Download the transcript as a Word file to receive access to the full outline and complete sermon.

• One of the most devastating experiences in a believer’s life occurs when he or she comes face-to-face with personal failure.
• Matthew 26:69-75
• Big Idea: You can avoid failure altogether if you will learn to attack failure before it attacks you.
• Just as illness doesn’t creep into your body without some kind of warning, neither does failure creep into your life without tell-tale signs.

• The first red flag is over-confidence.
• Matthew 26:31-35
• Putting too much faith in yourself, in your own moral superiority, in your own courage, and in your own intestinal fortitude, having the attitude of “it can never happen to me”—it’s a recipe for disaster.
• Illustration: May illustrates the precariousness of assuming you won’t fall by telling the story of a friend whose overconfidence in himself as a father led to his family falling apart.
• 1 Corinthians 10:12
• We need to approach each day knowing that we live by the grace of God, and our strength is found only in him.
• Philippians 1:19-21

• Matthew 26:38-46
• When we become undisciplined—when we become lazy—we open the door to failure in our lives.
• If you want to avoid failure, you’ve got to get in the habit of doing the right thing even when you don’t feel like doing it.
• 1 Corinthians 9:27

• Matthew 26:50-52
• Impulsiveness will do you in.
• Doing right when we don’t feel like doing right gives us the strength to avoid doing wrong when we feel like doing wrong.

• If you have failed in the past, God will forgive you, and he will restore you.
• You can prevent failure before it happens...or before it happens again.
• You can attack failure, and you can win.