Failing Should Never Be Fatal, Part 2

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

What about Romans 7? You know, I find myself doing the very things I don't want to do. And I find myself not doing the very things I should be doing. I fail. Paul says I fail. I fail all the time.

And so do you and so do I. We fail. But notice Paul adds something to this.

Not does he just get up and get going, but notice what he says next. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having made hold of it yet, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead. I forget it. I forget my failure.

Do you? Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's word meets our world. A Jewish boy becomes a hired man of a Gentile. You know what that is? Shameful. And then it gets worse. Next phrase. And he sent him into the fields to feed swine. He's got to feed the pigs. Unclean animal to the Jews.

They can't touch them. He's an unclean animal. What you see in this story is shame and you see it everywhere. There's shame everywhere.

There's failure every level. There's shame in approaching his father that way. There's shame in the father funding the rebellion.

There's shame of selling everything for his estate cheap. The shame of turning it all into cash. The shame of funding your gross.

The funding of your gross immoral living. The shame of becoming a bigger attached to a Gentile. And now the shame of feeding pigs. It's shameful.

It's failure at every level. Jesus is trying to make that point. Now, notice what happens to him then. It says, and he would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating.

And no one was giving him anything, anything to him. He would have loved to just eat what they ate. They were eating carob pods. A carob pod comes off the carob tree and it's like a long bean with peas in it. They've got these little dark brown black kind peas in it. They're pretty nutritious. They're unbelievably bitter. Humans can't really eat it. It's too bitter for them to eat. And he said, notice, he said he would have been glad to eat those. But he didn't. But he said I'd have been glad to, but I couldn't eat it.

It was so bad. And so consequently, what you find here is he wants to eat these carob pods. His failure is at a catastrophic level. And everything changes in verse 17. See, how do what do we do when we feel like this first step? Notice what he does. And when he came to his senses. That's the first step of repentance. You come to your senses. Like, what am I doing? Why?

Why did I do that? You see, he comes to his senses. He starts thinking about it from that point of view. He said when he came to his senses, he said, how many of my father's hired men have more than enough bread?

I'm dying here of hunger. Now, this says a lot, by the way, about the father, because he talks about the father's hired men. Now, remember, the father's wealthy. He's a landowner. One of the things he'd have in that culture is he has tenant farmers who work his land for him. And they get a percentage of it.

They give him a percentage and they get a percentage. So he has tenant farmers. He also has indentured servants.

And we'll run into one of them later. He runs into indentured servants. These are people that owe money and become slaves or indentured servants to pay it all off.

They're treated more like family. But after the tenant farmers and the indentured servants, then you have hired men. A hired man is just like a guy who goes to Lowe's or Home Depot every morning and waits for someone to pick him up and take him off in a truck and get a day's work. A hired man works for one day. According to the Book of Leviticus, once you finish your day's work, you have to be paid that day.

They needed the money immediately. So when you hired a man, you paid him at the end of the day. He said, I'd like to be like one of my one of my father's hired men, a day laborer. Notice what he said about him, though. It's really intriguing because he said, how many of my father's hired men have more than enough bread?

What's that tell you about his father? He's generous. He's a very generous man. He's representing God here, but he's very generous.

He gives them more than enough bread. Wow. And then it says, next step, I will get up and go. There it is. Arise. Stand up, get going, move, do something.

You see, whenever you and I fail, get up and go. He said, all right, I'll get up and go. And I'll go to my father and we'll say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. Now, it's a bad translation because I don't think they're sure what it really says. He didn't say I've sinned against heaven. He actually literally in the Greek says I've sinned into heaven.

And they're not sure what to do with into. But I think what it's saying is that I've sinned as high as heaven. My sin so high it goes right into heaven.

It's a metaphor. He's just saying, boy, I really sinned here. I've really messed up. I really failed. You see, I've sinned against you and I've sinned. He said all the way into heaven.

He said, I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired men. That's all I ask. Just make me as one of the hired men. I have no rights.

I have no rights. All I deserve is to be a hired man. True repentance here. This is true repentance.

By the way, he represents us. We all failed. All sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We've all squandered it in the land of sin.

We've all done that. We've all come to Christ only by faith. You see, we don't have any rights. I don't become a Christian and tell you, God, I'm going to tell you what my rights are now.

Everything I am, I am because of Christ. You see, and that's a very important thing in spite of all my failure. So in verse 20, we have the word so, and so something is going to happen. And the scribes and Pharisees are thinking right there, now he's going to get it. You see, now he's going to get it. Now he's going to go back and he's going to get justice because he has brought so much shame to that village and to that family. So much shame to his father. He's going to get what he deserves. Now, they believe there could be no reconciliation without restitution. They believe that with all the heart.

You can never be reconciled unless someone gives restitution for it. But that's not grace. So he got up and he came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and left and felt compassion for him. And he ran and embraced them and he kissed them. This is when he was a long way off, the father saw him.

He wasn't into the village yet. What does that tell you about the father? He's looking for him. He looked every day for him. Just like God looks for you and me. He's looking for him. You see, he's coming. He spots him. And so as he sees him and as he looks for him, he sees him. And then it says something that's just the Pharisees would have been shocked by.

He saw him, felt compassion. And then it says in Iran. Jewish men don't run. Not ever. Never. You never run.

Not ever. Your garment can never the garment touched the ground, basically. You can. You are not allowed as a Jewish man to lift your garment. If you were a priest and you were standing in blood of sacrificed animals, under the law, you had to let your garment be in the blood. You weren't allowed to raise it and expose any of your leg.

It's undignified for a Jewish man to do so. It says here the father lifted it up and took off. And the Greek word for run there is the word sprint. He didn't trot. He didn't walk fast. He ran. He pulled his garment up. He exposed his legs. The Pharisees would be like, Oh my goodness, how shameful.

You just don't do that. And it says, and he ran. He embraced him. And he kissed him.

Why? If he would have waited for the prodigal to come to him, the prodigal would had to come through the village. And you know what the village would have done with the prodigal?

They would have shamed him. You disgusting young man. You terrible sinner. You failure as a son. So what's the father do?

He runs through the village, raising his garment to run to the son. In other words, what's the father say? I'll take all the shame. They want to point shame at someone pointed at me. By the way, isn't that what happened on the cross? Didn't he take all your shame?

So he became sin for us. He said, I'll take the shame. I love you. I'll run to you. I have compassion for you.

I'll take all the shame. And he does. And it says, and then he kissed him. And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. True repentance on that. He's right.

When you think the father's responsible, yep, you're right. It's not. The father said to the slaves, notice their slaves there. He said, quickly, immediately, bring out the best robe and put it on him. Oh, this is the best robe. This is a very special robe. This is a robe likely from his grandfather.

It's set down by generations. The more money you have, the greater the robe is. A lot of embroidery, sometimes jewels on it. You only use it for the most important things like a wedding.

You see, or some main event like someone, someone of a higher government official came to your house. You put on the best robe. He says, get him the best robe. Let's just go get him to get the best robe. Now you've got to think of the best robe. Neither one of the sons have ever worn the best robe.

Now the son gets the best robe in spite of all the shame and failure that he does. He says, quickly, bring out the best robe, put it on him and put a ring on his hand. That's not any ring.

That's not give him a little bling, you know, a little bit of jewelry for him. That's the signet ring. That's the family's authority.

They're a wealthy family. They have rings. That ring, when they seal it, means it's their name.

That's how they do contracts. He said, put a ring on his finger. He gets that signet ring back.

Best robe, signet ring. Wow. And he's not even finished then. After he says that, he says, and put sandals on his feet. That tells you how destitute he was. He's probably barefoot. He puts sandals on his feet. And then he says this, and bring the fatted calf.

What? The fatted calf. Now, you got to understand, you only have a fatted calf for something particular. What they would do is that overfeed a young calf, make it a fatted calf.

And almost always, and we don't know this because Jesus made the story up, but we can ask him in heaven when we get there, you know, if you want to. But the point is, normally, what do you have a fatted calf for? That would have been the wedding of the firstborn. If the firstborn is getting married, you'd have a fatted calf. He says, get the fatted calf.

I mean, this is like what? Yeah, get the fatted calf. This is celebrate. He's got the robe. He's got the ring. Here he is.

All this failure. And he says, get the fatted calf. He says, and bring the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and has come to life again.

That's us. All of us sin falls short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death. We're all dead and we've come to life again. We've been born again into the family of God through our faith in Christ. He said, let's celebrate.

Let's do this. He said he was lost and he's found. We want to celebrate. Some of the commentators believe when he said twice, he said, it's as though we were dead, that they probably had a funeral service for him. Because that was what a family would do if they disowned a son.

We don't know that for sure. Now, here come the Pharisees and scribes into the story. Now, his older son was in the field, and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing, and he summoned one of the servants who began inquiring of what these things could be. And he said, Your brother has come and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has received him back safe and sound. He became angry, was not willing to go in, and his father came out and began pleading with him. And he answered and he said to his father, Look, for so many years I've been serving you, and I've never neglected a command of yours, and yet you have never given me a young goat so that I may celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours, notice he doesn't call him his brother.

You know why? He feels the shame. He's a disgusting person.

He's a failure. This son of yours, he says, came, who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes. You killed the fatted calf for him? And he said, Son, you have always been with me. All that is mine is yours. The two-thirds is still yours.

Everything I have is yours. He said, But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live. He was lost and he was found. Now, the point of that story is, what can result in failure? I don't know of a story in the Bible that has more failure than this.

It has failure at every level possible. Shame, failure. And notice God's perspective of it. I'll turn this all around to demonstrate my grace and success.

And that's exactly what he does. But we have to get up from our failures. You have to arise. You have to come get up. Stop wallowing. Stop the self pity.

Stop identifying yourself as a failure from your past. There's one more step. Go with me to Philippians, Chapter three, Philippians, Chapter three. Verses 13 and 14.

It's a great chapter. Paul starts at the beginning of the chapter and said, You know, if someone could brag. I could brag them. You got to see my resume.

It's the best you'll ever see. If you're religious, you'll love my resume. You know, I'm Jewish, circumcised on the eighth day, tribe of Benjamin.

I'm a Pharisee, not any Pharisee, a Pharisee. You want to brag. He said, You know what I count all that? Dung. That's what I think all of it is. It's just dung compared to the surpassing value of knowing Jesus Christ. And so he says, Look, I'm just like you are. I'm in this race.

I want to I want to live my life to the best I can, to the very best that I can. And he gets down to verses 13 and 14. He says this. He said, Brother, and I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet. I'm not arrived. Paul says, I'm not arrived. What's he mean?

Once you're saved, God goes about the business of conforming you completely in your character, the image of Christ. Paul said, I'm not arrived. What's he saying? I fail. I just want to let you know I fail. First Timothy, Chapter one. I am the chief of sinners. That's Paul talking.

What's that mean? I fail. What about Romans seven? You know, I find myself doing the very things I don't want to do. And I find myself not doing I know the very things I should be doing. I fail. Paul says, I fail. I fail all the time. And so do you and so do I. We fail.

But notice Paul adds something to this, not does it just get up and get going, but notice what he says next. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having made hold of it yet. But one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead. I forget it. I forget my failure. Do you? Do you forget it? Or do you wallow in it? You see, and by the way, think of some of his failures.

He hunted down people in the church and had them executed. Now, could that make you go into 30 years of therapy? You see what I mean?

It's enormous what he did. He said, I forget that. I forget what's behind me. I just forget it. We have to forget our past.

If we don't, we start identifying ourselves through a past failure. By the way, on the other side of the coin, if someone has failed you, take a lesson from the prodigal's father. How many times did the prodigal's father bring up, you are such a disgrace as a son. Do you know how much pain you caused me? Do you know how hard this was for me? Does he say anything like that?

No. He said, I forget it. Remember God said, I'll forgive you of all your sins.

I'll remember them no more. He said, I'll take all your sins and I'll take them out to sea and I'll dump them overboard. He said, as far as the east is from the west, that's how far I'm going to remove your sins from you.

What's he saying? I forget about that. What about you and me? Do you forget about your failure?

Paul says you should. He said, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. I forget what lies behind.

I reach forward for what lies ahead. That's our faith. Your Christianity cannot be, it cannot be defined of your past.

It only is defined in the present and future. That's all there is. The steadfast love of the Lord never changes. His mercy's never come to an end. They are new every morning. Every morning when you open your eyes, God says, come, arise, get going. Let's go. I know yesterday was a really bad day. Forget it.

You've got to move forward. John MacArthur writes this. He said, what do we have to forget?

He says good things and bad things, achievements, virtuous deeds, great accomplishments, spiritual ministries, as well as all the bad things, sins, iniquities, failures, and disasters. All of it. Forget it. You say forget it all.

That's right. Why? Because it has nothing to do with the present and the future.

Don't you understand that? It has nothing to do with what you're doing right now. Absolutely nothing to do with it. You cannot live on past victories. You cannot celebrate your value by something you did in the past. You should never be debilitated by your past sins or your failures or your iniquities or your burdens of guilt. Yet, most people are so much distracted by the past, they never get about doing anything in the future. He said shut up and run the race.

I love that. He said nobody's interested in all that stuff of your past. Nobody's interested. I'll tell you right now, no one's interested in what you did in the past.

No one's interested in what I did in the past. What God is interested in is what are we doing right now? What are we going to do in the future? Disappointments and temptations and failures of the past must not depress us.

Put your hand to the plow. Don't look back, he said, and move, pursue the prize of Jesus Christ. That's how we should look at our lives. Failure is universal, but failure doesn't have to be fatal at all. This morning's just a two-point sermon, failing for dummies, but sometimes I think we need something that simplistic. You have to get up from your failures. You have to get going, and you have to forget about the past.

Let's pray. Father, if there's one thing that we all have in common, we fail. Some of us fail more regular than others. Some of us had bigger failures than others, but we all fail. And the question for us, Father, is not the failure. The question for us is do we get up? Do we arise? Do we get going?

You see, do we come to our senses and realize that wallowing on our past will do nothing but bury us in the quicksand of our own thinking? Father, I would pray that this would penetrate our hearts in such a way that we decide that I'm no longer going to identify myself with my past failures. I'm simply going to get up and get moving. I'm going to count on the direction and the power and the wisdom of God in my life.

I'm going to forget the past. Father, if we do that, it's clear in the Word of God that you can use us in really great ways. I pray, Father, that we avail ourself to be instruments of yours, to all the people around us, that we see ourselves as conduit by which your grace and love flows to others. We don't have the power in and of ourselves, but we have it from you. But Father, we do have the power to stop it.

We do have the power to wallow in our past and to identify our failures and to find ourselves never moving forward. I pray this simplistic lesson helps each and every one of us for our own good and for Christ's glory. Amen. At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.

That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online. Or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word. .