Sermon Outlines

By Frederick F. Schwindt, Evangelist

SUCCESS IN FAILURE

1. Experience shows that this present life is a struggle all the way from the cradle to the grave:
   1. Ever since sin entered human experience, it makes life a battlefield - Gen. 3:16-19
   2. All our humble efforts are at best, failures - "We are unprofitable servants" - Luke 17:10
2. Man does not possess either the wisdom or the capacity:
   1. To measure Heaven's expectations
   2. Simply because we cannot predetermine the final degree of the usefulness of our service B. SUCCESS IN FAILURE
3. The complaint of failure in our text is Messianic in its primary application:
   1. The words come from the lips of the Son of God - the Servant of the Lord - Is. 42
   2. His Father never looked upon the labors and sacrifice of His Son as a failure
4. The ministry of our Lord:
   1. Did not during His lifetime obtain the great end of His mission
   2. Much of His ministry was sowing the seed; the bountiful harvest came later - Acts 2:1-41
   3. The ultimate of His ministry will not come until sin will have been banished from the universe; the curse will have been removed from the earth; and death will have been swallowed into eternal victory
5. But there is the human element in the confession of failure that affects all the laborers of God:
   1. We set ourselves certain objectives and strive to reach these worthy goals
   2. But when we measure them with what we look upon as success, we find that we failed
   3. Discouragement follows - that is common to all men in all walks of life; Examples: David that great hero came to a point when he exclaimed, "I shall now perish one day by the hand of Saul" - I Sam. 27:1; Elijah moaned and said, "I am no better than my fathers - more successful than my fathers" - I Kings 19:4; Jonah exclaimed, "It is better for me to die than to live" - Jonah 4:3-8 C. SUCCESS IN FAILURE
6. A prayerful look into success stories of men and women:
   1. Mistaken ideas of success - none of us can properly understand or estimate our life work! Our objectives are greatly limited by both our capacity to produce and our knowledge of the final effect of our labors; Examples: the writers of the sixty-six books of the Bible had no idea that their messages would affect all mankind in all ages; the pioneers of the great Advent Movement had no idea that within one hundred years their messages would inspire over one million believers in all the world to embrace present truth
7. Apparent failure:
   1. To be factual, there never is a complete failure in the work for God; one sows, the other cultivates and God gives the increase
   2. Apparent failures are, at times, blessings in disguise; Examples: think of Virgil in despair directing that his immortal works should be burned; Calvin said to those who were around him before he died, "All that I have done has been of no value, and I am a miserable creature"; or think of Cecil Rhodes, after leaving his mark on the continent, said, "So little don; so much to do"
   3. Think of the great debate of Abraham Lincoln with one of the great orators of his day, Stephen A. Douglas; Lincoln thought his speech a failure
   4. Paul writes, "ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord" - I Cor. 15:58