Jesus Failed, Will You?

Early on in my journey to be a Christian leader I came across more than one book that talked about Jesus as the perfect leader.  With a lot more words, these books basically said: Jesus did everything right so if you study how he led then you will be a great leader too.  This wasn’t the case with leadership alone, he did everything right because he was God.  From a “of course God is perfect” theological perspective, this is a no brainer.  Unfortunately, It didn’t take much brain work to make the next jump: equating godliness with success.  It was a natural jump that so many take.  In fact the disciples did it first.

Remember when a young, would be disciple, came to follow Jesus and he went away sad because the cost of following Jesus was so high? (Mat. 19:16-30)  After the man left, Jesus proceeded to explain how difficult it was for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  The analogy was that a camel would more easily go through the eye of the needle than a rich man enter heaven.  This verse has been greatly discussed over the years but what is undeniable was the equation the disciples made.  They were shocked that this man’s financial success was not a result of godliness.  They believed what we seminarians concluded.  If we are godly then we will be successful.  If I led like Jesus, I would experience all the self-defined, God-honoring leadership outcomes I was dreaming about.

God didn’t set it up that way and yet so many follow it like a formula.  I have seen it time and again with people who are angry with God.  The conversation goes something like this:  “I have sacrificed so much for God, I have gone to church and read my Bible and it is not fair that I lost my job.”

Jesus turned the formula [godliness=success] on its head with the camel and the needle illustration.  However, he really turned it on its head through his actions.

If you have time, read John chapter six.  When you do, you will see that at the beginning of the chapter, Jesus reaches the pinnacle of his earthly ministry from a seminarians perspective.  He had taken a small group of people and built a “church” of five thousand.  Twelve scrappy fishermen to five-thousand in a year or two is beyond mega church growth.  This church was _______________ (fill in your “big church” pastor’s name here) worthy.  Jesus had spurred a movement and developed followers and had an amazing audience for the discipleship work he seemed to be all about.  Without doubt, he was the leader to emulate as his leadership and administrative skills were on display for all to see.  It was an amazing feat.  In fact, many church leaders marvel more at the miracle of the following he built than at the bread and fish produced.  This was indeed great success.

Then Jesus crosses the water (extra credit if you make the Exodus connection here) and preaches a really unpopular sermon and what happens to his glorious success?

Answer: Jesus is left with his disciples and that is about it. (John 6:66-71)  We aren’t talking about a church split, a plateau or a decline in attendance.  We are talking absolute collapse.

It is a colossal failure.  Jesus demonstrates in his ministry with his “church” the very lesson of the camel.  Spiritual success (righteousness) does not equate with worldly success.  He was spiritually successful;  He was perfect.  However, that perfection actually produced to failure.  It highlighted the real equation Jesus was trying to point his disciples and us to.

The actual equation is this:  Spiritual success equates with God’s will fulfilled [godliness=god’s success].  Our spiritual success gets us to what God wants for us.  It is a demonstration of God’s grace, glory and power in our life.  More practically for us, godliness opens the way for God’s will to be more fully and completely done in our life.  Think about Jesus again.  He was perfectly successful in the realm of godliness and that led to his ability to fully live out the will of God and the purpose of God.  It is clear that in the garden of Gethsemane (Mat. 26), it was only Jesus’ godliness that brought the successful sacrifice for the world and opened reconciliation to the godliness failures.  

Our spiritual success has the same result.  When we grow in righteousness, we are more able to live out God’s desires for us; His will.  When we grow in godliness, we have an ability to hear more clearly and walk more closely to Jesus and thus fulfill more adeptly the will of God for us.

So where is your godliness lacking?  Where is it that you need to grow in faithfulness so that God’s success can be demonstrated in your life?

AND, are you ready for the natural result of that Godliness?  Are you ready to experience failure in the world’s eyes?

It all seems so upside down and it is.  God’s success and our godliness put us in opposition to the world.  When we faithfully follow God we can expect to experience epic failures from the prospective of our world.  However, even the struggle of this failure leads us to the feet of God where he will say over us:  “Well done my good and faithful servant!”