Even Jesus Failed!

...before you stone me as a heretic, let me explain!

If you've spent any time in ministry, you've probably felt the pain of watching someone hear the truth, acknowledge the truth, and then completely ignore it.  Eventually, it becomes a pattern you can recognize.  That's where things can start to feel truly helpless.  After explicitly telling someone where the path they are on will lead, they continue anyway thinking that they're the exception.  Inevitably, they aren't, and they end up exactly where you predicted. Not because you're brilliant, but because you've seen it before.

In those times, it can feel like you're failing in ministry. But by what standard do we feel like we're failing?

Jesus' Ministry

Often, when we think about Jesus' ministry, we focus on the crowds of people who flocked to hear His teaching. At the start of John 6, over 5,000 people showed up to hear Jesus teach.  When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem before His death, crowds were chanting, "Hosanna in the highest!"  His disciples were so committed to Him that they abandoned their previous lives, their families, and their possessions to follow Jesus.  Jesus was an incredible minister...but that wasn't the entire story...

John 6 may have started with thousands hearing Him teach but, after they heard more of His teaching, something different happened:

John 6:66 From this time many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, people may have declared, "Hosanna in the highest!" but, a week later, they voted to save Barabas instead of Jesus.

Jesus' devoted disciples, who left everything they had in this world to follow Jesus, eventually denied Him and locked themselves in a room out of fear; After following Him for three years, Peter blatantly denied Him to a little slave girl; One of them even betrayed Him for money.

He grew a following that abandoned Him!
His disciples denied Him!
He failed!

Jesus Failed!

In the short term, Jesus failed.
Based on our standards, Jesus failed.

However, that wasn't what really happened:

• Jesus offered hope to a fallen world.
• Jesus offered forgiveness to the sins of man.
• Jesus changed all of human history.

Jesus only failed based off of faulty standards.  He wasn't about merely numbers. He wasn't about the short term.  He didn't expect immediate perfection.  Jesus had something different in mind, and so should we. We can't control what other people do, we can only be faithful.

• A student rejecting your advice doesn't mean that you've failed!
• A group walking away doesn't mean that you've failed!
• Someone HATING YOU doesn't mean that you've failed!
• Someone DENYING THE FAITH doesn't mean that you've failed!

Each of those simply mean that your ministry looks somewhat like Jesus' ministry at times.


We must abandon any criteria for evaluating our success in ministry where Jesus could be considered a failure!

We must abandon any criteria for evaluating our success in ministry where Jesus could be considered a failure!