Often, in this life, we feel defeated. What today appears a great victory, deflates into doubt tomorrow as it fails. It may be at work or home. The stay at home mom faces the same ups and downs as the one juggling her career. Then, there is the widow or widower looking back on their life and wonder if any of it really mattered. Did they make the right choices? Indeed, this is a dilemma that faces every human being. The Christian is not exempt. In fact, the Christian may face these dilemmas with greater despair at times. Pastors are certainly not exempt. So, we have Philipp the evangelist. So, elated I am sure over all the converts including Simon Magus. What did Philipp feel when he knew Simon’s salvation wasn’t real? Did he feel the sting of failure? How did he have the faith to stand after failure?
Perhaps, I am projecting my own feelings on Philipp. But I doubt I am the only one who questions, “How did I not see that coming?” “What is wrong with me?” “Why can’t I figure this all out?” And on it goes in my head, some days. Those are the days I find myself most deeply engaged in prayer, desperately needing to feel the presence of God. I know the truth of God’s word and of His grace. Yet, my heart feels deflated. Not so uncommon, Spurgeon often felt that a few days after a great, successful revival. Confronting constant pain, bouts of depression, moments of feeling so inadequate, he would stand once more in the pulpit leading hundreds and thousands to Christ Jesus. What’s worse? Feeling you must keep it hidden. Otherwise people won’t believe the truth of God’s love. Your testimony will fall. Or so you think.
The Faith to Stand after Failure
The truth is, “it’s not my ministry. It is God’s”. Neither is it truly my life, but His. If indeed I died to myself that He might live in and through me. I wrote the book, “Abiding, Steadfast Joy-never again to be bound in a life of quiet desperation.” There I revealed three truths from scripture which can keep your eyes focused upon Jesus Christ, wherein is found our joy.” Burning steadfastly within my heart, He is there to lift me up and set me upon my path regardless of how far I fell. Do I still get moments in which I feel defeated or sorrow presses deep within my heart? Am I still human? Yes!! However, that is when I go running back to those truths once more, clinging to them with all my might. Then, His abiding steadfast joy steadies the ship and I know I cannot drown.
Peter the apostle rebuked Simon Magus, pointing out the utter hypocrisy of his profession of faith. Then, before the chapter ends, an angel appeared to Philipp. Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. Acts 8:26. Philipp immediately obeyed. There he met an Ethiopian Eunuch of great power and prestige, who came to know Christ as his Savior and Lord. Philipp then baptized him. Whatever feelings of doubt or failure, Philipp may have felt because of Simon Magus; he did whatever God asked him to. He did not hold back or hesitate. When God said go, he did. Thereby Philipp not only planted the first church among the Samaritans, but also the Gentiles.
How Do I Have That Kind of Faith?
It has nothing to do really with me; but everything to do with Jesus Christ. My despair comes from realizing that I am never going to deserve His love. My joy comes because He loves me just the same. I have nothing to bring Him; but He clothes me in His righteousness. He cares so much that He is willing to walk with me through the darkest hours. Furthermore, He allows suffering so that I might grow in my faith. If I never faced any suffering, how would I ever appreciate all that He suffered for me? Without facing the blemishes of my own heart, how could I know the abounding joy of being cleansed from all unrighteousness by His blood?
Recognizing his own weaknesses, Charles Spurgeon passionately spoke of Jesus Christ and His suffering for us. In 1980, in a sermon titled The Tenderness of Jesus, Spurgeon spoke
This morning, being myself more than usually compassed with infirmities, I desire to speak, as a weak and suffering preacher, of that High Priest who is full of compassion: and my longing is that any who are low in spirit, faint, despondent, and even out of the way, may take heart to approach the Lord Jesus. . . .
. . . Jesus is touched, not with a feeling of your strength, but of your infirmity. Down here, poor, feeble nothings affect the heart of their great High Priest on high, who is crowned with glory and honor. As the mother feels with the weakness of her babe, so does Jesus feel with the poorest, saddest, and weakest of his chosen[1]
As Michael Reeves wrote:
In suffering, then, it is not only the case that we get to draw nearer to Christ, becoming more like him and leaning more fully on him. In such times Christ draws near to us to walk with his people in the furnace. And not only to walk with us but to bear us through.[2]
Because, “being full of life in a fallen world must mean distress”[3]
Ephesians 5:
8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light:
9 (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)
10 Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord.
11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
15 See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,
16 Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
17 Wherefore be ye not unwise but understanding what the will of the Lord is.
18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit;
19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
Concluding thoughts
When I see my own frailty and failures, I would cry out as Isaiah, “Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” Isaiah 6:5
Yet, when it would seem all is lost, Christ reaches forth His hand of grace and love to redeem one such as I. He has promised to complete that work, therefore, I can have faith to stand after failure. Not because of who I am; but because of who He is. “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10
And thus it is we are not without hope lost within our own self. Indeed we are filled with His hope and His Joy despite the broken world in which we live.
How does the Christian, looking upon the Righteousness of our Savior, knowing our frailty, ever have the faith to stand after failure? We keep our eyes focused on Him. He calls and we follow, stepping forth with His strength.
PREVIOUSLY
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But for God, the Sorrows that Abound
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A Child’s Woeful Cry and God’s Reply
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©Effie Darlene Barba, 2018
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[1] C. H. Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, 63 vols. (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1855–1917), * vol. 36, 315, 320
[2] Michael Reeves (PhD, King’s College, London) is president and professor of theology at Union School of Theology in Oxford.https://www.crossway.org/articles/did-you-know-that-charles-spurgeon-struggled-with-depression/ accessed 8/12/2019
[3] Ibid.