The Principle of Duty
Tom Shrader examines duty as the third principle in his eight-part series on Recovering Our Lost Legacy. Using Philippians 2:5-11, he shows how Jesus modeled duty by emptying Himself and becoming obedient to death on a cross. Shrader challenges believers to adopt Christ's mindset of humble service, doing what's right regardless of personal cost, and warns against the cultural erosion of duty that leads to chaos rather than order.
“We do what's right because it's right in spite of the cost.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Recovering Our Lost Legacy
Recorded: June 16, 2005
Duration: 39 min
Themes: duty, obedience, humility, service, sacrifice, character, integrity, legacy, struggling with compromise, parent, mentor, leader, new believer, facing moral choices, young adult, business owner
Scripture: Philippians 2:5-11, Isaiah 6, Hebrews 12:2
Theological Themes: incarnation, kenosis, christology, sanctification, biblical ethics, moral theology, christian discipleship, spiritual formation
Full Transcript
We are in week three of an eight-week series titled "Recovering Our Lost Legacy." The principle of the series is that leaving a legacy doesn't necessarily mean it's a good or bad legacy. It's not an optional process—it's inevitable. There are principles we've identified, eight of them, that you should consciously be attempting to pass on.
I was telling Sandy last night what I'm really getting into more and more in this study is how crucial these are to the sustainability of a relationship, a church, a business, a marriage, a culture. As you start looking at these, I would argue that as you see them go away and they've been eroding in the culture, you see the inevitable decline of civility and cooperation within the culture.
The Principle of Duty
Today's principle is duty. If you have Bibles, you can open them to Philippians chapter 2. The principle is this: you do what's right no matter the cost. What becomes the central thing is to do what's right.
Barry Bonds was asked, "Did you cheat?" He said, "Cheating? I don't know what cheating is." What's this idea of doing what's right? That opens up a whole discussion on who determines right, what's right for you.
Here's the test: do you hide when you do it? If you hide when you do it, or you hide that you did it, it's probably wrong. If you're out there on the golf course and you've got a marginal lie—I'll never forget, I think it was the last time I played golf with my dad. We were playing out at Alta Mesa, and he had a ball down in the junk. I'm standing up on the hill. I didn't want to go down there. I should have, I guess, but I didn't. I said, "Man, that's a bad lie." He said, "It won't be when I'm done with it."
But if you're kind of out there, and the guys are getting ready to hit their second shot, and you've got a little bad lie, and your little utility club is kind of moving that ball while you're watching, and you're hiding it, you know it's wrong. Your gut tells you it's wrong.
The Boy Scout Example
When I was a young lad, there was an organization I was invited to join, but it was so not me that I only went a brief period of time. The organization was the Boy Scouts. There were a lot of rules, you were making a lot of stuff, and I wasn't handy. My dad wasn't about to help, so you could just see this Cub Scout, Boy Scout thing wasn't going to work for me.
But they had an oath. I want to read you the Boy Scout oath. The Boy Scouts were founded in 1910. Imagine today going into your superintendent of schools and saying, "I have an idea for an organization." It's gender-specific, so that's going to be a problem. "Well, what are they about?" "Well, we have this oath."
Let me read you this. You tell me—and this is a comment on the culture—if you could get a public school today to say, "Yeah, we'll build a program. This is great." "On my honor, I'll do my duty to do my best to God and my country, to obey Scout law, to help other people at all times"—you could probably get away with that—"to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight." I don't think that last one is going to fly.
You read that, and I read it now, and I'm like, there's a lot of commitment here. There's a lot of duty here. We're going to have some rules and laws, and this is how we're going to shape up, and this is what you're going to do. If you brought that to any school today and said we're going to have a gender-specific group, and we're going to talk about being physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight, they would simply say, "That isn't going to fly here."
When Duty Was Valued
But there was a time when you talked about duty, and you talked about it in a positive way. One of my all-time favorite movies is "The Glenn Miller Story," with Jimmy Stewart, June Allison, and Harry Morgan. That was on one of the movie channels not terribly long ago, and they took an intermission. There's not an intermission in the movie, but they put one there to show that at the time, they were selling war bonds. You had Jimmy Cagney and the stars of the day out saying, "It's your duty to buy a war bond."
You think Sean Penn's going to do that today? You think that's going to happen today? That isn't going to go anywhere. I can overreact, so if I overreact, I apologize, but I don't think it is. Just look at the decline of the culture, and the Army recognizes it.
They used to say in the Army, "Uncle Sam wants you," and there's that finger pointing out. It was the idea: you get in here. Now, the Army motto is, "Be all you can be." We give up on duty. We'll pay your student loan, and we'll help you find whoever you are, your yin and your yang. Give us one weekend a month and one month in the summer.
The Cultural Shift
The whole idea of this series is this is so retro. When I sit around with my friends—I've got an 8:30 breakfast today, we meet once a quarter—all we'll talk about is how the world's falling apart. It isn't any better than it was last quarter. I don't know if it's any worse, but it isn't any better. You go, "Why? How did this happen? What's going on here? What happened? What's taking place?"
Well, you don't have a sense of duty anymore. The whole world is trying to figure out: have it your way, do it your way, do your thing. It's the same thing you see in church. We see people leave church after church after church, and they'll say the church wasn't meeting my needs.
Well, I don't know that that's the primary reason for the church. If you want a place that's got great parking and meets your needs, go to Nordstrom's. They'll give you a personal shopper. They'll give you a heads-up call: "We got some new stuff in. We got it in your size, and I think, aren't you in autumn? We have the autumn colors."
everything that you need here. We can do it, but it's not, you tell your kids this, but you need to hear it. It's not about you.
The Characteristics of Those Who Don't Understand Duty
Well, if you have people on your outline who don't get this principle of duty, the characteristics they demonstrate are five.
**Number one, they prefer authority to responsibility.** They want power. This is kind of that time in the presidential process that you see eight, nine, ten guys and gals talking about why they went in, and some of them, when they're done explaining it, I get the feeling they just want to be president. They just think it would be cool. "I want to be the CEO." Why? "Well, I think that would be cool. That's a great office."
My daughter, Sarah, she was in eighth grade, and she came home, and she said, "Dad, I need your help." I said, "Okay, if I can help you," and I'm historically not helpful in school. She said, "I think you can help. I want to run for student council representative." I said, "Oh, I might be able to help there. Tell me about it." Well, there's twenty-six kids in the class, and five of us are going to run, and so I got to get enough votes, and I got to win." I said, "Well, are they going to, how are they going to do this? Are they going to just, five of you, the one with the most votes wins?" "No, the top two."
I said, "All right, then we only need like eight votes or nine votes. Get a list of the kids in the class, and check off the ones that are your friends." She had nine or ten. Then I said, "Well, go to these, and don't take it for granted, and tell them the election's coming, and you want their vote." I said to her what Joe Kennedy said to Bobby about Jack in West Virginia: "I'm not paying for a landslide here, so let's not win this by a bunch of votes. We're going to slide in on this deal."
So she comes home all excited. She said, "Dad, I got the most votes," and I don't know what it was, seven or whatever the number was. "It's a runoff. There's me and another kid." I said, "All right, let's do the same thing. Get a list, and here are these kids, and you need fourteen. Can we get to fourteen?" "Well, we're at twelve for sure, and got to get these two." So she said, "I need to write a speech." I said, "Okay, you write a speech." She had like, "Read my lips, no new field trips." I mean, she had all sorts of stuff.
I said, "Here's how you start. Start by thanking the three that ran and lost, and how important it is to participate." She's like, "Oh, that's so manipulative. That's perfect, Dad." So she's got this speech. I mean, I wanted to slip it to W and say, "Try this. This is pretty good." She gets elected. Great moment. She comes home. She's all excited. She said, "I won, fifteen votes or whatever it was." And she said, "I need to ask you something." I said, "Yeah." She goes, "What does a student council representative do?"
If I don't get duty, I just want the authority without the responsibility.
They Resist Performance Without Being Paid
**Here's the second thing: You resist performance without being paid.** I had this discussion one time with my girls. "So-and-so gets ten dollars for an A." Resist performance without pay. In other words, you want to be paid for everything you do. The girls would say, "So-and-so gets ten dollars an A." I said, "I don't care, whatever." "Well, I think we should get paid for good grades." I said, "You do. You're wearing it. You're eating it. That's your deal, man. You've got the best life. All you've got to do is come in here, stay reasonably within the rules, not do much wrong, and you've got no hassle as long as you get good grades."
If I don't get this, I always want to know what's the dollar. I talk to people all the time that are hiring, and they'll say, "It's amazing the number of people that come in here and barely ask about the job but totally ask about the compensation. How much will I make? How much time off? Sick leave?"
We had this at church. We had, I don't know how many employees at the time, a hundred and some. So we had to have a sick leave policy. Here was my sick leave policy: If you're sick, stay home. I mean, that seems reasonable. Don't bring that in here. Don't get me sick. But if you're not sick, come to work. You don't accumulate days that you don't use that you were going to get because you were sick and then use them to go to Disneyland.
They Value Compensation Over Character
**Here's the third thing that they don't get: They value compensation over character.** All of a sudden, you start talking about character and right and wrong and duty, and they go, "No, no, no, no. The bottom line is the bottom line. How much can we make on this? What does this do? We'll cut a little there. We'll cheat a little there."
I was in a restaurant the other day and got some iced tea. I said to the girl, "This isn't very good." And I never say this. I never, you could serve me the worst meal in the world, and I never send it back. And I wasn't trying to. I said, "This isn't very good." She said, "We just changed tea. I think we got a deal on this." I can tell you why. The guy cut the grass, put it in bags, and then you use it as tea. I mean, this stuff is terrible. My character. The character was King, Peggy Noonan's book about Ronald Reagan.
They Plan Their Life Around Pleasure
**The fourth thing, if I don't get this duty, I plan my life around pleasure.** I really sound like a crotchety old man here today. I've been thinking so much about my mom and dad. I don't know if my folks ever had having fun as a goal. We didn't talk at our house much about fun.
I watch people. It has to mean something. On Sunday, they'll pick up their kids out of Sunday school class, and the first thing they say to them is, "Did you have fun?" And I want to go, "Is that why we're here?" Because if that's why we're here, we ought to change what we're doing, because we could make it a lot more fun. We could make balloons and spray stuff at each other. This is not about how much fun you can derive from life. This is what
We're going to do for fun. I don't remember. We did not have very much laughing. I don't remember my dad ever laughing. I don't know how I got to be so funny, because we did not laugh at our house. I don't remember any of that.
I found a picture the other day, and I keep finding pictures, and it's my mom and dad and me. It was the crowning achievement of my academic career. I had won an all-school speech contest—like 1,000 kids—and I had won. It's a picture of my mom and my dad, and my dad looks like they just sentenced me to 10 years at Fort Madison Prison. I mean, that's what I remember.
But we've gone the other way now. Now everything is fun. Here's the last thing: you kind of discount loyalty. We could bemoan this and go a long way, but it's the old—I use my father all the time. He got married, graduated, got married, went to work at the bank, and was there 43 years. Well, that kind of loyalty probably doesn't exist on the employee or on the institution much anymore.
The Erosion of Duty and Loyalty
But all of a sudden, there's a sense of loyalty. There's a sense of duty. There's a sense of—you have that receptionist who's been there for 40 years, and you're paying her way more than the market bears, because you have a sense of rewarding her for the 40 years she's given you. Well, if you have a lack of sense of duty, these are what you're going to see.
The passage you have in front of you is an iconic passage. It's the ultimate picture of duty. It is the role model. In fact, Philippians chapter 2, verse 5, that's what Paul says. "Your attitude"—what other translations do you have for attitude? Anybody in Philippians 2:5? Mindset? Yeah. Mindset is kind of the one that I like.
"The mindset in you"—mindset being worldview or the way you see things—"let the mindset or attitude in you be the same as Christ." So think like Jesus, "who, being in the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped. But He made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. Being found in the appearance of a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."
So there's the connection between the two thoughts. "Therefore, God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in heaven, on earth, under the earth. Every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God."
The Go-To Passage for Christian Living
Here's this picture. It's one of those passages that we talk about, and I try to get you to mark in the front of your Bible, that's a go-to passage. It's a go-to constant, because if we do not "what would Jesus do," but "what would Jesus have me do," well, He would have me to think and act like Jesus. I'm not Jesus. I'm not deity. We've talked about that before, but I have this attitude.
So here you go on your biblical foundation. Number one: recognize a responsibility. Your responsibility is that you should have the attitude that's the same as Jesus. My friend Larry Wright used to say it this way about the Christian life: Our title is impressive—ambassador. Our job description, not so impressive—slave. Think like Jesus. Have that attitude that He did. Begin to see the world, and you understand where you fit in this. You aspire to be at the bottom, not the top. He becomes your role model.
Abandoning Rights Through Voluntary Restraint
And in that, second, you begin to give up freedom, abandon liberty. "Who, being in the very nature of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself nothing." And New American Standard said, "emptied Himself." So in Isaiah 6, when Isaiah sees the Lord high and lifted up, he's seeing a pre-incarnate Christ. That's Jesus. Jesus emptied Himself, not of His deity, but of His glory, and took the form of a man, became a man, abandoned His rights, didn't stand up for His rights.
Here's a phrase I wrote: voluntary restraint. We don't have any of that anymore. Voluntarily restrain yourself. Let's take having a drink. When I became a believer, that was 30 years ago, not many Christians I hung around with would drink. They might at home, but they didn't out. Now it's very, very, very common. Everybody has a glass of wine. Nobody has a beer and a shot. I don't know why. They all have a glass of wine. So it's not really drinking.
But can I have a beer and a shot? Can I have a drink? Here's what the Bible says. The Bible says don't get drunk. Can I have a glass of wine? I think the answer to that is certainly you have the freedom to do that. But that's not a mandate to do it.
A Personal Story About Voluntary Restraint
This has to be 15 years ago plus. I'm up in Prescott. We're out at some restaurant. We're waiting to get in. It's like everything else. It's 45 minutes. So we're there. We say, "Well, let's get something to drink." Got the girls. The girls say, "I'll have a Shirley Temple" and Susan said, "I'll have whatever she had, root beer." I said, "I'll have a Diet Coke."
Well, just then, a friend of mine who lives in Prescott comes up. I worked with him years ago. He was the guy that I got my first DUI with. He was the guy I called to get me out. So we go way back with this guy. So he's there. I said, "Hey, man, it's great to see you. We're just ordering something." He's a Miller Lite guy. He said, "I'll have a Miller Lite." I said, "Perfect. Let me get it."
So they come. This girl comes. She's got a tray. I turn around. Right as I turn around, there's the lady that plays the piano at church, right there. Now, I have every right to have that beer. But here's what I do. I go, "OK, girls, hang on one second. Girls had the Shirley Temple. Susan, you had the root beer. Who had the Miller Lite? Oh, you had the Miller Lite. I had the Diet Coke." And here's what I did. I had every right to go, "Hey, I'm going to have a Miller Lite."
There's the piano. Play a little Amazing Grace for the group. Let's rock this place. Old rugged cross. Let's bring the house down. I had every right to do this. But this would devastate this lady. I don't want to clean up that mess.
It's like having a cigar. I mean, I don't get to play golf. But I don't get to have a cigar anymore, either one. But I enjoyed playing golf and have a cigar. But I didn't have one at a Young Life golf tournament. Why? It would bother some of those guys. So you have all sorts of freedoms. But you have to figure out when you're going to exert it.
Now, you can argue about this. What makes this so maddening is there's not a hard and fast rule. Two godly people can look at this in a different way. But the attitude here is it's the third thing.
Taking the Nature of a Servant
I assume the identity or the role took the very nature of a servant. Jesus came not to be served, but to serve. I'm there to serve. This lady, the piano lady, if I'm sitting there having a beer, it's going to drive her crazy. It's going to make the next Sunday when I'm getting ready to preach, it's going to make it impossible for her to listen to me. And in my judgment, it was more important that I have a relationship with her and she can listen to me teach than I enjoy the momentary experience of the beer.
You may disagree with that, which is perfectly fine. You may even see it hypocritical. But you see the principle. Jesus takes the very form, the nature of a servant. Whenever it comes down to it, He said, that's what I'm here. That becomes the driving force. That's the deciding vote. Am I serving? Am I being served?
The Heart of Humility
And you express it in humility. Being found in the appearance of man, He humbled Himself. I've become convinced—I don't know if I convinced myself or because it's true, I think because it's true—that if pride, C.S. Lewis, if pride is the ultimate vice, then humility, and you might argue love, humility and love are the ultimate virtue. And I would say humility and love are really pretty similar. Love is patient, love is kind, love is gentle, love is all of this.
And humility is one of those really tough things. And as you think it through, it's the old Ben Franklin. Remember, Ben Franklin was challenged and looking at all aspects of his life. And he came to humility, and he got the old Ben Franklin and made a list and concluded that he was humble, remember, and then immediately became proud of how humble he was. So you can drive around town in an old beater car and be proud of how humble you are. Look at how humble I am. I'll drive this old beater car.
Humility is not identified to a task. It's a heart condition. So I'll hear this, oh, he's a humble guy. Well, what do you mean? Well, at church, he serves in facilities. So on our org chart, that's toward the bottom. Well, you can be a proud, arrogant toilet cleaner, right? I can be a proud, and I can be a humble servant.
What Humility Really Looks Like
Here's what humble is. It's using my gift for the glory of God and giving Him the glory. You don't have to go and work the parking lot ministry in July to prove that you're humble. It's humble is this whole idea of serving. And it's impossible for me to serve with the right attitude somebody I'm looking down on.
It's James and John. They want to be the greatest in the kingdom. And Jesus tells them, hey, if that's true, you don't want to be first. You want to be last. You want to be humble. It's that heart. It's that broken heart before God.
You know the bumper sticker? It's not thinking less of yourself. It's thinking of yourself less. It's not what about me? What about me? What about me? It's not what does it mean to me? But what can I do for you?
Serving in Marriage
Think of this in the marriage application. If Sandy got up this morning, and her goal was to be the wife God would have her be, and how can I serve Tom? And I got up, and my goal was, how can I serve Sandy? What kind of marriage is that going to be? We're not going to be able to get through a door. I'm going to go, you go first. No, you go first. No, you go first. No, you go first. Oh, no, you must go. I'm going to kick her, and then I go through first. However we resolve it, I don't know. But it's that, no, it's not me. It's that attitude.
It's not thinking what about me? What does this mean for me? Is it good? We got in a political discussion, as I'm prone to do the other day. And this guy was saying, I'm convinced that this would be the right thing to do. I can't even remember what the topic was. But it's going to hurt me and my job and what I do. Well, we can't work this way. We can't make every law that makes your job the best. We got to do what's good for the most people. And if it's an ethical decision, we got to do what's right.
Expecting Difficulty
Here's the next thing, is you better understand you're going to experience difficulty. Became obedient even to the point of death on a cross. There's this naive idea, I think, and I think it's totally human. I'm going to play by God's rules, and therefore there'll be no adversity. I'm going to play by God's rules, and then therefore everything's going to work out great. Those are two different things. It'll work out great and right, but there may be adversity along the way.
There may be suffering and hardship and difficulty. There may be people that as you take a stand, you know, they don't embrace that stand. You may have a boss that says, wait a minute, the bottom line is the bottom line. I'm much more concerned about the bottom line than how we got there. I don't want to hear about it, but you do what you need to do. And you say, well, I'm not willing to do it. And he says, then you're out of here.
The Eternal Perspective
And all of this, and the last point of your outline, is juxtaposed awaiting for eternity. Therefore, God exalted Him to the highest place. Susan and I talk a lot about dying. I talk a lot about dying. And it's that same, everybody wants to go to heaven and nobody wants to die. Everybody wants to go to heaven. We talk about how great it is, but it's like the saddest
The Ultimate Reality of Death and Eternity
There was a man named George who used to come here on Thursday. George sat right over there, a little guy. I got a call from his daughter yesterday, and he probably died last night. Don't know for sure. He was 91.
I saw him at Scottsdale Bible Church in December, and he was that smiling, happy guy. The first time I ever met him, he had a plan. Now, this is a dream. He had a plan to bring the World's Fair to the Salt River bottom. I mean, he was an old architect. He had drawings and drawings. And this guy was so energetic.
And I'm thinking he's laying out in this nursing home yesterday afternoon and last night, he's in the presence of Christ. That's a good thing. That's your future. That's when all of this, because you're going, "I'm not going to get my share. People will take advantage of me." Yes, yes, yes. But God ultimately rectifies that. No matter how bad this gets, it only lasts a lifetime. We're done from here, present with the Lord. And that's the model that you see in Jesus. He says, that's your model too.
It's Worth It: The Principle of Delayed Gratification
Well, in this process, here's what I brought this in, is the idea that it's worth it. I taught at Arcadia on Sunday on parenting and my last point was, it's worth it. In all of life, all of these things are pursued delayed gratification.
Whether it's losing weight and you're going to go without that cheeseburger or you're going to go without that cake, but now all of a sudden, your clothes fit and you go, it's worth it. Raising kids, doing the right thing, it's worth it.
A Father's Proud Moment
This is Haley, her graduation from eighth grade. I was the commencement speaker. And so she came home and she said, "Hey, you're the commencement speaker. I've got it on my calendar." And she said, "I give the speech to introduce you." I said, "Oh, wow, you need some help writing that." And she said, "No, I think I got it."
And she gave me a copy afterwards. And let me read it to you, it's not long. She said, "Our guest speaker tonight is a man who's very important to me and has had a great influence on my life. He teaches Bible studies to business men and women during the week and on Sundays, he's the pastor of a church in Chandler called East Valley Bible Church. In his spare time, he enjoys golfing, spending time with his family. He's a husband as well as a father of two teenage daughters. Now, here's her close. Our speaker is a man who is living proof that if you give your life to Christ, He will do miraculous things. Would you help me please welcome my dad, Tom Schrader?"
Well, this is this moment. I'm sitting over there. I don't know what she's going to say. I'm all teared up. I got to get up there. And I got my little talk. I'm coming up, my head's down. I see her feet, I see her walking at me. And so I look up and, you know, that's a hug moment. So I hug her. She puts her head away from the crowd and she whispers in my ear, "Don't screw this up."
The Ultimate Award
I mean, I'm up there and I do my talk. When I was your age, Nike was a Greek god. I do the whole thing. I'm all done. And that's award time. So they give like the breathing award, the kid that breathed all year. You get an award for anything.
I mean, so now this is the Vince Lombardi trophy of awards. This is the kid who models Christian, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. As they're talking about her, I'm going, "Well, I couldn't like this kid." It's voted on by faculty, administration, and students. And the winner is Haley, which makes total sense, if you know her.
And I just remember looking over at Susan and how proud she was. And it was a testimony, not to me. I take zero credit. It was a testimony to Susan's effort in God's grace. But all those years, I know what it took to get from birth to eighth grade and all. I mean, literally, Susan putting her life on hold. I know it's like a shining moment that said it's worth it. Her stuff is all worth it in the ultimate sense. So I do what's right because it's right, no matter the cost.
Order Versus Chaos
Those little boxes, the upper left-hand corner, duty. Duty leads to order. Desire or lust, I put lust in there, meaning it's just a fleshly desire, leads to chaos. So you begin. Now, apply that to anything. Apply it to your office.
Apply it to your, today at 9 o'clock, Sandy teaches three-year-olds. And I love to listen to her describe how she just takes control of that room when she comes in. And those kids understand why they're there. And they have a responsibility. If you go back two weeks, if they misbehave, there's a consequence. And as a result of that, in that room, there's order, which allows Sandy to teach God's word to these kids. If everybody does their own thing, it's chaos.
Take it to a culture. You have a culture where everybody does their own thing. No sense of duty. Hebrews 12:2 said, "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the perfecter of our faith, set before Him the joy to endure the cross so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."
Three Practical Principles
Five things real quick. You're going to drive me nuts if I don't give them to you. And I don't have a verse, but a quote with each one.
Number one, draw a line between duty and freedom. I'll do the duty thing at the expense of freedom. Martin Luther, it's a great Luther quote. "The right practical divinity is this. Believe in Christ and do your duty in that state of life to which God has called you."
Number two, avoid valuing one duty over another. George MacDonald, "You will not think any duty small if you yourself were great." But wherever God's placed you, whatever that responsibility is, that's your job.
And number three, you pursue perfection in the conduct of your duty. Now, I know I'm not going to get there. I was terrible at math. You have these moments you never forget. Eighth grade, Sister Mary Owen, we took a math test. I got a 92. 92 is the highest maybe I ever got on any test of anything. But it's for sure the highest math grade I ever got in my entire life.
And I remember the circumstances were such that it was about break time in the morning. I went up to her and said, "I did really well here. This was really good." She said, "When you go to apply for a job, tell them you give correct change 92% of the time," which I took to mean that's not quite as good as I thought it was. But those things just shut me down. I quit at that.
But that percentage. Mickey Mantle was a .295 lifetime hitter. That's Hall of Fame. You're not going to get to perfect, but you're striving for that.
Qualifying for Promotion Through Daily Devotion
Number four: qualify for promotion by your daily devotion to your duty. In other words, be faithful in the little things, and God will give you bigger things.
The last thing is a little wordy: set your sight beyond the bait and the trap. Theodore Parker said, "Let men laugh when you sacrifice desire to duty, if they will. You have time and eternity to rejoice."
Looking Beyond Cultural Shortcuts
I remember listening to a call-in show where this guy was talking about strategic defaults. This guy called in and said, "The only people making house payments and car payments now are schmucks. You're a jerk if you're making a payment. You can beat this system."
Well, you can't function. That was my point. You can't function as a culture. You can't function as a culture if that's the attitude.
If you've got people at the front end of their career, at that peak of time—remember how idealistic you were—and you're not going to pay your student loan, there ought to be an asterisk. There ought to be a scarlet letter on you. Every time you go in to interview, they ought to go, "Well, this is a guy that doesn't pay his bills."
The Cost of Abandoning Duty
How are you going to function? How are you going to function as a culture when every time there's a duty and it requires sacrifice, you don't do it?
It doesn't matter to me if nobody else does. Isn't that what you tell your kids? "Everybody jumped off the bridge with you?" Well, if nobody else is paying their bills, do you not pay yours? If no one else is doing this, it's that principle of duty.
We do what's right because it's right in spite of the cost. That's how God works that system that we laid out last week—the system of authority and the chain of command. We'll pick up right there next week.