Canceled Failure

Okay , we're going to be talking for the next three weeks Three weeks about this idea of Cancel Culture , alright , so if you have a phone out and you want to take notes , I want you to write down the title of this message , because I want you to remember it . The title of this message is Canceled Failure . Write that down .

Canceled Everybody say cancelled failure . Okay , now let's redo this . Let's act like we're paying attention and let's say it loud and proud . Everybody say cancelled failure . Okay , I heard a lot of people say it over here , but I didn't hear anybody say it over here , so let's try it one more time . Say cancelled failure . That was better .

I want to give you the definition of Cancel Culture . Cancel Culture is used to refer to a culture in which those who are deemed to have enacted or spoken in an unacceptable manner are ostracized , boycotted or shunned . That is what Cancel Culture means . I got two stories for you . Has anybody in here ever failed at something ?

Y'all are going to relate to everything I'm about to talk tonight . So when I was in school I don't know if you can relate to this , but when I was in school I failed all the time . I failed tests , I failed homework , I failed just regular assignments . I failed finals . I failed it all , and once particular time I took Spanish .

Anybody in Spanish , raise your hand , put your hands down If you are in Spanish . Raise your hand if you hate Spanish . Yeah , that was pretty much everybody . So I was in Spanish , I was in Spanish and I was in a college level Spanish . That is not to boast about myself , because I'll be straight up , honest , I don't know any Spanish .

I know how to greet somebody Como estas . That's all I know . Muy bien , I can respond to that . That's all I know . Don't ask me to say anything else . If I go to Mexico , I'm screwed . So I was in this Spanish class . I took it online . Guys , if you go to college , or when you go to college , take online . It's so much easier .

Went to college , took this online Spanish course over the summer , passed it and didn't fail . So amazing , awesome , right , everything was online , okay . So then I was like I had to take two semesters of it . Right , took two semesters . So my senior year , I took it the next senior year or the first semester of senior year , and I took it online again .

I was like I'm not going in person to do this . It was so easy last time because guess what ? All I did was just put on my phone what I needed to say , tried to say it on a video recording that I sent it in . That's what you had to do . It was so easy . But this next time the teacher decided I'm going to change the class .

I'm like why would we do this ? But to begin in the class , they said when you are going to take your final , you're going to come in and take your final and you're going to communicate with me . We're going to have a conversation in Spanish . I literally about crap my pants when I heard that . All right , and so I knew this . The whole semester .

Luckily , this was the semester of my senior year where I moved . So guess what I did ? All right , and we got through all the way through the class . We got all the way to the end of the semester . It was December I had to take my final . All right , they were sending out time slots of when you had to come in to take this final .

So I knew that I was moving out of the state . So what did I do ? I just didn't show up . All right , I was just like screw this class , I don't need it anymore . So I literally did not show up and I'm pretty sure I failed the entire semester of the class . I'm not pretty sure , I'm positive .

I failed the entire semester of that class Because I didn't even show up for my final , because I didn't want to take it . Listen , I would have failed epically . All right , I cheated the whole way through it . Don't do that , don't do that . So I failed that .

Second thing how many of y'all , when you were in junior high or maybe elementary school , your teachers in English class would do little spelling bee quizzes like tests ? Yeah , worse , all right . So my teacher did this . She's like we're not going to do a spelling bee test on a paper .

What we're going to do is we're going to all sit in a nice big circle and I'm going to call on you . We're going to play a little game . Basically , what I'm going to do is I'm going to call on you . We're going to go in a circle when I give you a word , you've got to spell it for me in front of the whole class .

Listen , anybody in here good at spelling bees ? Raise your hand . I envy all of you . I envy all of you Because when I was in elementary school , junior high , I could not spell to save my life . All right , could not spell . So the teacher calls on me . It gets to my churn . Basically , it was a game Last person standing wins , gets to my churn .

The lady I don't even know what word she gave me , but it was a weird word . I'm like why a weird word ? Why couldn't it have been like yes or what's up ? I could spell that for you . She gives me this weird word . She gives me this weird word . Really was that I incorrectly spelled it the very first time . It got out and eliminated immediately .

Okay , failed at spelling bees , all right . So I'm just telling you I fail all the time in school . That's why I didn't go to college . All right , because I failed epically in school all the time . But I want to talk about that tonight .

The title of my message is canceled failure , because I want to talk about this idea of failure , and I think Gio wants to give the message for me tonight . Gio , do you want to give the message for me ? Are they trying to poison you ? Maybe you shouldn't talk to them then .

So I want to talk to you about this idea of failure because I asked at the beginning of this how many of you all have ever failed something in school and you raised your

hand . That's not to be ashamed of ourselves . Some of us are proud of failing . Listen , if you've got bad grades , get them up . That's my first piece of advice . I know some of you all got Fs in this school . You got bad grades . Get them up . I'm not talking A's and B's , but I should see some C's on those report cards . You should not be failing .

But I want to talk about this idea of failure because , guess what ? This second row y'all killing me , y'all killing me . Yeah , that's what I'm talking about . I want to talk about failure tonight because guess what ? Say what ? Failure is a part of life .

Failure is a part of life , and I'm not trying to make anybody feel bad about themselves , but failure is a part of life and I want to encourage you with this . Write this down if you want to . Don't allow yourself to believe the lie that you shouldn't fail .

Take a picture of it on the screen , write it down I don't care , but don't allow yourself to believe the lie and you can put your hand down that you shouldn't fail . Some people think we need to act so perfect . We need to have everything together . We need to never fail . We need to be perfect , and some of you are held to that standard .

Some of you have been raised to hold that standard of not failing and not falling apart and not falling short of the mark . Some of you all your parents have strict guidelines for how you have to have grades . Some of your parents , they want A's and B's , they want excellence .

Some of your parents are like I don't care if you get enough , do what you got to do , you're in school , I don't care . But some of us , we've been raised to that standard of that I shouldn't fail . And if I do fail , then I am a failure . But see , failure is an opportunity for you to lead yourself to future growth .

It's an opportunity for you to reach a potential that you might not have been able to reach before . It leads you to growth , because if you don't grow or you won't grow . If you don't fail , you won't become a better person . If you don't fail , you won't change who you are . If you don't fail first .

Can I tell you I would not be in this position if I was perfect . Every single day I had to fail time and time and time and time again to get where I am today and to be who I am today . So I want to share a story in the Bible about a person named Daniel . Anybody know Daniel .

You should know who Daniel is , because if you're here when I talk about David and Goliath , you should know exactly who I'm talking about . But , king David , I want to share a story from 2 Samuel . Maybe you've heard this story . I think I've preached it before here at youth . But if you've never heard this story , it's going to be interesting .

You guys taking notes , you better be OK , I want to read this story . It's going to be on a lot of slides . So if you want to open the Bible app or something , 2 Samuel , 11 , 2 through 17 .

And this is what it says it happened late one afternoon , when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house , that he saw from the roof a woman bathing and the woman was very beautiful and David sent an inquire about this woman and one said is not this Bathsheba the daughter of Elam , the wife of Uriah the Hittite ?

So David sent his messengers and took her and she came to him and he laid with her . Then she returned to her house and the woman conceived and she sent and told David I am pregnant . So David said sent the word to Joab , send me Uriah Bathsheba's husband , send me Uriah the Hittite . And Job sent Uriah to David .

When Uriah Bathsheba's husband came to him , david asked how Joab was doing and how the people were doing and how the war was going . Then David said to Uriah go down to your house and wash your feet . And Uriah went out of the king's house and were followed and were there . Followed him a present , a present from the king .

But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all of his servants of his Lord and did not go down to his house . When they told David , uriah did not go down to his house . David sent to Uriah have you not come from a journey ? Why did you not go down to your house ?

Uriah said to David the Ark in Israel and Judah dwell in booths and my Lord , my Lord Joab , and the servants of my Lord are camping in the open battlefield . Shall I then go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife ? As you live and as your soul lives , I will not do this thing .

Then David said to Uriah remain here today also and tomorrow , and I will send you back .

So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that next , that day and the next , and David invited him and ate in his presence and got him drunk , so that the man made him drunk , and in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his Lord and did not go down to his house .

In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab , sent it by hand , by the hand of Uriah . In the letter he wrote set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting and then draw back from him that he may be struck down and die . And so Joab was besieged the city .

He assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there was a valley where valiant men and the men of the city came and fought with Joab and some of the servants of David and among the people fell Uriah also died . That is a lot of scripture . It's a lot of scripture to read , but I want to catch the point of this story . David did something really bad .

He did something very , very terrible . He took and he woke up . He went , he saw this woman bathing and he stole her from her husband . David slept with a woman who was married . David slept with a woman who was taken by somebody else . And not only did David do just that , but what ended up happening is was when Bathsheba got pregnant .

What ended up happening is now David is trying to cover up his sin . He's trying to fix the wrong that he did . So what does he do ? He brings Uriah back . Bathsheba's husband says hey , I need you to go to your house and sleep with your wife . I need you to go and do that for me . Uriah decided not to .

He's like I can't , the men are fighting and I want to be where they're fighting . So he didn't do what the king was asking him to do . And so now , to cover up his sin even more , uriah carried his own death note to the battlefront and David had Uriah killed because of the sin that he had committed , and that sin was sleeping with another man's wife .

See , david failed , big , david failed epically . And see , david was human , just like me and you . David was a king , he was held to a higher standard and he failed epically . But see , after all of this we get to the next chapter in second Samuel , chapter 12 , and it says this . It says then David said to Nathan I have sinned against the Lord .

So then Nathan replied the Lord has taken away your sin , you are not going to die . See . So David now is confessing his sin . He recognizes what he has done . He recognizes the pain he has caused . He's recognized his sin . See , when we confess our sin , when we confess our failure to God , he takes that sin away , he takes that failure away .

But see , I want to talk about something a little bit more different than just talking about how God takes your sin away . I want to talk about this idea of repentance and repentine . See , david , he repented , right , he confessed to somebody about the sin that he had committed . But David just didn't repent . He began to live a life of repentance .

What do I mean by that ? What do I mean ? He went , he didn't go back and just do the same mistakes over and over again . See , david slept with another man's wife and he also had somebody killed . But see , david , after he repented , after he asked God for forgiveness , he didn't go back and find another woman and slept with her .

He didn't go back to find somebody else to sleep with . He didn't go and find somebody else to kill . He began to change his ways . He began to change how he lived . He began to live a life of repentance . See , he repented of his sin , he recognized his failure , he recognized his mistakes and then he turned the other way and changed how he lived his life .

See , I think there's a lot of us in this room where we have asked for forgiveness . Let's just be real honest . On Wednesday night , some of you have come in here .

You've maybe asked for a leader to pray with you , you've asked for forgiveness , but then you've left this building , you've left these doors and you've gone right back to the very thing that you asked for forgiveness for . You've gone right back to the very thing that you know you shouldn't be doing , and that is not living a life of repentance .

See , you can come in here and you can ask for forgiveness . You can ask for forgiveness from a leader , you can ask somebody to pray with you , but if you leave these doors and do the exact thing that you asked somebody to pray for you for . Can I just be honest with you ?

It's pointless , because you're not choosing to now live the life that you're asking for . You're not choosing to live the life of repentance .

See , repenting recognizes that you were wrong . Repenting recognizes that you were wrong and that something needs to change , that something needs to be different . See , repenting leads to growth . If you don't repent , can I tell you you're never gonna learn .

If you don't tell somebody , like David did , about your sin and about the things that you do , can I tell you you're never gonna grow , you're never gonna change . And I don't know about you , but when I was in high school , when I was in junior high , I was an idiot . I was an idiot . All right , some people would call me excuse my language a douchebag .

That's what I was called in high school . It's funny . I laugh about it too .

But if I never recognized my failures from when I was in high school , if I never said to anybody my sins and my failures and the things that I wasn't good at and the things that I shouldn't have been doing , if I never talked to anybody about those things , can I tell you today that right now , in this space , somebody else would be preaching to you .

I would not be in this position and I'd probably be somewhere else still excuse my language a douchebag .

But because I recognized my failures and because I became a different person and it began to grow and talk to people and talk to leaders about the mistakes that I was making , I'm here today and can I tell you I don't think I'm a douchebag anymore and I don't get called it that much anymore .

And you might think that's okay because I don't care what you think about me , so it's fine , god doesn't think I'm one . But the point of the story is I don't wanna be the same person that I was in high school , and no offense , I'm just gonna be real honest with you .

When you get older , when you get out of high school , you're not gonna wanna be the same person anymore . You're gonna wanna grow , you're gonna wanna change , you're gonna wanna allow God to do something in your life . I wanna give you a scripture verse . You can take a picture of this or write it down .

Proverbs 24 , 16 says for the righteous falls seven times and rise again , but the wicked stumble in times of calamity , for the righteous falls seven times and they rise again , but the wicked will stumble time and time and time and time and time and time again . See , can I encourage you with this ? Write this down and take a picture of it .

Don't be somebody who falls but doesn't get back up . Don't be somebody who falls and get back up . See , I want to give you three things that you need to learn tonight , three things . I want you to write these down or take a picture . They're gonna be real quick . The first one is I want you to learn how to repent . I want you to learn how to repent .

I want you to learn where your mistakes lie and I want you to learn to confess them to somebody . I know there's a lot of people in this room that you have some things in your life that you know you shouldn't be doing , and if you're not listening right now , listen to me , eyes up on me . There's something in your life that you need to get rid of .

There's something in your life that you don't like about yourself . Maybe , or maybe there's something that you just need to release it . Maybe some of y'all are hanging out with some friends you shouldn't be hanging out with . Maybe some of y'all use some language that you shouldn't use .

Maybe some of y'all look at stuff on the internet that you shouldn't be looking at . Maybe some of y'all are hanging out with your boyfriend and your girlfriend in an isolated place by yourself and doing things that you shouldn't be doing . Maybe some of you are at school vaping in the bathroom . Maybe some of you are getting drugs somewhere at school .

Whatever it is that you have in your life , I know something that I just said resonates with some of y'all in here , because I'm not stupid , I know y'all do it and I'm saying these things because those are the things that are gonna keep you where you're at , and you're never gonna continue to grow if you don't get rid of those things , if you continue to

allow yourself to have a bad mouth , if you allow yourself to continue to have a bad attitude and cuss out your teachers and don't take school seriously .

For those of you that look on the internet and look at inappropriate things , can I tell you that's gonna stalemate you for a long time and you're never gonna find yourself in a place of growing if you don't repent . Number two look at this one . We need to then learn . Once you repent . We need to learn from our mistakes .

So when you repent of those things and you recognize , hey , I don't wanna do this anymore . All right , I don't wanna go to the bathroom and vape with my friends anymore , I don't wanna do that , so you repent and now you're gonna learn .

So next time you're at school and your buddies come up to you and say , hey , meet us in the bathroom after lunch to vape , what are you gonna do ? Are you gonna learn from what you just did and repented from , or are you gonna be like , yeah , screw that , I'm gonna go do what I wanna do ? You need to learn from your mistakes .

Can I tell you , vaping sounds cool in the moment . Can I tell you , it's the most stupid thing anybody can do . I'm just gonna be real honest with you . Maybe that's just my opinion , but I think it's the dumbest thing ever . Drugs are the dumbest thing ever .

And can I tell you let's just be real honest for a second the only reason any of you probably do it is because your friends are peer pressuring you into doing it . If we're being real honest , I guarantee you shh , I guarantee you none of you actually really want to do it yourself . You're just doing it because everybody else is doing it .

Can I tell you this If any of you want a career and anything , drugs is the number one thing that's going to stop you . It's going to stop you . I got drug tested at high V when I applied there . I'm pretty sure most jobs are going to drug test you . So if you're a drug addict , guess what ? You're not going to get a job .

You ain't going to make money . Learn from that . Third thing grow . Take a picture of the screen , they're all up there . Grow . If you are not finding in your life opportunities to grow and let me put it this way Logan stop . Let me put it this way If you're not finding opportunities to grow up , you're missing out on life .

If you get to the point where you're graduating high school and you're still acting like a freshman , we miss something . God is calling us to grow in who we are . He's calling us to learn from our mistakes . He's calling us to recognize our mistakes . See , just because you failed once doesn't mean you are a failure .

And that's what I want to get at tonight , because I think some of you in this room , you think you are a failure because of stuff that you've done or stuff that you continue to do and you're not a failure . And see , god is calling us to get back up . He is calling us to repent , he's calling us to learn and he is calling us to grow .

I don't know about you , but I don't want to be the same person that I am 10 years from now . If the person that I am right now is the same person in 10 years , can I tell you I've done something wrong . I've not learned from my mistakes . I've not chosen to recognize my failures . I'm not chosen to be open to people correcting me .

You should allow yourself to be open for correction . You should allow yourself to be open for people to tell you hey , maybe you should live your life a little differently , maybe you should do that just a little different .

Can I tell you the number of conversations that I have with a lot of leaders in my life who came up to me and said yo , josh , you need to straighten up or guess what this is going to be your life ? You might want to do something a little different about this . You might want to stop acting like a douchebag and straighten up a little bit .

Can I tell you if I didn't have those conversations and if I didn't have those people in my life telling me that I would still be the same person I was in high school . And listen , I'm going to end on this and we're going to go into a worship song and have an opportunity for prayer , but here's what I want to say .

I'm so thankful for those moments , but the last thing that I want to say is I'm saying these things to you because this is what I've learned and no offense . If I were you , I would get your teenage brain mindset of oh my gosh , he's a 25-year-old man who thinks he's no better than us and I'm just going to not listen to him .

Or I've been in school all day and I don't want to pay attention to what he's saying right now because , honestly , I don't care . Can I be honest ? Get that crap out of your head , because I was there when I was in youth group . I was the guy that said those things while the pastor was talking .

Ok , get that idea out of your head for just two seconds and maybe just allow yourself to be open to the idea to repent , to be open to the idea to . Maybe I should do something just a little bit different , because , no matter what I say , it doesn't matter , because when you all leave these doors and you walk out that door , guess what ? I'm not there .

So you can cuss all you want , you can go to the bathroom and vape all you want . You can hang out with your girlfriend all you want , or your boyfriend and do whatever you want . You can do drugs if you want to . You can steal if you want to . You can go out late with your friends if you want to . You can break . You can do whatever you want .

But can I tell you , those things are not going to lead you to the life that you really need in Jesus . Can I tell you , y'all will live the blessed life if you choose to allow the Lord to come into your heart and lead you . So that's what we're going to do in this moment . I just want everybody to stand up .

If you're a leader in this room , just find a spot on the side . Again , we're going to do this pretty much every week . A leader , just find a side , but shh , no talking . We're going to stay in the room . No leaving to go to the bathroom For a few seconds , for just one song and for a few

minutes . Here's what we're going to do . I'm going to give you an opportunity to take this moment seriously . Shhh , I want you to open your mind up for about three minutes and just say man , what if I change ? What if I just stopped doing this for a second ? What if I try the idea of Jesus ? What if , for a week , I try Him ?

So in this moment , I just want you to have a what if ? Moment . Just ask yourself , as you're standing here worshiping , what if I repent and then I learn and then I continue to grow ? What if ? And so we're going to worship . I'm going to pray real quick . Our leaders are up here .

If you want to get prayed over , guys go to guy leaders , girls go to girl leaders , but just allow the Lord to speak to you in this moment . And one thing if you're not going to take this moment seriously , then sit down and be quiet . Yeah , lord , we just thank you for tonight . We thank you for what you're doing .

We thank you for opening our hearts and speaking to us , god . And so , right now , in this moment , as we worship God , I pray that you would just begin to open their hearts . I pray you would just begin to speak to every student in this room . I pray you would just begin to challenge them , lord .

I pray that for one second they would just see the what if ? What if I just try this for a second ? What if I just allow you to change my life ? So , lord , we give tonight to you , we give this moment to you . We say have your way . In Jesus' name , amen .