8.21.22.

All right. Happy Sunday, everybody.

If we haven't met yet, my name is Nermalis, and I'm the associate pastor here at New Culture. I'm so excited to get to share the message with you today. If we haven't met yet, I want to get a chance to say hi, so make sure you track me down before you leave today.

Today we are wrapping up our sermon series called Wisdom That Works. This is the fourth week that we're spending going through some different stuff in the book of Proverbs, really just seeking out a wisdom that we can apply to our lives every single day. We've talked about how to seek out wisdom. We have talked about wisdom in conflict, wisdom in decision making. And today we're going to be talking about wisdom when we make mistakes.

We're going to be trying to answer the question, how do I fail well? I feel like that probably sounds like a little bit counterintuitive. We automatically associate the word fail with negative and we're saying how do we fail well. So how do we turn our failures into something positive and how do we go through failure positively? That's what we're going to talk about today.

I was doing some research prepping for today and I found some of the most common questions about failure. They are: What do I do after a failed marriage? What do I do after failing out of college? How do I handle a failed relationship or friendship? The list just goes on and on and on. We fail. We fail often. But the question is what do we do next?

Wisdom means learning from failure

We're going to be starting today in Proverbs chapter 9, verses 8 through 9:

Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you. Reprove a wise man, and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be wiser still. Teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.

Proverbs 9:8-9

My first point for you today is this. The presence of wisdom does not mean the absence of failure. The presence of wisdom does not mean the absence of failure. You fail. I fail. I will continue to fail. This is a part of reality. I am not God, and therefore I am not perfect. So I will fail, and that will be a constant companion in life.

The quicker you come to terms with failure, the quicker we can get to the part of how we actually fail well. The habit of resisting failure, of running from failure, of avoiding failure at all costs is one, impossible. And two, in the words of the Proverbs, foolish. To spend your life avoiding failure is completely void of wisdom.

I love this scripture because it's describing people who are already wise as needing to be reproved. And people who are already wise needing to be taught. Which just tells us that wisdom does not mean knowing it all, all the time. Wisdom does not mean never getting it wrong. It means learning, growing with failure, and not never having any failures.

Theologian Alvin Plantinga wrote, everything in process is by definition imperfect. Everything in process is by definition imperfect. So if it's not finished yet, it's still imperfect, which means you will be in a state of imperfection until you are before God on the other side. So it is time for us to come to terms with the fact that failure is going to be a reality we face in life.

Some of you are wiggling in your seats and your eyes are getting really big or you're completely avoiding eye contact with me, which is fine. The reality is we don't like to fail and we don't want to fail and we struggle with failure. That's why I want you to get this into the deepest crevices of your heart. I want this to move from head knowledge to something that you truly, truly believe. You are not perfect. You will fail.

And that is why you have a perfect God that never fails. Proverbs chapter 30, verses four through five says:

Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who gathered the wind in his fist? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name and what is his son's name? Surely you know. No word of God fails. He is a shield to those who take refuge in him.

Proverbs 30:4-5

Wisdom is not a lack of failure. Wisdom is knowing where to go when you fail. So who we fear determines how we fail. If we want to know how to fail well, we need to stop and ponder. Consider where our fear is.

Fear of man versus fear of God

In Proverbs chapter 29, verse 25, it says:

The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.

Proverbs 29:25

The fear of man. What is that? This idea of the fear of man put really simply is that people and their opinions, their words and so on, become idols in our hearts, dictate our decisions and therefore become a little g god in our lives. You're like, me, never, I don't have any other gods in my life but big G God. But perfectionist, this one's for you.

There's this deep-seated fear of failure. Maybe it's rooted in not wanting to disappoint people. Maybe you don't want to get embarrassed. This is me. I cannot stand that like cringy feeling in your chest that is embarrassment. I cannot stand it. I'll tell you a little bit about how my fear of failure, particularly rooted in embarrassment, made choices for me.

So for my senior year of high school, I'm applying to different colleges and I knew what college I wanted to go to. I felt like the Lord had directed me about where I wanted to go, but my parents wanted me to keep all of my options open. So I applied to pretty much every big state university in Florida and a couple other ones, except for one. There was one that I refused to apply to, and that was UF, the University of Florida. I refused to apply.

And the reason I refused to apply was because my sister went there. I did not want to risk not getting into the school my sister went to because that would be embarrassing. I'm a younger sister and this is how things work. So I did not want to risk not getting into the school that my sister went to. So I was like, no, I'm just not even gonna apply. I got into every school I applied to. I will never know if I would have gotten into UF and I am okay with that. You know who didn't get embarrassed? Me.

I hate getting embarrassed. So maybe you're like me and your fear of failure, you don't want to get embarrassed. Or maybe you grew up in an environment where appearing a certain way was valued. We say this in Spanish, or at least in Puerto Rico. We say, hay que aparentar. There's a need to appear. That's how you translate that. So that describes a need to be perceived a certain way even if you aren't that way. It's wanting to look perfect, even if you're not perfect. Look like you have what you don't have.

Which I think is true of our obsession with being perfect and our obsession with seeking perfection. Like every day, at least once a day, I hear somebody be like, well, I'm a perfectionist. What that really means is there's this deep rooted need to appear perfect. I don't think perfect. Anybody who identifies as a perfectionist, myself included, it's under the delusion that they are perfect. I think we are under the delusion that we're able to appear perfect.

Let me tell you, nobody is more cruel to themselves than a perfectionist. Perfectionists are so mean to themselves. There's this invalid standard that they hold. I don't think they're under the delusion that they can be perfect. A perfectionist is under the delusion they can appear perfect.

Part of the problem with this is, when you hold yourself to this invalid perfect standard, you're really cruel to yourself. Before you realize it, nobody is crueler to people than perfectionists. Because you have an invalid standard for yourself that now you hold everybody else to.

And failure is now the absolute worst thing that can happen. The fear of failure, which is really the fear of man, is at the core of that heart. You will never fail well if you fear failing. If your core fear is failure, if your core fear is disappointing people, if your core fear is that fear of embarrassment, all of that comes down to what other people think. All of that is that fear of man.

You will never fail well if it all comes down to what everybody else thinks or says. The fear of man is a trap. The scripture says that the fear of man is like a snare. The fear of man makes you prideful. Even when you're able to get past that fear of failing and do the thing, when you fail, because you will, your pride is broken.

What comes rushing in? Shame. Shame. The second we fail, why don't we try again? Because we're ashamed that we failed. Why do we hide our failures and pretend we didn't fail? Because we're ashamed to be seen as someone that didn't get it right. That shame chokes us out, and we stay in failure instead of moving forward. We don't try again. We adopt failure as a piece of our identity, and we stay stuck.

How to fail well

So how do I fail well? Okay, fear of man is a no-no, bad, can't fail well there. How do I fail well? I have three ways that we're going to fail well. The first one, I'm going to be super honest with you, is the most important.

If you forget the other two, I'm going to say it's not okay, but it's okay. The first one is the most important because you cannot do the other two without the first one. So how do I fail well? Number one, fear the Lord. Who we fear determines how we fail.

The Fear of the Lord could be its own sermon series. But simply put, it describes the place of your greatest reverence being God himself. His words are what guide you. His spirit is what guides you. He's the centerfold of your being and your life. You honor and revere him above all else. You hold him in the highest esteem. You acknowledge that he and he alone is God.

Proverbs chapter 3, verses 7 through 8 says:

Be not wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones.

Proverbs 3:7-8

And then Proverbs chapter 14, verses 26 through 27 says:

In the fear of the Lord, one has strong confidence, and his children will have a refuge. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life that one may turn away from the snares of death.

Proverbs 14:26-27

It is the fear of the Lord that strips your pride and makes it possible for you to have the humility necessary to fail well. You can't accomplish the other points without first coming to a place of God being God in your life.

At the end of the day, that's what the fear of the Lord means. It means God is God. No one and nothing else. No one's opinions, not my desires, not my fears. God is God. And everything else falls short.

The fear of the Lord humbles you to seek wisdom. It comforts you in the knowledge that although you have failed, your perfect God does not fail. And it empowers you to move forward. So how do you grow in the fear of the Lord?

I've been listening to an album by Maverick City Music called Simple Adoracion. It has a bunch of old school hymns and worship songs, a lot of them songs I grew up in church singing. Before one of the songs, one of the guys reads a verse, and it's like a medley of old school hymns. When I heard him read it the first time I listened to the album, I felt like I was transported back in time to being like 14 years old sitting in the pews at church.

Roberto used to go up and he'd take the mic and he'd make everybody stand up on their feet and he would read a psalm before worship every single time. Service would open with reading a psalm. This guy on this album is reading a psalm that Roberto used to read all the time at my church growing up. I'm going to read it to you exactly the way I had it growing up, and then I'll read it in English. It's Psalm 27:4.

Una cosa he demandado a Jehová. Esto buscaré, que esté yo en la casa de Jehová todos los días de mi vida, para contemplar la hermosura de Jehová y para inquirir en su templo. One thing I have asked of the Lord that I will seek after, that I might dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

Psalm 27:4

I was sitting there prepping the sermon and I realized that hearing a verse like that, centering on a verse like that before you go into worship, before you go into the message, before you go into this time at church. To contemplate and to gaze upon. To revel in the beauty of the Lord. To approach worship from the perspective of, I in the temple of God and I'm going to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to transform your perspective of not seeing coming into church as like this thing that we do on Sundays. But this is a space for me to look upon the face of God. To hear the voice of God. This is a holy thing. Like it is holy and it is worthy of reverence and awe and gazing upon.

To grow in the fear of the Lord, you have to learn to gaze upon the beauty of God. You have to see his holiness and just be in awe. The fact that God is perfectly holy means that he cannot fail. Means that he can do no wrong against you. Means he can do no injustice. Means that he cannot lie. Like the fact that God is holy is everything. That's the whole picture. It's why he's worthy of praise. It's why we can trust him in our failings because he is holy and he is blameless and he does not fail.

So get in the word. Get to church. Get in the body of believers and gaze upon the beauty of Jesus.

Don't fail alone

So how do we fail? Number one, fear the Lord. Number two, don't fail alone. Don't fail alone. This is not me telling you to bring people down with you. This is not being like, next time you go do something risky, bring someone with you so you can both fall on your face. That's not what I'm saying. This is not high school.

Remember in school when the teacher would come and pass out your test results. If the teacher put it face down on your desk, red flag, red flag. You would like peek it up, just look at your grade and you put it down right away. Immediately your heart would just think a little bit and you'd start looking around the room for your friends to see if their face also looks sad. If they did look sad, you'd run over to them after class like, how would you get on the test? And they'd be like, man, I failed. And you'd be like, me too. Suddenly everything was fine because we both failed. This is toxic behavior. But there is a principle in there. You failed, but you weren't alone.

In Proverbs chapter 11, verse 14, it says:

Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors, there is safety.

Proverbs 11:14

And then in Proverbs chapter 13, verse 20, it says:

Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companions of fools will suffer harm.

Proverbs 13:20

You need to be walking with people. I cannot say enough. A believer without community is missing a vital factor of being a believer. It is paramount to be in a community of believers. It is paramount to have friends around you who can lift you up and point you to Christ. It is centerfold to the theology of the early church to be among other believers. We need each other. We need an abundance of counselors. We need to walk with the wise.

You need people so that when you fail, they'll be there with love and grace and honesty and correction and will guide you back to Christ with the wisdom that you need to recover. You need companions so that you aren't alone when you fail. But you need wise companions. You need wise companions.

I remember getting a call from someone that I love very, very much. They were telling me about a situation that happened. They were telling me the story. It really came down to a decision that they made based on advice that they got from another family member of ours. My honest response to them was the biggest mistake you made in this story was going to so-and-so for advice.

We need to be wise about who we put in our inner circle. We need wise people pouring into us and leading us back to Christ. Here's a piece of wisdom from the Proverbs. If you are surrounded by what Proverbs calls foolish people, Proverbs chapter 14, verse 7:

Leave the presence of a fool for there you do not meet words of knowledge.

Proverbs 14:7

Seek community. Seek guidance. Seek the safety of wise counselors. Walk with the wise. Do not fail alone.

Don't stay down

Number three, don't stay down. Don't stop moving. When we fail, we have the temptation to stay there for fear of failing again or for shame of being found out.

In Proverbs chapter 4, verses 25 through 27, it says:

Let your eyes look directly forward and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet, then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left. Turn your foot away from evil.

Proverbs 4:25-27

When I think about failures in my life, like sure, there are the big ones that feel kind of earth-shattering. Like, well, that was a big deal failure, right? But what I really think about is the small moments where I failed, and then I failed to recover. Where I didn't fail well, and then it put me in a cycle of failure that also hurt the people around me.

I think about all the times I grew complacent in a place because I knew that taking the next step forward would not only cost me my comfort, but it would come with the risk of failing again. Doing nothing in order to avoid failure is still failure. It's just a failure that's easier to lie to yourself about.

I think about the moments I failed and I didn't get back up and stopped moving forward. The moments I failed and instead of taking another step forward on the path I knew God had put me on, I started looking for a path to the left, to the right, or worse, a way back.

Back in February I hit like this really weird wall. It wasn't like there was like this monumentous failure that I had that had me feeling like a failure. It was like a culmination of a million tiny failures in every area of my life that had me feeling like a complete and total failure. I felt like I'd stopped pursuing things I was passionate about. I felt like I was failing in my workplace. I felt like I was failing in my mental health. I felt like I was failing as a pastor, as a friend, as a sister. In every way, I felt like a failure.

So I started looking for ways out of the situation. I couldn't get over this speed bump on this path that God had put me on. So I was going to find a new path, right? Run away. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't seem to overcome this. I remember sitting on the floor in my sister's room at 11 o'clock at night. My best friends were in town visiting. I'm literally sitting hunched up in the fetal position in my sister's room sobbing. I keep crying and I'm telling them I don't know how much longer I can fall flat on my face. How many times do I keep failing before I say maybe I shouldn't be doing this? I tried and I failed and I think it's time for me to move on.

Everyone was quiet, which is like the worst feeling ever. Everyone stayed super quiet and my best friend piped up, and she said something that was not what I wanted to hear. I wrote it down. She said, well, that sucks, because you're going to get up off this floor, you're going to try again tomorrow, and you're going to fight, because you only lose if you stop fighting.

I could have hit her, but she was right. That week I sat down with Abbie, who is my fearless leader over there, and I told her how I was feeling. I hadn't expressed to anyone. The first time I'd expressed what I was feeling was that night boohoo crying on my sister's floor. I told Abbie how I was feeling, how bad my anxiety had gotten, and that I was on the verge of stopping. She didn't let me fail alone. She jumped up right away. She found a book. We read a book. We talked. We found solutions. She went through that with me.

I got on my face before God. I'm going to be honest, I prayed and I fasted like I've never prayed before. I made a decision that even if I fell again, I was going to keep getting up and I was going to keep moving. To fix my gaze before me and trust God to make all that was behind me into something more beautiful.

I'll tell you, I failed about 152 times since then. But I am more than committed than ever at this point in my life to fail well, because we have to come to grips with the fact that failure is going to be a part of reality. So it's time to move past this idea that we can do our job perfectly. It is time to move past this idea that being corrected means that we are a failure.

We need to move past this idea that relationships are easy and if there are failures in relationships, it means that it's not a good relationship. We have to move past this idea and get to the point where we say, I'm going to fall. I'm going to fall again and again and again and I'm going to get back up. I'm going to get back up, I'm going to get back up, and I'm going to move forward. I'm not staying here anymore. Because the only way you lose is if you stop.

I'm going to talk to you like my best friend talked to me. I'm so sorry you have faced failure. I'm so sorry because I know it sucks. Do not stay stuck here. You are going to seek God's face like you never have before and you're going to keep walking. God called you here. He has not left you. You are going to move forward and you are going to find a way to climb this mountain even if you fail a hundred times along the way.

Adoration

Failing well is not never falling again. It is saying I know I will eventually fail and I'm still all in. Failing well is not stopping at today's failure. It's trusting God with yesterday's failures, today's failures, and tomorrow's failures.

I just got back from Puerto Rico. I was there with my family for a few days about a week ago. If I'm perfectly honest, my head is still primarily thinking in Spanish. It hasn't completely transitioned yet. So as I was prepping this message, I was praying a lot in Spanish, which I haven't done in a long time. I kept getting stuck on this word.

The word is adoracion, which we translate to worship. Adoracion, worship. But if I actually translate that word, if I actually look at what that word actually means, it's adoration. It's adoration. It's this idea of stopping everything to adore God. It's stopping everything to contemplate on what it is that you adore.

If what you adore is your reputation, you will always stay stuck in a cycle of failure and you will not fail well. If what you adore is your plans for your life, you will stay stuck in a cycle of failure and you will not fail well.

But if what you adore is the God that made the heavens and the earth, if what you adore is the God whose plans are higher than our plans, whose ways are higher than our ways, whose thoughts are higher than our thoughts, if the center of your adoration is a perfect, holy, matchless God that cannot fail, then when we fail, we can move on because it's not riding on me and you. It's not riding on your ability to be perfect.

God's standard for us is not impossible. The reason it is not impossible is because he set his perfect and matchless son to die on a cross so that when he looks at you, he sees holy instead of your failures. Jesus did that. You didn't. Jesus did.

We don't have to sit in a cycle of failing miserably and staying stuck and becoming complacent and fearing moving forward and getting off the path when we look to a God who is matchless and wonderful and our adoration becomes solely about him.

When the fear of the Lord is what guides us, we can fail well. We can live well. Failing well in reality is just, how do you live well? Because you fail. Listen, I have to do math at work. I fail daily quite a bit. Just gonna be honest with you. It's the big things, it's the little things. But it's not about me. When I realize who God is and what his role in my life is, that is the only thing that matters. So when we start at the fear of the Lord, everything else changes.

Right now we're going to take some time to surrender. To surrender whatever we're carrying so tightly and hope that we don't fail. We're going to hand that over to God who is perfect, who we can trust. We're going to make him the center of our adoration. In doing that, we're going to chip away at the fear of man. We're going to start breaking the fear of people's opinions and we're going to break the fear of failure all while gazing upon the beauty of the Lord.