Loosing Can Be Everything
My guys lost. The final score was 83-79. The Boston Celtics were ahead at one point during the game by thirteen points, but couldn’t nail down the win. The Los Angeles Lakers did. It was heartbreaking, but life goes on, as they say.
It hurt all the more, though, that it came at the hands of their arch-nemesis. The Celtics and Lakers are the matter and anti-matter of professional sports. Their games are more like cataclysmic battles than sporting events.
Sometimes you lose no matter how hard you try, no matter how good you appear to be faring, even when victory seems to be a sure thing, and even when the event has all the hallmarks of an edifying end-result.
British humorist P.G. Wodehouse wrote a short story featuring his bumbling aristocrat Bertie Wooster and Wooster’s impeccable butler Jeeves entitled, “The Great Sermon Handicap.”
Our protagonists found themselves in the country outside of London. Wooster was bored beyond measure until the prospect of taking bets as to which of eight clergymen would preach the longest. The longer the sermon the bigger the till!
Wooster and pals were banking on the Rev. F. Heppenstall preaching a sermon on brotherly love, one that was timed at fifty minutes when last he preached it, one that “would have brought him home by lengths,” but for a horrible fit of hay-fever.
They switched to the Rev. G. Hayward with odds of four-to-one. Wooster’s description of the event begs quotation:
“I had only Eustace’s word for it that G. Hayward was such a stayer, and it might have been that he had showed too flattering form at the wedding where the twins had heard him preach; but any misgivings I may have had disappeared the moment he got into the pulpit. Eustace had been right. The man was a trier. He was a tall, rangy-looking greybeard, and he went off from the start with a nice, easy action, pausing and clearing his throat at the end of each sentence, and it wasn’t five minutes before I realized here was the winner. His habit of stopping dead and looking round the church at intervals was worth five minutes to us, and in the home stretch we gained no little advantage owing to his dropping his pince-nez and having to grope for them. At the twenty minute mark he had merely settled down. Twenty-five minutes saw him going strong. And when he finally finished with a good burst, the clock showed thirty-five minutes fourteen seconds. With the handicap he had been given, this seemed to me to make the event easy for him €¦”
Unfortunately, the young Rev. Bates, nephew to the Rev. Heppenstall, made use of his uncle’s fifty minute sermon on brotherly love and won, much to Wooster’s chagrin! You just can’t win for loosing, as the old saying goes.
If you can’t win with a sermon, how can you win at all? There are plenty of sermons being preached right now, ten minute homilies at Mass or hour-length biblical expositions in Protestant services. But of what value is any of it?
Some sermons make you feel good. Others make you feel bad. Many are simply dreadfully boring and monotonous, and some don’t appear to have any real point. Most preachers actually mean well, but some have a personal agenda.
One sermon that needs to be preached is based upon something Jesus said that was of fundamental significance (and He had a knack for such statements, eh?), the lack of which makes all of the neutralizing difference in the world:
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?” (Luke 9:23-25).
My pastoral experience is that very few are looking to do this, or are even very much aware that this holds pride of place on the agenda set by God for His people. Most of us want personal satisfaction, not Christian service.
We seek the attainment of our goals, the satisfaction of our wants, and the pleasure of certain peoples’ company. We wrap these motivations around the garb of things theological, ecclesiastical and spiritual — that is, if we aren’t careful.
Sacrifice is an act of intentionality. It takes a long time before one finds the nerve and the discipline to lay down one’s life — unless, of course, love is involved. A mother would willingly and instinctively die for her child because of her love.
Jesus may have been so attuned to the Father’s will that He willingly rendered His life a sacrifice at Calvary, but He still had to battle His fear of physical crucifixion and existential loneliness. Why else would He have cried out, “Father, if it be possible, take this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will but your will be done.”
I believe the difference that was struck within Him was that He loved the Father. It was a love that existed between them throughout all of eternity and that permeated the deepest recesses of their relationship.
The Gospel is quite clear on this point. Love was the motivating factor behind God’s plan of salvation: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
That verse has become so trite to the ear, so rote to the mind, and so clichéd within sermons, yet it runs deeper than Hamlet’s “To be or not to be, that is the question.” It is so profoundly real, yet put at such real risk by our souls’ desensitization.
We are desensitized to the love of Christ by the appropriation of even the things of God by our own flesh. Flesh can’t please God. Flesh can’t handle the things of God. And flesh seeks and strives for fulfillment, not surrender.
It is constitutionally incapable of surrendering to Spirit, just like a Celtics fan can’t ever root for the LA Lakers. It is impossible.
Just try to please God in the flesh. You must be aware that, no matter how hard you try, God won’t be pleased. It would be tantamount to a surgeon using a scalpel dipped in poison to extract snake venom. It is counter-productive, to put it mildly.
There is an interesting line from the classic science fiction novel Solaris by Stanislaw Lem (you may recall the recent film version starring George Clooney): “I could not go on playing an insane game with all the cards stacked against me.”
That is exactly what we are doing when we try to please God without first having surrendered our lives to Him. W can delude ourselves into thinking and believing that we are following Him, but we have actually stacked the deck against ourselves.
The way of the Cross is the way of a surrender and sacrifice that is the direct result of God’s holy love at work within us. All else is dross. Every ounce of everything apart from His love is displeasing to God because it is antithetical to His Spirit.
Paul observed the distinction in graphic terms: “Live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want” (Galatians 5:16f).
But what is it we want? Ah, now we have hit the nail on the head, haven’t we? Jesus asked such a question when confronted by people in obvious need of healing, because it wasn’t necessarily so obvious what such people actually wanted.
It isn’t necessarily so obvious with any of us, especially in lieu of Paul’s continuance: “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immortality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:19-21).
Two entire generations of American youth have forsaken God’s sexual standard, and at least one generation of Christian youth have also taken up the mantle of cohabitation rather than marriage. Yet we want God’s blessing. Do we love Him?
It is not for nothing that we are warned against idolatry throughout Scripture, most recently by the Apostle John (I John 5:20). Our culture presents a dizzying array of them, including things that are patriotic, comfortable and successful, even churchly.
And who wants the finer things of God’s Spirit? “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:22-24).
There is no need of law because there is no assertion of self, simply loving service to God, which entails loving His people and sharing his love with others - Just like Jesus, both in terms of substance and of sacrifice.
I often hear people tell me they don’t have patience, but rarely do I hear prayerful petitions for its appropriation. I hear many pleas for peace, but almost never at the expense of personal desire. And goodness knows that any profession of goodness comes at the expense of the satisfaction of our own flesh, not just others!
Paul was emphatically exhortative: “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other” (Galatians 5:25, 26).
The rallying cry amidst our weight-conscious era is, “Loose the pounds!” The Word of God cries forth, “Loose the flesh!” One ounce of flesh is too much. It is an excess that can’t meet the standards of God’s Kingdom.
But the blessing is, like the consequence of physical training and conditioning, that when you loose you win. It is given to us to gain the Kingdom of God.
My lovely little grand-daughter was a real charmer the other Sunday morning. I was holding her, having tucked her against me with my left arm as I closed out our morning service. I will remember the moment for the remainder of my days.
I was leading our congregation in the closing prayer. My head was bowed and my eyes were closed. I am told that the little lady bowed her head and closed her eyes, but kept taking a peek to see if I was still in my prayer mode.
She wanted to follow my example, but also wanted my attention. She would get it, but after she had relinquished it to God for a few moments. She is sweetly learning.
We will have God’s full favor, but we must deny ourselves. We may learn the hard way, but learn we will that real charm resides with God and not the world.
Bradley E. Lacey
June 25, 2010
The World’s Greatest Message with Pastor Brad Lacey is heard on Philadelphia’s WHAT 1340am every Sunday at 9am. Please pray for our listeners and for the finances needed to maintain this faith-based ministry. Your support is invaluable.