Andy Stanley - The Win
So you know this, but once upon a time, if you wanted to dig up dirt on somebody, it was a little bit challenging. If you wouldn't like expose their secrets or their indiscretions or know what they were up to before they came to work for you or before they wanted you to vote for them, their unethical deals, whatever it was, it used to be kind of challenging but now it's not challenging at all. We can all do this from the comfort of home, right? So, you know this, if you ever think about running for office, you better look back because it's going to come up, right? It's better to look back, so you're not surprised. It doesn't take much these days. And again, we all know this to be canceled this is kind of the thing, the cancel culture. But, and of course this means that a little bit of bad can erase a whole lot of good, which is not fair, but it's real. It's just the way things are.
But the thing is, there's a little bit of hypocrisy built into this for all of us, because we are not all equal opportunity cancelors, right? I mean, isn't this true? We maximize, we maximize all the bad things about the other parties, person you know, it's like, oh, clearly they're disqualified. But then it was like, we minimize, it's not that big of a deal, it was a long time ago, everybody does... So, we minimize it, when it's our candidate. But here's the real hypocrisy. When it comes to our dirt and the skeletons in our closet we actually justify it. And this isn't bad, I mean, this is really what we should do for everybody, but we quickly do it for ourselves. When it comes to our staff, our breach of ethics, we kind of sacrificed our integrity, didn't tell the whole truth, do full disclosure, whatever it might be. When it comes to our staff, we look at our indiscretions within the context of our entire lives. And we say, oh, it was just this one season of life, one chapter of life, one weekend, it was the exception to the rule.
But the interesting thing is, we rarely I mean, don't raise your hand, but we rarely extend that same courtesy to other people, but we really love it when people extend that courtesy to us. we'll come back to that just a minute. We are in part five of our series. Your Integrity, Our World, Your Integrity, Our World. It's your integrity, but impacts your entire world than it impacts ultimately the entire world. When you take all of our integrity or our lack of integrity and your role at all together, we said that, in terms of a definition, we have a working definition in this series for the term integrity, so we just made this up, but it's easy to remember. Integrity is doing what you ought to, even if it costs you. Doing what you ought to, even if it costs you. Because, when we don't do what we ought to, it always costs someone else. The stress and the tension and the aftermath of our breach of integrity, always gets transferred to some other people, it doesn't just disappear.
Our irresponsibility, as we said, last time, our irresponsibility ultimately becomes other people's responsibility or say this way, that a personal lack of integrity always impacts some other persons. This was maybe your story growing up. You had an older brother or sister, younger brother or sister, and they just were constantly in trouble and their lack of integrity it stressed out the whole family. In fact, you didn't get the attention you deserve growing up, you were the good kid, but nobody could pay attention to all the goods you did because of the little bit of bad that just created stress and heartbreak in your family, or maybe it's your husband or wife, or a father or a mother. So, a little bit of a breach of integrity it gets transferred, the stress, the pressure gets transferred to the people closest to us. Our personal lack of integrity always impacts some other person. And then week two, I gave you kind of the theme verse.
So, before I read this to you, or maybe you can quote it out loud, I've asked you to memorize it. I'm gonna ask you one last time to sit up really straight I'll get our good posture, you're watching from home, sit up straight, if you're driving, you just stay put you're good. So just, I want you to sit up straight and the reason is because the key verse, the theme verse about integrity is a posture. Integrity is a posture. Here's what the writer of Proverbs says, the integrity, and here it is of the upright. The integrity of the upright. Integrity is looking out and looking as far as you can and looking down the road, down the slope the faster you're going when you're skiing and skiing, the further, you have to look ahead, same with life. The integrity of the upright guides them the people of integrity are guided by their integrity. That is the decision-making filter. But the crookedness or the bendness of the treacherous will ultimately destroy them because they're looking right here when they make decisions, as opposed to out there.
Now, previously on Your Integrity, Our World and I say previously, because we're about to pick up where we left off last time and if you've not been tracking along with us on this series, the best way to do that is on my YouTube channel, of course, all this stuff is free. You can also access all these messages on your local church website. And the reason I say that specifically about last week and this week is, Sandra and I were having dinner this week and a couple we'd never met before who do not attend our church, they watch actually from Knoxville, walked up and they talked about last week's message and this gentleman, a little bit older than me, he said, I sent the link to all nine of my grandchildren. It was required listening, required watching.
And I think when we think about the next generation, students, college students, teenagers, however old your kids are, the story that we're or storyline that we're tracing through the life of Daniel is so applicable and it's so gritty that I think last week and this week, these were two messages that if you ever pay your kids to watch or listen to things we did that all the time. Sandra is like, here's $20, after you watch dad's message from Sunday 'cause you were in up street and we're paying it or you were in transit, so we did that all the time. So, this guy walked up and said, I sent it to all my grandkids I said, you've gotta watch this. So, if you've not been keeping up, we hope that you'll go back and keep up and catch up.
So, previously on Your Integrity, Our World, teenage Daniel gets taken from his city in Jerusalem with some of his friends, and he's basically a hostage to make sure that the folks back in Jerusalem behave themselves, this is what the Kings did. So, Nebuchadnezzar comes to Jerusalem, comes to what we would call Judea or what they eventually called Judea, sort of the Southern half of Israel. And he conquers this area, they become a group of people that have to pay tribute to Babylon and to keep them in line, he takes the best and the brightest, he takes them to Babylon, integrates them into his city and this is a kind of a sweet deal if you're gonna be kidnapped, this is the way to go. Daniel and his friends will live in the palace they'll serve in the palace, there's a meal plans they are gonna eat and live indoors, which was a big deal in ancient times like it is today. And they would have essentially a three year internship where they're trained to serve Nebuchadnezzar and then they would be brought in and interviewed by Nebuchadnezzar.
And as we discovered last time and if you grew up in church, you're familiar with this story. As soon as Daniel arrives and hears about the meal plan, the text says that, Daniel resolved or literally set his heart or made up his mind not to defile himself, literally not to desecrate himself, not to lower himself, not to undignify himself, not to play along with the charade with the royal food and the wine offered him from the King's table. Now, last time we explained why not eating this food was a really, really big deal to Daniel in terms of integrity and the law of his God. So here he is a teenager in a foreign land this is the he's gotten a real break and he's not gonna have to work in the salt mines or do dangerous construction projects. He'll be battle fodder.
So, here's this amazing opportunity considering everything else going on in the world and Daniel's like, can't do it, just not gonna play along. And this was really a drop the mic moment for Daniel and his friends. Because Daniel made up his mind, as we talked about, he made up his mind ahead of time. Daniel his mind before he knew how the story of Daniel was gonna play out, he didn't get to read his story. His story was happening real time, and that's integrity. Integrity is you decide ahead of time. I'm just gonna do the right thing. If you believe in God and God has a personal will for your life, I'm gonna do what God wants me to do, regardless of the outcome. If you're a Christian, I'm gonna follow Jesus regardless of the outcome, I'm gonna do the right thing just because it's the right thing.
Now, this decision that he made as a teenager, he's like 15, 16, 17 years old, set a pattern for his life. And this integrity, this commitment to Yahweh was tested over and over and over. But the most famous tests would happen 55 years later, so, let that sink in. 55 years later, he's about 70 years old. Nebuchadnezzar has died and so has the Babylonian empire. Now, the Persians are the big dog and this, the Persian empire and Daniel has made the transition from Babylon to the Persian empire and now, he works for the new king Darius, the King of kings. And as we talked about last time, the King of kings Darius decides to re-org the entire empire. So he decides to establish 120 governors and then over those 120 governors, there will be three administrators that oversee the 120 governors. That way he can spend more time at the beach, except there's no beach close to where he lives. Then he decides, Daniel is gonna be one of these three administrators and he decides he can allow Daniel to even oversee the other two administrators.
Well, this is a real problem for the other governors administrators. Daniel's not even from there. I mean, he was a hostage, he was a kid, he's Hebrew. This is so odd, and that's where the story begins to pick up a little steam. Now Daniel, the text says, so distinguished himself among the administrators and the governors by his exceptional qualities that the king Darius planned to set him over the whole kingdom. This does not sit well with them. At this, when they find out about this, At this, the administrators in the governors tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel and his conduct of government affairs. This was said, last time. He's been in government 55 years. I mean, surely there's some dirt, right? Surely there's some skeletons in his closet. I mean, 55 years, there's some things we could bring to king Darius' attention to say, I don't know about this guy, not only is he like one of the oldest people we've ever seen in our lives but look at this, he's got some baggage but, they were unable to do so, couldn't anything, they could find no, his is amazing! They could find no corruption in him because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent.
And the reason he was that way at 70 is because he made up his mind when he was 17. Finally, these men they've looked and looked and these are the guys that have access to all the records and they can't find anything. So finally, these men said, we're never gonna find a basis we're never gonna find a basis for charges against this man, Daniel, unless it has something to do the law of his God. So, they trap, here's what they did. They all went to see king Darius, everybody except Daniel and this is what they said, they said, oh, king Darius live forever. We have all agreed that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any God or human being during the next 30 days, this is just for 30 days, except to you, your majesty shall be thrown into the lion's den. So, they appeal to his ego they basically say, oh, king Darius live forever we wanna sponsor 30 days of Darius.
It's gonna be fabulous because there's gonna be floats and music and bobble heads and T-shirts, we might throw in a few public executions this is gonna be 30 days of Darius we're gonna reaffirm your authority and everybody has to hit pause on all their religions because the city was a very international city. So, everybody has to hit pause on their household gods, the gods of their original and their ancestors, the gods that they brought with them into the city as you've conquered nation after nation. So for 30 days, it's 30 days, everybody is gonna pray to and worship one person and it's gonna be you because they knew there was no way, no way Daniel was gonna pray to Darius. They knew him too well, Daniel was so predictable. And then they said, oh, oh, oh, and there's just one other small thing, your majesty, because this is such a big deal, We want you to issue the decree and put it in writing so that it cannot be altered or changed in accordance with the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be repealed, we want this edict to have special status because you are a special guy. Isn't he guys, you are so special. We want this to have special status we want you to make it irreversible and absolutely enforceable.
So, King Darius, he's so flattered. So, King, Darius put the decree in writing. Now, when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, now everybody knows is kind of going out everywhere. He went home to his upstairs room, where the windows opened and... What would you do? What would I do? What would you do then? What would I do? I mean, it's one thing to do what you ought to do when you think it might cost you what do you do when you're certain doing the right thing will cost? It's written right here, there is no mystery. This is what's going to happen to me if I do what I know I ought to do. What do you do? I'm gonna give you the answer, but just want you to think for a minute, what do you do? What do you do, when you're certain that doing the right thing is going to cost you? Here's the answer to the question. It depends on what is most important to you. It depends on what is most important to me.
In these moments, and there may never be one in your life I don't know. For many of us, there are multiple moments like this. I think we all have them, they start so early we're not even aware of what's going on. In these moments, we discover what and who we are most committed to. We discover whether or not our integrity and our faith is disposable. It's working for me, so I had hung on to it, suddenly, maintaining my faith, maintaining my integrity it's threatening me and you know what? It's not that big a deal. And suddenly, our integrity, some cases, our faith, it's disposable. It's just a means to an end and when it's no longer working, when it's no longer taking me to that end, that's the end. Blessed is the man, blessed is the woman, blessed is the teenager, the college student whose integrity has been tested and you pass that test because, you have learned something about yourself you can't learn any other way, and you have peace with yourself and you have peace with God.
Now, when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room, where the windows open toward Jerusalem. Now, what happens next? When Daniel decided not to eat the meat and the wine from the King's table, you remember what he did? He didn't keep it a secret, he didn't feed it to the dogs under the table and then he just found something else to eat, because he didn't want to violate his conscience, no, he's a person of integrity. He went to the steward and said, hey, thank you but I just want you to know, I wanna be upfront, I'm not eating that stuff. I'm not gonna do that to my body and I'm not gonna violate my conscience as it relates to my God. So, I just want to keep this out in the open. I mean, that's what he does, he just doesn't keep secrets. He's he's just out there. So, he does the same thing again.
So he goes to the window that opens toward Jerusalem and three times a day, not one time, not stand there, looking like he's doing something else. Muttering, a prayer three times a day, he gets on his knees and he prays giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before. And here's why, because he's thinking, why change now? Why change now? Who's in charge, who determines outcomes? And he thinks back, when I was a teenager, Nebuchadnezzar thought he determined outcomes. Nebuchadnezzar is dead along with his empire. Darius, my new boss thinks he determines outcomes, we will see. Here's a question for you, question for me, who do you think determines outcomes? Who do you think determines outcomes? Your boss, your father or mother-in-law the luck, your oldest brother? 'Cause he's got all the stuff and that's been a conflict with the family and you're afraid if you do the right thing and don't be on... Who determines outcomes? Who do you think determines outcomes? Daniel's like, well, Yahweh determines outcomes. Not the emperor, not the king. Why would I do anything different that I've always done?
See, this is when we discover what and who is most important to us, this is when we discover if we really have faith in God or just trying to play. If it's just a good luck charm, if it's just a, hey, if you do the right thing, I think things will always work out and if it doesn't look like they're gonna work out well, then I'll just do the wrong thing 'cause at the end of the day, my integrity, I faith, it's disposable. So, the guys that came up with the 30 days of Darius idea, they had spy, so they're looking, they're just waiting until they can catch Daniel praying and they do. So they went before the king and they said, oh, king, may you live forever. "Didn't you publish, it seems to us, didn't you publish a decree that during the next 30 days, anyone who praised any God or human being, except to you, your majesty, would be thrown into the lions' den"?
And of course Darius is like, yes, of course, I remember this, what's your point? Well, we drop by Daniel's house to bring him his 30 days of Darius swag bag, we all just went by to take him to bag to make sure he knew what was going on you remember Daniel, right? Daniel is, you remember Daniel he's, one of the exiles he's not even from here, he's from Judah. You remember Judah, they pay you tribute, you know? And this is hard for us to say to you, oh, King live forever Darius, but he doesn't pay any attention to him, your majesty. And he doesn't pay any attention to the decree that you put in writing, and this breaks our heart to tell you this, but he still prays three times a day. And not to you and we're so disappointed, aren't we guys? Yeah, we're just collectively so, disappointed. But we just thought you should know.
Well, Darius, he is so distressed. I don't know if he loves Daniel, but he really likes Daniel. Again, he had so much respect for him, such an incredible integrity, he has a reputation of integrity, emperors Kings they never know who they can trust and he finally has this one guy he can trust and now he has essentially signed his death warrant because Daniel is just being Daniel. Daniel, isn't doing anything new or extraordinary he's just being the Daniel that king Darius had heard that he would be and has known him to be. So, he calls his attorneys and gets his lawyers and gets all the smart folks in the room and says, okay, there's gotta be a way out of this. Is there any way to get around something written and declared according to the laws of the Medes and the Persians? But as it turns out, even King of kings Darius was stuck.
So, the king gave the order and they brought Daniel and they threw him into the lions' Den. Actually, they lowered him through a floor to another floor. And before they lowered him to that rat infested floor, covered with humans gor, the king leans in and he says, this, the king said to Daniel, may your God, whom you serve continually, which by the way, is why you are in trouble, may your God, whom you serve continually rescue you. In other words, may the God that you are more committed to, than your own preservation rescue you. And then a stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the den. The king, this is such an interesting bit of detail. The king returned to his palace and he spent the night without eating, without any entertainment being brought to him and he could not sleep. And he's laying in bed going, 30 days of Darius, 30 days of Darius floats to music and bobble...
Who came up with this, whose idea was this anyway? Then the text says that, at the first at the first light of dawn the king got up and hurry to the lion's den. And when he came near, he called to Daniel. He didn't want to look, it's like, don't remove this. I know we're good. We're good. He's seen the aftermath of this before this was just the way of things. And he calls louder enough that he hopes Daniel can hear him, if Daniel is there to hear him. Has your God whom you serve continually been able to rescue you from the lions? Now, when we were kids, if you grew up in church and they told you this story or like me, I grew up hearing this story and there's pictures, well, they went right to the next part of the story. That's a mistake.
If you rush to the end of this story, you miss the point of this story. If you rush to the end of the story, many of us in our minds can rush to the end, but let's hit pause, if you rush to the end of the story, you actually miss the point of the story because the point is not what happens next the point is what has all ready happened. The point isn't what happens next the point what already happened, because point, is Daniel's primary concern was not the outcome of his decision. If Daniel's primary concern was the outcome of his decision I think he would have made a different decision, right? His primary concern was doing the right thing. His primary concern was not violating his conscience. His primary concern is that God follower was being faithful to Yahweh, his God. And doing the right thing for Daniel was the win.
If the story ended here, Daniel won, if we didn't even know what happened, Daniel won because the point of the story, isn't what happens next the point of the story is what has all already happened. Daniel won. And he decided to leave the outcome, the outcome to God. Daniel's primary concern was not the outcome of his decision, his primary concern was doing what he knew God wanted him to do and then he would trust God with the outcome. And here's the thing I want you to hear and I say this over and over and I don't know if it gets lost in the all the other stuff we talk about. There was no guarantee for Daniel and there's no guarantee for you either. In fact, if you go to a church and they tell you there are guaranteed outcomes because of your faithfulness to God, and they're all good, it all ends with a bow.
Hopefully, you're old enough to know that's not true because it's not true and I'll say this, if you lost faith, because you grew up in a church and they're like, oh, just trust God, believe in God and pray, trust God, believe in God, pray and everything will work out, if you marry a Christian and you're a Christian, you're gonna have a Christian marriage, you're gonna live, it's gonna be happy, if you grew up with that and it didn't happen for you and you lost faith I just want you to know, and I'm a pastor so I can say this, somebody just lied to you. Somebody did not present you with the actual version of Christianity or faith, they came up with the thing that we want to hear. Because the point is this story in fact, the point of every miracle story, isn't the miracle. The point is the faithfulness or the unfaithfulness of the person for whom God chose to come through for, and in some cases did not choose to come through for, but that has nothing to do with the faithfulness of God. In most cases, it says more about the faithfulness of men and women, the students.
This is how Daniel lived his life, I'm just gonna do what I'm supposed to do and I trust God with the outcomes, but there's no guarantee, God doesn't owe me anything. So here's the question, what is your win? The Daniel's win was, I'm just gonna do what I'm supposed to do and trust God with outcomes. He'd already won, regardless of outcome. What's your win? What's your win, while you're thinking about that, let me help you a little bit, do you know what the one thing is you can't lose? You can't lose what you do. No one can take that away from you, no one can ever take away what you do. Now, there's some days you wish they could take away that you did, but in terms of what we're talking about, the only thing that can't be taken away from you is what you do. And here's why that's important, Daniel understood this. Everything we gain, everything we gain by sacrificing our integrity, everything you will ever gain and that's why we sacrifice our integrity there's something coming our way, right?
Well, I flashed, she did call me back I did get the job, they didn't leave there's always something that we're bargaining. Everything you will gain by sacrificing your integrity, or when you sacrifice your integrity, everything you gain, either can or will be taken away. It's loose, loose. You loose your integrity and eventually you loose what you knew was coming or hope it was coming your way when you gave up or traded your integrity. It's loose, loose. Daniel won before he knew the outcome, because the win for him wasn't the outcome the win for him was doing what he knew God in heaven wanted him to do. He knew we forget that you can't control outcomes. In fact, you're not even that good at predicting outcomes and I don't know you, but you're not, none of us are. The only thing you can control, the only thing I can control, the only thing you can control is you. The only thing I can control is me.
And when we start playing this game of I'm gonna sacrifice my integrity, because I know he will, she will he won't, they won't, the world won't, the economy, whatever it might be, we have stepped out of our realm, into God's realm. And Daniel knew, hey, once upon a time, there was a mighty king named Nebuchadnezzar who thought he controlled outcomes, anybody remember him? Now there's a new kid on the block, Darius, thinks he controls outcomes. One day he'll be forgotten as well. Why would I trade faithfulness to God, trying to manipulate or predict when someone else will do? So, what's your win, what's the win for you? What's the win for me?
This is a big deal for me for several reasons but one, something happened, when I was in the eighth grade my dad's a pastor, as some most of you know, when I was in the eighth grade, my dad was an associate pastor at a large church and he faced a potentially for sure job threatening decision, but it actually could have been a career threatening decision because the people who wanted him out said, if you don't cooperate, we're gonna ruin your career we're just gonna we're gonna ruin your name. And was, this was so emotional for us as a family and the right thing he felt like he should do the thing with integrity, and the thing he felt like God wanted him to do was potentially gonna cost him if he did what this other group wanted him to do, that it was an easy way out and there was actually a payout.
And I remember as an eighth grader, he would come home and we would gather around our little pecan coffee table the four of us, my mom and dad, and my sister and I and we would pray. And we're praying, God showed dad what to do and to his credit, he involved us, not so much in the decision because there were details at that point, he couldn't share with us that I learned later, but he did what he could do to involve us in detention of, we have a difficult decision to make and if I do what I think the right thing to do is it could cost us and it could cost the whole family. And in the middle of all that, one afternoon, there was a lady in our church, an older lady who kind of knew what was going on and she showed up at his office and she brought him this picture and she propped it up on a couch where he could see it, and she said, when he tells the story, this is how he tells the story. She said, Charles, Charles, what do you notice about this picture? Charles, what do you notice about this picture? And he said, well, Daniel, isn't looking at the lions. And for him, this was a defining moment.
Outcomes are not my responsibility. Outcomes are not my responsibility. This is not an argument for irresponsibility we've talked about that. Outcomes are not my responsibility my responsibility, my responsibility is to obey God and from this moment, and from this picture, he wrote down a statement, he wrote down a statement that he raised me on, in fact, I've quoted here many times, if you've ever listened to him, you've probably heard him say it. And this is where the statement came from. He wrote down, my responsibility is to obey God. Leave all the consequences to him. My responsibility is to obey God and leave all the consequences to Him.
You wanna win, you want to win? Well, then you do what you ought to even when you're certain it's gonna cost you. That is the win. And here's how I know that's the win, and here's how I know that's the win for you because that's the world you wanna live in. That's the person you wanna hire. That's the person you want your daughter to marry. That's the person you want your son to marry. That's who you want for the teachers in your kid's school. That's who we want as governors and mayors. That's who we want as police chiefs. That's who we want as president, vice-president and Congress, everywhere we look, we want men and women who will do what they ought to do, regardless of whether or not it costs them. That's the world you wanna live in. That's the world I wanna live in. The question is, why don't we step into that arena ourselves, especially if you're a God follower or if you're a Christian, for sure that is the win. I'm gonna obey God. I'm gonna do what I ought to do. And I'm not just going to try to predict outcomes.
Nebuchadnezzar, he didn't control outcomes, Darius didn't control outcomes, Daniel learned that Cyrus would not control comes, Caesar, Augustus didn't control outcomes. I love the fact that every year we mentioned Caesar, Augustus, but not in his story and the story of our savior. So, what's the win? Back to Daniel's story, has your God. He's shouting to Daniel, has your God whom you serve continually been able to rescue from the lions? I think Daniel pauses for dramatic effect. Like, let that kind of hang there. Then he says, yes, He has, oh, king Darius live forever. My God sent his angels, they shut the mouths of the lions they have not hurt me because I was found innocent in God's sight, nor have I ever, by the way, nor have I ever done any wrong before you, your majesty.
Now here's the thing, if you haven't been paying attention, listen and look, here's the question. Will God do this for you? Will God close the mouths of lions for you when you do the right thing, will God intervene and rescue you? Does it matter? Does it matter? Does it matter if your integrity, I can just poke at you a little bit. If your integrity is simply a means to a happily ever after ending, that's not integrity that's something else.
Christians, let me just narrow this for a minute. Christians, if the outcome of a decision matters more to you than doing the will of your Heavenly Father, if the outcome of the decision matters more to you than doing the will of your Heavenly Father you're not a follower, you're user. Judas was a user. They marched their way into Jerusalem. He realizes, oh, this is not gonna go the way I thought it would. I thought Jesus is gonna be Messiah and I'm part of the posse, oh, clearly that is not as intense so he switched sides and he sacrificed his integrity and he got paid for it, he got 30 pieces of silver. He lost his integrity and even if he had not experienced an untimely death, eventually he would have spent the silver, it is loose, loose. Following Jesus, following means we stop bargaining. Because following requires us to, following means you stop bargaining. It's not about outcomes, it's about devotion.
Jesus don't go to Jerusalem, oh Jesus, come on you've been telling us the whole time if you go to Jerusalem, they're gonna take you and rest you and try you and crucify you and kill you so, Jesus look, I got an idea let's not go to Jerusalem Jesus, if you go to Jerusalem, you're gonna loose and Jesus would've said, I'm not gonna loose I'm gonna win, the problem is you don't understand my definition of win let me tell you what it is says, Jesus. I have come down from heaven, not to do my will. This isn't about me. I've come to do the will of him who sent me. That is the win, that is the win. I will obey God, and I will trust Him with the consequences.
Then he said to his followers, so follow me and he says to you, do you and you and he said, he says to me, follow me. Here's the promise, follow me and what you gain can never be taken away. What's your win? May I suggest, the win is going to bed every night with a clear conscience, knowing you did the will of your Father, knowing that you did what you ought to do. And as you go to bed saying:
Heavenly Father, I trust all the outcomes and the consequences to you. I told the truth, which means I probably am not gonna pass that test, I told the truth, which means, I don't know how they're gonna respond when they find out. I told the whole story, rather than half the story I was encouraged to tell half the story but I told the whole story. The consequences Father, the outcome, I'm trusting with you.
I think my dad was exactly right I saw him live it, I saw him pay for it. Your responsibility is to obey God and trust him with the outcomes. You obey God and leave all the consequence to him and then no matter what happens, you have won. That's the win. But you have to decide ahead of time. You have to decide ahead of time. And if you do, and you do what you ought to do, then you were on the precipice of a perhaps a now God moment. And even if God doesn't come through for you the way you would hope he would come through for you, you still have a story worth telling you have a story worth repeating and you have a story to do for the next generation what my dad's story did for me. To galvanize the importance, to underscore the importance of doing the right thing even when you're certain its gonna cost you. And again, I know that's the win, because that's the world we wanna live in.