FROG Discipleship

Fail Toward Christ!

• Nick

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0:00 | 18:15
SPEAKER_00

Welcome to Frog Discipleship, Nick here. Thank you for listening. Sorry, it's been a little bit, a lot's been going on. Had to go to Boston, and then from Boston, I went to Dallas, and now finally back in my normal routine of things. So today I want to be talking to you about failure. You know, when we fail, we need to fail towards Jesus. We have more failures than we have. We have more failures in our life than we have victories, I guess, in a lot of ways. So when we look, I want to look in John 21 today, and I want to focus, have our focus be on Peter. Now, the thing about Simon Peter, the reason why he is so relatable to us today is because of his failures. Now, when we look in the book of Matthew, Matthew 26, we see some of Peter's failures. We see him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Christ asked him and the other disciples to pray, ask him, ask them to pray with Jesus three times, and they could not stay awake, failed there. And understand, you know, in Scripture says in there, it says, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And I'm sure if Peter would have realized, hey, this is going to be the last time I'm ever going to have the opportunity to pray with Jesus, maybe he would have done a little bit better, but hindsight's 2020. It doesn't matter. The fact is he was asked three times to pray, and three times he fell. And then in the same night when Judas goes and betrays Jesus with a kiss, what takes place? Peter acts out of the flesh, draws the sword, cuts off the ear of the soldier. And what does Christ say? Another correction. If you live by the sword, you die by the sword. Now, before either one of these things took place, before he felt, couldn't stay awake in the garden, before he cut the soldier's ear off, the biggest failure of them all is Christ predicted that Peter would deny him three times before the rooster crows. And Peter said, No, not going to happen. He was full of self-confidence. But the problem is it's not that the confidence in which he had was wrong. It was where his confidence was placed. See, Peter's confidence was within himself and not in Christ. That's why he fell. See, when Christ told him, hey, you're going to deny me three times before the rooster crows, he said, no, I'm willing to die for you. So, and and Peter should have known because as soon as this conversation's over, he's willing to die for the Lord, but that's what he says, but he can't stay awake to pray with the Lord. And then he acts out of the flesh by cutting off the soldier's ear. And then, next thing, he denies Christ three times. And in one of the denials, it even says that he starts to curse. So he changes his whole language, his whole demeanor, his whole actions, his character has been changed in this moment because of this. Now, understand, I don't ever want us to define a person by their weakest moment. Everybody has bad moments. It's not right for us to define a person by their weakest moment, their worst time. Everybody has that very fleshly moment to where they're outside of their character. It happens to us all. And if you say, oh, it doesn't happen to me, you're lying to yourself. Because we all have those moments. Is he has a lot of failures that are spoken of in Scripture. So through all of his failures, through his overcommitment and his self, his confidence in self and not Christ, to him denying Christ three times, to him cutting off the soldier's ear, to him not being able to pray in the garden, all these failures happened. But here's what's so important is he felled towards Christ. He, Peter, fell towards Christ. Because when the rooster crowed and he he fell down and wept, he looked up and there was Jesus. He realized he messed up. So Peter's already underwent several failures. Now I want to go to John chapter 21 and let's understand a little bit what has taken place. So Christ has already been crucified. He has already conquered the grave. He has already resurrected and has, you know, displayed himself to the disciples, Peter including. Now what's going on in Peter's life? He's coming off failure after failure after failure. So remember, Peter was a fisherman by trade before Christ ever got a hold of him and said, Follow me and I'll make you fishers of men, right? Before he ever called him to be a disciple, he was an actual, literal fisherman, catching fish. So in this moment of doubt, coming after several failures in a row, to now Christ, you know, being resurrected and displaying himself in the upper room to Peter, and he's like, okay, oh goodness, am I able? Can I actually do this? He starts doubting his ability, and rightfully so, because his ability, excuse me, his ability needs to be doubted because he has failed several times on his own. So he's thinking and talking to himself, so hey, I am going to go fishing. I want to read a few in John chapter 21. It says, After these things, Jesus showed himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. And in the way he showed himself, Simon Peter, Thomas called the twin, Nathaniel of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together. Simon Peter to Simon Peter said to them, I am going fishing. So here Peter's saying, You know what? I'm going to go fishing. I'm going to go back to what I know how to do. He is dealing with a lot of doubt, a lot of regret, battling within himself. And they said to him, We are going with you also. They went out and immediately got into the boat, and that night they caught nothing. Do you see that? Another failure. He went back after facing all these failures, dealing with doubt, because now Christ has resurrected and shown himself to the disciples. Peter's wanting to know if he is worthy and can he be used by Christ. And he's dealing with this internal struggle, and he goes to try to find peace and solace by going back to what he knew. And he's like, I'm going to go fishing, but then here we are, another failure. They spend all night, all night in the boat, and they catch nothing. In verse 4, but when the morning had now come, Jesus stood on the shore. Yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Then Jesus said to them, Children, have you any food? They answered him, No. And he said to them, Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some. So they cast, and now they were not able to draw it in because of the multitude of fish. Therefore, that disciple who Jesus loved said to Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Peter heard it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he had removed it, and plunged into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, for they were not far from land, but about two hundred cubits, dragged the net with fish. Then, soon as they had come to the land, they saw a fire of coals there, and the fish laid on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, Bring some of the fish which you have just caught. So I want to stop right there. So here Peter failed and he overcommitted and had so much pride in self-saying that he would die for Christ. He failed in the garden three times. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. He acted out of pride and arrogance. You live by the sword, you die by the sword by cutting off the soldier's ear. He denied Christ three times, and then on the third time, when he fell down, he looked, and Christ was he was making direct eye contact with Jesus. I can only imagine how he felt in that moment. To then now another failure of going fishing and un and being unable to catch fish. But did you notice what took place? Peter kept failing and kept failing and kept failing and kept failing. And even when he was full of doubt, Christ showed him. Did you get that? Christ showed Peter. Who was waiting at the shore? Jesus. Who was he waiting for? Peter, waiting for the disciples. And he didn't just show up. There's a lesson here. When Christ tells them to throw, throw the net in on the right side. I'm a man, y'all. And if I go, I've been fishing with my buddies, and then I've met that random dude on the bank. He's like, well, if you would have done this, if you used that kind of bait or whatever, and I'm always like, well, you don't know what you're talking about. Because understand, at this point in time, they didn't know that it was Jesus when they cast that net back in. It was after when they were pulling that net in. They looked, they're like, this has to be Christ, because we shouldn't be catching fish this close to shore. And if we're catching fish this close to shore, it's definitely not going to be this amount. So the human side of things would typically not listen to that person on the shore, but they did. And then they got a great reward. They had an abundance of fish and so many that even the net didn't break. But what I want us to take away from this is that Christ met the disciples where the disciples were at after failures. During doubt, he met them. But the biggest takeaway from this, when they went out on their own, when they were trying to do things their way, it was failure after failure after failure after failure after failure. And Christ tells them, do it my way, cast a net, and you will be successful. And they caught fish. Not just some fish, not just a fish, but a bunch of fish. I believe it was like 153 fish, is what it says. But whenever I say they were successful, I want to define that. I wanted to be very clear on what I mean by that. Because so often when we hear the word successful, we think of financial gain. When I'm talking about successful here, I'm not talking about financial gain. I'm talking about spiritual gain. They learn so much in this moment by catching fish. They tried to do it their way multiple times and they failed. Then they finally surrendered. Did you know the word I use there? Surrendered. Submit. They relied solely on God. And when they did that, they were successful and by catching fish. Success is not just in catching fish. It is you they were successful because they surrendered to the Lord. If God is for me, who can be against me? I don't care who you are or what you've accomplished in life, but I promise you, Jesus Christ is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. There's not a person that has ever walked this earth that I wouldn't rather have on my side than Jesus. There's been a lot of great people that have achieved great things, but I would rather surrender and submit to Christ and do things his way, because even when I lose, I still win. So when we fail in life, we need to fail towards Jesus. Fail towards Jesus. Because when you're failing towards Jesus, you have that moment, just like Simon Peter did when he denied Christ a third time. He fell down and he wept because he realized he messed up. But who was there looking at him? Jesus. After so many failures, couldn't even catch fish, couldn't even go back to doing what he originally did before Christ called him to be a disciple. He couldn't even do that right anymore. But when he surrendered and listened to Christ, he caught fish. When we do things according to Scripture, even when it goes bad, it goes right. Does that make sense? Because he is the King of kings and the Lord of Lords. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. If you want to achieve greatness in life, fail towards Jesus. Go to the cross. Peter would go on after these failures to be the leader in the church. And I remember in Acts, whenever he was arrested for sharing the gospel and healing and healing folks, excuse me, that when he was in front of the Sanhedrin, you know, Peter had a lot of fleshly moments, a lot of failures. Because here's the thing we need to understand your spiritual growth is a process. We live in a world of instant gratification to where we just expect to get everything right here, right now, learn it all right here, right now, and that's it. And if we can't get it immediately, we're never going to get it. No, you have to respect the process. Peter's failures was a process for him to become the man that God has called him to be. Because when he stands before the Sanhedrin after healing the sick and the lame and doing some mighty wonderful signs, and they're looking at him, and it literally says, Peter, filled with the Spirit, filled with the Spirit. See, in that moment when his life was on the line, because his life was literally on the line, he didn't lean on Peter's understanding, he leaned on God's. And it said, filled with the Holy Spirit, he spoke and they released him. Even when he failed in that situation, he won. Yeah, he was arrested for sharing the gospel. And then he was stuck in front of the Sanhedrin filled with the Holy Spirit, and then he was released. And what did he go do? Share the gospel again. See, Peter learned to have a never quit, whatever it takes, mindset. Through his failures, he fell in the right direction. He fell towards Jesus, not away from Jesus. We have more fails than we have wins, more losses than we have victories. Failure is going to happen. It's not about if or when we fail. It's how bad of a failure is it and what is it going to do in our life. I hope in order to have a good fail in life, you have to fall towards Jesus. Because when you fail towards Jesus, you learn from it. You step back, you look, and you realize, oh man, this is the lesson that God has for me here and now. You know, Garth Brooks wrote a song, Some of God's Greatest Gifts Are Unanswered Prayers. And I hope you realize that today. Some of the greatest things that God can and will and ever has done for you is not answering a specific prayer in which you want it. If we did things and got everything we wanted, we would realize how horrible of a life we have achieved and built because we did it through selfishness and not through Christ centeredness. Guys, I hope this helps. Thank you for listening to Frog Discipleship, where we forever rely on God. Thank you.