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| Rev. Joel Charles |
Pastor of Shiloh
Holiness Church in Ottawa:
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PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, May 21st, 2017:
PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, May 21st, 2017:
Broadcast Notes:
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God's Mercy and Our Failures
We’re all imperfect people and we live in an imperfect
world. We all experience failures in life.
As a matter of fact, on the very night that Jesus Christ was
arrested, before he went to the cross, two of Jesus’ best friends had massive
failures.
Judas had the failure of betrayal and Peter had the failure
of denial.
So, how does one handle failure?
Well, sadly, Judas rejected the mercy of God and he later
went out and took his own life. But, Peter
accepted the mercy of God and he went out and became the leader of the church.
Matthew26:31-36 New Living Translation (NLT)
Jesus Predicts Peter’s Denial
31 On the way, Jesus told
them, “Tonight all of you will desert me. For the Scriptures say,
‘God will strike[a] the Shepherd,
and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’
and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’
32 But after I have been
raised from the dead, I will go ahead of you to Galilee and meet you there.”
33 Peter declared, “Even
if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you.”34 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, Peter—this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me.”
35 “No!” Peter insisted. “Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you!” And all the other disciples vowed the same.
Beware of thinking, “This could never happen to me.”
1Corinthians 10 New Living Translation (NLT)
Verse 12-13:
12 If you think you are
standing strong, be careful not to fall. 13 The temptations in your life are no different
from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the
temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show
you a way out so that you can endure.
We tend to overestimate our strength. Not only do we
overestimate our strength, but we misuse our strength. And when we don’t pay
attention to our strengths, they become weaknesses.
It is said that an unguarded strength is a double weakness.
We also fail because we fear the disapproval of others.
Every time you make a decision based on what other people will think, you are
sowing the seeds for failure in your life.
We see in Matthew 26, that Peter did everything wrong in
denying Jesus. But what did Peter do right?
The question is how does one recover from failure?
First you have to grieve it.
To get past most things (especially failures) in life, you
have to live through them.
When you grieve your failures, you learn lessons that help
you avoid future failings.
In Matthew 26, when Peter heard the rooster crow, he
remembered that Jesus had said,
“Before the rooster crows, you’ll
deny me three times. Then Peter went outside and wept bitterly.”
That’s grieving!
In Psalm 51, verse 17, David says to God,
17 The sacrifice you desire
is a broken spirit.
You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.
You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.
Contriteness is when we say, “God, you’re right, I blew it.”
So we recover from failure when we take the time to grieve.
But, secondly, we recover from failure when we get support.
The first thing Jesus did when he started his ministry, he
formed a support group, of twelve disciples. There’s a scripture in Mark16, verse 10, around the resurrection time, Mary Magdalene went and found
the disciples grieving and weeping. Notice they were together.
When you go through a major loss in your life, you have to
resist the urge to isolate. And you must also resist the urge to insulate, to
prevent others from getting in. Both are dangerous.
We were never meant to go through life on our own. We’re
better together. We’re meant for community.
The best time to build your support community is before any
crisis.
The third thing, besides grieving and getting support to
recover from failure, is that you have to cast yourself on God’s mercy.
Peter, himself, wrote about this in the firstbook of Peter, Chapter 1, verse 3. He says, because of His great mercy, God
has given us a new life.
God has given us a new life by raising Jesus Christ from
death. This fills us with a living hope.
Peter says, (in 1Peter 5:7), to cast all your anxieties on God, because he cares for you.
When
you sincerely turn to God, it will amaze you what God will do in you, for you
and through you.
In Lamentations3:22-23, it states that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His
mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is His
faithfulness.
God is faithful to us in his mercy, no matter what we do.
Let me show you one of the most amazing verses in the Bible:
2Timothy 2:13:
13 If we are unfaithful,
he remains faithful,
for he cannot deny who he is.
he remains faithful,
for he cannot deny who he is.
God cannot deny himself. God cannot be unfaithful. You may
give up on God, but he’s never giving up on you.
That’s
the mercy of God.
(Listen to the conclusion of this great message, by clicking
on the link, below.)
By Rev. Joel Charles
Pastor of Shiloh
Holiness Church in Ottawa:
_______________________________________________________
PODCAST LINK to the
CFRA broadcast:
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