From: Les Young [pastorles@comcast.net]
"Winning and Losing"
Date: Jan 20, 2007
Dearly beloved of God:
Are you ready? Brace yourself for another one of my tennis parables. Actually, this is not tennis specific, but pertains to just about any competitive game, even the game of life. Green Bay Packers' legendary coach, Vince Lombardi, once said, "Winning isn't the most important thing, its the only thing." Vince, having lead his team to two consecutive Super Bowl championships, had many people convinced that this was true. And I can reflect back on the many competitive games I've been in during my life, from athletics, to business, to the church, and I know that whatever lessons I've learned when losing, I would have rather learned them while winning. Most of us just don't like to lose.
I thank God that He has shown us what it really means to be a winner, and how we can always be guaranteed of winning.
First, we have to stop measuring wins and losses the way the world does. Usually, the world's definition of winning involves having greater numbers. And then, it's winner take all. The individual with the most points, runs, scores, etc. is the winner. The team with fewer points, runs, scores - no matter how close - is the loser. And sometimes, it just depends on which points are won, and not total points. Going back to tennis, you can score more total points than your opponent and still lose the match. That's because tennis is scored differently than most other games. Points determine games, and games determine sets, and whoever wins the most sets (2 of 3 or 3 of 5) wins the match. And so, it is possible for someone to be completely shut out for the first two sets of a 5 set match. That would mean that the "losing player" would have scored zero points while the "winning player" scored 48 points in a row. Then all of a sudden, the losing player could dig in; the winning player could get careless, and the game could change. Let's say that it turns into a real fight, with players trading points back and forth, with each of the next 3 sets decided by the slimmest of margins. Our theoretical match could be won by the player who was shut out in the first two sets by coming back to win the next 3. And in each game of each of those 3 sets, our loser (now the winner) could have been shut out in every game that he lost and won every game that he won by the minimum margin of 2, and finally winning a tiebreaker in each game by a margin of two. Trust me with the math now, but even in the sets he wins, the winner could lose 10 more points than he wins. In the end, the winner could have won 78 fewer points than the loser.
So, second, we must understand that its not about total points, its about winning the "Big Points." You see, winning in the eyes of the world, is usually just a surface thing. Whether the gamed follows the unique scoring rules of tennis, or whether its something more straightforward, like football or baseball, the world views the winner as the one with the most of something. In business, it can be the one with the most clients, the largest customer share, the biggest bottom line. In the church it can be the one with the biggest attendance, the fastest growth rate, or the most political influence. Winning in the world is all about outward appearance.
What does God say?
1 Samuel 16:7 (NIV)
7 But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
Matthew 10:39 (NIV)
39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Romans 8:37 (NIV)
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
1 Corinthians 15:57 (NIV)
57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Philippians 3:7-14 (NIV)
7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ
9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.
10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
1 John 5:4-5 (NIV)
4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
And bringing us back to the fact that our victory, our winning, may not always be outwardly visible, John just told us that our world-overcoming victory is by faith, and...
Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)
1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.
My friends, walk in faith, walk in love, walk in victory, keeping your eyes on the prize.
Yours for His Purposes,
Pastor Les
