{"id":33417,"date":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/if-at-first-you-dont-succeed\/"},"modified":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","slug":"if-at-first-you-dont-succeed","status":"publish","type":"sermons","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/if-at-first-you-dont-succeed\/","title":{"rendered":"If at First You Don&#8217;t Succeed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2005\/08\/18801.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n<p>&#8220;If at first you don&#8217;t succeed&#8221;&#8212;you know the\nrest&#8212;&#8221;try, try again.&#8221; Now that&#8217;s a maxim that we all grew up with.\nFrom time to time we are all conscious of failure. Some may recall tragic and\nterrible failure, when you failed yourself&#8212;your best self&#8212;or you failed as a\nfather, or as a husband, or as a son, or as a daughter, or as a mother, or as a\nwife. Maybe you failed some of your friends. Some, too&#8212;and there are many\nfailures of this sort&#8212;have to come face to face with the fact that they have\nfailed Christ. They have failed as Christians. <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">If any of you fall into any of those categories,\nhave I got a story for you! It&#8217;s straight out of the Word of God, beginning at\nMark, chapter 14, verse 52, where it declares: &#8220;And [John Mark] fled from\nthem naked.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">John\nMark failed twice.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">It&#8217;s midnight in Jerusalem, and everybody&#8217;s\nasleep. All is asleep, except, of course, guilt and hate and sorrow and\nsickness. The Lord&#8217;s Supper&#8212;the Last Supper&#8212;has ended, and the traitor has gone\nout. Jesus and his disciples have already made their way up to Gethsemane,\nwhere Jesus took the chosen three along with him farther on and had them sit\nand watch and pray. Time passes. The three chosen ones fall asleep. There&#8217;s\ncommotion: soldiers, Pharisees. Judas Iscariot, the traitor, returns to take\nJesus away.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">But there is one hiding himself in the bushes,\nway back there in the shadows of the trees of the garden. It is John Mark. John\nMark watches as Jesus is taken captive and led off toward the city. Now, a\ncouple of soldiers apparently spot John Mark hiding back there in the\nbushes&#8212;maybe he has a white robe on because he was hastily dressed&#8212;and one of\nthem seizes him. John Mark twists and turns in a moment of panic and flees,\nleaving his cloak and his robe in the arms of the soldier. John Mark runs away\nnaked.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">There&#8217;s the deep failure. And there&#8217;s the story\nfor us, because if you look at that, you&#8217;ve got a deserter. You have a quitter;\nyou have a coward. If John Mark had merely had the courage to be taken\nprisoner, he might have been able to stand by Jesus Christ our Lord in our\nLord&#8217;s hour of trial. Just by his very presence, he might have been able to be\nan encouragement and a help to our Lord. But that night in his first trial and\nconfronted with his first grand opportunity, Mark failed. He fled naked,\nstripped not only of his garments but also of his self-respect and his honor.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">But there&#8217;s a word of hope for him, isn&#8217;t there?\nIt goes like this: &#8220;If at first you don&#8217;t succeed, try, try again.&#8221;\nAnd there&#8217;s a word of warning here for us. The warning is this: Don&#8217;t write off\nany of your Christian believers too soon. Don&#8217;t write them off, because this is\nnot the end of the story for John Mark.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I can think of the man who bought a home, and in\nthe back yard of the home was a tree. It was wintertime&#8212;nothing special about\nthis tree; just an ordinary tree. Spring came, and lovely pink buds appeared on\nthe tree. The man thought to himself, <em>Marvelous!\nI have a blossoming flower tree in my back yard and I shall watch it all summer\nlong.<\/em> A heavy wind came, and the pink blossoms blew off&#8212;scattered all over.\nThe man thought, <em>What a terrible tree!<\/em>\nBut that&#8217;s not the end of the story of the tree.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">And it wasn&#8217;t the end of the story of Mark,\nbecause we go to a second passage of Scripture: Acts 13:13. It declares in the\nWord of God that &#8220;John Mark, departing from them, returned to\nJerusalem.&#8221; Fifteen years have passed since that time of disrespect and\ndishonor in the Garden of Gethsemane. Now it&#8217;s springtime at the harbor of\nSeleucia, and in the harbor is a small boat. On the small boat stand three men,\nthree men who nobody really notices. Yet these three men are setting off on one\nof the most memorable journeys of all of history, the beginning of Christian\nmissions in service to Jesus Christ. They journey; they preach. They come to\nCyprus and are preaching Jesus Christ.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Then they take a ship to Perga in Pamphylia on\nthe southern shore of Asia Minor. There, just as they were about to depart into\nthat high country, the interior, where there are thieves and brigands and\nrobbers, Mark turns back. Mark quits again! He turns back and leaves them, and\nfrom the attitude Paul took later in expressing himself on this, we know there\nwas no good reason why Mark should turn back. It was dangerous country&#8212;rough,\ninterior country&#8212; toward which they were headed now. They were getting into the\ndangerous territory of robbers and thieves, and Mark turns back.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Even today that territory looks bleak and wild\nto the eye of the traveler. Apparently Mark had an ebb in his zeal for Jesus\nChrist the Lord. His courage had failed him at that point. And in the time of\ndanger, when the elderly Barnabas and the frail Paul could have used him as a\nminister and helper in going through the mountain passes, that&#8217;s when John Mark\ndecided to return to Jerusalem.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">This is a story for any of us who have tried and\nhave failed, because John Mark had failed. He failed in his first trial in the\ngarden; he failed in his second trial. He had a great opportunity to stand by\nBarnabas, to stand by Paul, as they went through Asia Minor preaching the\ngospel on that memorable journey, but he backed out. So much so, that when Paul\nwas going to go on the next great journey, he wouldn&#8217;t even take John Mark with\nhim. He said, &#8220;No way!&#8221; Paul had branded John Mark a deserter and\nquitter.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Mark was a man who had put his hand to the plow\nand turned backward and went backward. That&#8217;s the last we see of Mark for some\ntime&#8212;the man who had failed, the person who had not made it. Men will forgive\nalmost anything, but they are reluctant to forgive cowardice. And that&#8217;s\napparently what Mark became marked with: not fit to go into the dangerous\njourneys anymore.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">But, John Mark, there is a word of hope for you.\n&#8220;If at first you don&#8217;t succeed, try, try again.&#8221; And there&#8217;s also a\nword of warning here for us: Don&#8217;t write off Christian people. Be open to what\nGod can do with them. Try trusting in God concerning their difficulties before\nyou dismiss them or relegate them to a category of &#8220;not worthy of your\ntrust and your love,&#8221; because this is not the whole story of Mark&#8212;oh no, not\nby a long shot&#8212;just as it wasn&#8217;t the whole story of that tree in the back yard.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The spring winds came and blew the blossoms\naway. Summer passed, and one day the owner of that home looked out in the back\nyard and noticed large growths on that tree, about the size of a large nut.\nThey were green. He said, &#8220;My goodness! What is this?&#8221; He went out,\ntook one off the tree, took a bite out of it, and said, &#8220;Blecch !What a\nhorrible and bitter flavor!&#8221; He threw it away and said to himself, <em>When winter comes I shall cut down that tree<\/em>.\nBut it&#8217;s not the end of the story of the tree. It wasn&#8217;t the end of the story\nof Mark.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Ten more years passed. Where is Mark now? Is he\nthe one who was utterly discouraged by his failures? Is he the one who was\nembittered by the uncompromising and rather staunch and rigid view of Paul not\nwanting to have anything more to do with him on a journey in the name of Jesus\nChrist?<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">John\nMark has later success.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The answer is found in the greeting at the end\nof Peter&#8217;s first letter, where Peter says, &#8220;The church which is at Babylon\ngreets you and salutes you, and so does my son, Mark&#8221; (1 Pet. 5:13) That\ntells you what happened to Mark, the failure, the quitter, the coward. Mark had\nfailed by himself. Mark had failed dismally with Paul. But given one more\nchance, he not only made a comeback and succeeded as a companion of Peter,\nthere&#8217;s something very touching that happens.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Peter himself knew of failure, knew of what it\nmeant to deny Jesus Christ the Lord and go out and weep the bitter tears of\nremorse. Peter sympathizes, and embraces and supports Mark in his trial. Just\nas Jesus said to Peter, &#8220;Go and feed my sheep,&#8221; and Peter made a\ngrand actualization of that command, so Mark is given the opportunity. Jesus\nChrist in his mercy and kindness touches Mark and changes his life. No wonder\nthen, that Peter took a particular interest in Mark.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">This really is a sermon for us, all right,\nbecause what about Paul? What about Paul, who wanted nothing more to do with\nhim? It&#8217;s the sunset of Paul&#8217;s life now. He&#8217;s in the cold, damp Mamertine\nprison. He writes a letter to Timothy, probably through the hands of Luke, and\nhe says, &#8220;Timothy, come before winter. And bring my cloak and the\nparchments with you, Timothy. But there is one I want you to bring along with you,\nTimothy.&#8221; Just as Jesus Christ had his chosen three, now in the hour of\nhis death, in the sunset, the shadows of his life, Paul wants three with him\nalso.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">He has Luke and he will have Timothy. Who is the\nthird man Paul wants with him? Is it Epaphroditus? Is it Titus? Is it any of\nthat glorious company of friends of Paul when he&#8217;s alone and he says\n&#8220;Demas has forsaken me because he has loved the world&#8221;? Paul wants a\nthird man. And who is this third man? Who is this friend to be? Well it&#8217;s none\nof Paul&#8217;s other friends. It&#8217;s in the message that Paul wrote. This was the man\nwhom he desired to have at his side in the last great hour when he&#8217;s about to\nface the mouth of the lion (2 Timothy 4:11): &#8220;Take\nMark&#8221;&#8212;Mark!&#8212;&#8221;and bring him with you, for he is profitable to me in\nthe ministry.&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">In that last great hour when Paul is about to\nface the mouth of the lion, he wants Mark&#8212;Mark, who had fled naked when he\nought to have stood by Jesus Christ, stripped not only of his garment but of\nhis self-respect; Mark, who had left Jesus in the hands of his enemies; Mark,\nwho had left Paul and Barnabas to climb alone the rugged mountains, to ford the\nswollen streams by themselves, and to face the mobs of Antioch, Lystra, and\nIconium. He wants Mark, who went back to Jerusalem. Mark he wants&#8212;the quitter\nand the coward&#8212;&#8221;for he is profitable to me in the ministry.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">So Mark passes from the New Testament records.\nHe had failed in two trials, two examinations, but now he passes <em>magna cum laude<\/em>. This is a story for us,\nbecause it tells us that it takes more than one defeat to make a failure. Babe\nRuth struck out 1,330 times. It tells us that great people like Mark are\nordinary people like us with extraordinary amounts of determination.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">There was a young captain in the regular army in\nthe Oregon territory in 1854, and he had fallen into some bad habits. He missed\nhis wife; he missed his baby back in Missouri. He was the quartermaster, the\npaymaster. On the day when he was to distribute the pay, he was intoxicated.\nHis superior officer, rather a martinet, a very strict man, said, &#8220;All\nright. You have two options. One is to resign your commission and the other is\nto go before a court-martial.&#8221; This individual resigned his commission.\nThe young captain, after having resigned his commission, went to New York and\nfell penniless on the shores there.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Time passed&#8212;ten years now&#8212;and in 1864 an army\nofficer steps into the Willard Hotel in Washington. He is holding a small boy\nby the hand. Rather indifferently, the clerk spins the register around to him\nand says, &#8220;Please sign.&#8221; He signs and whirls the register back to the\nclerk. The clerk is astonished, for on the register is written the name: <em>Ulysses S. Grant and son<\/em>. Ten years\nbefore, dismissed from the army for intoxication; now a lieutenant general and supreme\ncommander of the Armies of the Union.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Some people, when they face the indictment of\ntheir weaknesses and failures and are rebuked as severely as Paul did John\nMark, often will refuse to yield. They become ensconced in a bitterness and\nresentment that will take them further off into dishonor. But with Mark it was\nthe reverse. Instead of being angry with Paul, instead of defiantly abandoning\nthe purposes and ways of God, he sees the fault with himself and not with God\nor God&#8217;s people. Mark resolves in his heart that he will show Paul he can make\na man out of himself yet.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">&#8220;If at first you don&#8217;t succeed, try, try\nagain.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead1\">\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"subhead\">John Mark turned his life around with help <\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/h2>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Mark recovered. He recovered because he had\ndetermination. Great people like Mark are ordinary people like us with\nextraordinary amounts of determination. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Mark had that, but he didn&#8217;t do it alone. He had\nthe help of his friends just as we need the help of our friends. Peter was\nthere. And that can make all the difference in the world. It really can\nsometimes when you have someone draw alongside of you and stand by with support\nand sympathy in your failure. Peter was the one who did that for Mark.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Long ago an ambassador to Germany, Andrew White,\nwho was the president of Cornell University and later taught at the University\nof Michigan, had a student who was impudent&#8212;a smart aleck, always mouthing off\nto him in the classroom. But White endeavored to support him, to stand by him,\nto encourage him. And he won the student&#8217;s friendship. That student however,\nwas later expelled from college because he was connected, indirectly, with a\ntragic happening in which another student was killed. That student came to\nPresident White and said, &#8220;I thank you for what you&#8217;ve tried to do for me,\nand I tell you this: I will make a man out of myself yet.&#8221; He had the\nsupport. He had the help.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Later on in the Civil War, which was just\nbreaking out, he enlisted. Then came Gettysburg, and there was a brigadier\ngeneral at Gettysburg, a brigadier general who had just been awarded that\noffice due to gallantry and bravery and fidelity. A command was given this\nbrigadier general to attack the Confederate Army. It was an impossible command;\nit was a hopeless command; and it was a mistaken command. Yet this brigadier\ngeneral led a gallant charge into impossible odds and fell with nobility and\nbravery in the Confederate lines. That offficer&#8217;s name was General E. J.\nFarnsworth, the same student who had been expelled from the university yet\nencouraged and supported by Dr. White. Farnsworth had made good his promise\nthat he would make a man out of himself yet.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">No matter what the mistakes, no matter what the\nfailures or blunders, there is the possibility of noble and honorable success\nif the will and the purpose are there with just a little help from our friends,\nand you have a friend who sticks closer than a brother&#8212;Jesus Christ the Lord.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">What is marvelous about this account of Mark and\nhis failures and his regaining of the virtue of nobility in his life is not the\naccount of his determination. That is not really the greatest. Nor is it his\nresolve. Nor is it the sympathy and kindness given him by Peter. That is not\nit, either. Nor is it the forgiveness of Paul. But what is of supreme\nimportance here is the love and grace of God given in Jesus Christ the Lord.\nOh, the depth of the riches of the love of God for you!<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">As long as there is the grace of God, you do not\nfail until you pronounce your own failure. As long as there is the grace of God\nin Jesus Christ, there is still time for another battle. And as long as there\nis the grace of God in Jesus Christ, remember this story of Mark and take heart\nand take hope. Lift up your hearts, because the deserter, the quitter, the\ncoward, one of the worst failures on the pages of biblical history is left in\nthe light of the golden text of Paul which reads: &#8220;Take Mark and bring him\nwith you, for he is profitable to me in the ministry.&#8221; That is the end of\nthe story with Mark, but we still have the story of the tree to wind up.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">It is to say this: as long as there is the grace\nof God in Jesus Christ the Lord, as long as this grace of God is operative in\nyielded Christian lives, then don&#8217;t write off your Christian brother or your\nChristian sister. Don&#8217;t do that.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">That man wanted to cut down the tree in his back\nyard, but that tree took little notice of him. That tree did notice the\ngraciousness and abundant provision of God the Father. And that tree continued\ndeterminedly to draw water from the ground and to gain sympathy and warmth from\nthe sun. In the late fall, that tree produced crisp, red, delicious apples.\nYes, it really did.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Some of us see Christians with their early pink\nblossoms of happiness and think they should be that way forever. Or we see\nnut-sized green apples of bitterness in their lives and we&#8217;re sure they&#8217;ll\nnever bear the fruit of joy. Could it be that we forget some of the best fruit\nis still to come?<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Some of the best fruit is still to come in our\nlives and in the life of our church, especially if the tree has that\nperspective in Jesus Christ the risen Lord that says, &#8220;If at first you\ndon&#8217;t succeed, try, try again.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead1\">\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"subhead\">R. Geoffrey Brown <\/span>\n    <\/h2>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\"> (c) R.\nGeoffrey Brown<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\">Preaching Today Tape #37<\/h2>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/www.preachingtodaysermons.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">www.PreachingTodaySermons.com<\/a>\n      <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\">\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"subhead\">A resource of Christianity Today International<\/span>\n    <\/h2>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[306],"tax_ctp_authors":[1630],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[170],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[412],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_sermon_series":[],"tax_ctp_tags":[3797,3931,4019,4089,4167,4629,5102],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-33417","sermons","type-sermons","status-publish","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-geoffrey-brown","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-discouragement","tax_ctp_tags-failure","tax_ctp_tags-friend","tax_ctp_tags-grace-of-god","tax_ctp_tags-hope","tax_ctp_tags-perseverance","tax_ctp_tags-success"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>If at First You Don&#039;t Succeed - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/if-at-first-you-dont-succeed\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"If at First You Don&#039;t Succeed - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&#8220;If at first you don&#8217;t succeed&#8221;&#8212;you know the rest&#8212;&#8221;try, try again.&#8221; Now that&#8217;s a maxim that we all grew up with. From time to time we are all conscious of failure. 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