Dealing with failure

Here is one story about the difficultity of dealing with failure, the story of one disciple, who was trying to serve God and couldn’t deal with failure and making  mistakes.

Matthew 26:30-35: ³⁰When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. ³¹Then Jesus told them, "This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written:    " 'I will strike the shepherd,       and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.'^[a] 32But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee."  ³³Peter replied, "Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will." ³⁴"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times." ³⁵But Peter declared, "Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you." And all the other disciples said the same.

Our Lord inhabits eternity and knows our future ... He knows what's going to happen with us, He knows all the mistakes we are going to make.

Peter in this case did not understand that. It was the Lord talking about something that he knew. Peter had to accept and understand Jesus knew what was going ahead.

But Peter remains in the pledge, he makes a promise trying to please Jesus in his own efforts, as we do; making promises that we cannot stand on, 

Peter denies Jesus. Now He is devastated, because of the promise he made and could not stand on; and decides to give up, as we do, when we do not want to deal with failure, here is three points that give us a clue what Peter’s mistake was.

1.     The failure of an empty promise:    

He promises something he cannot fulfill. He is trying not to live on grace but his own efforts, is just saying Jesus you are Lord, but I manage my own destiny and I am saying I won’t deny you.

Ex. People dealing with any sins they know that’s bad then they make promise about leaving committing sin, but they can’t resist and it just lasts two weeks.
- Then guiltiness comes to them, and let the things of God behind for not being "holy enough to keep a promise"   or “good enough to keep the standards”                                                                                        - People stop praying, fasting, being in God’s presence because they do not feel pure enough, holy enough to do that. One of main reason why people don’t go to church or stop going to church it is because they don’t feel good enough to be there.  So they discipline themselves, “as I failed I am not worthy of being here in church” 

                                                                                                    - Contradiction: is like a patient who says I am too sick to be in the hospital. Jesus once said:  “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick”.

Sacrifice does not purchase grace of God.
Peter experienced the failure of a hollow promise, and He can’t forgive himself.
Peter's failure was not to deny Jesus, but not understanding the grace and try to do things based on his own efforts.  He didn’t have to punish himself by leaving Jesus behind and leaving every that Jesus had made on him.                                                                                                                       

He had to approach and recognize his mistake and ask for forgiveness, he had to come and say: you were right Lord, I messed it up and you knew I shouldn’t have done that silly promise despite the fact you know everything about me, my future past and present, what a silly man I am, forgive me Lord; and Jesus would have forgiven him. Instead he left.

2. Peter followed at a distance (Luke 22:54-55)  ⁵⁴Then seizing him, they led him away and took him into the house of the high priest. Peter followed at a distance. ⁵⁵But when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them. 

Peter begins to follow Jesus from a distance because of its failures. “As I failed it is not fair to be close to Jesus anymore” as many of us, we decide to follow God from a distance, not to be involved in, we do not want to commit at anything.
We feel we know (knowledge of the bible) enough for not to be called unchristian, but neither we do know enough to be called Christian. So we decide to stay at door, at the back seat away from Jesus and everything that’s going on with his ministry, knowing everything what’s inside but also everything what’s outside.

Not far away like to leave, but not close enough to commit, so many times I have talked to so many people that in Spanish we call them “asistentes”, “simpatizantes” which close translation should be “attender” (a person who regularly goes to church but doesn’t commit at all, not to Christ, not to the gospel and not to the ministry) who comes they are there in church, you even know where they always seat, but they never commit, they attend but they don’t believe, and the main reason is that they don’t feel good enough to called a believer.

3. Find himself with the look of Jesus. (Luke 22:61-62) ⁶¹The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: "Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times." ⁶²And he went outside and wept bitterly.

If you have a good memory, by this moment for sure the motion of any movie about the passion of Christ  may have come to your mind by now, picturing Jesus in one side being all tired, beat up, bleeding and on whatever else your mind can think about or remember about from a movie, and at the other side Peter hidden at the corner, and then the rooster crowing and Jesus(according what movies shows us) turning his face slowly towards Peter and placing his look and staring Peter.

So Peter cannot resist the sight of Jesus, he thinks that the look of Jesus was accusatory, but it was not,  it was a look of acceptance for something he already knew that would happen.

Peter felt so bad, cause he thought the look of Jesus there, was a look of judgment because of what he did, he believed that Jesus was so disappointed on him. He thought it was what I call an “I told you so look”, like my mum used to do to me while I was a child, she would say: don’t do this, don’t do that because this might happen if you do this,  so after me being so disobedient would do it, and whatever my mum said it used to happen, then she will say “I told you so”  driving me so crazy after her saying that, eventually I told my mum that I didn’t like that  and for good she did stop saying that, and for a very while I didn’t hear that “I told you so” expression, till like several years later when I don’t really remember what happened but eventually what my mum said it might happen, did happened, so my mum looked at me and she didn’t say a word but her look was an “I told you so look” and yet drove me crazy that day and made me feel so sorry about it. Here Peter is dealing with the same feeling he believed what he was dealing with Jesus was an “I told you so look” because of what he did, that’s why he decided to leave and then he gave up.

We must understand that God's holiness is absolute, and nobody on earth is able to resist the look of Christ, He is Holy and we are not. That is normal. His grace is being poured out even in his look, The holiness of Jesus melted the frailty of Peter, that's normal every time we pray in privacy, we won’t be able to resist his holiness. His lightness will reveal our darkness, and then we’ll feel guilty, sinners that we have something wrong that we need to change, that’s what happened to peter, but he didn’t get it that way, so he quitted.

He returns to his old world, his old job, and he does not want to be a disciple anymore, he failed on that purpose.

Then when the Lord is raised, he orders to his angel to look for them.                                              
Mark 16: 7  But go, tell   the disciples and Peter.

One thing I really like here in the message that the angel is giving to the women here at the tomb of Jesus is that, he does not include Peter as a disciple, he makes a clearly distinction between Peter and the disciple,  because Peter self-disciplined and self-excluded, he didn’t want to be a disciple anymore.
Note that the instruction of the angel to the women was to "Go tell the disciples and Peter." Yes, this was a message for all disciples, but also for Peter. Was not peter a disciple? Yes, he was, but he quitted. Women must be sure to tell Peter. Jesus of course knew of the torment Peter was experiencing, his sorrows for his sin of denying His master.

If the angel had only said, "Go tell His Disciples." Peter might have thought that the joy of this good news must not belong to him. Peter might have sighed and said to himself, "I doubt that I can look upon myself as one of His disciples. Three times I denied Him. I disowned Him and deserve to be disowned by Him."

This special message is to be given to Peter by name. Tell him that he shall be as welcome as the rest of the disciples to see Jesus in Galilee.

John 21: ³"I'm going out to fish," Simon Peter told them, and they said, "We'll go with you." So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. ⁴Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. ⁵He called out to them, "Friends haven't you any fish?"
      "No," they answered. ⁶He said, "Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some." When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish. ⁷Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, "It is the Lord," he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water. ⁸The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards.^[b] 9When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.

When Jesus is back to them, They do not imagine that is Jesus. So many times I talk to students of the bible and they question how is that possible that they didn’t recognize Jesus once he was risen? And the answer its kinda logic, first, in the mind of them he was gone, they saw him dying, it was not something like people were coming back from dead every day, or like they were familiar with the idea of people coming back to life again, he was gone. Like I always share this example, imagine you go to your uncle’s funeral, show your respect to the family and widow, the less thing that you expect is in the next family meal is to go and shake hands to your dead uncle, for you he is dead and you don’t expect to see him again, besides he was with his glorified body that might explain as well why they didn’t recognize him.  

He comes back to Peter and makes the same miracle he made before when they met. When peter met Jesus he got fish for them, here after his failure he comes and got fish for them again, peter had to do nothing for it.                                                                                                                         No ask for forgiveness, not request, his grace is poured out on Peter.    For Jesus it was the same peter, and he didn’t matter how badly he failed.

 But Peter has a conflict; He cannot come to Jesus for his contradiction. He feels he failed, he thinks he needs to do something to be reinstated. He feels he messed up so bad and there are no hopes for him.

Lord I failed - tried to say peter, but Jesus said: be still and only answer me these questions that’s the same question Jesus have for us when we fail:

Simon son of John, do you truly love me? Three times, calling him Simon, not Peter, knowing he was struggling with himself? It was Jesus the one who changed Simons name to Peter, but he is not trying to make this situation difficult for him.

This is the question that Jesus has for you now, no matter what you did, how bad or good you were : Do you truly love me?

So summarizing I am not trying to make apology of sin, or trying to justify it, what I am trying to say is, that as Christian we are not promised a life without failure but instead we are promised a life with affliction with struggles, so many times in life will commit sin even when we don’t want it, like Paul said, we do not do what we want but what we don’t, so I am trying to say that when we deal we this situation, we have Jesus who promises us that we can count on him and come to his presence, and he will take care of us, that there is not sin that make his grace impossible to cover, but He wants us to come to him.  I think that’s what made the difference in Peters life once He understood that his life was better and he was able to fulfill what the Lord wanted with him, you can follow the same path today…

Just think about it and pray…