Biography
William J. Hybels is pastor of Willowcreek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois. He started this dynamic ministry from scratch and today has an average attendance of 9,000, many of whom are learning for the first time what "church" is really for. He is also the author of a number of books such as Who You Are When No One is Looking and serves as chaplain for the Chicago Bears. He and his wife, Lynne, have two children. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"Winning Through Losing" 
Recently I have come to the conclusion that winning isn't everything it's cracked up to be In fact, winning is losing some of its luster in my life. Like many other achievement oriented Americans, I have developed a fascination bordering on veneration - for winning and succeeding in the various pursuits that I involve myself in, be they vocational, educational or even recreational, for that matter. Along the way, I haven't taken out much time to contemplate what happens inside of me when I start stringing together a series of victories. Ask any success addict if winning is everything. And if you can get a straight answer from them the individual will probably say something like: Well, winning might not be everything, but it sure beats losing.

Anything beats losing, doesn't it? I used to be more sure of that than I am today. In the past two years, for reasons that I don't even quite understand myself, I have had first hand exposure to the lives of many well-known winners. Some world class athletes, nationally known authors, internationally recognized authorities in business and finance, "televangelists", successful pastors and even some political leaders.

More often than not my general assessment of those encounters was that I had been in the presence of people whose names and faces were more familiar to other human beings than to our Lord. In many cases, the single greatest drive in their lives was to continue to win and succeed in their pursuits no matter what the cost. No matter what the long term effects would be. No matter who offered them counsel to the contrary.

I would have thought that someone who did a lot of winning would not have that much of a need to continue to win. But I have learned, over the years, that winning seems to only whet the appetite for winning more and more, winning every time out.

My uneasiness has increased as I perceive that often consistent winners become puffed up people. People who sometimes think more highly of themselves than they should. And what's even worse, sometimes these consistent winners show a not-so-carefully concealed disdain for people who lose a few now and then.

Isn't it true that pitifully few consistent winners demonstrate true humility before God and true deference toward other people? How many consistent winners do you know who demonstrate true meekness, loving forbearance, Biblical servanthood, genuine tenderheartedness and other Christlike qualities that we read about in Matthew 5 and other places?

As I've spent some time in mulling over these kinds of issues I've had to pose a very painful question to myself. Some of you might know what I'm about to ask. If putting together a string of victories tends to puff someone up and tends to produce an independent spirit and maybe detach them from the person of Jesus Christ, why do I find myself trying so hard to win at everything I do? Do I really think that winning won't have those sinister and subtle adverse effects on me?

Well, winning is still better than losing, isn't it? Hands down? Wouldn't most of us prefer to grapple with the complications and dangers of winning than endure the embarrassment and humiliation and discomfort of losing? We say: Give me the thrill of victory, Harry can have the agony of defeat. But I'm asking myself these days not to be so quick to hand Harry all of the agony of defeats.

About two months ago, I was asked to speak on a beautiful ranch in the Big Sky country of the state of Montana. Some businessmen were gathered there and I was asked to speak about how to improve the devotional life and how to help these men understand what a walk with Jesus Christ is all about.

God used me in a way that was very humbling. I give Him all the glory for that. In a few short days, my heart was bonded together with some of these men whom, really, I had not known before that point.

I had to leave a day early to go back to the church that I pastor and I left the day after that to go on an extended summer study break with my family. Upon landing in San Diego and going to the house where we were to stay, I walked into the home and the phone was ringing and it was my secretary who said, "You better sit down. Four of the men", and she gave me their names, "four of the men that you were with at Elk Canyon Ranch tried to fly home in a private plane and their plane is missing. Would you pray?" My wife and my two kids and I started to pray.

It was only about two days later when we got another phone call informing us that all four men had perished in that plane crash. It was a tragic loss.

After the funeral was over and things had settled down a little bit, the four widows of those men wondered if I would be willing to meet with them in Dallas, my having been the last person to minister to their husbands. In the family room of the pilot of that downed plane I met with those four widows and what happened in that two hour meeting is difficult for me to describe. There was a depth of fellowship and an openness, a spirit of community, a vulnerability. There were tears, there was some laughter, there were conversations and then there was some silence. There was some reminiscing, there was some planning. But such love, such tenderness!

When it was time for me to leave I suggested that we stand in a huddle. We put our arms around each other and we slobbered through a prayer. And during that prayer it hit me like a ton of bricks. That moment I felt like I was standing in the very presence of Jesus Christ. In a way, that little huddle became a holy huddle - standing on holy ground. It struck me that I felt purer and closer to the Lord than I had in a long time.

What was it that prompted us to form that holy huddle? Why were we holding each other? Why were we crying out in one spirit to God? Because of a loss. Because of a defeat, a heartbreaking, soul-wrenching tragedy, something infinitely different from winning.

But what did the loss produce? It produced the sights and the sounds and the feelings and demonstrations of the presence of Jesus Christ in ways that few consistent victors can completely understand. Later on that night, in my hotel room, I kept reflecting on how holy that moment was, how pure I felt, how close I felt to God and how much love I felt toward the other people in that huddle. And then in comparison, in the quietness of that hotel room, I reflected on how hollow my recent victories had been, how empty they had left me and, really, how alone I had felt in spite of those victories and, in some ways, how far from God. Again, I had to ask myself: Is winning everything that it's cracked up to be?

I felt compelled by those questions to spend the rest of my study break reading and reflecting on the subject of winning through losing. I want to list, in the time that remains, some of the often overlooked benefits of losing. I want to make it plain that I'm talking here about losing an investment, or losing a precious possession, losing a spouse, losing your health or mobility, losing face - being embarrassed, losing a career, or even losing a ministry.

After reflecting on losing, it appears to me that there are some benefits. One might be that loss seems to simplify matters of the heart. Sudden loss simplifies matters of the heart.

One man put it this way, when he suddenly lost his health and found himself on a hospital bed looking up for the first time in a long time. He writes, "I came to realize that I no longer really cared for what the world is chasing after, such as how much gold you have in the bank or how many jaguars you have in the parking lot. As it says in the book of Ecclesiastes, I chasing after these things is like chasing the wind.'

"Suddenly the rat race became vanity to me, utter vanity. I felt naked before God. If I died I would take nothing with me. All that really mattered, ultimately, was my relationship with the Lord and my relationship with family and with friends. If it weren't for the loss of my health", he writes, "I could have wasted the rest of my life chasing achievements and acquiring more things."

His loss had served him well. His loss simplified and clarified matters of the heart. It burned through the haze of sophistication and complexity and gave that man the ability to see the difference between major league concerns of life and minor league concerns.

Late in my high school years, I had strung together a series of victories - academic victories, athletic victories and some work related victories. I even managed to date Jr. Miss Michigan, and not just date her but I eventually ended up proposing to her and she agreed to become my wife. It felt like I was hitting grand slams every time I came up to bat.

I was three months away from our wedding day when that woman said to me, "I don't think this relationship is going to work, I think we need to cancel the wedding." My first major league loss.

I was a Christian at the time. The next day I went to work. I was driving semi- tractor/ trailers for the company I was working for at the time. As I was driving down the highway in Michigan I turned up the radio to a country music station in the cab of that truck. There was an old song on entitled, "There Goes My Reason for Living, There Goes My Everything". And I started singing along with that song. "There goes my reason for living, there goes my everything."

God, by His Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, "That's not true. You need some things clarified." I spent the rest of that time in the cab of that truck having the Holy Spirit strip away the haze, and clarify the fog that had settled over my life. I had inadvertently changed the priorities in my life, taking Jesus Christ off the seat of Lordship, if you will. And without even knowing it, I had placed a woman where only Christ should sit. That loss clarified that whole matter to me and I repented to the Lord that day, and made a vow to Him that no one ever again would become a substitute or would fill the place that only God should fill in my life.

By God's grace, several years later, we were able to get back together and ultimately she became my wife, Lynne, who's a great inspiration in my life. But in that case my loss served me well. I won even though I experienced a loss.

What about you? Are you learning anything through your losses? Are you allowing your losses to simplify and clarify matters of the heart?

I think it's also fair to say that losses have the benefit, occasionally, of purifying matters of the heart - not just simplifying, but purifying matters of the heart. King David leaps to mind. Victory after victory after victory is what King David experienced in the Old Testament. So much so that he didn't even have to go to battle anymore. And then, his moral defeat - his adultery with Bathsheba. And then his confrontation with the prophet Nathan - he lost face with Nathan. And then the loss of his son - because God disciplined David through the loss of his son. Three staggering losses, back to back to back.

David, after hearing that his son had died, washed himself, changed his garments and went into the temple. The book of II Samuel, chapter 12, verse 20 says, "David then worshiped God." And even though the scripture doesn't offer us the details of David's worship, I think it's a good guess to assume that the loss of David's son brought a thoroughness of confession and repentance like nothing else in David's life ever had before.

In fact, I think that's what's recorded for us in Psalm 51. 1 think Psalm 51 captures the summary of David's repentance because of the loss of his son. Remember some of those words? "Wash me from my iniquity, cleanse me from my sin. You are right in judging me, 0 Lord. Against Thee and Thee only have I sinned. Now wash me and make me whiter than snow. Create in me a clean heart 0 God." What a purifying prayer. What a God honoring prayer, arising from the ashes of defeat and loss.

You see winning victory after victory after victory tends to communicate to us that we can do nothing wrong. All of our decisions are right. All of our judgments are true. I mean, just look at the trophies and the awards and the symbols of success all around us. Don't they speak for themselves? Other people make bad judgments - we don't.

Then a loss. Something or someone is taken away from us. Ripped out of our lives. Often times the loss will cause a kind of inventory to be taken, and sometimes that inventory leads us to repentance, to confession, to purification. "0 God, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

I'm not suggesting that every loss is directly attributed to a specific sin. I'm just saying that loss often leads us to introspection out of which God may do the work of purification. And in my life, more than once, the work of purification needed to be done and it was stimulated by a loss.

Did you ever think about letting you loss purify your life? Did you ever think about going to the Lord and saying, "What can I learn from this Lord? Is there anything in my life that you'd like to remove? Wash me, cleanse me, make me whiter than snow."

One final thought. Not only does loss sometimes simplify or clarify matters of the heart, Not only does it purify from time to time, but wouldn't we all agree that loss can unify us in ways that nothing else can?

The Bible makes reference to the fellowship of those who suffer and experience pain.

This summer, in the space of seven days, I met with two pastors - one from a southern state, and one from a northern state. One has had an uninterrupted string of victories for the past twenty years. Everything he has touched has worked out. People flock to hear him preach, his books sell by the thousands, his TV program is tops in the area he's batting 1000. But in my meeting with him, I kept sensing a spirit of competition. I kept hearing remarks that left me somewhat estranged and feeling cold and empty.

One week later I sat in a sparsely attended Sunday Evening service and I heard another minister. He was joking and crying his way through a sermon that was not all that well prepared, by his own admission. Held not been able to concentrate very well because two of his three sons were in local hospitals dealing with severe emotional problems. One of them had an anxiety attack so severe that he bit down, clenched his teeth and snapped off two of his permanent teeth.

What a loss for a dad. What a defeat for a father. As that pastor described his feelings of defeat in that sermon, I was choking back my tears. I was looking around me and noticing that everyone in that place was sort of brought together in a strange sense of unity. There was a cohesiveness - an uncommon bond - a fellowship of suffering - a fraternity or sorority of brokenhearted brothers and sisters. There was a huddle that became holy in that service.

After the service, people greeted the pastor, there were tears and hugs and commitments to prayer and caring. I thought to myself, "I don't think winning could produce a moment like that, but losing can."

And losing often does. Doesn't God say in Psalm 34, "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and he is close to those who are crushed in spirit."

Why am I so determined never to lose again when losing can, and often does, simplify and clarify matters of my heart? It purifies me and it unifies people. Why am I so bent on winning all the time? What is so agonizing about losing after all?

The word of Jesus: What does it profit to win, or to gain, the whole world and to lose your soul? The other words of Jesus: Whoever experiences the loss of his life for my sake shall save it. Winning through losing.

I'm learning more about losing these days and I want to close this message by just giving you a few practical suggestions of how you can apply a message like this to your life.

First practical application: Be suspicious of the effects of a string of victories in your life. We are called to work heartily at all that we do and sometimes as we work heartily for God's glory, we experience victories for which we can give God glory - and we should. But keep watch over your heart and soul to be sure that the seeds of pride and independence and self-will don't take root in your life. Prosperity has diseased more souls than adversity ever will.

Second point of application:

Choose to lose once in awhile. Lose a possession to someone in need. Part with something meaningful to you. Give up some status or honor - you know, take a plaque off a wall, concede in an argument, forgive a debt. I had a professor once who said, "Never let a day go by without letting someone take advantage of you - it will do you good."

Final thought: When a tragic loss comes your way—and it will in one form or another determine to let that loss do a good work in your life—let it simplify or purify or unify you with other fellow sufferers.

Winning isn't everything its cracked up to be.