Title: Using Failure as a Mirror
Contents
Title: Using Failure as a Mirror
Text: 1 Corinthians 10:6-11
This happened during the last World Cup soccer tournament.
Eul-yong Lee and Ahn Jung-hwan missed a penalty at a very important time. Of course, both players are great players who are selected for the national team and recruited by foreign teams with huge sums of money, but seeing them make such mistakes, they say, 'Aha, people who live with soccer balls every day make such mistakes!' and realized
And after making such a mistake, I was deeply impressed to see how they worked even harder to make up for that mistake and eventually lead the team to victory.
Everyone, no matter how famous a soccer player is, sometimes he makes a pass miss. There are times when I do stupid things. Sometimes a penalty kick is missed. Sometimes he even scores suicide goals. And that big mistake could ruin the game and lose it. And there are times when I get unwanted criticism from a lot of people because of it.
But because of such a mistake, if you become discouraged and give up on your own pessimism because of criticism, you will make a bigger mistake. A great athlete is born by constantly cultivating and striving by taking failure as a mirror.
Guys, who among athletes does not make mistakes?
Who on the piano hasn't misplaced the keys? And, no matter how good a person is, who hasn't made a mistake in word and deed?
Even if you misplace the piano keys, you have to keep playing with them as a mirror. If you give up playing because of a few mistakes, it would be absurd indeed. It further disappoints the audience.
On the other hand, if you play well to the end even in the face of great failures and mistakes and finish the game of your life well, you will receive an unexpected thunderous applause.
God never praises you because you have never failed or made any mistakes, or because you are righteous and handsome.
He is the one who gives thunderous applause to you, saying, 'Well done!' to you who do not give up and hold on to God and continue on the path of truth, even in the midst of numerous failures and mistakes, even when you commit ugliness and sins.
Everyone, if I had to pick one of the people who experienced the most failures in the world, I couldn't leave out the inventor Edison.
In order for him to create the great invention of the electric light, he experienced numerous failures, ten thousand times. However, he did not get discouraged by the failure and finally found the light by saying, 'I have learned ten thousand ways to never find a light.'
If he did not look at his failure as a mirror, but was weighed down by it and groaned and pessimistic, he would never have been a great inventor.
Guys, keep that in mind. Failure and mistakes always accompany the creation of a great person. And only those who take their failures and mistakes as a mirror, realize themselves correctly and follow God's will can become a true winner.
One of my favorite scriptures is Proverbs 24:16:
“For though the righteous shall fall seven times, he will rise again, but the wicked fall by calamity.” That's the chiljeon selling technique that Koreans use a lot.
When we live in a foreign country, we make a lot of ridiculous mistakes. Mistakes in speaking English, mistakes in driving, mistakes in business, mistakes at work, mistakes at home, and mistakes in faith.
However, you should use such a mistake as a mirror for development. If you give up on yourself saying, 'I don't know what to do,' or 'I don't know, I don't know' because of failures and mistakes, your end will be miserable and your heart will be.
Guys, keep that in mind. You can make mistakes, and you can fail too.
And quickly realizing this fact is a precious grace from God.
But on the other hand, if you believe in yourself 'I'm perfect', what will happen in the end? The perfect you are walking the path of isolation, the path of bullying, where you can't get along with anyone who isn't perfect. And he puts himself in the prison of isolation of perfection and leads a lonely life on his own.
Ladies and gentlemen, if we are perfectionists, we don't need God's help, and eventually we become distant from God. And perfectionists sometimes become legalists like Pharisees, shooting and wounding thousands of people who make mistakes, sometimes becoming dictators and killing many people.
Moreover, perfectionists risk depression or even suicide if they find themselves imperfect or if they make small mistakes, they don't even have the strength to understand or forgive themselves.
Of course, perfection and perfection are the values we must pursue.
However, perfection that does not accompany mistakes and failures makes people arrogant and easy to be abandoned by God. It's better to be humble than to be arrogant because it's perfectly fine to make mistakes and fall into failure.
Ladies and gentlemen, the church is never a place for perfectionists, perfect people.
Therefore, the Apostle Paul said, 'When I am weak, then I am strong' (2 Corinthians 12:10). In other words, because he is weak, he prays to God more and clings to God, so God's grace always stays there.
Verse 6 of today's text says, 'These things became our mirrors', and verse 11 also says, 'These things that happened to us became a mirror'.
As you know, the Israelites experienced numerous failures and mistakes before they escaped from Egypt and reached the land of Canaan flowing with milk and honey. And because of those failures and mistakes, many people died in the wilderness.
But they learned from that failure and realized it right later.
So he no longer enjoys evil, no longer worships idols, no longer commits adultery, no longer tests or murmurs against the Lord, and he can finally enter the promised land of Canaan. In other words, we can get better blessings if we realize our failures or the failures of others.
Even in the Bible, David, who became humble through numerous failures and mistakes and trusted God more, remained a great king of Israel until the end. seen
And when King Saul disobeyed God's command and made his own failure, it would have been better if he repented and humbled himself through the failure. When he does not lose, he becomes the king of tragedy and chooses to commit suicide.
Folks, what is scarier than failures and mistakes is the aftermath that those failures and mistakes bring.
Don't fall into discouragement and despair after failures and mistakes, don't make excuses and excuses after failures and mistakes, don't go out of your way after failures and mistakes. It is not okay to be depressed, or to be hypocritical by hiding failures and mistakes like the Pharisees, and even more not to choose the path of suicide like King Saul, like Judas Iscariot.
Ladies and gentlemen, when failures and mistakes occur, confess to God first of your own shortcomings. Confess to God if something is wrong.
And to Jesus, who came to this earth to save ugly people and sinners, 'Lord, raise me up because I have failed. Please give me another chance.'
Jesus came to Peter, who made the big mistake of denying and cursing Jesus while following Jesus, and restored him. And Jesus, who restored Peter, who had made failures and mistakes and lost his disciple as a disciple, comes to us today and restores us.
Remember, for us, failure is the mother of success.
Without failure, you would not be a humble Christian and would be full of stubbornness and pride, but because there was a failure, and because you used that failure as a mirror, you become like God's desired image.
So don't be afraid of failures and mistakes.
Rather, realize that I fail every day, and use the whip of failure as an opportunity to become more beautiful.
The more failures and mistakes you make, the more opportunities you have for progress. And there are more opportunities to be humble and to draw closer to God. Therefore, even failure is a great benefit for us who move forward with failure as a mirror.