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Man, the title of my sermon tonight is Right and Wrong Competition. Right and wrong competition. Competition can be a great motivator. It can actually push us to do a lot more than we would have done if we hadn't had that competition. But then there can also be a lot of bad things about competition or dangers of competition. So tonight I want to talk about right and wrong competition. Now let me tell you where the idea for this sermon came from. My wife and I were out to lunch and there was a TV screen playing and there was a boxing match on the TV screen. So these guys are boxing. And we had just done some boxing earlier this week. We were goofing around with some of our pastor friends and doing some boxing. And so I was watching this boxing that was going on. And this guy won the fight. And he was just coming right up to the camera, yeah, I'm the best in the world, yeah. And he literally just like shoved over some lady that was like a medic or something. The medic was like coming to help the guy who got knocked out. And he just like knocks her over. Yeah, I'm the best, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was looking at that and it was just so disgusting to me to see someone act that way when they win. That's not how you're supposed to act when you win. People who win some kind of a competition and they just over celebrate like that and glorify themselves and brag about how great they are. You know, it's truly disgusting. And the Bible has a lot to say about boasting and pride and arrogance. And so that actually gave me, I'm thankful for that guy though. Because even though he's this arrogant jerk, at least he did something good with his life because he provided a sermon idea for me. So I appreciate that. So competition could be good. If you would flip over to 1 Corinthians chapter number 9, the Bible even uses competitive language to motivate us. So it's not that competition in and of itself is bad. It's just that there is a right competition and wrong competition. I'm going to give you three points tonight about the wrong kind of competition versus the right kind of competition. And even in regard to spiritual matters, I've had some competitions in my life that I found to be edifying. At other churches I've gone to, there would be different contests about bringing visitors to church or going soul winning or doing these different things. And it just motivated you to do more than you would normally do because you wanted to win. And you get a little trophy or a little plaque. Or maybe you get to go on a special trip or an outing. We have competitions in school about memorizing the Bible. The first time I ever memorized a chapter of the Bible was at a summer camp because it was a competition. You earned points for your cabin by memorizing this chapter. You'd get a bunch of bonus points. That's why I memorized my first long chapter of the Bible. And so competitions can be good like that. Also, think about Duolingo, those little leagues, the Sapphire League, the Emerald League. You want to get into those top leagues. You want to stay there. Other people knock you out of the promotion zone. You want to get back in that zone, amen? And then also, your friends are on there. And they got there total for the week, the day, the month. You end up doing more when you see that somebody's about 200 XP ahead of you. And you're like, you know what? I think I can reel them in. I can close that gap. I want to be at the top. So competition, I think, in that sense is good if it helps motivate us to do more, if it helps motivate us to do better, to improve ourselves, to stay focused, accomplish more, not be lazy, whatever. It can be a great motivator. Look what the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 9, verse 24. Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run that you may obtain. Run to win, he sang. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. I, therefore, so run, not as uncertainly. So fight I, not as one that beateth the air, but I keep under my body and bring it into subjection, lest that by any means, when I preach to others, I myself should be a castaway. So here the Apostle Paul is using athletic language to talk about how he motivates himself to want to win, to run the race, to get first place, to get the prize, to be crowned, to get that incorruptible crown. So this is something that the Apostle Paul is motivated by, just like worldly athletes are temperate in all things. They're eating a special diet, they're on a special exercise routine, they go to bed on time so they get proper sleep. He's saying, we need to get motivated like that about the Christian life. They're doing it for a corruptible crown. We're doing it for an incorruptible. Let's get motivated, let's work out. So what are the three bad types of competition that we're gonna cover tonight, or the three pitfalls of competition? Well, number one is vain glory and pride. Go if you would to Philippians chapter two. Vein, glory, and pride. And this is our buddy from lunch today, right? Yeah, I'm the best, yeah, woo! And look, you think that guy's unique in the world of athletics? Now, I don't watch sports, but some of you guys who watch a lot of sports, you could probably testify that that guy's not unique. That when they make the touchdown, they start to dance around, and woo! And it's not just that they're happy and just expressing their joy. What it is is a show of boasting, bragging, I'm better than you, I'm the best, look at me. It's an outward show. And frankly, it's bad sportsmanship, in my opinion. You know, when someone wins, I wanna see someone come and shake the other person's hand and congratulate them on good competition, and let another man praise thee and not thine own mouth. Strangers and not thine own lips. Isn't that what the Bible says? Let another man praise thee and not thine own mouth. They oughta just sit back and let someone else lift them up. If someone else wants to say, hey, that was a great play, that was a great fight, that was a great touchdown or whatever, it should be someone else saying that because it's unseemly for you when you win, I don't care if it's a board game, I don't care if it's a sporting event, a contest, to just come unglued and get too excited and have some big, giant, outward public celebration. It's truly disgusting. And I believe that it's disgusting in the eyes of the Lord because he says that he hates a proud look. He hates arrogance. He hates pride. So why would he be impressed by that? Where did I have you turn? Philippians 2, look at verse 3. Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. We need to care about other people, not be focused on vain glory of self. And you know, I like that word vain glory. I like how it's all crammed into one word, vain glory. Because elsewhere in the Bible, like for example, that word's used in one other place, Galatians 5 26, it says, let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. And there it's two separate words, vain glory. But I like how it just gets attached in this verse, vain glory, because glory for yourself that you earn in this life, through whatever achievements that you have, worldly achievements, or just, hey, everybody, look at me. They're truly vain. Might as well just attach the word vain. Anytime you're doing any kind of boasting or glorifying yourself or trying to sound a trumpet before you when you do your righteous works, might as well just attach the word vain to that, because that's what it is. Vain means it's a waste, it's empty, it's meaningless. It does not satisfy you. And all it does is anger the Lord and the people around you, okay? Jesus said, take heed that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them. Otherwise you have no reward of your Father, which is in heaven. And he talked about people who, when they give money, they sound a big trumpet. When they pray, they do it publicly and make sure everybody knows they're praying. And when they fast, they disfigure their faces so that everybody will know that they're fasting. And he said, you have your reward right now. You know what that reward is? Empty and vain. So God wants us, yes, to strive for the mastery, achieve things in this life, but not to glorify self because it's vain glory. Go to 1 John chapter two. 1 John chapter two, this is where we started out. I'll start reading while you get there. I wanna focus on verse 16, but I'm gonna start reading verse 15 while you're turning. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. So here we have two types of people in this world. We have the saved and the unsaved. The saved are going to abide forever. They have eternal life. They have everlasting life. They shall never die. When the body dies, we're going straight to heaven. We're gonna continue to live on. But then there are the people who only have hope in this life. This life is the best they're ever gonna have it. It's only gonna get worse after that. We're going to heaven. We're just passing through. But the people whose life only exists now for them to have any kind of a good time or pleasure or joy, these are the three things that they tend to live for. When we talk about the world, we're basically talking about the people that are outside of Christ. The world at large are just people that are not in Christ. Just your average, unsaved person. That's what the world is. And if we're worldly, it's when we're like unsaved people. We act like, talk like, unsaved people. That makes us worldly. We're supposed to be different, holy, peculiar people. And so here, it talks about what is in the world. What does the world have to offer when you turn on cable TV, when you turn on the radio, when you open their magazines and newspapers? What are they pretty much offering you? Well, this is all that's in the world. I mean, it's pretty much the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. These are the vain pursuits of unregenerate man. This is what they go after. They go after gratifying the flesh. Just let's eat and drink and be merry because tomorrow we die. Whether it's just gorging on fine foods or drinking alcohol, taking drugs, just hedonism in whatever form, fornication, adultery, whatever, the lust of the flesh is something that a lot of people are living for today, right? And then there's the lust of the eyes, okay? Just wanting to see all the wicked things and the covetousness of looking at things and desiring things that don't belong to them. The lust of the eyes, looking on a woman to lust after her. Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes. And then there's the pride of life. I think we all well understand the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes, but the pride of life is something else that people live for that has nothing to do with the lust of the flesh or the lust of the eyes. Rather, it's just about how can I lift myself up? I wanna be famous or have power or have people look to me, praise me, give me accolades. This is something else that people live for. Not every unsaved, worldly person is living for a hedonistic life of the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes. Many of them are living to gratify this desire for the pride of life. They wanna be praised and glorified and exalted. And I think that's what our buddy was doing today on that TV screen in the restaurant because of the fact that he wasn't gratifying his flesh. I mean, he's very temperate. I'm sure he abstains from a lot of foods and drinks that he would like to have, and he works hard at those things, but he's motivated by number three, the pride of life. We don't wanna be motivated by the pride of life. We are to be humble people, so we don't want vainglory and pride to come in. Here's another way of saying this, especially for the men, ego. Ego is something that men struggle with, and frequently, men have an ego that is out of control or they constantly wanna feed into their ego, and this leads them into sin. Let me just help you with this point about ego, okay? You should have nothing to prove. What are you trying to prove? And there are people walking around today, it's like they just always have to prove something. They just have to prove that they're the toughest, the strongest, the baddest, or on another side of the spectrum, the smartest, where you have these intellectual debaters and stuff that are gonna show how they can out-debate and outwit and whatever. So you've got the intellectual grandstanding, you've got the macho grandstanding of just having to prove your manhood all the time. Look, you're a man. We get it. So you don't have to always prove that all the time. And you know, when you find people just have to constantly prove how manly they are, they have something wrong with them where they're overcompensating maybe because they don't feel like they really are manly or they're just insecure or they just have an ego that just is so huge that it constantly has to be fed with praise and accolades and showing off and look how manly I am, look how buff I am. I'm the strongest, I'm the best, I'm the best. Get off this thing of having to be the best at everything all the time. You're not the best at everything. Do you really think that out of 7.4 billion people, you just happen to be the best at all these things? Or out of hundreds of people in the church, you just happen to be the one who knows the Bible the most and you're the best soul winner and you're the manliest and you're the strongest and you're the fastest and you're the coolest. Just quit trying to compensate all the time and just feed your ego and just learn this mantra, I have nothing to prove. Say that to yourself. You know, when you're tempted to have to show everybody and do something stupid, and you know, teenagers are the most guilty of this. Now look, it's pretty normal for teenagers to struggle with this. I think every teenager struggles with this because they kind of do have something to prove in their mind because they're coming out of childhood and into manhood so they have something to prove like I'm a man, I'm becoming a man, you know, I'm coming of age here. It's pretty sad when you see people that are 30 and 40 and 50 that still have something to prove. You know, I get it when you're 14 and 15 and 16, you got something to prove. Okay, but you know what, kids, how we'll identify your maturity is when you stop having something to prove. So the more I see you with this need to prove something all the time, that just shows that you're immature. And when you get past that, that's the day that I'll call you a man, all right? When you actually don't have anything to prove because you know that you're a man and that's enough. You don't have to keep reminding everybody around you constantly how macho you are. We have nothing to prove. You have nothing to prove. I have nothing to prove. And you'll see these people that are constantly bragging and boasting, they're insecure. So they need that affirmation all the time of other people validating them. It should be enough that if you have whatever the achievement or you read your Bible or pray or go soul-lending, why do you need someone else to acknowledge that or recognize that? If you did something for the Lord, it's enough if the Lord recognizes that. You know, you preach a sermon, let the Lord recognize it. You know, you ran a fast mile or you lifted a bunch of barbells or whatever, you know? Great. But you know, that's a great personal achievement for you. To keep to yourself or just enjoy yourself or maybe with some close friends. But you shouldn't always just have to just look at me, everybody. It's the problem. You know, I was thinking about this, reading the Iliad and the Odyssey, which are so different from the Bible. It's funny how there are similarities with the Bible, but it's just the opposite of the Bible. Because in the Bible, you see people winning great battles. There's a lot of war, just like in the Iliad, you know, you have all these warfare and battling and fighting. You know, but in the Bible, when somebody wins the battle, you see them giving God the glory. You know, you see David coming to Goliath and he's not saying, I'm gonna kick your butt because I'm the best, I'm the fastest, I'm the strongest. You know, you see him coming and saying, hey, the battle's the Lord's. He's giving God all the glory. He's fighting in the name of God. You know, in the Iliad and the Odyssey, they pray to all their false gods to help them win battles, but then they just talk about, I'm the greatest, I'm the strongest, I'm the best, I'm the best. And if other people won't recognize that, they get mad and they argue. That's what the whole Iliad is about, just people fighting over, I'm not getting enough credit for how good of a warrior I am. That's like the whole book. That's the book. To write it on the back of a postage stamp, what is Homer's Iliad about? It's about a guy who's mad because he's not getting recognized enough for his achievements. And it's just these guys going back and forth and they all just have these massive egos. Folks, that's what the world is like. And you know, there's a book that's what, 2,700 years old? And you still have these guys with big egos, something to prove all the time, trying to get glory for themselves. And then they're fighting all this warfare. Then toward the end of the book, they have athletic competitions where they do boxing and wrestling and they're running foot races. Book's almost 3,000 years old. And they're just like, hey, this isn't fair. And I got ripped off. I should have won. The only reason you won is because of X, Y, and Z. There's nothing new under the sun, is there? It's exactly the kind of garbage you see in today's athletic competitions. And there's nothing new under the sun. Whereas when you read the word of God, you know, the great heroes of the Bible, they glorify the Lord. They don't glorify self, right? They give him the glory. Nothing to prove. Go if you would to Proverbs chapter 11. While you're turning to Proverbs 11, I'm gonna read for you from 2 Corinthians 10, 12. For we dare not make ourselves of the number or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves, but they measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves are not wise. So we don't wanna be people who compare ourselves with other people in order to lift ourselves up and say, look, I'm better than so-and-so. That's the wrong kind of competition. Look, if competition motivates you where you say, hey, he did five, I'm gonna do six. He did seven, I'll do eight. Hey, if that motivates you to do more and you can have a friendly competition, and then when you win, you can control the celebration and keep that to yourself and just kind of be like, you know, just inside, you know, just be happy inside, but control that. And you know, and by the way, this starts with little kids. When little kids win a game or a sporting event or something, you know, you gotta tone them down when they start doing these wild celebrations. Tone that down and moderate that because that is not seemly to do that. Okay, so that's number one. Vainglory and pride is where competition goes wrong, okay? But number two is when competition becomes the idea of a zero-sum game. Now let me explain to you what this term means. Zero-sum game. A zero-sum game is where in order for one person to win, someone else has to lose. And to the degree of that person losing, that's how I win. This is the wrong mentality to have when it comes to competition in the Christian life. Any kind of competition that we engage in shouldn't be a zero-sum game where the joy of winning is to see them lose. You're a wicked person. That is not the joy of winning. The joy of winning is to achieve something yourself. It's not so that you can see someone else fail or lose. If you enjoy seeing other people lose, you're a bad person and you need to fix that, okay? You shouldn't be glad to see, look, I'm not saying it's bad to be glad to win. Everybody wants to win. That's a healthy desire to win. But it should be about you winning, not about them losing. It should be about you pushing yourself to achieve more. Paul said, hey, I want to run that crown. He didn't say, man, I want to smoke all the other apostles. I want to leave Peter and John in the dust. I want them to be so far behind me in line at the judgment seat of Christ that I can't even see them. Do you see him saying those kind of things? It's stupid. And even if, and look, I know it might sound silly to say, hey, even in a board game or something, but it's true. Have the right attitude because you want to have the right attitude in all areas of life where you play, you enjoy, you have a good time, you try to win. You know, there's nothing worse than playing with people who don't want to win. I mean, look, you should want to win. Desire to win, but be glad that you won. Don't be glad that they lost. And that might seem like a subtle distinction, but it's there. It's a difference there. Life is not a zero sum game. You don't have to fail in order for me to succeed. You don't have to lose in order for me to win, okay? In fact, the better you do, the better I do. You know, we can all win. Let's have a win-win. The Christian life, serving God, the local church, none of this is a zero sum game where there can only be one winner or I have to take points away from you so that I can have points. Hey, let's all get a lot of points, amen? Look at Proverbs 11, verse 24. The Bible says, there is that scattereth and yet increaseth, and there is that withholdeth more than is meat, but it tendeth to poverty. Do you see that? One person is scattering. They're giving things away, but yet they're increasing. And then another is withholding more than is meat, but tendeth to poverty. Here, let me explain to you what this verse is about. The federal government. The federal government is withholding more than is meat from your paycheck, but yet they tend to poverty. Am I right? Is the federal government just rolling in dough? Are they like Scrooge McDuck just swimming in money because they took so much money out of your paycheck? They took a bunch of money out of your paycheck and it's gone. They tend to poverty even though they withhold more than is meat. But then there's another one who's generous and giveth and lendeth and distributeth and yet increaseth. You say, well, that doesn't make any sense. It's the Bible. It's what the Bible says and it does make sense. Look around and you'll see it every day. It's explained in the next verse, verse 25. The liberal soul shall be made fat. What does it mean to be liberal? This is not the modern day word liberal, which is basically like a communist or a transgender freak or whatever. When we use the word liberal in the Bible, this comes from the word that liberty comes from. Same root word as liberty. What does liberty mean? Freedom. So what does liberal mean? Liberal means you are free with your possessions. So if you are liberal, that means you're very likely to give things away. You're very likely to buy someone dinner. You're very likely to be generous because you are liberal or free with your money or free with your goods. You are a generous person. So we could substitute the word generous here. That's what he's getting at when he says the liberal soul shall be made fat. He's saying the generous person, the liberal soul, shall be made fat, meaning the more you give away, the more you have. That doesn't make any sense. Many things in this world are counterintuitive, but yet they are true. The Bible says give and it shall be given unto you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together. He said your cup can run over. All pour out a blessing on you that you won't even be able to contain. So it's possible to scatter and yet increase and then it's possible to withhold more than his meat, be a tightwad, stingy, skin-flint Jew, but it tends to poverty. The liberal soul shall be made fat and he that watereth, watch this, he that watereth shall be watered also himself. If you water, you shall be watered. Amen? He that withholdeth corn, the people shall curse him, but blessing shall be upon the head of him itself. Here is the problem with the socialist and communist philosophies of this world. They murdered 100 million people. Okay, we're gonna talk about a different problem though. That's kind of a big problem, but the problem with the communists and socialists of this world is that they look at economics as a zero-sum game. They think, well, in order to lift people out of poverty, we have to take money away from this guy and give it to them. We have to take money from these people over here and give it to these people over here so that we can all be equaled out. What they don't understand is that economics and life are not a zero-sum game. Did you know that it's possible for all of us to prosper? Everybody can prosper. Everybody can work and build things and grow things. Folks, we're not farming every square inch of land in this world that could be farmed. We're not herding and raising every single animal that exists or pulling every resource out of the ocean that's there. I mean, look, there are all these wonderful resources and not only that, what about just intellectual resources? You know, where you can invent things, build things, you can mine this material and get this material over here and you can grow new materials. And you know, there's this wonderful system that God has put in place where, you know, you cut down a tree and it grows back. You know, you get water and they're like, we're gonna run out of water. It goes back into the sky and then it falls out of the sky again. This is a system that's been going on for thousands of years that's called the water cycle. You know, water evaporates and then it rains and then it flows. You know, folks, there's a lot of potential here. We're not maxed out yet on potential for producing wealth and prosperity in this world. So it's not the zero sum game where in order for poor people to make more money, we have to take it from someone else and give it to them and bring down somebody who is middle-class or rich. We've got to bring them down a little bit to bring the other guy up. We, you could actually bring everybody up. But guess what? You can't do it for them. You know, you can give people an opportunity to go up, but you know what? Some people want to stay at the bottom because they're lazy. I mean, is it just me or are we at like, what, record low unemployment right now in the United States? I mean, from what I, and I don't follow the news, I don't follow politics, but from what I understand right now, unemployment is at like a record low, is my understanding. And I just constantly see that everybody's hiring. You try to get a contractor to work on your house and they're like, hey, we're scheduling eight weeks out. Economy's booming, housing prices are going up, employment's at an all-time low. People who don't have a job right now, it's because they don't want a job right now because there are jobs out there. And we see it all the time. We're gonna do it all the time where people come to us for help and we take them and even drive them and drop them off at where the jobs are. At companies we know that will hire people if they have a pulse. And we drop them off there and we say, and they're like, well, can I do it tomorrow? How about Friday? I'm a little, let me see if I can pencil this. It's like, you're unemployed. Go there right now. So you see that today, unemployment's at a record low, but yet there are people who refuse to work, even now. They refuse to do anything, they're offered jobs, they won't take them, they don't wanna do anything. And you know what, fine, be that way, but don't be surprised if you don't have any money if you're refusing to do anything, okay? So we see that it's not a zero-sum game. This is where communism and socialism, this isn't fair, you know, we got folks, let's, yeah, let's help people do better and prosper, but not at the expense of taking it from someone else. You don't have to do that. But that's their mentality, isn't it? That's the way they talk, the haves and the have-nots. Right? So we don't wanna get that same mentality where we think it's a zero-sum game that we want other people to fail so that we can succeed. On that note, flip over to Proverbs 24, verse 17. And what does this mean? We should not begrudge people who are doing better than us. Let's say we see somebody get a promotion at work, rejoice with them. We see someone have an athletic achievement. You know, congratulate them. Don't just, why, it could've been me, why isn't that me? Why would you hate for your friends to be successful? You know, or how about this? You know, you can't have a baby, so then someone else gets pregnant, grr. This isn't a zero-sum game. It's not like there's these storks and babies up in heaven, and that was my baby that you just took. This isn't Mormonism, folks, where you have all these spirit babies up in heaven being brought down into this earth. Okay? So look, somebody else has a baby, rejoice! You know, you're single and somebody else gets married. Why isn't that me? Rejoice with them. Thou shalt not covet. Do not begrudge other people when they succeed, right? When we see other people make money, get a new house, they get married, they have kids, they have an athletic achievement, or they have some other achievement, maybe somebody gets ordained and starts a church and their church is growing and thriving. Look, what's wrong with you if you don't rejoice in the success of your brother and sister in Christ? Something's wrong. You have a wrong heart at that point. We should rejoice with them that rejoice and weep with them that weep. Look at Proverbs 24, verse 17. Rejoice not, verse 17 of chapter 24, rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth. Oh, man, you just got smoked, you lost, blew it! Is that a biblical attitude? Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, let not that heart be glad when he stumbleth, lest the Lord see it and it displease him, and he turn away his wrath from him. You know, if God's punishing someone, you don't wanna just be like, yeah, burn, because God might back off from them and get mad at you if you have a bad attitude. Fret not thyself because of evil men, neither be thou envious at the wicked, for there shall be no reward to the evil man. The candle of the wicked shall be put out. So control the celebration when you win and control the celebration when other people lose. Just control that celebration. Don't, you know, rejoice when other people win. Celebrate that, don't celebrate self. Teach this to your children. One of the most important attributes that we can have as Christians, yay, as human beings, is empathy. Being able to put ourselves in the place of other people and understand how they feel. This is how we should think. How are my actions affecting them? How do they feel? What is this doing for them? How would I like to be in their position right now? These questions are things that we should ask ourselves constantly. Being able to feel what other people feel. The Bible says, rejoice with them that rejoice. Weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high of things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. Condescend to men of low estate. Put yourself in their position. Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them. And them which suffer adversity as being yourselves also in the body. That's empathy. And the Bible teaches this over and over again. We need to empathize with other people. So number one, what's the wrong kind of competition? Vainglory and pride. Look, I'm not against competition. I think competition is great. I enjoy competition. I enjoy contests. Whenever there's a contest that has to do with something I like, I wanna get in on that contest. And I'm not talking about stupid lotteries and raffles and games of chance that are gambling type thing. I'm not talking about gambling. I'm talking about contests where there's an achievement and you wanna strive to win a contest where there's actually an achievement involved, right? I love stuff like that. I mean, who likes to participate in contests? I like contests, I like to participate, and I like to win. And I like to push myself and do my very best to win. But you know what? If I don't win, it's not gonna break my heart. And if I do win, I'm not just gonna hit the ceiling because I'm so excited. I'm not gonna be swinging from the chandeliers. I'm not gonna be bragging and talking a bunch of smack, all right? So the point is competition's good, except number one, when it involves vain glory and pride, arrogance, boasting, that's where it becomes wrong, okay? Otherwise it can be a good motivator like Paul used it to motivate himself. Number two, what else is it about? When it's a zero sum game. You must decrease that I may increase. That's a zero sum game, okay? Only one of us can be on the top. Wrong, that's not how the Christian life is. That's not how things work in the world usually, okay? Zero sum game. A lot of people have a zero sum game attitude in their marriage. I had a guy tell me, you know, that he said to his wife, this is a long time ago, he said, you know, it's obvious that only one of us is gonna be happy in this marriage, so it's gonna be me. Nice guy, huh? Well, we clearly can't both be happy, so I'm gonna be the one that's happy. Wow, great guy, right? That's who all you little girls wanna grow up and marry a guy like that, right? But the truth of the matter is, both husband and wife can be happy. And guess what? My happiness does not have to go down so that my wife's happiness can go up. And her happiness doesn't have to go down in order for my happiness. Do you know both of our happiness can increase? You say, oh wow, you know, if the wife obeys the husband, then that's a benefit for the husband, and a negative, wrong, it actually benefits both. Both people will be happier, because women are designed to be in their proper role and they enjoy having strong leadership. And the feminists who say that that's not true the loudest are the ones who probably enjoy it the most, and they need it the most, all right? They need somebody to set them straight. They're screaming to be, you know, ruled over by some strong husband, okay? And because they don't have that, they're bitter about that. So then they whine about that. No woman wants to be married to some weakling, milk toast man, it's not what women like, okay? And no man wants to be a henpecked husband because we as men are programmed to want to lead our home. You know, that's how God designed us. So actually both can be happy by getting in God's proper role. And you know, let's say I am self-sacrificing and I put aside some of my own desires and needs so that I can give her something that she wants or do something that she wants or something that she prefers, that's not making my life worse, because you know what, it's more blessed to give than to receive. So I'm gonna get the blessing of giving, she's gonna get the blessing of receiving, and then if she gives unto me, she's gonna get that more blessed to give than to receive. Folks, both people can be happy when they stop competing with each other in a zero-sum game. And there are too many husbands and wives that are in competition right now. Who's gonna get the one up? Who's gonna win? Who's gonna be leading? Who's gonna have the power? These couples that are in a power struggle, they're both miserable. Get the zero-sum game mentality out of your mind and realize we can have a win-win in this marriage. We can have a win-win in this church. We can have a win-win with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Forget the zero-sum mentality. You say, well, yeah, in order for me to win, other people have to lose. Well, you don't get it. You know, let's say I entered a running race, right? Let's say I enter a running race and I run my best ever time in that running race, then I got a PR. Who knows what that means? PR, right? All the athletes in the room? Five of you, no, I'm just kidding. You got a personal record, right? So you say, hey, I PR'd in that race. Well, you know what? Let's say I PR'd in that race and let's say some other guy just smoked me and blew my doors off and I got second place. I'm not gonna sit around and whine and say, oh yeah, well, last year, my time would have been the winning time, last year. Isn't that the kind of stuff you hear? Well, if you look at the time I ran this year, you know, I would have won last year. It's just this guy, you know, he just happened to beat me, but folks, if you got a PR, it's a success. How can you not go home rejoicing and say, hey, I just ran the best race I've ever run. Compete against yourself. You don't have to just beat someone else or have a, yeah, but I wanna be on that podium getting the recognition. It's vanity, it's worthless, it's meaningless. It means literally less than nothing. You think we're gonna be talking about your athletic achievements in the millennium? It's not happening, nobody cares. I know they're not gonna be talking about my athletic achievements, cause I don't have any. I have literally none, okay? And you know what? Ask me how much that bothers me. Well, it bothers me a little bit. No, just kidding. And look, I've tried to have athletic achievements and you know, it's like, I felt like there was always this force working against me. Like God doesn't want me to ever achieve. Amen. So be it, you know, that's life. So what? But you know what, it's the training and the getting out there and doing your best that actually is improving you as a person, not winning. Winning makes you sometimes a worse person. Losing is good for you frequently. If you can have the right attitude, you can learn to be gracious when you lose, amen? Winning can turn you into a prideful, arrogant person. So God knows what you need. Sometimes God knows you need to fail and God will give you failure if that's what you need sometimes to keep you humble, right? So that you don't become like that guy from the restaurant. I just want to keep putting that guy in your mind. That was, he was the impetus for this whole sermon. Yeah, me, I'm the best in the whole world, yeah. And I mean, was that just disgusting? Not the medics coming to help the guy who's writhing on the ground. Just shove a woman out of the way on the, let me get in the camera and show them the best, knock some woman over who's trying to help the guy who just got his rear end handed to him. All right, so number three, and this is really the worst one because we talked about number one, the vainglory and pride, number two, the zero sum game, but number three, cheating to win. Go if you would to 2 Timothy chapter two, this is the last place. 2 Timothy two, this is the worst, isn't it? People who cheat to win. They get so competitive that they cheat to win. And here's a saying that I always think of that I've remembered. When you cheat, you're cheating yourself. I mean, I think about that all the time. I constantly think about that. I heard that about 10 years ago and it just stuck with me. When you cheat, you're only cheating yourself. You kids that are in school or homeschool and you cheat on your schoolwork, you are cheating yourself. You're the one who's not getting the knowledge. You're not getting the wisdom. You're not getting the understanding. You're the one who is not gonna be a smart person, who's not gonna have character, who's not gonna be blessed by God because cheaters never prosper. And there's nothing that is a more empty vainglory than winning through cheating. It's ridiculous. And yet, virtually all professional athletes are cheating. And it's disgusting. How can they live with themselves? How can they even enjoy the sport when they know that they're cheating? I'll tell you how, because they rationalize it and justify it in their mind. Well, everybody's doing it so it's not cheating. If everybody's doing it, then we're all in an even plane. That doesn't make it right. These guys in the Tour de France that were all cheating, they said that to get to the guy who wasn't cheating, you'd have to get to the guy who came in like 21st place or something. He was the real winner. He was the guy who won. I mean, he went out there, he got on a bike without cheating and he was the guy in the front, in God's eyes. Because, you know, Lance Armstrong is a piece of trash. Lying and attacking everyone who would criticize him and claim that he was cheating. And he was cheating every which way to Sunday. He was doping in three different ways. He had three separate programs of cheating going on. And he just said, well, everybody's doing it. He's scum. He's ruining the sport, ruining the fun, ruining his soul. Ruining himself more. You say, well, that guy that came in 21st place, poor guy. I don't feel sorry for that guy. Because you know what? I'm sure that guy that actually did it without cheating is probably living a better life than the guy in the front who had to have one of his body parts amputated because he took so many drugs and steroids and testosterone. He had to have a key body part removed. Who knows what I'm talking about with Lance Armstrong? That's a key body part, amen. And he had to have it removed. And the point is that, you know, I don't feel bad for that guy in 21st place because you know what? The guy who did his best without cheating, he didn't cheat himself. All those dopers and cheats and liars, they cheated themselves. And what did they do? They destroyed their health. They harmed their body. They displeased the Lord. And at the end of the day, what do they have to show for it? A trophy. And then sometimes that trophy gets taken away when they find out that you've been cheating. But even if you get to have that trophy, so what? What good is some trophy in a glass case? What is that gonna do for you? Save the beholding of it with your eyes. What are you gonna do? Oh, we're all over for dinner at so-and-so's house. Now it's time for him to take us on a tour of all his trophies. Have you ever been to somebody's house and toured their trophies or toured their achievements? You were really jazzed about that, weren't you? Turns out most people don't care. It's not worth it. Cheating is disgusting. Cheaters never prosper. Cheating, and look, cheating at a board game is disgusting. You say, well, it's just a board game. It's not the Tour de France. There's no money at stake. This isn't a professional competition. Look, if you cheated anything, you know what you're doing. You're becoming a cheater, and you're just gonna keep cheating, and then you'll cheat on bigger things. The Bible says if you're faithful in that which is least, you'll be faithful in that which is great as well. So it all starts when you start cheating in a board game or cheating in a card game. That's where it starts. And then next thing you know, you're getting blood transfusions in Czechoslovakia in the middle of the night during the Tour de France, okay? And you know what? And you're like, how did I get here? It all starts, kids, when you're looking at your, you know, you're in school, and you're looking at another kid's paper, or in ACE, you're just copying out of the answer key. Next thing you know, you're blood doping. Next thing you know, you know, you're taking human growth hormone, you're taking anabolic steroids, right? Because it's the same thing. You're cheating. Be honest. Do things right. What does the Bible say? 2 Timothy 2, four. No man that warth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. Who are we pleasing? We're here to please God. We don't need to please the people around us, okay? Please God, and God is not impressed by cheating. God is not impressed by your boasting and vainglory. And if a man also strive for masteries, this is talking about athletics, yet is he not crowned except he strive lawfully. He's saying, look, in a sports competition, you don't get the trophy, you don't get crowned, you don't win the prize, you're not the winner. If you break the rules, you've got to strive lawfully. And he's saying, look, in the Christian life, be in it to win it, but do it lawfully. Do it according to the rules. Don't break the rules to win. Don't cheat to get ahead. Strive lawfully. So competition's great, but if competition is driving you to cheat, if you're so competitive that it's worth cheating to you, you know what, it's time to bow out of that competition. And you need to have the right attitude toward competition. I'm not against competition. You don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater because competition can be great. Getting together and say, hey, let's see who can run the faster. You know, when me and my brother get together, we typically have this competition where we take big rocks and see how far we can throw them or how high we can throw them. So we'll be at the river or something and there's a bridge and we'll spend like an hour trying to throw big, heavy rocks high enough to hit the bridge and then it hits, it's like, dong, it hits that steel and we'll have contests of who can hurl rocks the farthest or hey, let's race across this river, we're gonna swim, race, let's run. Isn't that fun? Is there anything wrong with that? No, but what's wrong with that is, oh man, you're so weak, that was so lame. You didn't even come close. Or, oh man, I tore you up. You know what, you're starting to get old, aren't you? You know, you're out of shape. I mean, that's just disgusting, isn't it? And you know what, when the people who do this don't realize how disgusting they are, but to an outsider, people are like cringing. Don't you cringe when you hear people brag and boast? That's why I can't pay attention to politics, especially during the election debates and stuff, because they're just like, my record speaks for itself, I did this, I did that, you know, it's just like, bleh. Just wanna throw up. So don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Contend. Have a competition. Have a contest, enjoy. And be in it to win it. But don't cheat, don't tear down other people, don't rejoice when they fail, don't have an immoderate rejoicing when you succeed, and don't feel that other people have to lose so that you can win. Rejoice in winning, don't rejoice in them losing, and rejoice very mildly. Control the celebration. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and for you to help us to apply these biblical principles in our lives, whether it's in recreation, games, sports, family time, whether it's on the job, at school, at church, whatever area of life, Lord, thank you for giving us these guiding principles that can help us be a better person and participate in society in a godly way where we can be a good testimony and please you and be blessed by you and not constantly be an embarrassment to ourselves and the cause of Christ, Lord. Help us to have the right kind of competition. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.