Deuteronomy 1:20-31

If I had the car I really wanted, I would get a white Toyota Land Cruiser. They used them in Cambodia after the war especially for church and aid organizations. They’re comfortable, they go through water and they carry people and equipment. After the war, aid organization had its own flag and pole at the back of the Land Cruiser. That was a sign not to shoot at you and also you go could go through army checkpoints and roadblocks without inspection. It’s the next best thing to being president.

My son mentioned last fall that what he really wants is the Hummer and he’s going to get one too. I’m afraid that I’m a little old fashioned now with the Land Cruiser. A review of the H1 mentions that it takes a half hour to go from 0 – 60 and the noise level is just less than an Amtrak locomotive. I pointed out that they are terribly uncomfortable. He’s not getting any younger and he needs to watch his spine. I see Hummers in New York and we went past a showroom in DC. I really think my son is going to get a Hummer. I’ll make sure I get a picture when he gives me a ride.

The Hummer looks like it can do anything. It’s a variation of a military vehicle and it the military its equipped with machine guns and bounces along over all terrain. It gives off a feeling of extra power to face life’s challenges. It reminds me more of the Doc’s invention at the end of “Back to the Future Part 1’ where they break the time barrier

We’re looking today at Fear of Failure in this first message on God’s Power to Deal with Your Fears. Almost everyone lives at far less than their potential because they are threatened by the fear of failure. We’re going to look at a story in the Bible today where God will give people the power to succeed if they try, and if they don’t try, they will fail. There are some critical lessons there that can help you at work, in school, and in life. If you have already had some failure in life, then you are looking for a lesson. And if you haven’t had any failure, frankly, you also have not had enough success. Is your heart and mind open this morning so that God can speak to you and take you to a new level? Let’s continue in worship

The fear of failure paralyzes us and makes our worlds very, very small. Do you know one of the most frequent commands given in the Bible is the simple two word phrase, “Fear not.” God says it to people over and over again, 125 times in the Bible by my count.

Fear of failure enslaves all of us.. We experience hopelessness inside. We quit. We get embarrassed. We complain. We get depressed, and we worry. There are also very un-obvious symptoms of fear of failure. People like this brag a lot and only focus on the positive things. People like this are always talking about their success or are constantly overly confident about their abilities, and they’re people who never change anything and everything always stays the same way. All of these symptoms are signs of fear of failure. Instead of going after things with a fearless determination, we begin to narrow our world because we are afraid to fail.

How many of you have ever watched a little one-year old when they’re first learning to walk? They get up on those chubby little knees with fierce determination. Imagine a one-year-old learning to walk while he’s struggling with the fear of failure. He gets up the first time and takes two glorious steps and thinks, “Man, this is it. I’m sailing, I’m walking,” and then he falls down. He thinks, “Oh gosh, this is really embarrassing. I wasn’t counting on this. I think I’m going to sit the rest of the day out.” So alone in his little nursery he gets up there and tries to take a couple more steps and it ends in the same way it did before, three or four steps this time, but he falls down again. Discouraged, he thinks, “You know, I don’t know that I’ll try again tomorrow.” Tomorrow dawns a new day, and the motivation is there so he gets up and tries it again. Three, four steps falls down. People are laughing and cheering and they’re taking pictures. Now there’s a permanent reminder of his failure. He thinks, “This is as bad as it gets.” He thinks: “I’m just going to read a self-help book.” Then he remembers he can’t read so he says, “That’s it, I’m done, the stroller for the rest of my life.” That’s not how one-year-olds approach walking. God gives them an indomitable spirit and Satan has chased that out of you. You are not half the child you used to be.
  Three foundational truths about fear of failure. The first is that we believe that there are special people that don’t ever fail. This is really what we believe. We watch people from afar, and we think, “You know, they just don’t fail.” This picture is not true.. The first foundational truth --is failure is inevitable and it is universal.

It is absolutely unavoidable. Every single one of us will fail. Failure will never go away as long as you are committed to living a life of growth. It’s absolutely inevitable. In Romans 3, Paul wants us to understand the universality of failure. “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

The Israelites were worried about failure. The people of Canaan were living in a rich land where people had enough to eat. They were strong and battle hardened because they lived along a trade route. This was not the first enemy that ever looked at the Amorites. And God was not asking for Hummer equipped people. The difference was going to be in God’s grace. God is taking the strong part. The Hummer can go thru 6 inches of water at 40 miles an hour and is armor plated to go over rocks without damage. That’s what God offers when we admit our need and dependence. The power doesn’t come from us, but from God. Moses is saying that if you understand that everybody is a failure--and that includes you--that there is an amazing gift available to all of us that are failures and it is called grace. It’s something that we can’t give to ourselves. God wants us to live by faith and its faith in God’s grace. If we would admit that we fail, we would enjoy more of grace. The more we pretend to succeed, the less we will know of grace.

When we create a world where we don’t fail or we don’t label anything a failure, we are robbing ourselves of the very opportunity to connect with God and to develop our faith. Here’s how I often think about failure in my life: I don’t like it. I will come across a moment where I have failed, and it’s one of those failures that is obvious to those around me. There is no hiding it. It really is apparent. I have to own it. But failure is the cup where you can taste the grace of God, which is unlike anything else in your life.

The second foundational truth is failure provides a wonderful opportunity to learn. Why do you think the Bible is so full of characters, most of whom were miserable failures at some point in their life, and then God invaded and things changed?
Think of Adam, Abraham, Moses, Ruth, David and Peter just to name a few. The Bible is a book about people who have failed, and in their failure have learned really who God is, not who they thought God was, not who they misunderstood God to be. Failure is an amazing opportunity to learn. Tulane University did a study on entrepreneurs, people who love to take risks and start new things. They found for every successful new venture entrepreneurs started, they had an average of four failures. It wasn’t four failures one success and than a string of successes. For every success in business that these entrepreneurs had, they had four failures. Eugene Peterson is the translator of the Message, a Bible that some of you use because of its magnificent use of English. That Bible is so widely known. But Gene told me years ago that he wrote 28 books before even one was accepted for publication.

Failure presents a wonderful opportunity for us to learn perspective. You can learn incredible perspective when you fail if you will let God teach you in it. Thomas Edison failed 96 times to create the light bulb. He said, “Here’s how I look at it: I had 96 or 97 opportunities to create something that taught me what wasn’t a light bulb, and then how to go on and to create it.”. He put it into perspective. Another thing that failure can teach us is it can become a wonderful chance for us to develop skills and competencies that we wouldn’t normally develop. If you keep failure from stopping you and you keep doing things, you will begin to develop competencies in areas you need to get better at.

There’s a third thing you can learn: Sometimes when you’re experiencing failure, you’re going to have to ask yourself,. Is it my fault, or am I just on the wrong road?”

There is one last foundational truth I think failure is something that God uses in our lives to help us correctly measure how we determine success. How do you determine success? The world tells us something different than the Bible. I believe that we’re told that the right clothes, the right body type, the right looks, the right spouse, the right job, the right car--those are measures of success. If that’s your standard of success, you have a whole different issue when it comes to fear of failure.

How do you define success? In Luke 12, Jesus gives us a very different picture of success. Jesus starts off in Luke 12 by giving us a sentence to start this story. He simply warns us by saying, “Just remember that the person’s possessions do not define the abundance in his life.”

God paints a very different picture of what success is. The old catechism says that the chief goal of all people is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Failure can drive us back to consider what in life is really success.

I hope that there is someone here this morning who has failed and that this message gives you the hope and strength to try again. Drop the feelings of failure and shame at the altar this morning as you come for communion. Just picture taking off all that shame like a heavy burden and leaving it behind. I hope that there is someone here who is called to something risky and you’re willing to try it because its God’s will whether you succeed this time or not. You’ve got to follow that passion in your soul and receive the strength as you kneel and pray. And I hope that there is someone here who has felt failure in the world’s standards and suddenly realizes that on the scale that God uses, you are living a successful life. Let us pray.