In a sermon a few weeks ago I made the offhand remark that parents should teach their children to win with grace and lose with faith.  Elizabeth Gibbons’ thoughtfully asked through e-mail, “I understand winning with grace, but how can we lose with faith?”  This is a great question for us all, and I want to spend the next several columns fleshing out my too brief e-mail answer to Elizabeth’s question.  So thanks, Elizabeth, for listening critically and asking a really helpful question.  In the next several blogs I will cover:

1. Winning with Grace         
2. Having a desire to win
3. Having a worthwhile goal
4. Developing a strategy for winning
5. Taking responsibility with gratitude
6. Losing with Faith
7. Things worth losing
8. Possessing the faith to learn from a loss
9. Winners lose without becoming losers

             Our text for these blogs will be I Corinthians 9:24, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize?  Run in such a way that you may win.”  This verse is not just about winning at sports but about the importance at winning at life and, in particular, winning at the Christian life. 

 WIN WITH GRACE BY HAVING THE DESIRE TO WIN

            One of my favorite questions to ask ministers in interviews is, “How competitive are you?”  I enjoy asking the question because only about two in a hundred are comfortable with whatever answer they give.  What I’d love to hear is, “I’m competitive.  I like to win.”  Most of them are apologetic about wanting to win, even if they do, as if the desire to win were some kind of a character flaw.  God speaks to us through Paul and makes it clear that Christians are to develop the desire and ability to win at whatever game they enter. 

             Look at 1 Corinthians 9:24 again.  Obviously, running is a command which means it is neither natural nor universal to do so.  You must choose both to enter the race and to run.  It also means that in the games you enter, you are to expend all the energy and effort you have in order to try to win.  For the Christian life, he is saying, “Don’t just get in the race to get a T-shirt, get in to win.”  Today because so many people want everyone to feel affirmed we diminish the importance of winning so no one will feel like a loser when they don’t win.  According to this passage of Scripture, anyone who takes winning casually at marriage, church, school, business, friendship, or following Christ is destined to lose.  We will see in a later column that this doesn’t mean you have to win, but it does mean you must run in order to win. 

             So, do you want to win with grace?  That’s the first step – wanting to.  If you just want to be in the game or if you want someone else to do the hard work and the heavy lifting, stop right now and ask God to give you the desire to run the races in your life in order to win.

             I have been asked by a few people over the last few weeks, “Why are you against gambling?  What difference does it make?”  Let me try to explain.  What I talked about a few weeks ago was that ideas have power.  The idea of something for nothing or by luck has power and is not good.  It is impossible to isolate our values so they don’t affect seemingly unrelated areas of life.  Gambling is one of those practices that appeals to the lowest part of our financial nature.  The higher part is the productive, committed part that says, “Here is a product that will benefit people.  I’m going to sell it,” or “Here is a service that will help people and make a positive difference.  I’m going to sell it.”  All gambling is based on the notion that with luck I can get rich.  It brings out the worst in people, and it is something no community needs to support. They look to luck rather than preparation, hard work, and good execution.

             There is also a big difference between regulating what becomes legal and regulating personal behavior.  When the county makes something legal, its proponents will say – that makes it ok.  I want to make sure that the law approves as few harmful practices as possible.

             We are going through a stage right now in our culture where legislators don’t want to raise taxes but they need more money. An easy way to do this is through allowing and taxing gambling.  We have had widespread gambling in the past.  Ride out Devine Street and Garner’s Ferry Road and you’ll see near the Lutheran Church of the Incarnation an historical marker indicating there was a horse track where the children’s home now stands.  Further out by the VA Hospital there was another one.  That one belonged to Wade Hampton.  So we have had organized gambling in this state in the past.  We don’t have it now because back then we discovered that while it looks like fun, it’s actually quite harmful.  The human cost exceeds the human value. Right now it’s back on the upswing, and it will take awhile before we see the error of our ways and again restrict it.  However, I think it is important to take a stand and raise the issue wherever it makes sense.  The human cost is still too high.

The doctrine of works righteousness (salvation by good works) sounds so ancient.  Really, when was the last time somebody urged you to shore up your trip to heaven or your security in Christ by taking care of a homeless person (or something like that)?  While no one is that blatant about it, I am certain that I and most of us really do struggle with the idea that salvation is by grace through faith and not of works in any way.  How many of us give to get and not to give – for example?

             I’m convinced we struggle with it for two reasons, both of which are variations on pride. 

1.  I’m too proud to admit I can bring nothing to God that He would find worthwhile enough to exchange my effort for some kind of favorable treatment.  Yet, the Bible makes it plain that our righteousness (works) is as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6).  Imagine that God comes to your house, and as a welcome gift you give Him a sack full of rags that you used to wipe your hands after you changed the oil.  We don’t want to admit it, but that’s how our works look to God.  The only work He honors for salvation is the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross.  The basis for His favor is His love, mercy, and grace.  This is not a putdown to us but a tremendous source of assurance because God is reliable and unchanging and I am unreliable and changeable.
2.  I’m also too proud to admit that God doesn’t want my help in changing me.  To prove He doesn’t, He calls us dead (Ephesians 2:1), helpless (Romans 5:6), and tells us salvation is grace (pure gift) from start to finish (Romans 1:16-17).  Why, then, when we get sick do we double our church attendance, give more, and clean up our act as if God wouldn’t take care of our health unless we did more to get His attention?  God expects us to act like we belong to Him, but that belonging is His doing and my work or action is done only in response to the gift I have been freely given.  It is much more joyful to work for God because we’ve already been paid in full.  We don’t need to wheedle out of Him what it turns out He’s already given.  If He already loved the people who nailed Jesus to the cross while they were doing it, what do you honestly think you can do to earn more of His love for yourself?  I don’t go home at night hoping Patty will love me.  I go home because I’m already sure she does. 

             Can you give up the prideful and disconcerting notion that God requires you to do something to improve the level of His love for you?  Your Christian life will be a lot more joyful when you understand the assurance of the power of grace.