

And in the quietness of that aloneness, learn to listen to God

and then trust in the refining fire of God.

Yeah, it's painful.

Yeah.

The heat gets turned up, but that's how things get made better.

David used this phrase in Psalm 51.

He says, Purify me from my sin.

Now, everybody in ancient times would have known exactly what

that was.

Purity from the sins would have been the refining, like they

did with gold.

They would get gold, and then they would put it in the hottest

fire possible to burn off all the bad stuff.

So it was pure.

And that's what David was talking about.

Trust in the refining fire of God to purify me from my sin.

Ask God to help you grow through your failures.

If you focus on the failure, you will continue to suffer.

If you focus on the lesson, you'll continue to grow.

So that's a choice, and it's pretty straightforward.

Well, your failures will become your most significant points

of life if you listen for God.

And your failures will become your most significant points in life

if you don't listen for God.

But God is ready to speak to us in our failures, and he promises

that because he loves us that much, that's what our benediction

says.

Say it with me, will you?

No eye has seen, no ear is heard, no mind is conceived.

But God has prepared for those who love him, even those who fail.

God bless.