Failure isn't final - Pastor Jeremy DeWeerdt

All right, hello, City First Church family. It is so good to have you guys here. Whether you're joining us online, if you are at Cape Coral, Janesville, God Behind Bars, City First anywhere, we are just excited you're a part of the City First Church family. And ladies and gentlemen, At The Movies has officially arrived. Come on, put your hands together for that. If this is your very first At The Movies, I want you to know it's our very favorite time of the year. This is always a lot of time where it's very exciting. And there's all these amazing photo ops out in the lobbies of our auditoriums and such where you can take pictures with family and friends. But we are talking about different movies this month. But really, movies are not the topic. They're just the beginning of the conversation. In other words, we just kind of get the topic going with a movie. And in the same way that Jesus in the New Testament would tell stories, we call them parables, stories to drive home a powerful biblical truth, well, in the same way, we're going to use movies this month to drive home biblical truths that really are life-changing truths. Today, we're going to talk about the movie F1. How many of you have seen this movie? I'm just curious.

Anybody? Yeah. A few of you around here. It's actually a really good movie. F1 follows Sonny Hayes, who's played by Brad Pitt. Jen really liked this movie. I don't know if I should be concerned or not. But anyway, he used to be this amazing racing prodigy but had a devastating crash in the 90s and didn't go back to Formula 1. Now he's older, and he's drifting from track to track, racing anything with four wheels. When his old teammate Ruben comes back and talks him into getting back into Formula 1 and helping really accrue a Formula 1 team that's struggling, they're kind of at the bottom of the barrel. They are not winning at all. So Sonny gets paired back in a Formula 1 team with a guy by the name of Joshua Pierce. Now he's a rookie, young rookie. It's kind of like the old guy and the young guy, you could say. And there's all this tension and rivalry between them. And they're trying to learn to be teammates and such. But as the story unfolds, Sonny is forced to face his past. And he's had a lot of failures. And he has to deal not only with the sport now where it's gone since he left it, but also the question of whether he can still do it. Is it still possible for him to attain greatness?

So today, what we're really going to talk about, the theme for us, is we're going to talk about overcoming failure. We're talking about overcoming failure. Brad Pitt's character, Sonny, must face this question. Are the best days behind him? Let's go ahead and watch. Apex GP Racing announces their second driver, Sonny Hayes, an American who hasn't raced Formula 1 for the past three decades. In the 90s, he was a reckless phenomenon whose career was cut abruptly short. With the risky and desperate decision to bring him back to partner with a young new racer, Sonny faces people's doubts and skepticism that he can accomplish the task at hand. He even questions himself, what are you doing here, Sonny? All right, now, as I was watching this movie, I couldn't help but think of the story in the Bible about the Apostle Peter. It's kind of a famous story about failure and beginning again. And Peter was an amazing man of God and simultaneously had some amazing mistakes and failures. And his story gives us all hope, honestly, because all of us can resonate with Peter on some level because none of us are perfect in this life. We're all going to face seasons of failure. And I would call it this, self-inflicted difficulty. Today, I want to talk about self-inflicted difficulty.

I don't want to talk about the difficulty that comes from life or other people's wrong choices. I want to talk about the difficulty that sometimes we bring upon ourselves. And I want to begin with this premise, and you might have heard this saying before, but every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. You see, if you think about it, every person in this room who presently has a relationship with Jesus, you at one time had a past, right? And some of us, including myself, your pastor, some of us have had some pretty colorful pasts, things that, quite honestly, we're not very proud of. Now, some of you might have grown up in church and you didn't do anything really that bad, but you would also admit that you failed. There were times that you made mistakes and brought on some difficulty. Upon yourself. All of us have done really dumb things from time to time and Some of us might even be here kind of curious about faith or watching online from our living room right now And and you might say well, I'm a pretty good person, but you presently don't have a relationship with God You could probably admit you haven't been perfect that you've done things that were wrong In fact, the one thing that we all have in common is we all have A past can we at least just start there? I I get I get emails and DMS on social media from time to time and People in the church and sometimes people who are not in the church, but they're curious about faith We'll DM a question like this. They'll say does God still love me when I fail? Does he still love me when I fail or maybe another one would be like, how do I move forward after I make a mistake? Or or does Jesus still have a plan for my life when I screwed up plan a Not you now you you may have never thought of those specific questions but I guarantee you thought of questions kind of like those and

And if you have I will say this that failure can create a lot of questions in our lives We can begin to question ourselves. We can be quick again to question our connection with God We can you know begin to think of all kinds of questions and today if you've ever asked any questions Silently or even out loud that anywhere resonate with those I have good news Because not only if we all have this in common that we have a past There's also another thing we have in common and that is this there can be a bright future in Christ So all of us if we've had a past we also all could have a bright future in Jesus so today I want to talk about our response to failure because we will all fail at some point or another we'll do something we regret and Then the choice after failure might be your most important choice of your life in that season What do you do once you've fallen? Do you get back up? like Sonny if Peter were being interviewed today in front of the press and A reporter were to say is there anything you wish you would have done different he would lean into the bike and he would go Yeah The Apostle Peter had made some poor decisions and we all have I thought about this prep in this message this week I'm like we've all made bad decisions Peter made bad decisions The difference is his are recorded in a book for billions of people to read about Thank God mine are not recorded in a book Thank God yours are not recorded in a book Jesus, you know had disciples and if you're new to faith or just peeking in the window here here for the first time Peter was one of his disciples and for over three years Peter Faithfully followed Jesus now Peter was a bold personality. If you study his temperament, he was passionate He many times had a disease that that we all have or a lot of us do and that is that that he would talk before he fought Before he thought things through he'd say things, you know He's famous for these moments But probably his most famous moment of failure was in Luke 22 where he famously Promises Jesus on the night that Jesus is gonna be arrested. He famously says Oh Jesus. I will never deny you. I Will never deny you and then within a night he had denied Jesus not just once

Not just twice But bold-faced lied about knowing Jesus three times his greatest failure came at his greatest opportunity and Discouragement that he felt from that moment forward must have weighed a thousand pounds on his soul Have you ever? Felt that before You know, I thought as I was You know prepping for this. I thought of even recently in the last year. This wasn't a big failure of sin It was just a failure and it was something dumb. And even now when I think about it, I get that That cringy feeling, you know, I'm talking about It was a little less than a year ago. I was at this this pastors gathering and it's like 75 Churches that were asked to be a part of this thing influential churches in the nation and and it was kind of like You know no social media you were there for for you know days and and there are some pretty amazing pastors in the room and a few of them were talking and a few other leaders in in our nation and one day a It's by the name of Craig Groeschel, who's the senior pastor of the largest church in the nation, Life Church. It's based out of Oklahoma. They have like 40 some locations. And then this other guy, some of you have heard of, Dave Ramsey. They were both on the stage. And so it's Craig and Dave. And basically, the room was opened up to ask any question that you wanted to these two. And Dave Ramsey, he's all about the financial solutions. And you've seen him probably on TV before, online, or whatever else. And I mean, these guys are pretty amazing and very successful.

And so the moderator said, hey, listen, anybody have any questions? And all of us pastors just kind of sat there for a minute. And then the guy with the mic, who is kind of going to be Vanna White going around, you know what I mean, and putting the mic in people's faces, he's standing behind me where Jen and I are seated. And all of a sudden, he goes, well, you know what? Let's see what question Jeremy DeWert has. And puts the mic in my face. And honestly, it caught me totally flat-footed because I was actually thinking about a sermon that had just taken place prior to that and a point that the person was preaching that I was still trying to wrestle with. I was kind of in that moment. And all of a sudden, this mic is in my face. And literally, my brain went, you know what I mean? Almost like it was a Star Wars moment. It was just like, and I remember nothing. And my brain went blank. And I took the mic, and I'm real quickly fumbling through. And I asked, no joke, I asked probably one of the dumbest questions I could ask. I won't even get into what I asked, all right? But I just said it. And the minute I said it, the whole room, I mean, these are like my peers. These are like large church pastors.

I mean, people that you throw a ping pong ball in the room and you'd hit somebody that most of you would know. And they all just turned and looked at me. And I could tell there was this collective, huh? And good old Craig and Dave, they were being cordial on the stage. And they're trying to answer and be nice. And they just started talking about whatever they wanted to talk about. And at that moment, I thought, oh, I need a mulligan. I need a do-over. I got back to the hotel room that night, looked at Jen. I go, that might have been the dumbest question I've ever asked in my life. In that moment, I mean, I have these two people that have great wisdom. And I didn't take advantage of it. Now, again, I will tell you, I didn't have a sinful failure in that moment. Today, we're talking about bigger failures. But the feeling, I want you to feel it because you felt it before. That feeling of, I wanted to crawl under my chair. I did not want to go back to another session. I felt so dumb. Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever done anything? You said something at Thanksgiving dinner, and you're like, why did I say that? You brought up politics.

Good job, right? And the whole dinner went boom. Whatever it was, even more egregious things. You did something. You compromised. You gave in to a temptation. You didn't do something you should have. And what do you do? You're in the shower. You're in bed. You're driving in the car. And what are you saying to yourself? Stupid, stupid, stupid. Am I talking in anybody's language? You guys resonate with this? I think we've all been there. And I'll tell you, some are like, yes. I think Peter had the greatest intentions. I think oftentimes we do too. We want to be a good follower of Jesus. We want to be a good husband, a good wife, a good best friend, a good dating partner. We want to be a good son or daughter or employee or boss or whatever it is. We want to do what's right. We don't really want to hurt people. We don't want to let people down. We don't want to let ourselves down. We definitely don't want to screw up our lives. And yet, what happens?

We have the best intentions, but we sin. We miss the mark. We hurt people. We hurt ourselves. We create awkwardness. We say things that we can't take back. We do things we shouldn't have done. We get caught up in the moment, and we mess up. What is amazing, and I want you to hear this, what is amazing about Peter's failure that a lot of people miss, and that is this, even before Peter failed, Jesus said this. I want to quote what he says in Luke chapter 22. He says, but I have prayed for you, Peter. Now, this is before he failed. I prayed for you, Peter, that you would stay faithful to me, no matter what comes." Remember this, after you have turned back to me. What is that insinuating? It's insinuating that Jesus knew Peter was going to screw up. He puts there, he says, I hope that you would stay faithful to me, but this thing, after you turn back to me, aka, after you deny me, and then you've been restored, so he's already projecting restoration, make it your life's mission to strengthen the faith of your brothers. Jesus, before Peter messes up and lies and denies Jesus, Peter is already speaking to the purpose, or excuse me, Jesus is already speaking to Peter's purpose. He's already saying, Peter, you're going to mess up, but hey, listen, I'm not surprised by that. Failure doesn't surprise Jesus, do you know that? He knows everything about you, he knows what you did last summer. He knows what you are going to do, and here's the thing, he loves you anyway.

Now, don't hear me saying that that doesn't have consequence. I mean, when we fail, it's not consequence free. Failure does hurt our relationship with Jesus and ourselves. So failure does have a tsunami effect sometimes in our life, but this is the thing, what I'm saying is it doesn't shock God. He doesn't just wake up and go, wow, I can't believe Jeremy did that. I didn't see that coming. No, he knows everything, and what I love about this verse is this. God sees beyond your breakdown to your breakthrough. Before you fell, he already planned for your restoration. What kind of God is this? The God that sees that we're going to fail and is already planning our comeback. I mean, every other religion, if you fail, God is angry. He's going to strike you dead. He's going to create some sort of an avalanche. The hole's going to open up. You're going to fall into it. Whatever it is. No, our God says, I see beyond your breakdown to your breakthrough, and guess what? I'm already planning your restoration. That is an amazing God. In short, failure isn't final. In the movie, Sonny begins racing Formula One again for the first time in three decades. There's a lot to overcome, a lot of physical barriers, a lot of emotional and mental barriers, and Sonny starts working with the entire F1 team. He's trying to rally them. He starts building chemistry with them. They push themselves, and it starts to make progress. Watch this. The team begins to make upgrades to the car in order to race better, calling it the Combat

Upgrade, which is their Plan C. Talking about the upcoming race, Sonny mentions being docked to the back of the grid because officials don't like the way they drive. But Sonny is not fazed. In fact, he recognizes the power of the entire team and says that if everyone can make one significant contribution, they will gain time. He says, and after 72 laps, that's the difference between last and first. He says their Plan C is for combat. The team starts to chant combat in unison. The race begins, and the team ends up moving from last to ninth place, with the rest of the team cheering their success. You know what this tells me? Yeah, you can give that a round of applause. Yeah. You know what it tells me? It tells me your comeback needs a crew. In other words, you cannot come back in isolation. You need relationship. In fact, relationship is vital, and it's vital to your comeback. Restoration happens best in faith relationships, not just any relationship. When you fail, the number one tactic of the enemy is he wants you to go dark. He wants you to lose the very community and avoid the very community that can restore you. You blow it. You don't want to go to church. You screw up. I'm not going back to life group. And here's the thing. Why? It's because what Lisa talked about on Wednesday, at first Wednesday, shame. Shame makes you want to be alone.

Shame makes you want to isolate. Shame gets you stuck, and you have to surround. yourself with people that are gonna lift you up, not keep you down. Failure makes us wanna hide, healing though happens in community. It's so important for some of you to hear this because even right now, you might be watching from your living room and the real reason you're not here is because quite honestly, you feel dumb coming back. And I would just say this, this is city first call, this is the church's call, not to point fingers, but to walk with the fallen. So therefore, get back here, get back here. Walking with those that have fallen because we've all fallen does not mean there are not tough conversations. It doesn't mean that we don't have these truthful conversations. Church really is where truth needs to be spoken. And you have to face the failure and to overcome it, you have to acknowledge it. And someone has to come alongside of you sometimes and maybe even like point out some shortcomings or decisions that you made. You need both truth and grace. Do you see that? Not just grace, but also truth. Lovingly said, some of us in here,

we need to stop whining, we need to start listening. And what that means is this, is that we're whining about, oh man, this happened, this happened. It's like, no, there are people around you that wanna speak truth. After his denial, Peter did not isolate. Instead, he went fishing with others. Says in John chapter 21, says this, is that basically, he said, I'm gonna go fishing. And a bunch of his friends, including John, basically said, well, we'll go with you. We'll go with you fishing. So here's my question. When you are down, when you are struggling, when you have failed, who are your will go with you people? Hopefully that's your life group. Hopefully it's your serve team. Maybe if you've gotten to know some people here at City First, that those are the people. You know, the people that say, we're gonna go with you in this. Yeah, I know, you screwed that up. You blew up that relationship. Yeah, you did that. But you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna go with you, and we're gonna go on a path of restoration. And I would say this, if you don't need that right now, who are you being that to?

Because there are people that are probably within a row of you right now that honestly need a will go with you person. Because God often uses others to remind us that we're not finished. I know he's done that in my life. In the movie, Sonny, he needed people that would believe in him and simultaneously call him out for his shortcomings so that he would become a better driver. A lot of people want others to feel bad for them, but few are willing to allow others to call them out and up out of failure. Your comeback is connected to your church community. It really is important. And just like Sonny and the team are starting to make progress, and the other driver, the rookie driver, JP, at first, Sonny and JP have all this friction, and there's competition, it's young and old, and all that kind of fun stuff. But pretty soon, they start working together, and they start helping each other on the track. And I would say this, that that's the way it is in a lot of relationships, especially in church. For example, God may call someone to help you in your life that is not like you. I didn't say they don't like you. They are not like you. Because if you only listen to the people

that think like you and agree with you, you're gonna limit your growth. That is why many of you married an opposite. You married somebody with opposite temperament, because if you married yourself, it would be a disaster. You married someone who sees things different, who acts different, who talks different, all those things, why? Because you need an opposite to pull you up. Does that make sense? So here's the thing, Sonny and JP are in the final race of the season. They're starting to work together, and the difficulties are getting worked out. And it's been a rough season, man, but victory is just around the corner. Let's watch. In this final race, JP and Sonny are now working as a team, constantly backing each other up with each lap. Sonny continuing to push JP to take the lead and win the race, knowing it's his time. They do, however, face obstacles that begin to make their team doubt if they can make it to the finish. With the race being almost over, Sonny ends up being the only one with new tires, giving him the unexpected lead. Team owner Ruben's stating, sometimes when you lose, you win. The last leg of the race begins,

He makes a way for JP to get ahead. When JP is toe-to-toe with their challenger, they both crash and take themselves out of the race, putting Sonny in first place. Sonny picks up the pace, quiets the world, and flies unexpectedly towards the finish line, winning for the team and proving even more to himself. Pretty amazing, huh? I love that line, we have the driver. So many times in life, we think that success and avoidance of failure is all based upon circumstances. If just the right circumstances line up, if the moon's aligned, I won't fail, I won't give in, I won't whatever, and so we just think it's circumstantial, but really, really, success in God is based upon God's confidence in you, what he believes about you, what he believes about you, which gives you then confidence in yourself. After Peter denies Jesus and he goes back to fishing, he's with his church friends, he encounters Jesus again. It says in John chapter 21, at dawn, Jesus was standing on the beach, but the disciples couldn't see who he was. He calls out, fellows, have you caught any fish? No, they replied. Then he said, throw out your net on the right-hand side of the boat and you'll get some. So they did, and they couldn't haul in the net

because there were so many fish in it. When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he jumped into the water and headed to the shore. And once Peter swims to the shore and gets onto the beach and he's face-to-face with his Savior, the one he denied three times, the most amazing thing happens. And that is this, Jesus recommissions Peter. He asked Peter three times, Peter, do you love me? Peter's like, yes, each time. And then after Peter said yes, Jesus would say, then feed my sheep. How many times did Peter deny Jesus? Three times. How many times did Jesus ask Peter if he loved him? Three times. You know what this tells me? For every denial, Jesus gave Peter a declaration of purpose. I love this. Because I believe for every failure that we've had, Jesus has a declaration of purpose over our lives. Where the enemy would declare, you are done, stay down. Jesus declares, I have purpose for you. So in essence, Jesus is saying, I got the right driver on my team. Peter, I believe in you. Believe in me. And then in turn, believe in yourself. Peter went on to later on preach a bold message.

This is shortly after this time, a bold message. And 3,000 people got saved. 3,000 in a single day. The one who failed most spectacularly became the one Jesus used greatly. And I'm a living testimony, and many of you are too, that you've had spectacular failures in your past, but God wants to use you in a great way. Don't give up. Keep repenting, keep working, keep trusting, keep showing up here at church. Say, no, I'm not staying down. As we close, I love what Mary Ann Evans once wrote. It's never too late to be what you might have become. Some of you need to hear that today. In Jesus, it's never too late to be what you might've become. Lord, I just pray that you would give us a revelation today of your purpose over our failure. I pray that today, as we've gathered in these City First locations and in living rooms and correctional centers across the nation, God, I pray that today we would not hear the voice of failure, but rather, that we would hear your voice of purpose over our lives. That you are a God that knows about our failures and yet begins to pave the road of recommissioning, of being able to get right with you. Lord, thank you, God, that like what you did with Peter, even before he failed, you already were planning a restoration.

And God, for some of us today, we need that. We need that restoration that you've been planning before we made the mistake, before we made the choice, before the sin. So God, today, I pray that there would be a supernatural covering of grace on our hearts. And may that grace move us towards you, not away from you. Towards your church, not away from your church. Lord, thank you, God, that failure is not final. With every head bowed and every eye closed, in a minute here, we'll dismiss. But before we do that, maybe the most important, definitely the most important choice of your life for some of you. I wanna give you an opportunity to make Jesus the leader and the forgiver of your life, which means this, that you've been listening to this idea of sinning and making mistakes, and a God who has a lot of grace and forgiveness and has purpose for you, and you're like, I want that. Today, you're not joining a church. You're just saying, I want Jesus to be the leader of my life, I acknowledge that I have done wrong, I've sinned, I repent of that, and I want God to be the one in charge. And I want his purpose to be in my life, and I want heaven as my home someday. If that is you, with no one looking, with every head bowed, it's a private moment before God. If you say, that's me, I want to pray a prayer

and make Jesus the leader of my life, go ahead and just shoot your hand up, right where you're at, every location, your hands are up everywhere. Just put them up, and you can put them right back down. I'll wait for some of you, because I know some of you are thinking about it. It's all right, I'm not gonna pressure you, just give you a second here. Yes, hands are up. You can go ahead and put your hands down. Let's pray a prayer together and realize this, that as you're gonna pray this prayer after me, that God's listening to your voice specifically. He created you, He loves you, He has an unconditional love for you. And He wants to hear your voice. I'm just leading the prayer, you're the one praying it to Him. And this prayer is making you a child of God, sinless, forgiven in His sight. So let's pray this together, all of us, whether we raised our hand or not. Ready, here we go. Dear Jesus, I come to you today, and I need your help. Forgive me of all my sin and all I've done wrong. I repent, and I turn away from that. And I turn to your grace. Thank you for dying for me.

I wanna live for you. Come into my heart. I believe you love me, and I am grateful. In Jesus' name. And everybody said, amen. Come on, let's give God a huge round of applause. Can we do that? Hey, if you made that decision today, we just wanna take a moment and say congratulations, because that is the best decision that you could make, to make Jesus the leader and the forgiver of your life, and choose to follow Him today. And we're just so proud of you, just as your church family. And there's a couple of things we'd love for you to do. The first one is tell somebody about that decision that you're making today. It's important to invite other people onto that journey that you are beginning today. And then also we have a new beginnings resource, and it's entirely free. You can scan the QR code that is on the screen. But it explains a little bit further about the decision that you're making today. And then after you walk through the new beginning resource, we want you to be part of Growth Track. You can do this online or in person if you're near a physical location. But Growth Track is simply designed for you to discover your divine design, and the life that God has purposed you to live.

And so you can get more information by going to our website, cityfirst.church forward slash growth track, or scan the QR code as well. And we have a great app that we would love for you to download and utilize. It's great to help you grow in your faith. But one of the great functions is you can request prayer on there. And literally there are hundreds of people that are praying for every single request that comes through. So if you have a prayer request, jump on there or the website and submit it there. And then also I wanna take a moment and talk to those who are new in their faith journey. Maybe you're making that decision today to follow Jesus, or you've recently made that decision to follow Jesus. We wanna let you know that water baptism, that's the best next step that you can take. Our next baptism services are September 21st. So we would love for you to go public with your faith. And there's great symbolism in baptism. What you're declaring when you go into the water is that your old life is gone, that you are no longer taking part in that lifestyle that you are living, and you have a new life in Jesus, one that is full of his grace and his love. So we would love for you to be water baptized September 21st. Jump on the app or the website to sign up.

And then the best thing that you can do is come back to church for At The Movies week two. It's gonna be amazing. This is also a great time to invite somebody to watch with you. You can even send the link from today to somebody. Let's spread the hope and spread encouragement. Let's talk about, let's encourage other people that they can overcome failure, like Pastor Jer was talking about. So we love you, church, and we'll see you right back here next week. Have a great week.