Turning Failure Into Achievement  Acts 13”1-14; Philippians 1:6

Philippians 1:6

Sermon by Pastor Dennis Gleason -- May 13, 2007\

⁶And I am sure that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on that day when Christ Jesus comes back again.

It has been one of my convictions over the years since becoming a Christian that God looks for faithfulness and not success in our lives. By that I do not mean to imply that God’s desire for us is that we be unsuccessful in our walk or ministry.

He is interested in faithfulness. He wants us to be faithful to the call he has placed on our lives. Success that God has in mind is not what we usually consider success. In the Church we tend to count nickels and noses and use the results as a badge of success. God never does. Remember He is the one who said: ”Where two or three are gathered together I will be there.”

As we come to the 13^th Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, we are confronted with what we could call success and failure. Follow along with me as I read from this text:

Acts 13:1-14

¹Among the prophets and teachers of the church at Antioch of Syria were Barnabas, Simeon (called “the black man”), Lucius (from Cyrene), Manaen (the childhood companion of King Herod Antipas), and Saul. ²One day as these men were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Dedicate Barnabas and Saul for the special work I have for them.” ³So after more fasting and prayer, the men laid their hands on them and sent them on their way.

⁴Sent out by the Holy Spirit, Saul and Barnabas went down to the seaport of Seleucia and then sailed for the island of Cyprus. ⁵There, in the town of Salamis, they went to the Jewish synagogues and preached the word of God. (John Mark went with them as their assistant.)

⁶Afterward they preached from town to town across the entire island until finally they reached Paphos, where they met a Jewish sorcerer, a false prophet named Bar-Jesus. ⁷He had attached himself to the governor, Sergius Paulus, a man of considerable insight and understanding. The governor invited Barnabas and Saul to visit him, for he wanted to hear the word of God. ⁸But Elymas, the sorcerer (as his name means in Greek), interfered and urged the governor to pay no attention to what Saul and Barnabas said. He was trying to turn the governor away from the Christian faith.

⁹Then Saul, also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked the sorcerer in the eye and said, ¹⁰“You son of the Devil, full of every sort of trickery and villainy, enemy of all that is good, will you never stop perverting the true ways of the Lord? ¹¹And now the Lord has laid his hand of punishment upon you, and you will be stricken awhile with blindness.” Instantly mist and darkness fell upon him, and he began wandering around begging for someone to take his hand and lead him. ¹²When the governor saw what had happened, he believed and was astonished at what he learned about the Lord.

Paul and Barnabas had been set apart by the Holy Spirit to be the first of what we call Missionaries. Luke, as he records the events in this chapter, makes it clear that these men were not separated or called to this ministry by others in the group there in Antioch of Syria. They did not decide to go on their own. The Spirit of God said to do it. And they did. Paul and Barnabas then decide where they are to go. They choose to go to Cyprus. Cyprus is the island just to the south of what is now Turkey…the old Province of Asia Minor in the Roman Empire. A young man named John Mark went along with them as their assistant. He was the nephew of Barnabas, the son of Barnabas’ sister.

It seems that they chose to go to Cyprus because that is where Barnabas used to live. He knew the area and the people. It was a very logical starting place for their missionary activity. They sail to Salamis and then work their way across the island to Paphos. It is there that they have the confrontation with Elymas, the sorcerer and win over the Governor Sergius Paulus.

It is also there that you find Saul becomes Paul. If you watch how Luke writes, you will notice that Barnabas and Saul are set apart and then they go to Cyprus. The apparent leader is Barnabas. But when they reach Paphos, Saul’s name is changed Paul and he becomes the obvious leader. He is the leader as they sail north to Asia Minor on their way to Antioch of Pisidia.

According to verse 5, John Mark is their assistant. Now the interesting thing about how John Mark is described here is the word for assistant. In this context, the Greek word is a nautical term, HUPERETES. It literally means, under-rower, a galley slave. He was a man who was to be an errand boy and a gopher. Something upsets Mark, because it is not long before he leaves the Missionary party and goes home.

¹³Now Paul and those with him left Paphos by ship for Pamphylia, landing at the port town of Perga. There John Mark left them and returned to Jerusalem. ¹⁴But Barnabas and Paul traveled inland to Antioch of Pisidia.

The island of Cyprus lay behind them. The Apostle Paul and his company were now advancing into territory that would test the strongest man. Pamphylia lay to the south, Cilicia lay to the east and Lycia bordered them on the west. The Taurus Mountains lay in front of them.

Paul, Barnabas, and John Mark had to endure the attack of Elymas, a man who was a sorcerer and full of the devil. John Mark had watched in awe as the power of God had struck this man with blindness.

Yet, in front of them now lay the Taurus Mountains. The coastline was infested with pirates. The mountains were the home to robbers. The way was steep and rugged and full of wild animals and lawless men. The going was to be tough. But none of these things deterred Paul.

To surrender at this point would mean that giving in would be the pattern for the rest of his life.

But it was at this same point that John Mark quit. For one reason or another, just when he was needed the most, he gave up.

Paul was apparently shocked at the desertion of John Mark. There is no record of what was spoken but John Mark was written off as a quitter.

He did not wait to test the difficulties, just the imagination of hardship got to him. He did not throw himself into the work. He quit before he had even made a mile into uncharted territory.

Think of the consequences of quitting for John Mark. To see the results of his quitting you have to go down the road 2 years into the future to Paul’s Second Missionary Journey:

Acts 15:35-41 -- “Paul also and Barnabas continued in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with many others also.” “And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas, Let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do.” “And Barnabas determined to take with them John, whose surname was Mark.” “But Paul thought not good to take him with them, who departed from them from Pamphylia, and went not with them to the work.” “And the contention was so sharp between them, that they departed asunder one from the other: and so Barnabas took Mark, and sailed unto Cyprus;” “And Paul chose Silas, and departed, being recommended by the brethren unto the grace of God.” “And he went through Syria and Cilicia, confirming the churches.”

Two obvious consequences of his failure to stay with them were:

1.  that Paul would not take him along the next time they went and  

2. it caused a fracture in the relationship between Paul and Barnabas. Their disagreement over Mark was sharp enough to send them off in different directions.

Mark quit. He left the work. That is Paul’s evaluation of the situation 2 years later. The young man left before God had an opportunity to work in his life as he wanted.

I found this illustration this week and thought it would fit in here quite well:

For six, arduous, lonely, grueling months, he tunneled through the granite, limestone, and shale, digging his way into the heart of the mountain. For every outward appearance, the play of gold in the creeks and streams below this point, all the geological fingers pointed that somewhere in this mountain, deep in the inner recesses contained the precious gold-bearing quartz. But after long months of drudgery, sacrifice, and struggle had yielded not even a trace of the long sought-for metal, the prospector buried his pick, his candle, and his dynamite in discouragement at the extreme end of the tunnel. He abandoned his dream and hopes in bitter disappointment.

Years passed with amazing swiftness and an Eastern mining company became aware of the progress that had been made with this particular mine. They found the claim abandoned and placed notice that it would be re-opened. In the re-opening process, the timbers that had served as supports were replaced and the fallen rock had been removed. The company reached the end of the tunnel and there they found the rusty pick, the time-worn traces of the candle and the dynamite remained uncovered. The excavation started once again and six inches further on through the granite, gold was discovered.
In northern California, the mine proved to be one of the richest mines since the Gold Rush Days. Six inches further on was the gold. Consider the tragedy of those lost six inches. The miner quit. He never found the very thing he was searching for.

Or consider this:

In 1972, NASA launched the exploratory space probe Pioneer 10. According to Leon Jaroff in Time, the satellite's primary mission was to reach Jupiter, photograph the planet and its moons, and beam data to earth about Jupiter's magnetic field, radiation belts, and atmosphere. Scientists regarded this as a bold plan, for at that time no earth satellite had ever gone beyond Mars, and they feared the asteroid belt would destroy the satellite before it could reach its target.

But Pioneer 10 accomplished its mission and much, much more. Swinging past the giant planet in November 1973, Jupiter's immense gravity hurled Pioneer 10 at a higher rate of speed toward the edge of the solar system. At one billion miles from the sun, Pioneer 10 passed Saturn. At some two billion miles, it hurtled past Uranus; Neptune at nearly three billion miles; Pluto at almost four billion miles. By 1997, twenty-five years after its launch, Pioneer 10 was more than six billion miles from the sun.

And despite that immense distance, Pioneer 10 continued to beam back radio signals to scientists on Earth. "Perhaps most remarkable," writes Jaroff, "those signals emanate from an 8-watt transmitter, which radiates about as much power as a bedroom night light, and takes more than nine hours to reach Earth."

The Little Satellite That Could was not qualified to do what it did. Engineers designed Pioneer 10 with a useful life of just three years. But it kept going and going. By simple longevity, its tiny 8-watt transmitter radio accomplished more than anyone thought possible.

So it is when we offer ourselves to serve the Lord. God can work even through someone with 8-watt abilities. God cannot work, however, through someone who quits. Craig Brian Larson, Pastoral Grit: the Strength to Stand and to Stay, Bethany. 

Thomas Edison did not give up on his first efforts to find an effective filament for the incandescent lamp. He did countless experiments with countless materials. As each failed, he would toss it out the window. The pile reached the second story of his house. Eventually, he sent men into many different countries such as, Japan, South America, Asia, Jamaica, Ceylon, and Burma in search fibers and grasses to be tested in his lab. One weary day, on October 21, 1879, after 13 months of repeated failures, he succeeded in his search for a filament that would stand the stress of electric current. This is how it happened. Casually picking up a bit of lampblack, he mixed it with tar and rolled it into a thin thread. Then the thought occurred to him, “Why not try a carbonized cotton fiber? For five hours he worked, but each time it broke before he could remove the mold. Two spools of thread were used. At last a perfect strand emerged, only to be ruined while being placed in a glass tube. However, Edison refused to be defeated. He worked non-stop for two days and nights without sleep. Finally he managed to slip one of the carbonized threads into the sealed glass bulb. When he turned on the current, he beheld a sight that he had worked so long for, the bulb burned and provided light.

-One of the greatest things about God is that He continues to work with men despite their own limitations and failings. Too often men do not allow God to complete what He starts within them.

Taking a page out of Paul Harvey’s book…you need to know the rest of the story.

Mark was a failure. We don’t know his reasons for leaving. Perhaps the work was too hard. Perhaps the danger of pirates and robbers and of the uncertainty ahead of them was too much for him. Perhaps he was homesick. Whatever it was; it was serious enough for him to quit. And for years he was seen as a failure. He was not worthy of being taken on the next Missionary Trip.

But, as Paul comes toward the end of his life and ministry, something changes. Paul writes to Timothy…his beloved son in the faith:

2 Timothy 4:11 -- “Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry.”

 He is profitable to me for the ministry. What a vote of confidence. What a testimony to the fact that failure did not remain the hallmark of his life. He did not remain a quitter. And the ultimate testimony of that is the fact that Mark gives us the teaching of Peter, the great Apostle, in the Gospel bearing his name. That is the rest of the Story.

The obvious application for us is this:

There are no short-cuts to a man’s life becoming great for God. If a man tries to remove the disappointments, the defeats, the discouragements, the difficulties, the perplexities of his life, he is removing the finishing touches of God’s hand in his life.

Too often men allow their circumstances to place the finishing touches on their lives. They allow the bitter disappointments, the trials they are forced to endure, the very dilemmas of life forge and shape their character in such a way that nothing profitable ever comes of them.

That is where Mark was when he left Paul and Barnabas and went home.

But that was not the last chapter of his life. The quitter entered the game once again.

What are we to do?

How do I get the determination to go beyond my own failures and mistakes? I think it is best illustrated in something that a boxer once said:

At the end of the nineteenth century, a boxer named “Gentlemen Jim” Corbett, held the heavyweight championship title for the world for five consecutive years. When someone asked him what the key to it was, he answered with these words: “Fight one more round. When your feet are so tired that you have to shuffle back to the center of the ring, fight one more round. When your arms are so tired that you can hardly lift your hands to come on guard, fight one more round. When your nose is bleeding and your eyes are black, fight one more round. When you are so tired that you wish your opponent would crack you on the jaw and put you to sleep, fight one more round. Always remembering that the man who fights one more round is never whipped. . . . . He is always battling one more round.”

My one concession to remembering Mother’s Day is this: have you ever known a mother who quit loving her son or daughter? Even the most hardened criminal has a mother who loves them and believes in them.

And they will never quit loving their child. Mothers never quit loving.

God never quits…loving us either. Paul has this to say to us…and I am sure that it was his thoughts regarding John Mark…

⁶And I am sure that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on that day when Christ Jesus comes back again. Philippians 1:6

It’s too late to quit now.

He can use your 8 watt capability for the sake of Christ and His Kingdom so long as you never quit.

Forget your mistakes, and seek the grace and power of God.

Remember it is faithfulness that God requires of you. He will take care of the success.

--Dennis Gleason