(Luke 24:1-12; Hebrews 12:1-4)
A lot of times, people come to church for different reasons; some people come for social reasons, but very few people come to church because of the God of the church.
A lot of us come to church, hear the word, preach the word; yet many of us do not what we hear and preach, because the word we hear does not find good soil in our spirit.
Because of that, a lot of us are in and out of sin, failure, dissatisfaction, frustration, fear and anxiety. Most of the times in our lives, things are not working well.
A lot of us never succeed because we do not have the understanding, the discipline to do the right thing at the right time.
Life is a delicate balance between success and failure. It takes a lot of hard work, consistency, sacrifice, commitment and determination to succeed. It is only a small mistake, to fail completely. Our text in Hebrews chapter 12 verse 1b says “Let us run with patience the race that is set before us”. Why?
Because one small mistake in an unguarded moment of weakness can wipe an entire lifetime of extremely good and competent work. A lot of people are running the wrong race, and therefore they are running the race of failure. You will not fail in Jesus’ name. Amen!
This is the time of sober reflection. It is very easy to fail; one small mistake can lead to a lifetime of regret. A lot of people take life for granted. We think there is always a tomorrow. We think there is always a second chance.
In this life, there is a thin line between success and failure, and we need to be very careful because this world that we live in is merciless.
We have a whole bunch of Hosanna Christians; the same people who say to you on Palm Sunday, “Hosanna in the highest”, and when you make one little mistake, they say “Did we not tell you?” Nothing succeeds like success and nothing fails like failure.
Jesus endured the cross. He resisted temptation to the blood in the garden of Gethsemane, meaning it was not easy.
He must have wanted to come down from that cross. He must have been tempted by the people on his right side who said to him, “Come down and bring us down also”. And then just before that situation, when he anticipated his problem, the Bible says that “He was praying in the garden of Gethsemane.
Matthew 26:36-46, Mark 14:32-42, Luke 22:39-46 and John 18:1 tell us of their prayer in the garden of Gethsemane.
Jesus was praying against temptation. He was praying not to sin. And sin mentioned simply means disobedience or working against the will of God. A lot of us are in disobedience and working against the will of God. We commit sin with no regard every day.
There is a man of God who commits adultery regularly and regularly comes back to ask God for mercy, and he knows that the next day, he is going to commit the same adultery. People disobey God on a consistent and constant basis.
Most of the time, what God wants us to do are things of obedience. If you disobey God, for some people, there might not be a second chance.
My question to you is: What could have happened if Jesus had failed?
The whole world would have been a failure.
(1) We would have been sacrificing bulls and goats on the altar.
(2) The Holy Spirit would not have been here with us to perform wonders and miracles.
(3) There would have been no power to heal or divine healing.
(4) The world would have been in terrible chaos.
(5) Life would have been a constant and consistent struggle.
(6) We would not have been able to call on the name of Jesus.
(7) There would have been no Christ who is now our advocate.
(8) There would have been no power in the Gospel and no hope for the world.
(9) It would have been impossible to face tomorrow.
I thank God today that Jesus did not fail. Life would have been terrible and unbearable. A lot of us are not in the place where we are supposed to be; we are not in the place of our assignment. We are struggling to meet up with the basic things of life.
Each of us has an assignment that has been set before us that the whole world is waiting for. The assignment that was given to Jesus Christ was one that the whole world was waiting for. And if Jesus had failed, the whole world would have failed.
A lot of people have failed and they have thrown the whole world into a chaos, and if one of us fails, we will throw a whole generation into chaos.
• Continues in next edition.