Open with Napolean Dynomite Clip
Have you ever known someone like Napoleon? He’s a loser in almost every sense of the word. I mean sure there are some folks that aren’t popular that we may call a loser. There are poor people whom we may call losers. There are people who are just geeks that we call losers, but they are at least smart. There are those in dead end jobs that we would refer to as losers. Maybe these are not losers to you. But we could agree that murderers, rapist, robbers, Terrorists, I think all of us could agree that these are losers.
Tonight, I want to talk about losers. Specifically I want to tell you in no uncertain terms…God Loves Losers.
I was thinking the other day, I was doing my devotions, I was trying to come up with a sermon. Gradually God began to form the thoughts within me. I was having a low moment. I will give you a personal admission here. I am driven by results. I like to see evidence that I am progressing. I get frustrated with other people whom I perceive as lazy, or just slow. In my business I look at the books every month to see if we did more the last month. I like to see evidence of work.
I am no different with my work in the church. I like to set and surpass high goals. I will work night and day, read books, talk to people and do whatever I can to accomplish the goal in as little time possible. This has served me well over the years. I take pride in the fact that I get things done! Here’s the rub…while this serves me well when it comes to accomplishing tasks…ministry is not a task to accomplish.
Ministry is about people. Ministry is about meeting the needs of people. It is about teaching them about the life of God. It takes time. You have to earn trust with people, and get permission to minister to them. For some one like me, who is impatient and driven by results, these are tough times. So on this particular night I was feeling sorry for myself. Wallowing in my self pity…thinking “What a loser.” We had just had a soul fires service. I think we had 5 people there. I had tried to start a college ministry and while we had a few good meetings it did not take long for the 5 or 6 to dwindle to 3. Then Jamin started college and it was two. Then Carolyn stared work and it was one. The self pity grew and the self doubt grew and pretty soon I was having a full pity party. In my despair, God came and this sermon began to take shape.
God reminded me of a young boy whose dad’s name was Jesse. This young boy was the runt of the family. No one, not even his father, thought this young man would ever amount to much.
Meanwhile God had something in the works. Back on the other side of the country, there was a man named Saul whom God was pretty ticked with. In fact, God had hand picked Saul to be King of Israel. But He disobeyed God, and the Bible says God “regretted He had made Saul King.” Meanwhile Samuel who was a judge sitting around moping over Saul’s disobedience. I picture him having a pity party like me. Samuel just doesn’t get it.
The Bible tells us Samuel did not see Saul again until the “day of his death” (1 Samuel 15:35b). Samuel was grieving over Saul and the Lord came to Samuel and says “How long will you grieve over Saul?” Now this is the Skinner translation: God says stop you’re whining and get up off your rear.
I have a plan… Now here is where Jesse enters back into the picture. God tells Samuel to go to Jesse in Bethlehem where “God has selected a King for Himself among Jesse’s sons.” So off to Bethlehem Jesses goes and he immediately runs across one of Jesse’s sons. We’ll call him “Eljay” for short. This guy is good looking- Definitely King material thought Samuel, But God said no. “Do not look at his appearance or the height if his stature because I have rejected him” (1 Samuel 16:6) God sees not as man sees.
Man looks on the outside but God looks at the heart. Then Jesse trots out “old Abe.” Surely this is king material. But God says no. So Jesse thought- you want Shawn…definitely a good choice. Samuel talks to God…Nope not him either…Now Samuel is confused. “Surely you have another son?” he asked Jesse. Jesse replies…well I have one more but he’s out side with the sheep. He is definitely not king material.
I’m sure all the big brothers laughed at the thought of their little brother being worthy of a king. They may have even thought of him as a loser. He’s the youngest of the bunch but he was bright eyed and good looking. Gods says to Samuel. That’s him. Take your oil and anoint his feet. FEET? At this point David was anointed by God. (16:13)
The Spirit left Saul the current King and now he has a pity party brought on by God. He’s moping around and his servants tell him about a good musician and he’s brave, and the Lord is with him. Saul orders his servants to bring this son of Jesse to him and play music to cheer him up. Saul “loved him greatly and makes Jesse’s son his right hand person.” They WHO ARE THEY? were known for their bravery and loyalty. Little ?????who was this little guy? This loser turned hero to the king? David. You know how the story ends from here. Goliath comes out…taunts Israel’s army and David goes out with a sling and 5 (I SAM 17:40) stones and kills the giant that the entire Israeli army was afraid of and eventually David becomes king. And it is from David’s off spring the Jesus is eventually born.
There’s another person in the Bible that folks had written off as a loser. This guy was abandoned NO NOT ABANDONED by his mom and just happened to get lucky and was picked up by a girl. Eventually he murdered a guy and fled the country. He stuttered so badly he begged God not to use him, and only acquiesced when God provided him Aaron to speak for him, and this man was a fugitive in hiding. God chose this “loser” to lead the Israelites out of captivity to the Promised Land. Moses became one of the greatest generals of all time. God used this “loser” to deliver the Ten Commandments which became the cornerstone of the Christian religion. God used this Loser to lead the people of Israel to the edge of their Promised Land.
Maybe you’re thinking okay, this is historical how do I know God still loves losers? How do I know he still uses losers? Name a loser whom God has used lately. I love skeptics, mainly because I am one. I like folks that do not just take the truth and accept it just because a preacher says it. I like those people because they are usually the ones who end up with the strongest faith because they have tested it, and tested it time and time again.
So who are some modern day losers whom God has used? Let me tell you about Frank. Frank grew up in the era of the great depression. Frank had a third grade education. He cut cord wood for 50 cents per day to support his family. He worked as a tenant farmer. A tenant farmer was someone who was hired to help farm other people’s land. Frank’s daddy hired him out and took the money Frank earned for himself while Frank struggled to provide for his own wife. They lived in a one room shack where they used potato sacks for curtains. Soon after Frank was drafted into World War II. After he returned home, he began working as a machine tech at the paper mill. Frank’s wife, Thelma, taught Frank to read by using the Bible. One day while he was in the woods, a white figure came down and told him, he was to preach the gospel. He ran from the woods shouting to the top of his lungs. It was not long before he was finding front porches to preach from.
Frank eventually became a Nazarene pastor of some very small Nazarene churches. Frank had 4 kids; 3 girls and a boy. Eventually Frank had to step down from preaching because his third grade education did not provide him the ability to get the education required by the Nazarene church. In Frank’s mind even the church had labeled him a loser. Frank never demanded respect. Frank never required that God bless him with a fortune. Frank simply said “Here am I…Send me.”
But listen to how God used this loser. All of Frank’s children were married. Eventually all of the girls ended up in church serving in various capacities. One worked as a NYI president for a time. The others served on church boards, and taught Sunday school. Their husbands helped build new churches; they served in Sunday school. And one of the husbands became a Nazarene minister. Frank had 7 grand children. Of these 7 grandchildren all of them are in church today. Of these seven grandchildren 3 answered the call to full time ministry. All of the grandson’s wives serve their respective churches in various leadership positions. This uneducated Grandfather’s daughters all have college degrees. One of them has an advanced college degree and is a professional counselor to people the world has labeled losers-- the homeless, the hurting, the huddled masses yearning to be free from their plight.
This uneducated loser had daughters whose sons all have advanced college degrees, (masters or above and one of then has a PhD.) One of the son’s wives has a PhD. Frank is in a nursing home today, but his ministry continues even at this moment. Frank is of very little use, if any, to the world today, but God is still using him. Frank is not in good health and no one knows how much longer he will serve God in this realm but two things are certain about Frank. When he makes it to the other side where Jesus awaits with open arms, his first words will not be where is my mansion, but what needs to be done.
The second thing that is certain about Frank Spencer is his legacy will live far longer than he does. To the world he was a loser but God saw a man who was just dumb enough that he believed God when He said “I will supply all thy needs.”
Doug was another loser. His dad was an alcoholic. His dad was constantly cheating on his wife. Any time Doug could not find his dad, his mother would send him down to the local bar to pick him up. As he got older, his mother would send him with his dad so that he would be sure to come home to her. Doug was a high school drop out. He tried it as an entrepreneur for a while and just did not make it. When his wife left him to go back home with her two kids, he lived in a hotel where he lived on credit.
Doug was not a Christian, and in fact refused to allow the very name of God to be mentioned in his house. He was abusive to his family, and resented his wife for “making him fail at his business.” Finally Doug got a job at the rubber plant where the temperatures exceed 120 degrees every day.
Doug was a big man and he dared anyone to cross him, lest they suffer the consequence. Doug had a reputation for cursing out the preachers if they dared step foot on his property. God help any Christian who attempted to witness to him. Neighbors feared him. His family feared him more. He would taunt his son who was not good at sports and call him foul names. Doug enjoyed hurting other people. The world wrote Doug off. Even his family considered him a hopeless case to a certain extent. But God had plans for Doug. God began working in Doug’s life through his children and through his father-in- law Frank who was one of only two preachers that dared to approach Doug on the topic of God.
Eventually Doug turned his life over to Christ. He began working in his local church and their attendance grew to almost 300 people. Then God began to work some more in Doug’s life, and called him to full time ministry. Doug got his G.E.D, got his debts paid off, moved his entire family to Nashville TN to attend college, and did all of it on the simple promise from God that he would supply all of his needs.
No one in Doug’s family had any promise of a job when they left home. Doug began working the same week they arrived in Nashville. Judy, his wife, got a job shortly thereafter. And their son just in time for school to start got a job at Kroger, where he had also worked back home. Doug would tell people that Frank was one of the largest spiritual influences on his life. Doug got his first call to a church and was killed in a fatal accident within 9 months of accepting his call to the church. It appeared that God did not use this loser after all.
There were two funeral services for Doug; both services had standing room only. At the funeral home the line stretched through out the entire building and out into the parking lot and on around. Most of the people were co-workers with “wild man Skinner” at the rubber plant. They had seen the transformation in his life. Each one told a different story as to how the transformation from God-hater to God-lover had impacted each of their lives. It appeared God DID use this loser after all. Doug was my Dad…Frank was my Grandfather.
I could bring countless numbers of stories in the Bible where Jesus befriended lepers, prostitutes, beggars, blind men, tax collectors, midgets, fishermen, all ordinary people. None of them were anything special…UNTIL…They let God have control of their lives. A loser in the hands of God became a winner. A loser in the eyes of the world left a lasting legacy on the world when they allowed themselves to be used by God for a purpose far beyond what they were capable of doing in and of themselves. One last story and then we will close. This one is of a student in a college professor’s class.
Illustration: John Powell a professor at Loyola University in Chicago writes about a student in his Theology of Faith class named Tommy: Some twelve years ago, I stood watching my university students file into the classroom for our first session in the Theology of Faith.
That was the first day I first saw Tommy. My eyes and my mind both blinked. He was combing his long flaxen hair, which hung six inches below his shoulders. It was the first time I had ever seen a boy with hair that long. I guess it was just coming into fashion then. I know in my mind that it isn’t what’s on your head but what’s in it that counts; but on that day I was unprepared and my emotions flipped. I immediately filed Tommy under "S" for strange ... very strange.
Tommy turned out to be the "atheist in residence" in my Theology of Faith course. He constantly objected to, smirked at, or whined about the possibility of an unconditionally loving Father-God. We lived with each other in relative peace for one semester, although I admit he was for me at times a serious pain in the back pew. When he came up at the end of the course to turn in his final exam, he asked in a slightly cynical tone: "Do you think I’ll ever find God?" I decided instantly on a little shock therapy. "No!" I said very emphatically. "Oh," he responded, "I thought that was the product you were pushing." I let him get five steps from the classroom door and then called out: "Tommy! I don’t think you’ll ever find him, but I am absolutely certain that He will find you!" He shrugged a little and left my class and my life.
I felt slightly disappointed at the thought that he had missed my clever line: "He will find you!" At least I thought it was clever. Later I heard that Tommy had graduated and I was duly grateful. Then a sad report, I heard that Tommy had terminal cancer. Before I could search him out, he came to see me. When he walked into my office, his body was very badly wasted, and the long hair had all fallen out as a result of chemotherapy. But his eyes were bright and his voice was firm, for the first time, I believe.
"Tommy, I’ve thought about you so often. I hear you are sick!" I blurted out. "Oh, yes, very sick. I have cancer in both lungs. It’s a matter of weeks." "Can you talk about it, Tom?" "Sure, what would you like to know?" "What’s it like to be only twenty-four and dying?" "Well, it could be worse." "Like what?" "Well, like being fifty and having no values or ideals, like being fifty and thinking that booze, seducing women, and making money are the real ‘biggies’ in life."
I began to look through my mental file cabinet under "S" where I had filed Tommy as strange. (It seems as though everybody I try to reject by classification God sends back into my life to educate me.) But what I really came to see you about," Tom said, " is something you said to me on the last day of class." (He remembered!) He continued, "I asked you if you thought I would ever find God and you said, ‘No!’ which surprised me. Then you said, ‘But he will find you.’
I thought about that a lot, even though my search for God was hardly intense at that time. (My "clever" line. He thought about that a lot!) But when the doctors removed a lump from my groin and told me that it was malignant, then I got serious about locating God. And when the malignancy spread into my vital organs, I really began banging bloody fists against the bronze doors of heaven. But God did not come out. In fact, nothing happened.
Did you ever try anything for a long time with great effort and with no success? You get psychologically glutted, fed up with trying. And then you quit. Well, one day I woke up, and instead of throwing a few more futile appeals over that high brick wall to a God who may be or may not be there, I just quit. I decided that I didn’t really care ... about God, about an afterlife, or anything like that.
"I decided to spend what time I had left doing something more profitable. I thought about you and your class and I remembered something else you had said: ‘The essential sadness is to go through life without loving. But it would be almost equally sad to go through life and leave this world without ever telling those you loved that you had loved them.’ "So
I began with the hardest one: my Dad. He was reading the newspaper when I approached him." "Dad". "Yes, what?" he asked without lowering the newspaper. "Dad, I would like to talk with you." "Well, talk." "I mean...It’s really important." The newspaper came down three slow inches. "What is it?" "Dad, I love you. I just wanted you to know that." Tom smiled at me and said with obvious satisfaction, as though he felt a warm and secret joy flowing inside of him: "The newspaper fluttered to the floor. Then my father did two things I could never remember him ever doing before. He cried and he hugged me. And we talked all night, even though he had to go to work the next morning.
It felt so good to be close to my father, to see his tears, to feel his hug, to hear him say that he loved me. "It was easier with my mother and little brother. They cried with me, too, and we hugged each other, and started saying real nice things to each other. We shared the things we had been keeping secret for so many years. I was only sorry about one thing: that I had waited so long. Here I was just beginning to open up to all the people I had actually been close to.
"Then, one day I turned around and God was there. He didn’t come to me when I pleaded with him. I guess I was like an animal trainer holding out a hoop, ‘C’mon, jump through.’ ‘C’mon, I’ll give you three days three weeks.’ Apparently God does things in his own way and at his own hour. "But the important thing is that he was there. He found me. You were right. He found me even after I stopped looking for him."
"Tommy," I practically gasped, "I think you are saying something very important and much more universal than you realize. To me, at least, you are saying that the surest way to find God is not to make him a private possession, a problem solver, or an instant consolation in time of need, but rather by opening to love. You know, the Apostle John said that.
He said God is love, and anyone who lives in love is living with God and God is living in him.’ Tom, could I ask you a favor? You know, when I had you in class you were a real pain. But (laughingly) you can make it all up to me now. Would you come into my present Theology of Faith course and tell them what you have just told me? If I told them the same thing it wouldn’t be half as effective as if you were to tell them." "Oooh . . . I was ready for you, but I don’t know if I’m ready for your class."
"Tom, think about it. If and when you are ready, give me a call." In a few days Tommy called, said he was ready for the class, that he wanted to do that for God and for me. So we scheduled a date. However, he never made it. He had another appointment,far more important than the one with me and my class.Of course, his life was not really ended by his death, only changed.
He made the great step from faith into vision. He found a life far more beautiful than the eye of man has ever seen or the ear of man has ever heard or the mind of man has ever imagined. Before he died, we talked one last time. "I’m not going to make it to your class," he said. "I know, Tom." "Will you tell them for me? Will you . . . tell the whole world for me?" "I will, Tom. I’ll tell them. I’ll do my best." So, to all of you who have been kind enough to hear this simple statement about love, thank you for listening. And to you, Tommy, somewhere in the sunlit, verdant hills of heaven: "I told them, Tommy. ... ...as best I could."
Some times even those who are closest too us, will write us off as losers. Even teachers taken the opportunity to lecture us instead of love us. As I read this story I wondered how often I had lectured instead of loved.
In the movie “Sea Biscuit” we see a jockey, “Red Pollard” who has been chewed up and spit out by the world. His Spirit has been broken. People had written him off as a loser. As a result of the great depression his parents gave him away in hopes he would have a better life somewhere else. The horse, Sea Biscuit, had been written off as a loser too. It had been trained to lose against bigger horse. It had been taught that it could not win. It seemed that Fate had brought Red and the Sea Biscuit together. The story says the odds were incredible, the dream impossible, and somehow it happened.
Watch this clip… http://www.seabiscuit.co.uk/
God specializes in healing the broken. He seems to know just who we need, and what we need. God specializes in using the out casts. God specializes in using those whom the world has cast aside. God Loves Losers. Just like SeaBiscuit had to learn how to be a horse Again, We have to learn to be a child of God again.
One more thing- God gave all of us a gift called discernment. It acts like a screen and it filters out the bad and lets in the good. However, sometimes we become so damaged by sin, so hurt by others, and so broken as a result of life, our screen gets turned around backwards. Instead of letting in the good and keeping out the bad, we reverse our screens and let in the bad, and keep out the good for our own lives.
We hear something like this and we think. That’s just what Joe needs. Or we think…That’s great that God will do that for Jane, but what about me? This applies to you too. The next time that little devil hops up on your shoulder and begins to whisper in your ear that you’re a loser. The next time it whispers nobody loves you, you are useless, and you’re a failure.
The next time the waves are crashing around you, and calling out your name and laughing at you…Remember God Loves YOU. Remind that little devil…God LOVES LOSERS. The people in history that have made the biggest difference are those who were voted least likely to succeed by society. But their lives in the hands of God became Giant slayers. “Every person is good for something…God doesn’t throw a whole life away just because it’s banged up a little.”
Please stand…( Call Band forward) if you want God use your life to make a difference, if you have ever felt ordinary, or poor in spirit…If you have ever wondered if you worth anything…I want all of us losers to gather around the altar and open our lives up to God to use us in whatever way possible to make an eternal difference for Him. To leave a legacy like Frank’s that will live on long after we die.
Close with Casting Crowns the voice of Truth.
