SINGLE SERMON SERIES
FAILING SUCCESSFULLY
DR. JIM DIXON
PHILIPPIANS 3:13
JULY 14, 1991
The “Book of Failures,” written by Stephen Piles, describes men and women throughout history who have failed in various areas of life. Some of them failed in the world of economics and business; theater and arts; romance and relationships; sports. There could be a page in that book devoted to me. We have all had plenty of failures in our lives.
We begin life with failure. Most of us failed when first we tried to walk. Some of us almost drowned when we first tried to swim, and many of us fell when we tried to learn to ride a bicycle. As life has gone on we’ve learned that life is filled with success and failure. Some of us have experienced failure in business or money matters. Some of us have experienced failure in relationships. Some of us have experienced failure in matters relating to our health. As life goes on, we’re going to continue to experience failure. Our heart itself fails.
As Christians God wants us to understand how we can deal properly with failure and to learn to fail successfully. That’s what I’d like to talk to you about this morning, failing successfully. I have three guidelines based on God’s word. First, if we fail successfully, we must have a crucified ego.
Now, I’m not using the word ego in the psychoanalytic sense, where it’s contrasted with the id and the superego. I’m using ego in the popular sense where it simply refers to the self. Egoism is an undue focus on the self, a self-centeredness. A big ego describes a person who has an inflated view of self.
The Bible tells us that there’s a sense in which our egos must be crucified. The word ego comes from a Latin word, meaning, “I.” In the Bible, the Apostle Paul says, “It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me.” Our Lord Jesus Christ said, “He who would come after me, must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. He who would save his life, shall lose it. He would lose his life. For my sake will find it.” There’s a certain sense in which we must die in order to live but the Bible’s not speaking of physical death. The Bible is speaking of the death of the self. There is no concept more foundational to Christianity, and yet a concept more rarely understood, than dying to the self. It is only as we die to self, that we begin to experience the life of Christ. We need to take ourself off the throne of life and put Christ on the throne. We need to learn to focus on Christ and live for Christ.
This is the great mystery of God’s truth: we never really love ourselves until we are crucified in our egos and our lives are based and focused on Jesus Christ and His love for us. If our love for self is based on ego, then it’s going to be related to performance and accomplishments. If we are successful, we’ll feel good about ourself. If we fail, we’ll feel bad about ourself because our self-esteem and our self-love is based on ego and self-accomplishments. If our self-esteem is based on Christ and His accomplishments and His love for us, we’re going to have the confidence to handle the failures in life. This concept of dying to self and living to Christ is foundational to the Christian walk. We’ll never fail successfully until we get ourselves out of the way.
When I was 16 or 17 years old, I was in my junior year in high school and I began to date a girl whose name was Margaret. I liked her and she liked me. We dated for two years. The end of my senior year, Margaret went to another country for three months. When she came back she expressed that she no longer felt the same way about me. She said those horrible words, “Let’s be friends.” That really hurt. I think it hurt all the more because she really knew me. If our self-esteem is based on ego, we’re going to have a hard time recovering from failures. I had a hard time recovering from that experience with Margaret.
The next year I went to college and my roommate was Glenn Goldie, the principal of the local school here. Glenn could tell you that it was really hard for me to get over the wounds of that broken relationship. I would say to Glen as the months went by, “Should I write to her? If I write to her, what should I say? Should I say this? Should I say that?” If she wrote me back, I’d say, “Glen, what do you think this really means?” I had times as the year went on that I wanted to get even with her. Glen would say, “Jim, you just need to leave it behind and you need to march on.” I knew that was true, but I just couldn’t because I was hurting. Why was it so hard for me? Because my self-esteem was based on ego.
I think the crucifixion of the self is something that we have to learn every day. Every day we have to die to ourselves and seek to live to Christ. We keep getting back on the throne and, and we need to get off and let Christ sit there.
Lyle Alzado was recently on the cover of Sports Illustrated not because of his nobility and accomplishments but because of twenty-two years of steroid abuse. He is now afflicted with terminal brain cancer. Lyle Alzado began to take steroids in 1969. His natural body weight was about 190. He spent $30,000 a year on steroids and human growth hormones. He built his body weight up to 300 pounds by steroid-induced weight. In 1985 he retired from the NFL, having played for the Denver Broncos, the Cleveland Browns, and the Oakland Raiders or the LA Raiders. He continued to take steroids. Even though he knew it was probably going to destroy his body. Now he is afflicted with the terminal disease that doctors think is linked to the abuse of steroids those 22 years.
We might say, “Why did he do it?” In the article, he admits he did it because of ego and self-esteem. He needed to be great in football no matter the cost. He needed to be great. Even when he retired from football, his self-esteem was based on the way he looked. He had to look built, strong, and powerful. He had to look better than other men. So he continued to take steroids because he couldn’t deal with failure.
On a smaller scale, we all often focus on things that reflect the fact that our self-esteem is rooted in our ego. Christ wants us to be crucified at the level of the self and begin to live lives that are focused, motivated in His person and in His love.
I’ve noticed when I play poorly at golf I get frustrated and mad. I know deep down when it’s causing me to be mad. It’s causing me to be mad because in some sense, my self-esteem is based on my performance. I know that it’s a false foundation. Only Christ should be the foundation of my worth.
God is leading us as Christians to a place where our worth and esteem is based on Jesus Christ and his love for us. In that place, we’re going to have confidence to be able to deal with success and failure. We’re going to begin to think like the Apostle Paul who said in Romans chapter 8, “What can separate us from the love of God? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, would he not also give us all things with Him? Who can bring any charge against God’s elected? It’s God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Is it Jesus Christ who died? Yes, and was raised from the dead, who is seated at the right hand of the Father, who indeed intercedes for us. What can separate us from the love of Christ? Can tribulation or distress or peril or famine or nakedness or sword? For it is written, ‘We are being killed all day long, we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we’re more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights, nor depths, nor anything else in all of creation, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That’s the attitude with which God wants us to go through life where our worth, joy, and life itself is founded not on self, but on Christ.
Secondly, if we learn to fail successfully we must have a teachable spirit and a crucified ego. As we have heard it said, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.” The Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians at Corinth as recorded in first Corinthians 10 saying, “I want you to know brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud. They all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same supernatural food. They all drank from the same supernatural rock that followed them and that rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now, all these things happened as warnings to us that we should not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were, for it is written that people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to dance. Do not practice immorality as some of them did and 23,000 fell in a single day, nor put the Lord to the test as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now, all these things happened to them as a warning but they’re written down for our instruction upon whom the end of the age has come. Therefore, let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.”
The Bible is filled with passages where God is saying, “Look back and learn.” Don’t repeat the mistakes of the past. Have a teachable spirit to look back and learn. God wants us to grow through our failures that we might be more and more the people he wants us to be. We all have failures, big and small. I know that’s true of me.
Years ago I shared this story with some of you. As a student graduating from a theological seminary, I was looking for what the Lord had for me to do. I thought I wanted to be a teacher, perhaps in a college or a seminary. I also thought I’d interview with some churches just to see if the Lord wanted me to work at a church. The placement office at the theological school set up some interviews with pastors of churches. The first interview I went to was with the pastor of a church called the Granada Hills Presbyterian Church in California. I didn’t know the name of the pastor. I remember going to the interview. I knocked on the door, and the pastor of the Granada Hills Presbyterian Church opened the door. He introduced himself. I introduced myself, but I wasn’t really listening. I wasn’t paying attention. I was nervous.
I sat down for the interview and he asked me questions and I asked him questions. After about 15 or 20 minutes, he says, “I really want you to know that there’s freedom at our church and we have an eclectic staff. Everyone doesn’t have to be the same. You don’t have to fit into a mold. You don’t have to be Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, or Burt Smith. I remember thinking to myself, “Billy Graham and Oral Roberts I’ve heard of, but who’s Burt Smith?” And I started to laugh and I said, “Who in the world is Burt Smith?” This man had a facial expression combined with embarrassment and irritation. He reared back in his chair and said, “I’m Burt Smith.” Needless to say, I didn’t get the job. That interview was a failure and I’ll never forget what happened.
As I go through life, there are many people whose names I do not know, and I’m frustrated with that. But one thing I do, I never go into a meeting with someone without first learning their name. I have to thank Burt Smith for that. Through the course of our life, God knows we’re going to have many failures and make mistakes. God wants us to learn from them and to teach us. Throughout the process, he molds us.
Chuck Swindoll said, “Christians are a lot like teabags. It’s not much good until they’ve gone through a little hot water.” I think as we go through those tests and trials and failures of life, God would use them by His Holy Spirit to transform us and make us, to the people he wants us to be with responsibility and faithfulness.
Finally, if we fail successfully, we must not only have a crucified ego and a teachable spirit, but we must have a forward focus. I don’t think anything I’m going to share with you this morning is more important than this. If we are not going to be defeated by failure, we must have a forward focus. God wants you to have a forward focus.
The Apostle Paul said, “Forgetting what lies behind, straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on, I press on towards the goal of the prize. This is the attitude the Father wants us to have in Christ Jesus.” We’re all going to have many failures, but there comes a point where you need to leave the past behind and focus on the call that’s ahead.
There’s a little story I shared with the Elder Board earlier this week. It is a true story about a man named Mike Collin. Mike Collin was a linebacker for the Miami Dolphins in the NFL. When his NFL career was over, he went back to Auburn University where he’d gone to college and he served as an assistant coach to Coach Shug Jordan.
Mike was just beginning to work at Auburn when Coach Jordan came to him and said, “Mike, I want you to help us with recruiting.” Mike said, “I don’t know a whole lot about recruiting and what kind of football players you want me to look for.” Coach Jordan said, “Well, you know, Mike, there’s the kind of guy when you knock him down, he stays down.” Mike said, “All right coach, we’re not looking for that kind of guy, are we? Coach said, “Now, this other kind of guy, you knock him down, he gets right back up. You knock him down again, he stays down.” Mike said, “I don’t think that’s the kind of guy we’re looking for either, is it?” “No, but there’s that other kind of guy. You knock him down, he gets back up, knock him down again, and he gets back up, knock him down again and he still gets back up. No matter how many times you knock him down, he just keeps getting back up”. Mike thought for a second. He says, “Coach, that’s the kind of guy we’re looking for, isn’t it?” Coach said, “No, the kind of guy we’re looking for is the guy that’s knocking him down.”
Later, Coach Jordan said, “You know, I was only half serious; because the reality is everybody gets knocked down on the football field and in the field of life.” God is looking for people who get back up again, with a forward focus of not looking back. Christ has called us to focus on what He has planned for us. He’s called us to look ahead and to march forward with zeal.
As a church, I think if ever we needed a forward focus, the time is now. Certainly we have failed in many ways. I’ve had some people say, “It was a mistake for us to do the Mission Church. In a time like this when we’re trying to mobilize the church, we have a vision that God has given us to leave this place and build a new church. We need all of our resources. It was just a bad time to do a Mission Church and we shouldn’t have done it. 500 people have gone over there. With their money, their resources, they’re giving $10,000 a week at the Mission Church. That’s a half million dollars a year. Losing that money out of our operating budget was a mistake.”
I want you to know, I don’t believe it was a mistake. We were led by God to start that Mission Church. I believe at the will of God. I think it’s wonderful that 500 people are over there and you realize how wonderful that is. It’s wonderful that they’re given $10,000 a week. We need to have a kingdom focus. This is all to the glory of Christ. And what’s happening here is a marvel in our midst. We actually through June and the first six months of this year are a hundred thousand dollars ahead of our giving here. A hundred thousand dollars ahead of what we had last year while starting a Mission Church and all the money that’s gone over there. I mean, isn’t that wonderful? I’m amazed, but it’s the hand of God. And certainly we’re in a challenging time, certainly, but God has great plans here and he wants us to have a forward focus. I mean, even if you think, even if you think it was a mistake, to do that, you need to forget what lies behind and press on to what lies ahead. Straining forward to what lies ahead. Pressing on to the goal of the prize, the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. God wants us to be a forward focused church.
Now I look back on our church’s life and we have made mistakes. Certainly, we’ve made a lot of mistakes in the way we built this facility. This sanctuary seats 1,750 people and we have a little over 500 parking places. As a church, we only average 1.4 adults in a car. Our parking lot can accommodate about 800 people. We have a 1,750-seat sanctuary and our Sunday school facility is too small for the size of the sanctuary. At 9:30 in the morning when our service is filled and we set up chairs as we did today, we can’t even come close to accommodating children. The adults have taken all available Sunday school space.
We made some mistakes in how we built this facility. It wasn’t strategic to build next to two other churches. Cherry Hills Village has made it clear they want us gone. Sometimes when people say, “I think we need to stay here,” I wonder what in the world could they be thinking. Here we are, a one-hour church, no space for adult education, not enough room for kids, and a little over 500 parking places. I’ll tell you what will happen if we stay here: we will atrophy and match the comfort level of the facility and parking. The time ahead of us is critical. The call of God is upon us. If we were to build a sanctuary no larger than this but build a larger Sunday school and with ample parking, it would be worth the move. So we need to be a faithful people for the common vision and united, forward focused on the glory of Christ. What’s true of us as a church is really true of us as individuals must have a crucified ego, a teachable spirit, a forward focus. If this is true, we will not fail. Even our failures will be used for the glory of Christ. Let’s close with the word of prayer.