The Truth About Failure

Welcome to this edition of PowerPoint with Jack Graham.

A little later in the program we'll tell you how you can get a copy of Dr. Graham's book, Heaven. But first here is the message, the truth about failure. Take God's Word and turn with me please to chapter 26 of Matthew's Gospel. Have you ever failed? I mean failed miserably. You so longed for, desperately desired that your marriage would succeed.

But your marriage is not a success or maybe your marriage has failed. And you're wondering why. And you're wondering why. And you're wondering why I'm a failure. Or maybe you wanted so desperately your career to succeed but your career has hit rock bottom. You wanted to be a great parent and to be a success above all things. You wanted to be a great parent.

But if you look at your family and maybe look at your kids, they're in trouble or they're a mess and you're thinking have I failed as a parent. Or maybe you set spiritual goals for your life. You came to faith in Jesus Christ and you were determined to be the greatest Christian who ever lived. And you set spiritual goals for your life and to follow Christ and to fulfill His calling upon your life. But you ended up a failure spiritually in your own mind.

You perhaps have fractured. You've fallen in some way. Well if you've ever failed and guess what? We've all failed. To fail is what?

Human. But to find forgiveness is divine. And if you have failed you are in good company because when I read my Bible I discover again and again men and women who failed but they refused to allow their failure to be final in their life. And ultimately they failed forward as they discovered the goodness and the grace and the power of their God to overcome.

Peter was a failure. He was one of the main men of Jesus. A disciple of Christ. In the inner circle of the disciples of Christ. One among many.

A man among men. Jesus said this is the kind of man who is confessed me that I'm going to use in a great way. And yet Peter failed miserably. We read about that failure beginning in verse 69 of chapter 26 and we're breaking into the story Christ has been arrested. He's on trial facing His execution, crucifixion.

And Peter is out of the courtyard according to verse 69 of chapter 26. And a servant girl came to him and said, you also were with Jesus of Galilee. But he denied it before them all. I don't know what you're talking about, he said.

And then he went out to the gateway where another girl saw him and said to the people there, this fellow was with Jesus of Nazareth. He denied it again. He denied it again with an oath.

I don't know the man. And after a little while those standing there went up to Peter and said, surely you are one of them for your accent gives you away. Then he began to call down curses on himself. And he swore to them, I don't know the man. And immediately a rooster crowed.

And then Peter remembered the words Jesus had spoken before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times. And he went outside and wept bitterly. What happened to Simon Peter? How could this man fail?

So miserably. How could this collapse be so utterly, utterly miserable? He's miserable, weeping and yet Peter got up off the canvas and ultimately God restored him and renewed him.

And he became the great preacher on the day of Pentecost, the leader of the church. Because failure was not final. And I want to show you in your life that no matter how you may have failed the Lord, maybe you're in the midst of some failure even now. It could be some gross sin in your life. It could be some moral collapse. Some denial of Christ. When you wanted to stand for Christ but you didn't. And you feel like a failure.

Well how can you come back? Well in order to find out how to find forgiveness then you have to be forewarned because to be forewarned is to be forearmed. And I think we can learn some things if we will just take a look as to how Peter ultimately failed. What was the cause of his failure? And there are some steps that we see here.

This didn't happen overnight. This wasn't a blow out but it was a gradual process, a decline in Peter's life that set him up for this failure. And what happened to Simon Peter can happen to you and me if we're not careful. What were the seductive steps so that we can avoid them? Step number one is simply pride.

Simply put it is pride. One of Peter's problems was that he trusted too much in his own ability. He was overcome by an overdose of overconfidence in his life. Now in some sense Peter had a right to feel assured and confident. Jesus had picked him out as a great leader. And so Peter is getting a little bit puffed up. And when you meet Peter in the Scripture he's the bold one, the big fisherman.

Every time he opens his mouth is to exchange feet because he's so often sticking his foot in his mouth one or the other. And yet he was the kind of man that you could count on. And because he had the potential to be a mighty instrument in the hand of God, he was a target of the enemy. He was a target for Satan because the devil loves a shining mark.

And if you have potential to be used of God, and you do, you also are a target for the enemy. Jesus said to Simon Peter in Luke 22 and verse 32, Satan wants to have you. He wants to sift you like wheat.

He wants to grind you into powder, Peter. But I have prayed for you that your faith will not fail. So you're thinking, well I wish Jesus was praying for me that my faith will not fail. Well as a matter of fact he is praying for you because as a believer he ever lives to make intercession for you. He's praying for you so that your faith will not fail.

And yet somehow in this entire process of growing up, Peter's life, he became overconfident. Verse 35 of this same chapter, 26 of Matthew, as Jesus has gathered his disciples at the Last Supper, he says, one of you is going to betray me. And Peter speaks up once again and he says, not me Lord, all the rest of these, they may deny you.

They may run, but not me. I'm the one guy around here you can count on. I'm the one man.

I'm the one man who's strong enough to take this. I will never fail you Lord. I will never ever deny you. And that's when Jesus predicted, he said, as a matter of fact Peter, you're going to deny me three times before the rooster crows in the morning. Once again, Peter boasted, denying the Lord himself the words of the Lord. He said, oh no Lord, not me.

I will never deny you. Well Peter didn't know himself. Jesus knew Peter like he knows me and you a lot better than we know ourselves. The Bible says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.

Who can know it? It's rather amusing to me when someone undergirds a statement by saying, well if I know my own heart, this is true. Well you don't know your own heart.

Only God knows your heart. And there is not one among us who could not fail and fall if we are not spiritually prepared. This is a danger we all face. Peter was not prepared for the danger and the darkness that he would face. He could not have imagined the experience he was about to endure. How dark the darkness would be.

How evil the evil would be. And his self-confidence and pride had set him up for his sin. That's why the Scripture says in 1 Corinthians 10 and verse 12, let him who stands take heed, pay attention lest you fall. The potential for sin is in all of us.

Even after we come to Christ because there is a dual nature. There is the desire to do what is right and to do it all the time, but there is this pull, this drag of the old life and of the flesh that pulls us down. And there's always the propensity, there's always the proclivity, there is always the potential in a believer's life to fail and fall if we begin relying upon our own self. If we neglect our dependence upon God, our spiritual devotion, if we do these things, we are in danger of defeat.

You're listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and the message, the truth about failure. Even in life's heaviest moments, the promise of heaven holds out an encouraging hope for you today. And when you understand what your future with God will be like, the burdens of the present fill lighter. That's what Pastor Graham's book, Heaven, is all about.

And it's why we want to get a copy into your hands today. Heaven is our thanks for your gift to help share the truth of the gospel to more people around the world. So call now to request your copy of Heaven when you give. Call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627.

You can also text the word PowerPoint to 59789. And don't forget to visit Jack Graham.org where you can shop our e-store, give a gift online, or sign up for Dr. Graham's free daily email devotional. Our website again is Jack Graham.org. Now let's get back to today's message, the truth about failure. Have you ever noticed that we're also often attacked at the point, not of our weakness, but of our strength? Think about Abraham. Wouldn't you say that Abraham's strength was his faith? His strong faith that went out following God even though he didn't know exactly where he was going. He was just trusting God. He was a man of faith. He is the father of the faithful. And yet he was attacked at the point of his faith.

And when he began to rely upon himself, he took his handmaiden Hagar and slept with her and produced a child outside of the will of God because he was unwilling to trust God as God had promised him a son. Satan attacked him at the point of his faith, his strength. Think about Elijah.

Wouldn't you say that Elijah's strength was his boldness and his courage? He stood on Mount Carmel one day and faced off against the prophets of Baal. He called down fire from heaven and God sent a mighty revival.

The prophets of Baal were slain that day and it was a great victory for Yahweh God. And yet when he was threatened by the queen Jezebel, he was so afraid that he ran into the desert, got under a little stick tree, a broom tree, a brush tree, and prayed to die. He was so depressed that he was willing to die, wanted to die. Satan attacked him at the point of his strength, his courage. The same was true with Peter. Peter was bold.

Peter was always the one willing to confess Christ, willing to stand up for Christ. And now he's attacked at the point of his strength. Why is that? It was J. Oswald Chambers, the great devotional writer, who said an unguarded strength is a double weakness. An unguarded strength is a double weakness.

Why? Because if we're not careful, we begin to rely upon our strengths. It's easier for us.

We can do it. And rather than depending upon God and guarding what God has given us, we rely upon self and we are set up for failure. It was his pride, his neglect of his own dependence upon God that set him up. But then his pride produced something else, and that was prayerlessness.

And pride will produce prayerlessness every time. When you read the story of Jesus and his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, for example, in chapter 26 of Matthew, verses 40 and 41, we read that Jesus told his disciples to wait and to pray while he went a little farther in the garden. And these disciples went to sleep while Jesus was praying. While Jesus was agonizing, they could hear his sobs. While Jesus was pouring out sweat drops of blood in preparation for the cross as he is surrendering his life to the will of God, to the will of the Father.

But the disciples are sound asleep. Jesus said, couldn't you wait? Couldn't you pray just one hour?

Peter's pride produced prayerlessness. Did not Jesus tell us that we are to overcome the enemy in prayer, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil? Every day we face temptation, and Satan is on the prowl seeking whom he may devour. And that's why we must not be self-confident and reliant upon our own abilities to get by, to get through, but we must fall on our faces and ask for God's power to enable us to resist the attacks of the enemy. We are no match for Satan on our own.

You don't have a chance. You don't have a chance to overcome temptation in your life in this generation apart from a life of believing prayer. I am no stronger than my prayer life, and it is my pride that causes me to neglect prayer, and self-sufficiency is self-deception.

And on the other hand, prayer produces the power of Jesus Christ in my life, enabling me to trust him, to count on him, to believe in him, and to overcome the works of the enemy in my life and against my life. But there was something else in this process, this spiritual decline as Peter became a spiritual casualty. There was pride, there was prayerlessness, and then people.

Just people. Because you will note here when Jesus was arrested, the disciples did flee as Jesus predicted. There was so much fear that they just ran away, and then the crowd began to gather around the trial, and Peter decided to get into the crowd and just follow along. Now remember, he's self-confident, he's prayerless, he's prideful. And he gets into this crowd, and he thinks, you know, I'm just going to get a little bit close.

I'm going to get as close as I can, but not too close. So the Bible says in Luke 22 and verse 54 that he followed at a great distance. Now this was a man who was close to Christ, but now he's in the crowd at a distance for Christ. Step by step, as he followed the crowd, he moved a little closer, a little closer, and ultimately he moved inside near the palace of the high priest, and he sat down by his feet. He sat down by a fire in the high priest's palace, and he's warming his hands by the fire with the enemies of Christ.

Now watch this. First he's walking with the crowd, then he's standing with the crowd, and then he's sitting with the crowd. Now you remember what Psalm chapter 1 says about the godly man, the blessed man, the righteous man? Listen to Psalm 1-1. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.

Walking, standing, sitting. That's what Peter did. He's at a distance from Christ. He's on the fringes like many people in church, sitting in the shadows, sitting in the fringes. Maybe you feel broken. Maybe you feel like a failure.

Maybe you don't know what to do with your life, and you're not committed. You're not close to Christ. You're following Christ at a distance. Ultimately you're following the crowd, and you're sitting with the crowd. You all know that bad company corrupts good morals according to the Scriptures.

Or as one dad said to his son, you run with the dogs and you'll end up with fleas. And that's what happens to us spiritually. If we start listening to the counsel of the ungodly, sitting in the seat of the cynics and the scornful, this is the sad commentary of many a person.

I've seen it so often. As men and women who formerly walked with God began to separate themselves from the heart and the life of Christ and His church and His people and start running with the wrong crowd and hanging with the wrong people. And before you know it, their pride, which has produced prayerlessness, brings them to people who don't even know the Lord. I'm not talking about sharing our witness and loving people who don't know Christ.

I'm talking about listening and loving this world and its pleasures and the people who don't know Christ. It's a setup. The Bible says a companion of fools will be destroyed. Peter was in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong group of people. And so three times he said, I don't know him. I don't know him.

I don't know him. And he went down. He fell and he fell hard. And the cost of his failure, he lost his testimony with everyone around him.

Biserable than a Christian out of fellowship with God. That's misery personified. You can't live like that. He went out and he wept bitterly because at the right time at the right moment that rooster crowed and Peter knew he was had. But thank God that's not the end of the story, is it? Simon Peter must have thought it was the end.

One day he said, you know, I'm going fishing. That meant he was going back to his old job, his old way of life. It's never going to be the same. I'm never going to be used of God anymore.

I'm never going to be able to serve Christ again. Even after the resurrection he had these doubts and fears that his failure was final, but it wasn't. And he could have known, he should have known because even in the crowing of that rooster that day there was a promise. What does the crowing of a rooster mean? It means a new day is coming.

Because at the end it was the promise of a new beginning. The dawning of a new day. Great is thy faithfulness.

Lord your mercies are new every morning. And if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. It is in the loving kindness of God that we can be restored and we can be renewed. Now when we repent of our sin which means to turn from our sin and say, Lord I'm sorry and I'm broken over my sin.

I confess it. And Lord I ask you to renew me and restore me and give me a brand new beginning in my life. And I promise you according to God's word that failure never has to be final when you find the forgiveness and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's never too late for a new beginning in Jesus Christ.

It isn't. You are listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham and his message The Truth About Failure. No matter what struggles you're facing today you have hope in the promises awaiting you in heaven. And God calls you to share that hope with others today. That's why we want to encourage and inspire you today by sending you Pastor Graham's book Heaven. This exciting book takes you straight to scripture to help you see all that awaits you in the life to come and how it impacts your life today.

You'll find hope for today and courage to share that hope with others. So don't wait to request your copy. Heaven is our special thanks for your gift to help boldly proclaim God's word through PowerPoint. So request your copy when you call today. Call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627. You can also text the word PowerPoint to 59789. And don't forget to visit JackGraham.org where you can shop our e-store, give a gift online or sign up for Dr. Graham's free daily email devotional.

Our website again is JackGraham.org. Pastor, what is your PowerPoint for today? My hope is that you've learned from the failure of Simon Peter today and that you can avoid the same spiritual defeat as a result. Peter was a man of incredible potential and had determined to leave everything else behind to follow Christ. Yet he failed at a very crucial moment by denying the Lord. So there are many things that we can learn from Peter's life and his failure, like how to avoid pride and prayerlessness and following the crowd. Peter went from walking in the counsel of the ungodly to standing in the paths of sinners to finally sit in the seat of the scornful.

While it is important for believers to get into the world and witness to others, we need to make sure that we guard ourselves against becoming worldly. The good news is that there is hope if you have failed spiritually. There is forgiveness and mercy from the Lord. Simon Peter was forgiven and commissioned again to go and be a powerful preacher for Christ. God used him again and God will use you again if you come to him in repentance and faith he will restore you.

Do you need to be restored because of some kind of failure today? If so, ask him to renew your heart right now. And when you come back to him, you will find forgiveness and a new beginning. As a believer, failure is never final.

And remember, you can fail forward if you fall upon the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus. And that is today's PowerPoint. Remember, when you give a gift to PowerPoint, we'll send you Dr. Graham's book Heaven as our thanks. Call 1-800-795-4627. That's 1-800-795-4627. You can also text the word PowerPoint to 59789. Be sure to join us again next time as Dr. Graham brings a message about how you can endure your trials. That's next time on PowerPoint with Jack Graham. PowerPoint with Jack Graham is sponsored by PowerPoint Ministries.