Failing successfully

Ephesians 1:3-8 ³Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

⁴He did this when he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, so that we would be holy and blameless in his sight. In love ⁵he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ. He did this in accordance with the good purpose of his will, ⁶and for the praise of his glorious grace, which he has graciously given us in the one he loves.

⁷In him we also have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in keeping with the riches of his grace, ⁸which he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. Amen.

You will all be failures in 2020.

Isn’t that a cheery statement to hear from the pulpit to begin the New Year?!

But it’s true, isn’t it? We don’t need prophets or prognosticators to reveal this to us. Just stand in front of the mirror. Is the image staring back at you the same image that’s always been there?

New year, same you. The same you that’s failed in big and small ways, your entire life.

I know we make all kinds of resolutions to be better and do more in the New Year. We may eat healthier, exercise more regularly, binge-watch less TV, and read our Bibles more.

But the messes will still be there. Whatever mess you were in on December 31^st was waiting for you on January 1^st. Whatever addictions you had last year are still with you this year. Whatever secret sins you were hiding are still being covered up. Whatever family issues have plagued you in the past decade are not magically going to disappear in a different decade.

The world didn’t reset when your phone said January 1^st.

Rather than making resolutions about what great things you’re going to accomplish in 2020, let’s all try something different. Resolve how to do well at failure. It’s going to happen anyway.

You’re going to eat unhealthily.

You’re going to skip workouts.

You’re going to say the wrong thing.

You’re going to binge TV and stop reading the Bible.

You’re going to break your promise to your spouse, be a disappointment to your children and be a failure in the workplace.

So, let’s learn how to fail successfully.

How do we do that? First, embrace your failure to remind you that God doesn’t believe in you.

There are books and songs and ministries that preach that “God believes in you.” They say you can succeed in anything you put your mind to doing because God believes in you. It’s meant to be a feel-good message, but it can’t be when it is entirely wrong!

God doesn’t believe in you. Why would he?! You have never kept your promises. You’ve had the opportunity to choose between good and evil, but you’ve chosen the evil over the good. You’ve abandoned God’s good will for your life to follow your own will. You’ve abused God’s grace. You’ve used God’s forgiveness as a license to sin. You’ve lived the opposite of being a child of God.

So, whenever you fail – which you will – embrace that failure as a reminder that God doesn’t trust you.

I know it sounds harsh, but it’s so true.

What God does do, however, is this – he shows mercy to you through that failure and despite that failure. The Lord doesn’t believe in you … but he calls you to believe in his Son. His love never fails. His mercy never flops. His will never fail you.

God knows your failures already. Jesus has already paid for them with his blood. The Holy Spirit has already granted you forgiveness for them through baptism. So, don’t keep them to yourself them any longer. Don’t let them depress you or drag you down. Embrace your failures. Bind them all together. Drop them before the altar of God. Confess them one-by-one to God. Give them to the Redeemer on the cross.

Second, your failures don’t define you.

You are a failure. Just admit it. I must admit it to myself daily.

The good news is that you are not what you did in 2019. You are not what you did in high school or college or anytime else. What you have done does not have to define you.

There is a moment that does define you. It didn’t happen in 2019, though. Nor did it happen in high school or college. It is a moment that happened before there ever was such a thing as moments. It happened in eternity.

St. Paul writes: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. He did this when he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, so that we would be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ. He did this in accordance with the good purpose of his will, and for the praise of his glorious grace, which he has graciously given us in the one he loves.”

God looked into the future and he could tell what kind of failures each of us would be. And what did he do? He chose us! He chose us in Christ before the creation of the world. God chose us – not to be on a kickball team or for for a promotion. He didn’t choose us because we were better or more deserving than others. It’s exactly the opposite! God chose us despite how undeserving we are. He chose us to show how merciful and forgiving he is. Knowing that God has chosen to forgive us for Jesus’ sake, knowing that he adopted us into his family, we can only marvel at how great God is.

God made a promise in eternity that he would save us from ourselves.

God chose us before the creation of the world to take away our sins and failures, so that we would be holy and blameless in his sight.

God, according to his predestination and in accordance with his good will, adopted us as his sons and daughters into his holy family.

God gives us forgiveness, redemption and grace through Jesus, the one he loves.

This is what defines you. Not your failures or choices, but God’s decision in eternity to choose you to be his own.

There’s another moment in time that defines you. I can’t tell you that date, but I can tell you what happened. You were given a new start when the pastor poured water over you and said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” On that day, God gave you a new heart. A heart that is reborn every morning.

“Your mercies are new every morning.” (Lamentations 3:23)

Every morning.

Doesn’t matter if it’s 2019 or 2020. Your last year was wiped clean millennia ago. And you were wiped clean when you were baptized.

Third, learn from your failure that everything you are is by grace.

Nobody likes being a failure. We all pray to have less problems, to have a little easier life and strive to have more success.

But success is dangerous. The more successful we are, the easier it becomes to buy into the lie that we earned our place, we deserve respect, or we got to be where we are by our own ingenuity and hard work.

There is no more dangerous time than when everything is going well in our lives.

That’s when that little god that dwells within each of us, the idol of self, pokes his head up and demands that we start worshiping it.

So, God comes along to crush our puny gods. And he often uses the sledgehammer of failure to do it. Our idol is then unmasked as a demonic lie.

As much as the crushing and unmasking hurts, it is also an extraordinary gift. It is our Father’s way of reminding us that we are his children. Every good and perfect gift is from above.

As we step into a new year, may this benediction, written by Larry Hein for Brennan Manning, be ours as well: “May all your expectations be frustrated, may all your plans be thwarted, may all your desires be withered into nothingness, that you may experience the powerlessness and poverty of a child and sing and dance in the love of God who is Father, Son, and Spirit.”

In other words, may God lead us into an upside-down kind of blessedness, in which we die to ourselves so as to live in Christ, find his strength in our weakness, and discover that true happiness is found only in the life our Creator designed for us to have.

Look around you. Whatever you see that’s good, thank God for it. Look back at the decades of blessings in your past. Look forward to the years and decades of blessings in your future. These are not entitlements. They are gifts. Thank God for them.

Also, look back at your decades of failures. Know that you will have more failures in your future. These, too, are a reminder of grace. Your failures have kept you from worshiping the idol of yourself. Your failures have forced you to look to the true God for help and salvation.

You are not defined by your failures. Neither in the past or in the future. Not divorce. Not your children. Not your parents. Not your work. Not your home. Not your health. Not your athletics.

You are not defined by your failures.

You are defined by God choosing you from eternity to be his own.

You are defined by God adopting you into his family through baptism.

You are defined by God’s good purpose for your life, by your redemption from sinner to saint and by the forgiveness of sins through Jesus’ blood.

You are defined by God’s glorious grace, which he has graciously given you in the one he loves.

You are defined by God making you a success out of your failure. Amen.

In him we also have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in keeping with the riches of his grace. Amen.