Failing Doesn't Make You A Failure(From our 8-18-24)

West Side Church of Christ - Elkton Ky

Watch the video version here: https://youtu.be/-8Adwrqg6yM

Transcript:
It was a beautiful spring morning in April in Paris, no less. 1910. And a great crowd had gathered to hear the speaker of the hour. You may know his name was Teddy Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt. Now, at this point in his life, he was former president. He had finished up two terms, and after his presidency, he went on a year long hunt in Africa, I guess to decompress from being president a year.

And then he went on a public speaking tour. And on this day, April the 10th, 1910, Theodore Roosevelt would stand up and deliver a speech called Citizens in a Republic. And we talk about the speaker of the hour. His speech lasted an hour that day. Um, but most people don't remember the speech, but they do remember one piece of it.

It was an illustration. And we have come to know it as the man in the arena. I'm going to read it to you. It's not the critic who counts. Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.

Whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood. Who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again because there is no effort. There's no effort without error and shortcoming. But who does actually strive to do the deeds. Who knows great enthusiasms, the greatest devotions. Who spends himself in a worthy cause.

Who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement. And who at worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls. who neither know victory nor defeat. You see, Teddy is a colleague. Teddy was trying to speak to this group of people about civil life, about how the fact that it's easy for people to sit back and point a finger and talk about how bad things are.

And he was trying to encourage them. Listen, if you're going to be a part, This thing we call democracy, you're going to have to be an active part of it. Right? And even if you fail and mess up, at least you're trying. At least the nation is better for you trying. And you read a lot of that speech, and he's not wrong, I don't think, but I'm not here today to talk about government.

I want to take this idea that Teddy had, and I want to apply it to citizens of heaven. This idea that it's really easy to sit back and talk about what's wrong in the kingdom. Well, they ought to do that better. They ought to do this better. You see, Teddy Roosevelt was trying to encourage his people to engage.

To come on and to be an active participant. And you think about this, the same thing is needed in the kingdom of heaven today. If the most participation that we have in the kingdom of heaven is coming and assembling with the saints and setting and making sure that we have a pew that was warm for an hour a week, That's not what the kingdom of heaven is about.

If our engagement with the kingdom of heaven is sitting in a seat for an hour a week and that is it, we have missed the boat on what the kingdom is and what it means and what it's about.

And it's easy for me to sit up here and point my finger and say, well, we ought to do more. But that's not my intention this morning. Because I think a lot of people, a lot of people are afraid. I think fear is the number one tool that Satan uses against us. And I know because I have felt, I feel like, I don't know this to be true, but I feel like I've felt more than my fair share of it over the course of the years.

And one of the biggest fears that's ever affected me is when he talks about this fear of failure. How many times have people had great ideas and great things that could have come about either in the business world or the kingdom of God and yet they did not take the first step because they were afraid of failure.

You

see this morning I hope to encourage us all to dare greatly. I want to talk about this idea of failing. And to do that, to kind of set our stage here, I want to, I want to share with you a verse of the Proverbs, Proverbs 24 verse 15. Well, I'm not in weight as a wicked man against the dwelling of the righteous.

Do not do no violence to his home for the righteous falls seven times and rises again. But the wicked stumbles in times of calamity. The righteous falls seven times and yet what? Rises again. Don't you think about that rising again and hope that the things that we studied this morning could help us all to rise again when we fail.

And to help us continue not only for the kingdom of God, but help us continue towards the kingdom of God. Now this idea of the righteous falling seven times in that proverbs, you look at the words in the original language and the idea there is it's accurately conveyed, is the fact that that sometimes the wicked lie and wait and they try to trip up righteous people, right?

Somebody tries to change their life and come out of active addiction and there's people that want to trip 'em up and watch 'em fall back down. And no doubt today that still happens. There are still wicked people who just get up and every day they just, they want to, they want to call someone else harm and have it.

But I think most of the time when a righteous person falls, it's not the wicked causing it. A lot of times when a righteous person falls, it's because of something they did themselves. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 10 with me. I think it kind of shares with us what I'm talking about. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take ye what?

Lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful and he will not allow you to be tempted beyond all your ability. But with the temptation he will also provide a way of escape that you may be able to endure it. Amen. How many times does a righteous man or a righteous woman fall?

And it's not because some wicked person lied in wait to knock them down, but because a temptation or a sin is trying to pull them down. How many times have I caused myself to fall? And I can't blame anybody else. If I fall into sin, I can give you all kinds of excuses. But at the end of the day, when the dust settles, if I fall and stumble into sin, whose fault is that?

It's mine. It's mine. You think about this. Look at what James says. James tells us kind of how this process works out. But each person is tempted, what, when he is lured and enticed by his own desires. Then desire, when it's conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it's fully grown, brings forth death. I like the way Psalm 1 puts it.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the way of the wicked, nor stands, nor sits. You see that progression in Psalm 1, verses 1 and 2, where this idea of, I'm walking along and I see something that tempts me, and I stop walking and I look. And the longer I look, the more I get tempted. I'm tempted. And eventually I decide what?

Well, I'm going to sit down, sit down. Let's talk about this. Let's think about this. I mean, surely, surely I could justify this thing that I want to do. And I go from standing or walking standing the city. You see,

I think most of the time when a Christian fails, it's because they go into sin. A...