Good Morning Beloved Family,
Thank you all for joining us today
Heavenly Father,
We have the desire to do what is good,
but we admit, that sometimes we do not always achieve it
we fail You, choosing to walk our own path
rather than the one where You lead us
and we often fail others, not keeping in our commitment to You
grant us the strength to move past my failures
and move in the direction of Your righteousness
Lord, lead us back onto Your path, into Your light
and away from the darkness of our own way
let Your love abound in us, and in Your mercy
lead us into the joy of obeying Your will for us
let our failures draw us closer to You
that we might fulfill Your purposes and plans for our lives
In Jesus' name
Amen
Today's Message: Turning Failure Into Achievement
"I just don't want to get involved.. It's not really my problem."
This could very well be the motto of modern-day Christianity.
For the sake of privacy, tolerance, and forgiveness, we allow fellow believers to wade into the most grievous, dangerous of sins, and never say a word. Adultery, gossip, stealing, hateful attitudes, lying.
By today's standards, no sin seems worth offending a church member or costing us a friendship.
But there is a problem with that logic...
The goal of living in the Body of Christ is not to keep your friends and avoid confrontation. God wants His children to be intimately active in each others’ lives, this is especially true where sin is involved.
Refusing to help a sinning believer is the spiritual equivalent of a lifeguard refusing to save a drowning man.
One of the greatest things about God, and there is much, is that He continues to work with men despite their own limitations and failings. Too often men do not allow God to complete what He starts within them.
"Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ."
Galatians 6:2
The word "bear" means "to carry, to hold up." Whatever is really burdensome for them you are to hold. Now you say, "Well, what does he mean by "Bear one another's burdens..."? Maintaining the picture of walking, Paul says that when you are going along the road and see someone who has fallen under a crushing burden too heavy for him, you should get under the load and help him carry it.
Now, what are the "burden"? Well, I believe a burden, that is referred to is a spiritual weakness that threatens to induce a person to fall into sin.
Basically, whatever may be a person's Achilles' heel, that is where you've got to get under it and help carry the load because he can't carry the load himself.
That's means becoming involved.
If you sin you will suffer, but not all suffering is the result of sin.
So what then does is it that makes the difference?
Why are there some who seem to accomplish so much with their lives?
Now many may believe it to be one of the following:
Family Background – Having a good family growing up is something to be grateful for, but it’s not the reliable indicator of accomplishment. High percentages of great men have come from broken homes.
Wealth – Some of the greatest men of accomplishment have come from households of average to below-average means. Wealth is not an accurate indicator of high achievement, and poverty is no guarantee of low achievement.
Opportunity – Opportunity is a very peculiar thing. Two people with the similar gifts, talents, and resources can look at a situation, and one person will see tremendous opportunity while the other sees nothing. Opportunity is in the eye of the beholder.
High Moral Standards And Values – Beloved, I wish it were that simple and that this were the key, but it’s really not. I’ve known a great many people with high morals who were low achievers and I have known scoundrels, what many would consider to be "low down dirty rats," who were very high achievers
The Absence of Hardship/Personal Struggles – For every success who has avoided tragedy, there’s a Helen Keller who overcame extreme difficulties or a Viktor Frankl who survived absolute horrors.
None of these elements, I believe are the key. I believe that the difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to failure.
We must always remember this:
That the difficult takes a little time, the impossible, however, takes a little longer.
Nothing is great in the beginning stages of when God first starts working in a man’s life. That man’s prayers will be elementary. His efforts will be clumsy and uncoordinated. His whole sense of walking with God will be spent in the shallows. But if that man refuses to give up or if he refuses to give in, if his desire and determination and his sense of purpose will capture his emotions, then God will work with his life.
I believe that if you don't forgive and restore the one whom you have disciplined, you give Satan an advantage, a standing open invitation to come in, divide and otherwise destroy the church.
2 Corinthians 2:5-11,
"But if any has caused sorrow, he has caused sorrow not to me, but in some degree—in order not to say too much—to all of you. Sufficient for such a one is this punishment which was inflicted by the majority, so that on the contrary you should rather forgive and comfort him, otherwise such a one might be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. Wherefore I urge you to reaffirm your love for him. For to this end also I wrote, so that I might put you to the test, whether you are obedient in all things. But one whom you forgive anything, I forgive also; for indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ, so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes."
JOHN MARK’S STORY
The whole series of Scriptures that we read gives rise to the John Mark’s story. He was the nephew of Barnabas, the son of Barnabas’ sister.
In Acts 13, John Mark became a man who quit when the difficulty of missionary work settled in on him.
The island of Cyprus lay behind them. The Apostle Paul and his company were now advancing into territory that would test the strongest man. Pamphylia lay to the south, Cilicia lay to the east and Lycia bordered them on the west. The Taurus Mountains lay in front of them.
-Paul, Barnabas, and John Mark had to endure the attack of Elymas, a man who was a sorcerer and full of the devil. John Mark had watched in awe as the power of God had struck this man with blindness.
Acts 13:5, indicates to us that John Mark was in the position of a minister. In this context, the Greek word is a nautical term, HUPERETES. It literally means, under-rower, a galley slave. He was a man who was to be an errand boy and a gopher. Perhaps this is one of the things that was upsetting to John Mark.
Yet, in front of them now lay the Taurus Mountains. The coastline was infested with pirates. The mountains were the home to robbers. The way was steep and rugged and full of wild animals and lawless men. The going was to be tough. But none of these things deterred Paul.
To surrender at this point would mean that giving in would be the pattern for the rest of his life. But it was at this same point that John Mark quit. For one reason or another, just when he was needed the most, he gave up.
Paul was apparently shocked at the desertion of John Mark. There is no record of what was spoken but he was written off as a quitter.
He did not wait to test the difficulties just the imagination of hardship got to him.
He did not throw himself into the work he quit before he had even made a mile into uncharted territory.
Paul viewed him as a renegade. He looked upon him as one who was never again to be worth of anything to the Kingdom of God. But there was something in the heart of Barnabas that refused to give up on him.
Now let's head to Acts 15, it moves forward two years. Again, faced with the dilemma of what to do with John Mark, the Bible states that a very sharp contention arose between Paul and Barnabas over the welfare of John Mark.
Consider the plight of John Mark. Consider what his thoughts were.
He could have decided that he was unimportant to the work of God.
He could have felt that Paul had a personal vendetta against him.
He could have decided that he had reached all of the potential that God had for him.
There are no short-cuts to a man’s life becoming great for God. If a man tries to remove the disappointments, the defeats, the discouragements, the difficulties, the perplexities of his life, he is removing the finishing touches of God’s hand in his life.
Too often men allow their circumstances to place the finishing touches on their lives. They allow the bitter disappointments, the trials they are forced to endure, the very dilemmas that life forges and shape their character in such a way that nothing profitable ever comes of them.
Esau allowed God’s refusal to finish him.
Lot’s wife allowed a backward glance to cement her to a place in history.
Oprah traveled just a short distance toward her finish.
He mixed multitude that left Egypt felt their finish with the pangs of hunger in their stomach for the fleshpots of bygone days.
But to be an unfinished man. To be a man who turns failure into achievement, to be a man who can turn defeat into victory. To be a man whom is constantly seeking the hand of God in his life is what I want to be.
So one might ask what is determination?
How do I get the determination to go beyond my own failures and mistakes?
I think one of the best illustrations of this I have read, was in something that a boxer once said:
At the end of the nineteenth century, a boxer named “Gentlemen Jim” Corbett, held the heavyweight championship title for the world for five consecutive years. When someone once asked him what the key to it was, he answered with these great inspirational words:
"Fight one more round. When your feet are so tired that you have to shuffle back to the center of the ring, fight one more round. When your arms are so tired that you can hardly lift your hands to come on guard, fight one more round. When your nose is bleeding and your eyes are black, fight one more round. When you are so tired that you wish your opponent would crack you on the jaw and put you to sleep, fight one more round. Always remembering that the man who fights one more round is never whipped. . . . . He is always battling one more round."
There are endless ways by which God shapes the soul of a man.
For some of us, all it takes is a look, as with Zacchaeus.
For some others of us, all it takes is for them to be blinded by light, as was the case with Paul.
For some it takes a midnight confrontation, as with Nicodemus.
For some it takes a noonday conversation, as with the women at the well.
But the only growth worth investing in is that which grows slowly.
Bear this thought in mind:
Great men are made in stages, not overnight.
Men who have labored to destroy diseases that crippled man, most of them faced defeat at every turn. But in spite of the lack of success, they kept pursuing in the labs, reaching for the answers that would defeat disease. Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch, and Max Gottlieb all lost something in trying to find the answers to the problems of disease. Some would lose their wives who would be infected by the plagues they sought to kill. Some would find in later years they had been alone and abandoned because of their efforts to help someone else.
It is not what a man keeps but rather what he gives that makes him great.
It is not what a man possesses but rather what possesses the man.
When a man says:
I don’t want to hurt. . . . . He is placing the finishing touches on his life.
I don’t want loneliness. . . . . He is placing the finishing touches on his life.
I don’t want defeat. . . . . . He is placing the finishing touches on his life.
The Process of Recovery
There is only one road that returns back to the way of the Master. Along that road are three vital stopping places:
The consciousness of the fall.
The repentance for the failure.
The final is a deepened consecration to the Master.
The last Scripture that we read was written seventeen years later after the confrontation between Paul and Barnabas.
There were two different stages in the life of John Mark.
Sometimes a very poor looking specimen will turn out much better than we have anticipated. Sometimes it is in the young man that over the course of his life, time has a way of establishing and developing great qualities within him.
Life and character have so many sharp turnings that you can never calculate the direction that one will ultimately take.
The opinion of Paul had been a very contemptible one.
He concluded that John Mark was one of those men who placed a hand to the plow and then looked back.
In Closing....
Just how much of John Mark’s progress came because of an uncle who loved him?
Or how much of his progress came because of the contemptuous refusal from Paul?
Beloved, I am not able answer that, because those are questions that remain unanswered in Scripture.
However, I am willing to set forth the idea to you, that each and every one of us needs a Barnabas in our life.
Now what we may attempt on our own, only God has an ability to create. . . . .
The heart of an intercessor.
The passion of a prayer warrior.
Beloved, you just cannot quit too soon!
Your failure must become your ACHIEVEMENT and YOUR DEFEAT becomes VICTORY. . . .
If you're going to look back, let it be to see just how far, you've come from where you first began..
You've come too far to quit now..
FORGIVE mistakes, yours as well as others.
FORGET the past, not the memories but the mistakes
SEEK God's grace and extend it to others
REALIZE God's strength is revealed in your weaknesses.
GIVE the control to God
And watch the powerful ways in which He uses it all
To God Be The Glory!
"Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water."
John 4:10
What is of utmost importance in your life?
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
Brian Monzon Ministries