Will You Follow a "Failure"?

1987

Now, what I’d like to share with you is something that really hit me especially hard in California. That was when I was praying, and I did what I thought was a really valiant thing. I said “Father, if You need to break me of every last thing I have…if You need to take my wife and children and You need to take my possessions and my health…if You need to take everything from me in order for me to be more useful to You as a vessel, I yield my life to You. Do that.”

And I had tears in my eyes when I prayed that prayer because it scared the daylights out of me. And I’ve been down that road before, and I’ve prayed that prayer before. That wasn’t new to me. But I came to a new place where I said, “Father, I’m Yours,” all over again. “And what I didn’t even know I had before, I offer to You that too.” Somewhere in the depths of my being, I received a challenge that went something like this. “Alright, fine. Good. You’re willing to be broken in order to be more useful to Me. Would you be willing to be broken and to be purged with no benefit, with being no more useful to Me but just simply pleasing to Me?”

And that just killed me. Because I thought surely, if I emptied myself of everything, all my rights, all my possessions, everything, in order to be useful to God, surely that would impress God. But He didn’t call me to be broken to be useful to Him. He called me to be broken because “I AM.”

“I AM who AM.”

Just out of who God is, rather than something else in it for me. And I tell you the truth, it was easy for Peter to be a disciple of a man that walked on water. It was easy for Peter to be a disciple of a man that gathered great multitudes and healed the lame and healed the blind and raised the dead. It was easy for Peter to be a disciple. Peter is back there smirking while they’re saying, “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar?” And there is no way to answer that question, right? And Jesus pulls out a coin and says, “Whose face is on this? Render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s and render to God that which is God’s.” And everybody shrinks back at His wisdom.

It’s easy to be a disciple of a man that does stuff like that. The temple guard is sent out to grab Jesus and they come back with their hands in their pockets.

“Well, where’s Jesus???”

“What? Huh?”

“Where’s Jesus? You were sent to get Jesus.”

“Wow, no one ever spoke like this man.”

They come back empty handed.

They’re going to throw Him off a cliff and He walks right through the crowd. It’s easy to be a disciple of a man like that. But what about a man that’s just been spit on in bondage and has no more wise words to say, and isn’t walking on water, and isn’t dissolving the crowds with His words, and isn’t just vanishing before them and not being held captive. Now the man is scourged. His name is rejected as evil. This man is a false teacher. He’s a blasphemer of God. He’s in bondage and He’s going to die. He’s not doing any miracles and not only that He’s not even defending Himself. He’s a lamb led to the slaughter, silent before His shearers. What kind of man is this up here?

So now, the question wasn’t “Is this man the Christ?” The question was, “Are you an apprentice of this man? Are you a disciple of this man?” When He’s walking on water, yeah, count me in! But now as a man in bondage that’s rejected, He said that He scorned the shame of the cross, Hebrews 12:2.

In 2 Corinthians 13 it says He was crucified in weakness. The Son of God crucified and murdered by men in weakness. Isaiah 53 says this man has no grace and majesty that we would be attracted to Him. He just doesn’t have anything on the external side that would impress us. Let’s go back and read a little bit of that.

“He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our iniquities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God.”

We saw this man up there before the magistrates, before all the religious leaders that knew their Bibles, and we had no choice in our shallowness but to consider this man stricken by God. This man must surely, like Job, be rejected by God or this could never happen. We applaud the Jesus that walks on water and raises the dead. But now He must be stricken by God. He must be rejected by God.

“He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

“He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. Yet who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.”

“Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”

He began all that by saying in verse 1, “Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

Isaiah was saying, nobody would believe that this could be the Christ. And I know Peter had that problem because in Matthew 16 Jesus said, “I am going to die. I’m going to be taken up and be rejected by the chief priests and the elders. I’m going to be murdered and be raised again on the third day.” And Peter rebuked Him and said, “No! May it never be!” He’s rebuking Him. Jesus’ response was, “Get behind me Satan. You don’t have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.”

I know Peter had in his mind a wrong idea that Isaiah was speaking of here. Peter has not believed the report of who the Messiah is to be. You can go into Paul’s life and see a lot of the same things.

1 Corinthians 4:10 “We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment, we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world.”

As you look in Paul’s letter to Timothy, you see more and more of that same kind of thing. 2 Timothy 1:8, “So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord or of me his prisoner.” Verse 15, “You know that everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes. May the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains.”

He talks again and again. 2 Timothy 4:16, “At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them.”

In verse 14, “Alexander the metalworker did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will repay him for what he has done.”

Paul started off with a big bang and doing great works, signs and wonders in their midst. But there came a time in Paul’s life where he was rejected, and Paul had to encourage Timothy, “Do not be ashamed of me, Timothy. Don’t be ashamed of Jesus or of me. And everyone in the province of Asia has rejected me. And Alexander and all these men are trying to undo everything I did.”

So, all this pressure is on of being rejected. Where is the great movement that Paul started off with? Where is the great movement that Jesus started off with? Despised and rejected by men, a lowly congregation of 120. In today’s religious world that would be a tremendous failure. Now here’s the Son of God, God Himself in the flesh, and He’s got just a very few people, unlearned and ignorant men to show for it. No success by human terms.

What I want to say about all that is that it seems to me that it’s easy to be willing to lay down our life for a movement that looks like it’s going to take over the world. It looks like it’s going to change people’s lives, and we’re going to see them melt in our living rooms and over the telephone and all that stuff. It’s going to move, it’s going to move, it’s going to be great!

I think what we need to do is realize that the question that’s being asked of us is, “Are you this man’s disciple?” The one that’s standing in front of the religious people and being mocked and scourged and doesn’t answer them with wise words. He doesn’t answer them with a display of power and calling a legion of angels. But stands there, rejected and despised, enduring the cross, despising its shame, scorning the shame, crucified in weakness, willing to not have any movement to call your own. Willing to not have a living room full of people that are on fire for God. To not have anything to point to. And I’ve been through this a lot in the last few weeks.

What if I couldn’t say, “Look at this.” What if all I had to point to was Jesus alone. Would I still be willing to die for Him? Do I have to have an ace up my sleeve to say, “See there? See what I got?”

Or am I willing to go out and be despised and rejected by men, to not have the success, to die with the sheep scattered and no great movement, nothing powerful to show for it? Like John the Baptist, never having done a miracle and beheaded in prison in shame. Where do I stand? Am I THAT man’s disciple? Or like Peter, do I have a wrong concept of the Jesus that I am following? He was ready to die for his concept of Christ. He was ready to die for his concept of the Messiah and the Kingdom of God. But, Peter, are you this man’s disciple? Are you this man’s apprentice? And he said, “Woah, wait a minute. I’m not sure I want to be in something that’s not a movement, in something that doesn’t display power. I’m willing to die for it, if it shows power. But I’m not so sure if it’s crucified in weakness.”

And so, he backs off and he denies that he’s this man’s apprentice. He did that three times and it says Jesus turned and looked straight at him in the eye. And Peter just melted and went out and wept bitterly. Not because he was afraid. But because he realized that the Jesus he was following all that time, wasn’t the same Jesus that was standing up in front of the Sanhedrin. He had to get it right of the Jesus that he was following without anything in it for himself.

Will you be broken to be more useful to God? Will you be broken so that your movement can show great power and your life can demonstrate great fruitfulness? Is that your goal, to be very fruitful, to demonstrate great fruitfulness in your life? Are you willing to be broken and to give up everything to be fruitful for God? Well, wonderful. But are you willing to be despised and rejected by men and be a failure?

What’s the price of following this failure, Jesus? That’s what Peter had to come to grips with. Was he following truth, even if truth seemed to fail? Or was he just following the success as far as it happened to fall in front of him? And the challenge that I’ve gotten from all of this, and I did that Sunday or Saturday in July in California. I went out and wept bitterly because I realized that I was following the wrong Jesus, the wrong messiah. I wanted to be fruitful. I wanted to be useful to God. I wanted to see power. I wanted to see great things happen. I was willing to pay any price, even die, to see great things happen for God. I was following the wrong Jesus. In a sense, He turned and looked at me straight in the eye and said, “Big deal. Will you be this man’s apprentice?”

He stands there emptied of all of His rights. Emptied of His success. Dying in seeming failure on the basis of truth and relationship with the Father.

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