Winning on the right scoreboard podcast notes

What is a scoreboard for? Simple right. A scoreboard shows who’s winning and who’s losing.

Several years ago TV execs added that little box on the right hand corner that always shows the score. I love that box.

Have you ever showed up at your kids sporting event late. What’s your first question. What’s the score. We want to know the score.

We are by nature scorekeepers. And what is true of sports is true of life as well. We want to know the score.
We want to know if we are winning or losing.
We want to know if we are a success.

Many people will spend there whole life looking for success but will never find it. Perhaps even more tragic is the fact that some people will work their whole life, find success, but realize too late that they succeeded on the wrong scoreboard. When the buzzer sounds and your life is over, what will your life scoreboard read?

One of the greatest barriers to an attitude of thanksgiving is that most people keep score on the wrong scoreboard. Their base their success or failure on a point system that is faulty.

1) Identify the wrong scoreboards in your life

It is very important in life that you choose the right scoreboard.

Nicholas Kurgat, 29, a resident of Chapel Hill and native of Kenya, won the city of Oaks marathon in Raleigh, North Carolina. He finished first with a time of 2:19:34. Unfortunately, minutes after crossing the finish line, he was disqualified. You see Nicholas didn’t sign up for the marathon. He signed up for the Rex Healthcare half marathon. He was supposed to run 13.1 miles to the finish of that race, following the course signs. Instead, Nicholas missed the signs for the half marathon turn and found himself running a full marathon. After he missed the signs he decided to go for it and run the full marathon instead. His coach explained it like this. “He just kept going because there was no where to go. He just followed the vehicle home.” One official for the race said afterward that “One of their rules is that if you switch races, intentionally or unintentionally, you’re disqualified. I feel bad he went the wrong way,” Not only was Nicholas disqualified, he missed out on the $1300 prize money

Here is a mistake I guarantee you I’ll never make. I’ll never run 13 miles and then think to myself, “What the heck, I’ll run 13 more.”


If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. Philippians 3:4-6

This was the scoreboard of the turn Judaism in the first century. Circumcision. Heritage. Rule following. Paul takes a minute to show that he’s the winner on this scoreboard. He was circumcised as a child. He descended from the same line as Jesus. That he was a Hebrews, Hebrew. He followed every legalistic rule.

Now, let’s get real for a second. My guess is, you can’t relate to any of these things on this scoreboard. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t get caught up in getting points on the wrong scoreboard. Let’s talk about a few other scoreboards that we are tempted to look at. I’ve got a few of them over here.

What scoreboards do people measure themselves by?

Money- Here’s a scoreboard most of us are familiar with.

House- A house is another way that we measure success.

Barbie- For some women, this is your scoreboard. The perfect body.

Work can also be a scorecard.

Car-

Clothes-

Grades

Sports

Children

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Philippians 3:7-11

There is one word in these verses that Paul uses to describe the validity of the scoreboards we have just talked about. It’s the word rubbish. I like the sound of that word. Sounds British. When was the last time you used the word rubbish. My guess is, you’ve used it more recently than you think. You know what the word rubbish means. Let me give you a few hints. If there were bumper stickers on Roman chariots they would read Rubbish Happens.

Do you know how to measure if a scoreboard is worthless or not? It’s simple. You take the person who lives this kind of lifestyle to the fullest and see if that person represents a happy life. Let me give you an example.

Money- Let’s take money for a second. If money is the ultimate scoreboard then the people with the most money would be the ones who are happiest and most fulfilled, right? Let me ask you, do you know anyone who’s got a lot of money and is miserable. There are people like that everywhere. Let me give you a few quotes from the richest men in the world.
JJ Astor- I am the most miserable man in the world
John D. Rockefellor- I have made millions but they have brought me no happiness.
Andrew Carnegie- Millionaires seldom smile

Money is a bad scoreboard. Paul says I consider it all a loss.

How about a house. Most of you are thinking that this house represents your house, but it doesn’t. Leon Festinger calls this the “principle of slight upward comparison.” We chronically compare ourselves with those just a little better off, in the hopes of attaining their level of success. This keeps us from gratitude.

How about the perfect body. Well folks, I hate to tell you, but this is out of reach. Researchers generating a computer model of a woman with Barbie-doll proportions found that her back would be too weak to support the weight of her upper body, and her body would be too narrow to contain more than half a liver and a few centimeters of bowel. A real woman built that way would suffer from chronic diarrhea.

Paul say, I put no confidence in the flesh because our bodies will ultimately deteriorate.

And guys, finding barbie doesn’t mean happiness either. One wise man put it like this. “Your idea of a good marriage is not to find the woman who will match your soul, but to win the girl everybody wants.”

Let me ask you a question. What is the scoreboard you find yourself getting caught up in? Is it money. Is it success at work? Is it your body? Is it sports or grades?

2) Succeed at the ultimate scoreboard.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus… For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. Philippians 3:12-14, 18-21

Most of the things we focus on can be put in one word. Temporary. That’s what each of these stickers says. Temporary. Work- temporary.
House- temporary
Grades- temporary
Money- temporary

Temporary. It’s the word you never hear in commercials. It’s a word you never hear when our soul is tempted to do something really fun, but that you know is wrong.

My spouse is eternal
My kids are eternal.
My friends are eternal
Our business reports and computers are temporary, but the people that we work with are eternal

If you spend your life pursuing things that are temporary, you will spend it ungrateful and unfulfilled. But if you pursue the eternal your life will be filled with thanksgiving and gratitude. Your life will be full. It will be joyous. And more importantly, your work will last.