Keion Henderson - Winning with a Bad Hand

Over the next few moments, I want to talk about winning with a bad hand. Snap! Everybody, you can touch on the way down to your seat and say, «I’m gonna win with this bad hand.» You may be seated in the presence of the Lord. I know most of you are Christian, and I know most of you are holy. I know most of you are baptized, blood-filled, and washed in the Holy Ghost. But at my house on holidays, we play spades- not gin rummy or whatever you call it-all these spin-offs. We just play straight up from the hood, unadulterated, flat-out dirty cards. You can’t use the new ones; they stick. Spades! And I’ll tell you, they act cool; they act so ugly. You know when somebody knows they’ve got a good hand; they start putting cards on their forehead and sitting there, just can’t wait. You’ve got all kinds of spade players. You’ve got the one who is composed, and they just beat you silently; others know they’ve got about four short books, so they put those four face down and play with the rest. But then you have those who just can’t wait; they talk crazy, they slap the table, and that’s the kind you are. I kind of figured. But spades, in and of itself, is a random game. People will say they’re good at it, and there’s a way to be good at it, but spades, in and of itself, is a random game. I mean, it’s the luck of the draw. That 's why they shuffle the cards. Sometimes you’ll get a lot of face cards; sometimes, you won’t. The way I play, I would rather have more spades than face cards because there’s a time that’s going to come when people who have kings and queens, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got spades. It doesn’t matter what we call it. For those who know spades lingo, we call it trump. I don’t care about your clubs, I don’t care about your diamonds. There are ways to play cards against each other; for instance, sometimes you have to sacrifice a queen or king to make somebody give up their ace so you can come back and win in that same suit with a jack. Any players in here? Now how do I know that? How do I know that? Because spades is a random game. You can say that you’re good, and that’s true to an extent, but you’re only as good as the hand that you are given. But there is a way around having a bad hand, and the way you win with a bad hand is you’ve got to know how to count. You’ve got to know how to count. See, when I played-sorry about that! -when I played, I would wait until all of the cards were dealt. You know people get mad when you turn a card over by accident, right? So I watched all the cards, and you can always tell what kind of hand a person has based on the first couple of cards. You’ve got to really pay attention because if somebody, for instance, throws out a king of clubs and someone in that same suit who knows how to play throws out a king of clubs, what they’re showing you is they don’t have any more. They 're showing you that you don’t have any more. So all of those possibles that you counted up, those possibles are possibly not going to come through because if they’re throwing a king of spades, they’re telling you to come with another spade in the near future, and you’re going to get cut. The only way you can win with a bad hand is you’ve got to know how to count. Count it all joy when you fall into divers temptations. Most epistolary books that have been written in the New Testament — the epistles written to us-most of those books have been written with some sort of greeting in the front end. Go back and read the Bible. For instance, where you go back and read 1 Peter, which is an epistle, he says, «To all of you who have been scattered abroad, grace and peace from our Lord Jesus Christ be multiplied.» Isn’t that a good way to start off a book? Or if you go to Jude, he talks about, «To those of you who are in trouble, may the love of God, the mercy of God, and the peace of God be multiplied in your life.» Isn 't that a good way to start off a book? It’s like you, whenever you start a conversation, before you ask me anything, you ought to at least say hi. You ought to at least have a salutation. Most New Testament writers start off with a salutation of some sort. But not James. James almost starts off the book with a little air. It 's like, «Hey y’all, I’m Jesus' brother.» He doesn’t greet us. He doesn’t give us any grace. He doesn’t wish that our peace be multiplied. He just jumps right on the scene and says, «Hey, hey, hey, I’m James! Yes, James, the brother of Jesus, the one and only servant of God. Hello, everybody. Now let’s get to it. Count it all joy.» He doesn’t even warm up to us; he doesn’t give us a greeting. He doesn’t ingratiate us. He skips right past the preliminaries and gets right to the cause and says, «Listen, I have no pleasantries for you. I’m not going to say hello-that’s about all. I’m not going to pray for your peace to be multiplied. I don’t have time for that because something is getting ready to happen.»