What Does The Bible Say About Success and Failure?

What does the Bible say about Success & Failure?

— Matt Edmundson

I was a guest on someone's podcast recently, and they asked me a simple question, "are you successful?". Yes, it is a simple question, but to answer that question becomes complex. First, we have to understand what the word "successful" means.

Defining Success

According to the Cambridge Dictionary - it means "the achieving of the results wanted or hoped for", which, when you think about it, is an expansive definition. For example, I was successful when I turned on my computer to record this talk. Sure, I achieved the desired results - I wanted the computer to turn on, but does that really make me successful?

Defining Failure

And what is the dictionary definition of the word "failure"? Well, Cambridge Dictionary tells us that failure is "the fact of someone or something not succeeding". In other words - failure is the opposite of success. And for many years, I think subconsciously, I saw it like that - very black and white, very binary. You either succeeded, or you failed. Success was good. Failure was bad. It was as simple as that.

But then, of course, life happens. And you realise that maybe there is more to it than that. And when you dig into the Bible, you definitely see there is more to it. So let me introduce another term into the mix here, as the Bible doesn't often use the word "successful", but it does use the word "fruitful". When talking about success, the Bible compares it to a tree that bears fruit - I think it is a beautiful picture of success.

So if success is about achieving a goal, then what goal should I be trying to achieve? How do I measure success? What is success in God's eyes?

What is success in God's Eyes?

What goal should we, as Christians, be trying to achieve? To use Biblical language, what should we be bearing fruit in?

Well, according to the Bible, God wants us to bear fruit in lots of areas, and here's a non-exhaustive list: mediating in God's Word, prayer, generosity, faith, being strong in Him, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and check this one out - self-control! That should be there, should it? A biblically successful life is characterised by self-control - the exact opposite of what most people think a successful life is.

So how do I measure success?

Well, I look at these areas of my life and ask, how much fruit am I bearing in each of them? Notice none of them asks how much money you have in the bank or even if you are married with kids.

So let's dig into this a bit more because there is a principle here that is critical for us when it comes to being successful in life, and it ties into this idea of meaning and purpose. To do that, let's listen in to a conversation Jesus was having with a crowd of people, just like us:

““Who are you?” they asked.

”Just what I have been telling you from the beginning,” Jesus replied. “I have much to say in judgment of you. But he who sent me is trustworthy, and what I have heard from him I tell the world.”

They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.” Even as he spoke, many believed in him.”

-- John 8:25-30 (NIV)

Biblical Success

For me, these verses contain the essence of everything we need to be successful, to find a life of purpose and meaning and live it out:

1. Jesus knew who He was - that is identity.

2. Jesus knew why He was here - that is purpose.

3. Jesus fulfilled that purpose - He always did what pleased God.

4. Jesus knew He couldn't do this on His own - God was with Him in this quest.

For me, if you break it right down - this is what you need to know about being successful:

Find out the reason that God has you here on planet earth, and then work really hard at achieving that.

The apostle Paul put it this way:

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”

-- Philippians 3:12 (NIV)

Paul knew who he was and why he was here. He also knew that he hadn't obtained everything yet...he hadn't arrived at his goal. So he pressed on and kept working to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

God wants you to be successful.

So fundamental to this, then, is the belief or the idea that God wants you to be successful. Jesus put it this way in the Gospel of John:

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide...”

-- John 15:16 (ESV)

That's interesting, isn't it? But again, we have to take this in balance because that doesn't mean a big house with a fancy car. Success, bearing fruit, is about doing those things that please God; it is about taking hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of you.

You cannot be successful by yourself.

But notice the 4th point in all of this - Jesus knew He couldn't do it on His own. And if Jesus couldn't do it on His own - you have no chance. Jesus talked about this again with the disciples. He is talking to them about vines - like grapevines. It was an excellent analogy for them because grapevines would have surrounded them, and Jesus makes the obvious point that a branch cannot bear fruit unless it is connected to the vine. But then He calls Himself the vine, and He says this:

““Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.”

-- John 15:5 (NLT)

If true success is about fulfilling your calling and purpose in Christ, then it makes sense that you cannot do this apart from Him. We need Him; we need His grace, His strength, His wisdom. We need the Holy Spirit living in us to do this. And we especially need to be grafted into the vine if we are to understand who we are, our identity, and our purpose because outside of Him, outside of Jesus, it doesn't make sense, and apart from Him, we can do nothing.

Redefining Failure

So with all of that said, I want to look at failure. It is great to talk about success, about how God wants us to bear fruit, it's exciting, it is full of possibility. But, like me, you have days and probably a lot of days where you don't feel like you are bearing fruit and often feel like the exact opposite, that we have failed in some way again.

Of course, there are moral failures that we experience. The Bible calls this sin, and for that, there is forgiveness, there is restoration - it is what the Bible calls repentance.

But there are other failures we experience too. I do wonder if we need to reframe failure in our thinking and stop seeing it as a bad thing all the time. It's not great to fail your exams at school or your driving test. I don't want to fail as a husband or parent. And it's a nightmare when the Internet fails in our house! But is failure really a bad thing? The obvious example is when I watched each of our kids learn to walk as babies. I lost count of how many times they fell, how many times they failed. But it didn't stop them - it didn't stop any of us. We kept going. Like Paul, we pressed on. In other words, without failure, we would have never achieved success. Each failure, we learned something, and we adapted accordingly.

The other side of failure

But to do this, we need to see that there is another side to failure that we have to understand, and that is simply this - what we might deem as failure might well be a huge success.

When failure is success

What do I mean by this? Years ago, the company I worked for was up for sale - and both Sharon and I felt like God spoke to us about how He was going to give us that company. That's quite an extraordinary thing to deal with, so we kept it to ourselves. We didn't mention it to anyone. I then did everything I could to buy that company - but it wasn't enough. The owner sold it to someone else.

And not only was it sold to someone else, but I also ended up leaving that company due to differences with the new owners, which I appreciate is a loaded statement. So here we were, thinking that God would give us the company, but the reality was very different, it was in the hands of someone else, and I didn't even work there anymore.

It looked like a complete failure on my part. Had I missed it somewhere along the way? And this is where faith comes in - the belief that God is bigger than circumstances and that God is ultimately faithful.

Faith in a faithful God is a crucial way to deal with failure.

After I left, I started my own company and worked hard, but I just kept trusting that God was somehow in this and in control. And to cut a long and quite frankly, fascinating story short, five years later, that company was actually given to me. I didn't have to buy a single thing. I didn't have to manipulate anything; I just worked hard and trusted God.

I put my faith in a faithful God and trusted that He would work despite the apparent failure I was facing. And He turned it around in a way that only He could.

There is a chapter in the Bible that is a bit like a Hall of Fame. It's in a book called Hebrews, chapter 11. And in that chapter, it talks about the whos-who of faith, how they overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the flames of fire, turned weakness into strength and even saw people raised from the dead, all fantastic stuff - we celebrate people like this.

But the second half of the chapter talks about those who were tortured, abused and persecuted, wrongly imprisoned, stoned to death, and destitute. It's not a glamorous list, if I am honest. And if those things happened to us, we would look at it as a failure - the opposite of success. We don't tend to celebrate people or events like this, do we? Yet, about these people, the Bible said this:

“They were too good for this world...God had something better in mind...”

-- Hebrews 11:38,40

That throws most of what we know about success on its head. You see, if success is about knowing who you are and fulfilling the purposes of God - then you have to look at success in the time span of eternity - which means not everything makes sense now, not everything will appear to go right now, but in the midst of it - we can trust God, and that ultimately His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Turning failure into something life-changingly amazing

When you think about Jesus' life, it doesn't appear to end well - especially if you don't believe in the resurrection of Christ. Without the resurrection, it seems a total failure - He is crucified. But what did Christ do, on that Cross, when things were at their bleakest, where failure seemed its strongest?

“Then Jesus shouted, “Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands!” And with those words he breathed his last.”

-- Luke 23:46 (NLT)

Jesus trusted everything to God, knowing that ultimately, God had something better. It didn't look like it at the time. It didn't feel like it. But when you look into the history of eternity, it makes sense; failure is not the end of the story.

Failure is not the end of the story.

God turned failure into success. Jesus had the victory, if, as I believe it is, the resurrection is true. We serve a God who can turn failure into success. We can entrust whatever we face to him. And whilst it is in no way on the same level that Jesus was facing on that cross, I knew that when I lost my job from the company that I thought God was going to give me, despite me having no money, a newborn baby and all of the other stresses, I could entrust the whole thing to God. It wasn't easy. But in the end, where people see failure, God sees an opportunity to do something quite extraordinary, something that is life-changingly amazing.

That's my story.

Are you successful?

So going back to the podcast that I mentioned at the start - let me ask you the same question I was asked, are you successful? My answer to that question was a resounding yes! But I clarified it to my host; I am not successful because of the car I drive or my job. I am not successful because I recently sold my company. The way I view success is a little different...

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