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The Harvester Podcast is brought to you by the Florida School of Preaching. Listen weekly to take a dive into biblical topics and thoughtful studies on things that matter to our eternal souls.
We welcome you to the Harvester podcast, and this is what we are calling a bumper-soad
that is an episode between two seasons.
And we have just finished up season three, which was a great season on Christian evidences
or apologetics.
If God exists and if the Bible is the inspired word of God and if the Bible teaches a
certain thing to be true, we know it's true, and we appreciate our brother George Beals
who guest-hosted on that.
But now in this bumper-soad, we are
picking up with the theme and by the way the word bumper sow gets its name from bumper
music when you listen to a radio talk show and they had the music on each end of the
commercials and so we thought well here's a bumper episode of the harvester podcast
between seasons and so instead of music we have some good practical stuff for us to learn
and we are going to continue our theme of leadership and the church as we have been doing
that and this will actually be our fourth
podcast on that, only the second with our guest host today we have with us Josh Epperson.
And he is a head basketball, women's basketball coach of Southeastern university here in
Lakeland.
And does a great job with that.
we looked at the last time we had one of these was, uh, the topic was leadership
principles from a coach and he has coached a lot in his life, probably 10 or 20 years.
and he has a lot of good insight on leadership.
And so today we're gonna focus in on lessons we can learn from losing.
And I know sports fans don't like to lose, but there's some great lessons we can learn
from that.
And so Josh, what about lessons from losing?
Yeah, you really talked about the hook.
I was had of being for it.
Nobody likes to lose.
I think we all start with that.
But if we don't take the fact that if we only measure success by scoreboard, we're going
to miss the deeper work God is doing through our setbacks.
And, you know, just in my brief coaching journey, which is about over 20 years now, so
don't know if that's as brief as it used to be, but.
I know the first time that I repeatedly was losing to the same team over and over again,
and I felt like I was just hitting my head against the wall.
And part of that, I was pretty young in the process, is I was not learning from the
mistakes.
I was upset about them, but I just kept not being able to learn from them.
And so I think that's important for us, is that as leaders, we have to know that if it's
on the court, and obviously as leaders in the church,
that we have to be able to take it and use that feedback we're getting from different
losses.
And obviously those losses look different than maybe on a scoreboard, but we all have
different losses that happen and we need to learn from those.
Yeah, that's very true.
And I like the statement you made, being angry at a loss versus learning something from
it.
And sometimes the anger can keep us from learning from it.
And of course, there's a whole bunch of Bible principles in there that Josh will get to,
but, you know, there's nothing that can happen to us as Christians in life that we cannot
learn from.
Whether successes or losses, and sometimes even with successes, we lose track of still
what can we learn about.
And then losses, of course, maybe we're more forced into that thinking what we can learn.
But even then, the anger can override that, and we miss out on the valuable lessons.
Well, we fall in this trap.
I know that we always pray for victory, right?
I mean, nobody's praying for defeat.
But the scripture shows God shapes his people most deeply through our defeats ah and
through those disappointments.
And so we have to understand that that's happening.
And honestly, we have to be able to learn through both of those, through successes and
losses.
I always say sometimes this is more difficult for some people to during success too,
because I think they do have it all together, but there's still things to learn.
So,
know, Romans chapter 5, verse 3 through 4, it says there, we rejoice in our sufferings,
knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character
produces hope.
And I think that's that key second word there, we rejoice in our sufferings.
How many of us can say that we really rejoice when we have sufferings?
But that's what it says that we're supposed to do.
But we know that we can rejoice because we know what it leads to.
It leads to endurance and endurance leads to character and character obviously eventually
leads to hope
Yeah, you may be coming to this passage later, but I remember in James chapter 1, you
know, my brethren encountered all joy when you fall into various trials.
And it says, knowing this, that the testing of your faith produces patience, but let
patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire or complete, lacking in
nothing.
And of course, know, trials and things of that nature, you know, we could put losses in
that category, but as they definitely give us potential trouble.
Yes, and you know how many of us that's probably we pray for a lot of things how many of
us actually pray for patience and maybe some people do because we all need to be more
patient But we need to be prepared if we pray for patience.
yeah, there were going to have some things We're gonna have to endure to get us to have
more patience
yeah, there used to be an idiom that says, don't pray for patience because you don't want
to learn that.
I mean, that's one of those things that we would rather learn it from a book, like the
e-book, but a lot of times we won't unless we face adversity.
Exactly.
But the first point with that is, you know, we talk using the coaching terminologies and
our pillars that we use for things is it's talking about being a great teammates, our
first one.
But the first one with that going to losing is losing reveals our hearts.
You know, when there's a defeat usually exposes selfishness or pride gives us a chance to
choose either you're going to choose unity.
Hopefully you choose unity and humility.
You know, you take it to coaching when you lose a game.
players, a lot of times they start pointing fingers at other people.
uh Or it's like, why am I not getting the ball enough?
And it just becomes very selfish, instead of looking inward of, man, what could I do?
What can I do to help this team better in the role of things?
So losing can do that, but losing obviously can point us in a different direction too, if
we want.
But that really reveals our heart.
You can't hide it.
Sometimes we can hide things when we're winning.
When everything's good,
Some things get overlooked.
I think losing is kind of like, there's people in their houses that use duct tape, and
duct tape's great, don't get me wrong, but if you duct tape everything in your house,
eventually, when a hurricane happens, when something bad happens, that duct tape is gonna
be exposed, and you're have all types of leaks.
And I think that's sometimes what happens with winning in different ways is some churches,
you get by and things are coasting.
But underneath we've ductate some things.
So when things are tough, all of a sudden things are exposed and you've got leaking pipes,
you've got all this different stuff.
And sometimes it all happens at once because you've used it in so many different areas.
Yeah, I'm thinking uh when you just said that about humility, that's something I think
that when people take losses very hard, a lot of it has to do with because of pride.
But when you think about the humility, if we were humble there, and of course I follow
some few sports teams, maybe football more than others, but there's a couple championship
teams, and I remember watching them, and they were just on fire the last part of the
season, and then they had this one loss, like maybe
two or three games before the playoff started.
And that loss really humbled them.
And they learned from it and they just came back and ran the table the rest of the way.
And I think that goes right along with, we're angry at a loss because of pride, then that
pride is gonna get in the way.
Pride goes before destruction and the Holy Spirit before fall.
But if we're humble and accept it, like, well, hey, what can we do to make it better?
Because that's, pride doesn't think it can be made better.
Right.
Because, hey, I just did all this and all that, but when we lose and we have that humble
attitude, that's right, and so the attitude is all what it's about.
I mean, the same...
uh someone can suffer a loss, very similar loss, but one makes it a stepping stone to
greater faith, and the other may be a stumbling block to apostasy.
Right.
It depends on how we take
It's interesting in Luke chapter 22 verse 24 through 27, you know, Jesus gets done
predicting his death, you know, which ultimately some people would think that's a loss,
obviously, and it's our greatest gain, though.
ah But he predicts that, you know, it's interesting what the disciples do right after
that.
His apostles, they start arguing about who's their greatest.
And so the same thing Mays showed when he's talking about a loss, or at least they would
think it's a loss there, that they start
seeing a selfish side of them versus seeing the big picture of, he has to die for all of
us.
that's, mean, he died, he needed to die for them too.
So, but obviously that's a whole other subject, but the apostles did not completely
understand the plan of God even when he was here.
even on one those occasions where Peter got in the way and Jesus had to say, Satan, get
behind me.
Right.
And so when we try to thwart God from what we consider a loss, we don't want you to do
that, then we're actually doing Satan's business, trying to get in the way of God's will.
Yeah.
Well, and know, losing is a lab where God gets to teach us humility, grace, and patience
with others.
And I think that's important for us there.
Philippians chapter 2 verse 3 through 4, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but
in humility count others more significant than yourselves.
And so that's a lesson we should take is that in everything we do, we should be counting
others more significant than us.
Yeah.
And then in that same chapter of Philippians, he goes on to talk about, this mind be in
you, which was in Christ Jesus, which Jesus is the prime example of that humility right
there.
Exactly.
So the reflection for all of our listeners is as we go into the next point, but from this
one is how do I treat people when things aren't going my way?
ah Do I pull closer to a team or do I drift into blame?
And I think that's the thing with the church.
Let's use that analogy.
When things aren't going exactly the way you want them to at church or just in life, maybe
things are tough.
Do you get closer to the people at church or do you start blaming others?
Do you start blaming it on the preaching or blaming on this person or this person made you
mad?
You could start blaming all these different things instead of, no, this is your time.
You've got to grow closer.
You need to be humble and know that you need those people in the congregation.
You need your fellow Christians more than you ever did during that time.
Yeah, and that brings my mind back to maybe like when some churches have splits over kind
of ridiculous things.
It's all because they did not see the challenge or maybe the loss or whatever happened,
the conflict, they didn't see it as an opportunity to grow, but pride got in the way and
pride over here on this side and that side, next thing you know the church is split.
But if we had humility in saying, what can we learn from this?
How can we better and then arm ourselves with the Scripture and the principles in there,
then that would
be a whole world of out...
a whole different world of outcome uh in that.
And the church could be even stronger instead of two weaker split versions.
Exactly.
and I think that you led right into the next point you were going to make is about being a
hard worker is one of the things we talk a lot, but losing reveals gaps.
We all have gaps and sometimes we're not aware of them.
I heard my assistant use this analogy the other day.
We all have blind spots and sometimes losing reveals those gaps, those blind spots that we
otherwise don't see.
And so, you know, in coaching world, when you have that, when you see it, you know, after
it, we have film sessions to show the truth.
You know, sometimes they'll show conditioning issues or skill gaps.
And then all of sudden we focus on those laps.
We don't ignore them.
If you ignore them, then obviously that doesn't help.
And I think that's important for us because I think it is difficult because we would
rather just ignore them when they're there.
But eventually you're not going to be able to ultimately win if you don't address those
lapses and try to fix them.
Yeah, and I think often, especially in beginning of a season, you know, maybe four or five
games into a 20 game season.
don't know how many games you're, you're 28.
So a lot of times, maybe the first third of that, a team will be doing really well.
And of course this is, you know, sometimes, and I don't know if they always say this just
to make themselves, keep themselves humble or what, but they'll say, well, even though
they may have had a
you know, 60 to 40 blowout game or whatever.
Well, we still got a lot of stuff to work on.
And which might be true.
And, but if it is true, assuming that the coach is sincere and it is true that even, even
in the winning part, there's, there's gaps, there's blind spots, but then that makes you
stronger when you address them, makes you stronger later on because you can encounter some
situations later on that you didn't earlier.
And the only way to be ready is to be prepared.
And even then you can't anticipate everything, but if you have the
the skills and the principles in the back of your mind, when that comes up, you'll know
how to use them a lot better.
Exactly.
Well, you know, so I have a young daughter Annabelle.
She's 11.
We go out in the yard and play ball I typically I don't think she's beaten me at
one-on-one yet She's getting closer, but hopefully doesn't happen at her size and
everything else But it's interesting playing her does not reveal any lapses in my game I
mean not for the most part because I can do I should be able to do pretty much anything
and what but if I were to play Michael Jordan is prime I guarantee there'd be all types of
lapses in my game that I would see and I think that's you kind of what you're talking
about sometimes
Yes, there are still lapses when I'm playing anybody, but I don't see them.
It doesn't get exposed because they just don't become apparent.
I think when the storms really do come about, all of a sudden things come to fruition.
And I do think it takes good leaders, great leaders actually, to be able to help people in
wins.
I think everybody sees that, I've got to change or should when there's losses.
But sometimes in those, those wins are really difficult for people to be able to learn the
lessons still.
Now,
I wouldn't say things will be going well, everybody getting along when they're in the
winds, seeing the lapses in winds is difficult too.
Yeah, I just thought about if you played five games, but never had a really strong up
against a really strong point guard, right?
And you just did really well.
But all of a sudden you get a Michael Jordan in there and that's like, Whoa, we are
exposed.
We need to work on this.
And you don't really see that unless you have the pressure.
Well, and that's you talk about coaches in the sporting world, you know, you talk about
scheduling, right?
It's really important.
They try to you should always try to schedule a couple difficult games outside of your
conference before you get to your conference.
We'll use football.
It's football season right now.
Right.
So Alabama played Florida State.
Yes.
And obviously got exposed early because I think they thought they were going to beat
Florida State, but it did help.
You know, they they beat Georgia the other day getting toy off in the sports part of
things.
But they saw his laps this early and made those adjustments from it.
And in fact, heard Nick Saban say after that loss, of he was just a commentator now.
He coach anymore, but he said, you know, in a college football team, the most growth they
experience in a season is between that first and second game.
And especially when it's a loss, because now they're like, whoa, we better wake up, we
better get some stuff going.
And so that's a good, good illustration.
Well, and I think, you know, the spiritual tie-in is Israel had some defeats that often
revealed deeper disobedience or neglect.
know, Joshua chapter 7, verse 1 through 12, Achan Sin led to the defeat there at Ai.
so, sometimes those reveal something that's going on that sometimes has been hidden, some
neglect, some disobedience that might be going on.
And of course up to that point, you know, the walls of Jericho fell down, no problem, but
they didn't have sin in the camp.
And so now the loss did expose them and they did learn eventually.
Yeah, and I think we need to understand this too.
God wants to use laws to refine us, not to shame us.
I think there's a difference, you know?
Sometimes when we watch film, it's tough for these kids to watch them make mistakes, but
I'm like, I'm just trying to refine you.
I'm trying to make you better.
Is it trying to mold you versus I'm not trying to shame you or make you feel bad.
It's about, you know, refining you, you changing, and that's what God wants for us.
He wants to keep refining us and make us and mold us into being more like his son.
Yeah, that's a good point.
I did refer to James earlier in James chapter 1 verse 2, but if you go to James chapter 1
verse 12, Blessed is the man that endures temptation, for when he has been approved he
will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him.
Let no one say when he is tempted, am tempted by God, for God cannot be tempted of evil,
nor does he himself tempt anyone.
But each one is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, his own desires, and
enticed.
Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin when it is full-grown
brings forth death.
And there, of course, he's talking about what we often call the anatomy of sin right here,
but the point that connects with what you just said is God, he doesn't ever solicit us to
sin.
mean, but he does allow us to be tested sometimes to prove ourselves, but also to prove
our reliance upon him.
And so, I mean, it's just like...
And when we look into the perfect law of liberty that he talks about later on in that
chapter, you know, we see us for who we are, flaws and all.
And the whole purpose of that is to make us better, to be more like Christ, which kind of
corresponds to the coaching idea, showing your film, know, here's the film.
And I'm sure when I was into sports, we didn't have film, but anyway, but I'm sure when a
player sees that mistake, right.
Or maybe, uh
not doing what the coach said and it's just obvious.
Like the heat of the battle, might not be so obvious.
But when you see the next day on film, there's just no denying it.
That must, as you said, make them feel bad, but you're not there to make them feel bad.
You're there to make them improve and to see that.
And things have changed.
don't know about when you played, we, our technology, it films every practice.
So we watch film at least once, maybe twice a week of our practice.
And we get to point out and break down film and practice.
Like that was not a thing when I was, so that's, that's been interesting and great thing
that we have here.
But, but it helps us before we get into the big battles, we have even got to refine in the
practice part of things.
you know, and as we point the point,
is where do we need more discipline?
Where do we need more prayer?
Where maybe there's more obedience needed in certain parts of our life.
Proverbs chapter 12 verse 1 says, whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who
hates for proof is stupid.
And I think that's big there as far as, I know it's a tough word saying stupid, but it's
one of the things that it is.
If you want to be smart, if you want to be able to grow and become your best, you have to
love discipline.
think the old trend, the old King James right there translates it uh beast-like or like a
beast, beast-o or something, something animal-like, know?
Which, you know, same old thing, right, right.
So the question from this for us is that when I fail, do I run from the lesson or do I
lean into the growth?
Let say that again.
do we learn, do we lean, I'm sorry, run from the lesson or do we lean into the growth?
And I think that's the big thing.
Some people are gonna run.
And so we all do it.
I mean, let's not say that sometimes we wanna run away from it, but we need to lean into
it.
We need to embrace it and we want that growth.
Yeah, because we'll never improve.
Going back to the analogy of the player watching his mistakes on film, like if we never
acknowledge that and just blow it off, we'll never improve.
But the whole idea in the sports team is to improve, to win.
But in Christianity, the stakes are much higher.
We need to improve to be more like Christ so that we can have heaven as our home and plus
be the light and the salt of the earth that we need to be while on this earth.
So when you talk about leadership, the last part we talk about is mental toughness.
But what goes with it spiritually is that losing reveals our faith.
A loss asks a bigger question.
Do we trust God even when we're not winning?
I think that question is important.
Do we trust God even when we're not winning?
I think that's vital.
It's like, do we trust the plan even when things don't look good on the outside of things?
And so do we trust?
God, when maybe our life's not going the way we think it should, or maybe things are
struggling, maybe it's a missionary on the road and he's having losses as far as, I'm just
not gaining members like we thought and things like that.
But do we in those losses still trust God?
And so it's gonna reveal our faith when that happens.
Can we stay locked in after losses?
There are so many times when teams wanna, the old term was throw the baby out with the
bathwater.
And that's no good for anybody in that situation.
But a of times when there's losses, people, man, they jump to huge conclusions and try to
change everything.
And it's like, no, have faith in that process.
You just have to look, like we said, at the different things there.
And it should deepen your faith in things instead of making you go away.
Yeah.
And I thought about uh football players that have a really strong run game or football
teams, really strong run game.
And they've, you know, scouted the opposing team coming up next week.
And so we can run against him.
know we can.
And then they start running, but they get stuffed, but they don't change the plan.
They usually keep on grinding it out.
And there may be in the second half, third quarter, whatever.
Yes.
The guy will break one for 90 yards, break another one for 70 yards.
And then it just goes.
But, but that's, that's the thing.
You know, you don't want to get away from the plan.
That's right.
And that's for sure when it comes to Christianity.
Yes.
You we don't want to move away from the plan that God has for us because things aren't
going well at the moment.
Well, we don't want one bad night to define us or in the example you just said, like with
the running game, like you don't want one bad quarter to define you.
Oh, we're going to abandon it.
No, like that it's, it's who your identity is.
Your identity is with God.
And so that doesn't change because of the losses and it hopefully, you know, the parallel
would be with Job, right?
Job obviously was having some losses.
He lost everything, but he refused to curse God, you know, in Job chapter one, verse 20
through 22, we hear about that.
Paul.
goodness experience setback after setback but he pressed on Philippians chapter 3 verse 13
through 14 and I mean I don't know I I venture to say it's tough for us to ever think that
we could ever be a joke right I hope we can all get there and the faith he had to have to
go through everything like that
Yeah, very interesting with Job because he was there and even though he had all those
losses, but he knew somehow, someway God was going to pull him through.
And it's like, and this is a good point because, you know, we don't know what's going on
in God's end of things when we suffer like Job or like Paul or whatever.
But, know, Job and some of that points in the book, you know, he began to doubt God and
all this.
But uh
overriding all that he knew somehow some way God was gonna make this right somehow and he
didn't abandon the faith but he kept it and of course God saw him through and of course
when we look at you know the book of Job Job never had the first few chapters like we have
right and so God was not mad at Job at all in fact one could make the the case that that
God was proving to Satan how good Job was right and so it had nothing to do with Job being
bad or sin or anything like that
but God trying to prove something else.
But Job didn't know what we know, but we still have to trust of what we do know about God.
Right.
That He will not leave us, He will not forsake us.
Hebrews 13.5.
But we can continue to press on.
And I think sometimes people get this confused.
think mental toughness is ignoring pain.
That's not what it means.
It's just holding on to our hope.
um Losing developed spiritual grit when we respond with perseverance and faith.
You you already used the verse that I had on my notes for this point as far as in James,
James 1, uh 2 through 4, is that, you know, when we have those trials, we've got to count
it as joy, but it's to make us perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
There is, going back to trusting a plane, there's a plan for it.
He wants us to be complete, but we have to have those trials to make that happen.
Yeah, and it's the outcome, the potential outcome of the trial is why I think James says,
count it all joy, because it can give us that patience.
It can give us that hope if we allow it by being humble, by seeing where our weaknesses
are, strengthening them through the word of God and moving on.
But if we allow those trials to take us down to become a stumbling block to apostasy, then
it's definitely not a joyous occasion.
but because God gives us what we need to go through the trials and make us better, then we
can count it all joy.
Exactly.
So the question for us here is reflect on this point is does my faith shrink when I lose
or does it dig deeper roots?
So do we shrink or are we digging deeper roots when we have that?
So it's a kind of this a wrap up from that and the challenge for us is losing is never
fun.
Right.
But it's one of God's most effective classrooms and we have to understand that.
It shapes, like we said, humility.
It reveals the work that has to be done.
And then it grows our faith and also with that mental toughness of things.
So for your listeners, don't waste losses.
Let them teach us something.
Let them transform you.
God has those losses in our life for reason.
Make sure that we're using them the way He purposes them instead of ignoring them or
trying to run away from them.
Yeah, and I was thinking of Hebrews chapter 5 verses 8 and 9 Where it talks about through
his obedience talking about Christ through his oh through his suffering He learned
obedience now.
There's a whole lot of stuff in there We're not gonna pack right here and right those
patches, but it does show that even with the Lord his suffering Taught him something about
obedience right and he obeyed perfectly, you know tempted all points like we are chapter 4
15 says yet He was without sin
And so if the Lord could learn obedience through suffering, then we can sure enough learn
how to be more Christ-like through our trials, including losses in life.
Yeah, and the last verse I had here for us was 2 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 9,
And that's when Paul had that thorn in the flesh.
And he wanted, and he asked the Lord three times if you could remove that.
But that was his answer, my grace is sufficient.
And out of weakness, we're made strong.
So that's true.
All right, so we appreciate uh Josh coming in and teaching us on that.
Again, lessons we learned from losing.
And so we'd invite you to join us in our next bumper-soad, as we call them.
And we will look next time at recruiting leadership for the church or just recruiting for
the church based on some more lessons.
We'd invite you to join us next time as we continue this podcast.