Quitters & Losers

The title of my sermon today is Quitters and Losers. This time of the year, we are examining ourselves. We're told to. But how many of us really take a magnifying glass to our lives? A spiritual magnifying glass. To see where... because to really examine yourself or evaluate yourself, you have to look at both the good and the bad. Your strengths and your weaknesses. I can relate to this because of Tuesday this week. I had my yearly evaluation from my boss, Gary Petty, through Zoom. As we talked about what I was doing good and what I was doing that could be better.

And then what both of our goals were for the area here being he is a regional pastor. Well, as I thought about that, I thought about this examination because we have to look at both. There are areas in our lives where we're gifted. We're gifted with certain talents. And there's also some weaknesses and things we could prove. I wouldn't say necessarily, hey, I didn't get a whole lot like he said, well, you're weak in this area, but he said, I'd like to see you grow into this area a little more.

So I wanted to look at this and think about what the Scripture says about what truly is important in our lives and our goals. And that's the basis of this sermon, is what is most important. Now, we can all recall Matthew 6, 33, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and we say, hey, that's first. But I'd like to look at something that may even pale that in significance in the overall themes of our lives.

You know Jesus Christ stood on the Mount of Olives, giving His Olivet prophecy from Matthew 24, and He covers what's going to happen in the last days, but He says something very profound that each and every one of us need to take in consideration, especially this time of the year. He said, He who endures to the end the same shall be what? Saved. Is that what we want? By being saved, it means being in the kingdom of God? I think so. But I want to look at, from the title of my sermon, quitters and losers. Maybe as you have never looked at that before, because if anything else is a motivational sermon that I hope will keep you focused, because sometimes, I've seen this over the years, that people will examine their lives as they come down to the Days of Unleavened Bread, as they prepare themselves magnifying maybe some shortcomings in their lives of sins.

And you can be, come very down on yourself. And that's not the purpose of the Days of Unleavened Bread. That's not the purpose Passover. That's not the purpose of examination, really. It truly isn't. It's to see where we are in our spiritual lives. And it's not to look, oh, woe is me. It's to look at our lives and say, I can be better than this. I can do better than this. I want to do better than this, and God wants me to do better than this.

So let's move on. Let's go. Let's turn a new chapter in our lives. Let's make this Days of Unleavened Bread a defining moment in our lives if we've struggled with certain shortcomings that we may have. But to beat ourselves up, God's not all about that. The Jews thought He was.

And even in Jesus' time, they thought, oh God, oh God. Instead of, oh God, oh God, what you're doing for me. And even Christ was shocked of how negative they could be about what God wants from us. So that's the purpose of this sermon. But I'd like to look at right now the greatest quitters in the Bible. Greatest quitters of the Bible. I hope you will not end up in that, in the continuation of the book of Acts. But there were certain quitters in the Bible. Do you feel that way? Do you feel like sometimes you want to quit? Haven't we all known people who have quit?

Yet Christ said, He who endures to the end, the same shall be. Yes, that's where we need to be. That's who we need to be. Is moving forward and never quitting. I remember the movie, Officer and a Gentleman, way back, shows my age because I watched as a young man, and Richard Gere was young. Now he's old and so am I. And he was trying to be an officer, and his old sergeant. Can't remember that guy's name. What is it? Lou Gossett Jr.

Very good. Yes, Gossett Jr. Just giving him a hard time all through camp and so forth. Finally, just wanted him to quit. And he did everything he could to get him to quit. He literally tortured him to get him to quit. And he said, finally he was in the water and he was doing push-ups, and he couldn't push-ups until he couldn't do them anymore, and it was pouring rain in the mud.

And he said, Mayo, his name was Mayo, but he called him Mayonese. Mayonese! Just quit! Just quit! And he looked up with tears in his eyes and he said, I can't. And he said, why not? He said, because I got no place to go. I got no place to go. Brethren, if we quit, where do we go? If I quit, I've got no place to go. Except when I read in the Bible and I like warm weather but not that hot.

Because it's called the Lake of Fire.

So are you a quitter? I think most of you in here would say no. But as Bill may, yes, sometimes we feel like quitting. There's a few times in my life that I felt like quitting.

I want to give you a list of quitters in the Scripture. I want to go through a little bit of these. The first one I want to touch on is Judas. Judas! He quit! He had it all, didn't he? He was at the foot of Christ. He was at the seat of the kingdom of God.

And he quit! He had cast out demons. He had performed miracles. He had seen Jesus Christ. He lived with God for three and a half years. And he quit. So you think it's impossible? No. Think Satan wouldn't like to take you? Wouldn't like to sift you like wheat? Of course he would. Judas quit for money, didn't he? He quit for 30 pieces of silver. He sold out God. God, that was a little cheap idea, too. 30 pieces of silver. He basically quit and sold himself out. I've known people who have sold themselves out for a lot more than that because they said, hey, I'm going to be rich. Why should I work on the Sabbath day? Why should I not work on the Sabbath day? Why not? I got this big job. I remember my father growing up, going through a tough time. Before we had come, started coming to church, we were keeping the Sabbath day. And my father was in debt. And he got a call from this guy. And it was exactly what my father wanted. He wanted it twice the amount of money that he ever thought he would be paid.

And he said, I'll take the job. And then he found out when he went in to sign the papers that it required just three hours every Saturday morning. And he said, I can't work. I can't do that. And he goes, oh, you don't have to work. You just have to come in and answer the phone for three hours. It's an office job. And that's all. You know, nine to twelve, and you're done.

Boy, that was tempting to my dad. It was finding at that time, hard to put food on the table. But he was rewarded. 60 days later, he found a job that he stayed at for 20 years.

So we can look at people like Judas and say we would never do that.

How much are you worth? How much is your salvation worth? What would you give it up for? And I said, even this morning, they say everyone has their price. Would you do it for a million dollars? Open up a briefcase and see how much a million dollars is. Ten million?

You think Judas, in his next resurrection, will think thirty pieces of silver was good? He didn't even keep that, did he? He quit. He quit. But he didn't quit this. He quit here. Somewhere down the line, he quit up here. He quit believing what Jesus Christ said. He quit believing he was God. How about Saul? Saul's a quitter? I read it. I think so. It's not my job to judge. Christ will be the ultimate judge, and he's very merciful, but he also says where much is given, much is required. What was Saul given? And a lot. And a lot of other things. Given his spirit, he was given a kingdom. The first king. How impressive was that? And the God chose him since they wanted a king. He said, well, I'll give you a king. And Saul started out very humble. And God said, when you were low in your own eyes, you were a great king. But then things changed, didn't it? Why did Saul quit? Because, you see, he did, even though God took the kingdom from him. He quit up here. He quit up here because it came to the point that God said, this is what you are to do. This is how you are to do it. And this is what's going to happen. And Saul was like, no, I'm going to take this on myself. No, I think I know what needs to be done when it needs to be done. And so I'm going to take on the role of a priest.

There was only one royal priesthood that had come before that. That was Melchizedek. He wasn't given that honor. We will be. That's our priesthood. That's a royal priesthood in front of us. But Saul quit because he didn't like God telling him what to do. That's ultimately it. You can read the story. He didn't like it. He will make up his own mind of what he could do and when he couldn't because he was king. He caused the shots. Humility to also coming to the point of vanity. Where when you think you know more than God, you better be scared.

You better be scared. Go to the next one. Solomon. Solomon. Did he quit? I made a mistake last time. I must admit that. An elector. I made a mistake when I was going through Solomon and I looked in my Bible because I had questions of how old he was when he died and various things and people brought out numbers and I looked and said, No, it's 70 and when I looked in my Bible because people questioned me afterwards and that's your job to do that and I appreciate that. When I looked in my Bible, I said, Where did I get that? And I looked in there and it was in my Bible. But it was from a note from 20 years ago where I got it.

I don't know, but it was not right. We do not know and some said 86. I think Frank, you even said something. I mean, various people here said something about how old he was when he died. We don't know. We don't know. But I want to bring that out because anytime I make a mistake, I. If you want me to make it to the kingdom, you got to help me, too. Now, when I don't say something, correct. I say something off the top of my head. But I look at this and I think Solomon, he reigned for 40 years.

We do know that. And yet we see the first 20 years of his reign was all God could ask for. He used all the wisdom God had given him. He used all the talents. He wrote incredible books. He did a study of all of humanity and everything that encompassed the earth. And he was able to relay that to us to help us.

But then, somewhere down the road, most theologians think it happened in the second 20 years of his reign. He quit. He quit using God. See, God doesn't quit using us until we quit using him. People are mistaken about that. He's not going to give up on us, and that's part of the sermon today. But think about it. Why did Solomon quit?

Women. Women. Not a woman. Women. Numbers and numbers and numbers of women. We know at least a thousand. That's what we know. Where did he come to the point to go, no, I need more than 500. I don't know. I don't know where the women came to to where they go.

I want you as a concubine. I think he's already got a few hundred of those. I don't know. Think about it, though. But it goes back to that because that's exactly what the leaders at the time brought out that that was his problem. That's what caused him to be pulled away because he started worshipping their gods, their images, built houses for them. Opalasus built their high places so they could worship all over the promised land.

And he did it for the opposite sex. He did it for women. He quit. He really quit God and went to fleshly desires. Now, I've put that down before, and I actually looked at Thirena Wise, 700 concubines, and his 40 years. And, of course, some of them say he just married them because of war and treaties, agreements, and so forth like this. But, yeah, he had access to a lot of women. But if you just take the thousand and you divide it into 40 of the time from the time that he started that, it averages out to about two and a half weeks per woman.

Is that what God planned? He quit doing it God's way. God even told him what not to do, and he did it anyway. Now, I want to go to the last one before I move on from this subject.

And that is Elijah. And, as you notice, there's a question mark on Elijah. A lot of them figure, Elijah? What? Did he quit? Have you ever thought about it? Well, wait a minute.

No, God took him up and he made Elijah his sis and he's doing this. But the question was raised in my mind because of what is written. Small sense that I don't have this up there because that just came to me this week when I didn't have time to get. But I want to read you something in case you want to... In 1 Kings.

1 Kings 19. You know the story of Elijah and how he ran away from Jezebel and went after him and then he went down to Bathsheba and the Lord's not in here and the Lord's not in the rain and the Lord's not in the storm and everything else. And then God talks to him. And maybe Elijah's getting tired. But God asked him to do three things. 1 Kings 19. And let's go to verse 15.

2 Kings 19. That's on the way. We're going to go up here. I'm telling you where to go, how to go, and what to do. And I want you to go anoint the king of Syria. Wouldn't you think it's a nice thing? You go up there and they know who you are and the king of Syria. Oh, yeah, we know who you are.

And then in verse 16, 1 And also you shall anoint Jehu, or Yehu, son of Nishim, as king over Israel. Let's go make him go. Now that's a little different story if you know the story of Elijah. Jehu was a pretty wild warrior. Everybody was scared of Jehu. Was he? Was he a man of God? Be scared of him? So you're going to go take care of the king of Syria, anoint him king of Syria, and then anoint Jehu, king of Israel. And then one last thing I want you to do. And Elisha, the son of Shephat, you shall anoint as prophet in your place. It's kind of like, okay, I need you to do this if you're kind of getting tired and willing to retire. You know, we'll work something out. What did Elijah do?

He went straight to Elisha. He didn't anoint the king. He didn't anoint either one of them. Elisha had to do it in his place. Did he quit? You give somebody something to do and they only do part of it? This is what God is looking at. You didn't do it. It's a good lesson to us. Now, I believe the transfiguration shows us Moses and Elijah in the kingdom of God. So he's going to be there, but is this a good lesson for us? If God says to do something, we need to do it and not leave it half done. So, quitters. People remember quitters. It was a few years ago there was a fighter named Roberto Duran. Remember Roberto Duran? He was four-time world champion in three different divisions. He was considered one of the greatest fighters ever until one of his last fights.

He's known for what word? No mas. No mas. Because he went back in his corner and when they said, come out to fight, another round, he said no mas. No mas. This man is remembered for a hundred victories and world champions by most boxing, but everybody also looks and says he quit. He quit. He said no mas. Now, in case you're wondering where I got this sermon idea, it was a couple weeks ago I read a story. I read a story about Sylvester Stallone. Sylvester Stallone told a story about how he wrote the screenplay for Rocky, which won Picture of the Year Oscar and it's been very profitable to him. At the time he wrote it, Sylvester Stallone, he was poor. He didn't have any money. As a matter of fact, if you ever see the movie, everybody seen Rocky, the first Rocky? Remember the dog? The dog that ran with him? That was his real dog and he had to sell that dog because he ran out of money. And after he sold the movie rights, he went back and bought the dog for five times what he sold it to. So, I bring that out because Sylvester Stallone said he was watching a boxing match of Muhammad Ali and Chuck Wettner, a bruiser of a guy who just happened to have been given a fight because he won one and didn't even rank hardly in the world. But Muhammad Ali had to fill it with something. So he did, Muhammad Ali, the champion. Chuck Wettner.

When he fought Ali, his record was 29, 13, and 2, unlike most Ali fights that had one or two losses. This guy had been beating around. They were boxing for years. Nobody really took him serious. But one thing he was was he would stick to it and fight to the end. As a matter of fact, so much, when he fought Muhammad Ali, it's interesting, Muhammad Ali got $1.5 million for the fight. Chuck Wettner got $100,000 because he was just lucky to have the fight. When Muhammad Ali fought Wettner, Wettner was one of the first people to ever knock Ali down. He said it was a trip, but it looked like it was a knockdown. But he beat Wettner for 15 rounds. Just kept beating him, thinking he would, knocking down, thinking he would quit. He wouldn't quit. Until the 15th round, there were 19 seconds left, and the referee called the fight. Because he couldn't even see Wettner's face. He had been beaten and bloodied so much. As a matter of fact, Wettner said later, during his fighting career of 35 fights, he had 373 stitches in his face. But he didn't quit.

Sylvester Stallone was so inspired by that. Sylvester Stallone, in case you didn't know how to box. Mostly, he didn't know how to box, even now. But he wrote the screenplay. And he took it to people, and they said, well, yeah, we like that. We'll buy it. And so the price finally went up to $100,000. Now, can you imagine in 1975, that was some serious money? It is to me now.

But he said, okay, I'll sell it, but on one condition. I star in the movie. Well, he had starred in some lousy movies and everything else. He was not any good. And they said no, no. And so they wanted the screenplay. And so they said, yes, we'll do it. But we're only going to pay you $35,000 to act, which was so small for the lead actor. And so they started the filming. And all of a sudden, they came to him and said, we're going to change the script because it's not inspiring, because Rocky loses in the end. And we want him to just barely win at the end, and everybody will walk out of the place and feel good. And Sylvester said no. And he said he made the statement that it's important that people know that sometimes losers are winners. And you can lose and still win. And as you know from the movie, he did lose, but he did win. And that made me think about this, think about our lives. And think about with God. You can lose it all and still win. Take the case of Job. Didn't he lose it all? But he still won. What about Paul? Think about Paul. Here he had prestige. He was trained at the feet of Gamali. He was rising in the Pharisaic world, in the Pharisee world. He was up there. He was doing the bidding. And then he lost it all. He lost all that prestige. He even became blind. He lost the power. And then he became a Christian and he took beatings. He even lost his life. And from the outside, he looked like a loser. But what did he gain? Eternal life. Brethren, sometimes losers can be winners. It's just quitters cannot be winners. You can't quit. Matthew 16 and verse 25 says, Whoever desires to save his life will, and whoever loses his life for my sake, will find it, will be in his kingdom. God hates quitters, but he's loved a lot of losers. We can be losers and still win. Because to society, even to our friends, even to some of our relatives, the strange religion, I had that come across this week somewhere. Yes, a man that had a religion and his family thought, he's always been strange. And he continued to be strange.

See, but we cannot quit. We cannot be a quitter. We'd be a loser. Because quitters can't win, but losers can. I like to look at it, because that's strange in this world. How do people lose? And that's what I admired most about reading this from Sylvester Stallone. He understood. Losing wasn't everything. Quitting is everything. God has that same mindset. See, most people can't understand. They want to win. They want to win everything. They want to win for society. They buy cars so they can look impressive. They have clothes. They have houses. Some of them can't even afford, but they want to look like a winner. That's not God's way. If you go with me to Isaiah 55.

Isaiah 55. Verse 8. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as heaven, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways. Who would have dreamed it up that a God would come down here and be beaten mercifully? Wouldn't you think there's another plan? Christ, when He was hanging on that piece of wood, He was bleeding to death, suffering. And people can't, oh, where are you now? You can help all these other people, but you can't help yourself. Come on, pull yourself down off there. He was a loser, wasn't he? To everybody looking, and even thought to His disciples. But you see, God's thoughts are not our thoughts. See, God, you would think, okay, I'm going to build a work on this planet, and I'm going to call some of the best and the greatest in the world, and then everybody's going to look at them and then follow their religion. That's not what God said. He said, I'm going to choose the weak and the base, and I'm going to help them through my spirit rise up and everybody will see, it's not them, it's God in them. Who would do that? Humanly thinking, why not take the best road? Who would think of a God that decided to be tortured and beaten? Not one that thinks like most human beings. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Brethren, that is the thoughts of a God. That said, I'm willing to lay down my life for these puny, sinning human beings.

We wouldn't come up with that idea, would we? I'd say, well, how can I do everything I want to do but without any pain? That's not what it came into be. In Proverbs 14 and verse 12, there's a way that seems right to a man, but its end is death. His end is a way of death. We have to look to this reasoning, this book, this is the mind of God, this is the will of God, this is the way of God. It's not the way of man. That's why it's so important. Because if you follow your way, it will end in death. And eventually, eternal death means you never exist. His plan, you have eternal life. You live forever with everything He can give you, the entire universe. You and I may be screw-ups. If we aren't, we have been. If you've never been, you probably will be, in some way, shape, or form. It's just the way we are, because it's so human. And every time we think more like a human, the more screw-ups we make in doing these things. We're going to have bad days. We're going to have bad weeks. But you see, there is one thing certain. God will never, ever quit on us. We have to quit. He won't quit. He says it time and time again. He won't quit because in His eyes, we are worth everything. We were worth even the most precious gift He ever had was His Son in His life and had Him for eternity. I had a hard time giving up my father after being with him for 50 years. Can you imagine eternity and having to watch Him? He was willing to do that because of what He thinks we're worth. On the scales of value, there was Christ and there was a world, and we weighed more. We weighed more than His divinity. That's powerful. That's powerful for us. That alone should keep us from never quitting. Never, ever quitting. Let's look at a couple more verses before I end here. In Hebrews 13, verse 5, God wants to make sure we get it. And He said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. And you know what He said? He's never going to quit on us. Never, ever going to quit on us. We just can't quit on Him. And that's why He gives us this time of the year. This time of the year to evaluate, to make sure we're solid and we know where He stands so that we don't quit. Never quit on God. And you know, that came from Deuteronomy 31. You'll go back. Deuteronomy 31. Deuteronomy 31. And verse 8.

He said, in the Lord, He is one who goes before you. Do you realize that? He's just not talking to the children of Israel at this time. He will be with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you. Do not fear nor be dismayed. What great encouragement to say, never quit. Never quit, no matter the pressures. No matter what you might want to do. And you go, Maria's just come from different third world countries, and many of you have been to third world countries. We've got people so poor, they barely eat every day in various places. They don't quit. How do you think God looks on them? You think God's going to quit on them? No. What do you think they're rewarding the kingdom?

Finally, let's go to a story in Romans 8. A story that Paul paints for us in Romans 8. Romans 8, because he's trying to tell the church at Rome, because they've got some Gentile Jewish issues problems that they've had all through here, and he's trying to get them to understand. Because the Romans had so many gods, just like the Greeks did, and this god would do this, and this god couldn't do this, and then this god would abandon them. And some of that stuff bled into the church, as the Gentiles are called into the church, and they're bringing a little bit of this. So Paul's having to spend this letter trying to tell them exactly what the true God is like. And he finally tells them in verse 38, For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, no matter what happens, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

He won't quit. He can't quit because he loves us that much.

Paul finished the race. He put it that way because he didn't quit. We have people in here of lost mates who endured to the end, their end. Our job is to not quit on God, to make sure that we, through our study, through our examination, through our magnification of ourselves, we don't beat ourselves up so much that we feel like quitting. And we know the difference between quitters and losers.