It's amazing what we do with funny stories.  We apply them to whomever we wish.  For instance, you might hear one funny story with the legendary coach Bear Bryant as the primary actor.  When you hear it again, the primary actor may be Johnny Majors.  I heard a marvelous story sometime ago about Thomas Wheeler, Chief Executive Officer for the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company in fact, he told the story on himself.  Lately I've been hearing it about President Clinton.  So the story goes with the new actor Bill Clinton in it.  He and his wife Hillary were driving through a city up east and noticed they were low on gas.  They pulled over at the first exit and came to a dumpy little gas station with one pump. 

There was just one attendant working at the place, and as he began to pump the gas, the President went to the bathroom.  Then it happened.  Obviously the gas station attendant and Hillary recognized each other.  They began to talk and laugh and were having a very animated conversation when the President came out of the bathroom. The President was surprised and the attendant was embarrassed by this.  The attendant walked away, pretending that nothing had happened.  The President followed him, paid for the gas and as they pulled out of that seedy little service station, he asked Hillary how it was that she knew that attendant and what they were talking about. 

She told him that they had known each other in high school, in fact they had been high school sweethearts and had dated rather seriously for about a year her first year in college. 

Well, the President couldn't help bragging a little and he said, "Boy, were you lucky I came along, because if you had married him, you would be the wife of a gas station attendant instead of the wife of the President of the United States." 

Hillary replied, "My dear, if I'd married him you would be the gas station attendant and he would be President of the United States. 

It's a matter of perspective isn't it?  Success and failure mean different things to different folks.  Today I want to talk about "how to fail successfully".  Does that sound like a oxymoron?  How to fail successfully.  No one wants to fail.  Everybody wants to succeed.  That being the case, if we are going to fail, we should do it successfully. 

A few years ago Fast Lane magazine conducted a survey to find out whose lives its readers would most like to emulate.  Lt. Colonel Oliver North placed first.  Then President Ronald Reagan placed second.  Clint Eastwood was third.  Fourth place was a tie between Lee Iacocca and Jesus Christ.  What a commentary! 

A young woman went into a Denver jewelry store and told the clerk she wanted to purchase a gold cross on a chain to wear around her neck.  The clerk turned to the display case and asked, 'Do you want a plain one, or one with a little man on it?'  What a commentary! 

Jesus tied for fourth place with Lee Iacocca and is referred to as a little man on a piece of jewelry. 

That brings us to our Scripture lesson which will provide the foundation for our theme, "how to fail successfully."  Jesus had already been "successful."  Just recently He has stilled a storm on the sea (Mark 4: 41).  He had healed "Legion", the man who was possessed by demons and lived in madness in a cemetery.  And then came the healing of the woman who had been hemorrhaging for twelve years, and the raising of a little girl from death.  All of this is recorded in chapters four and five of Mark.  Jesus was obviously a success. 

Chapter six opens with Jesus coming to Nazareth and teaching in the synagogue and the people being amazed, asking the question, where did this man get all His wisdom and all his power?  They were amazed. 

It is in the midst of that success that Jesus calls his disciples and sends them out.  In His instruction He warns about failure.  Listen to verses 10 and 11 of chapter 6: He said to them, "Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place.  If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them." 

Is there not solid instruction here in our Scripture lesson and from Jesus himself instructions that there may come a time when it's really time to quit?  We can try too long.  At least Jesus is saying that there are moments when in order to keep on keeping on we need to give up face our losses and accept failure.  I think there is an understanding for us here maybe a guide to "how to fail successfully."  Let's look at the possibility.

1.  We Can Give Up Too Soon.
2.  We Can Keep Trying Too Long.
3.  There Comes a Time to Stop Trying.