Keeping score

Last night at our life group, we watched a DVD where John Ortberg was teaching.

What he talked about really spoke to me.

The title was, "Three ways to keep score".

Anne Lammott has written, "some wonderful, dazzling successes are going to happen for some of the most awful, angry, undeserving people you know - people who are, in other words, not you."

One of the questions I am going to ask God in heaven is, "why them"?

Hey, I am just trying to keep it real.

Ortberg suggests that we are all scorekeepers.

Why?

Because in our world the score defines reality.

We keep score throughout life.

As kids, we play monopoly and keep score with money.

Football players keep score with touchdowns.

Even pastors keep score. A typical question that is asked when pastors get together is, "how is your church doing?" Which is code for, "how many people are in your church."

And by that "score" many decide whether that person is important enough to hang around.

I find increasingly that as we move out to 183rd street that many are keeping "score" by how big Parkview church is and how small we are.

Parkview runs thousands, therefore they must be a "better" church than we are.

Well, I would challenge that.

Let's ask ourselves, "what defines success? What defines whether one church is "better than another?" Is it because it is bigger? Smoother? Popular?"

These kinds of comparisons, or ways of keeping "score" can be detrimental to not only the kingdom but to us as individuals as well.

Comparing ourselves with ourselves (as Paul said) is always destructive.

Why did Cain murder Abel? Because he was keeping score and felt like God accepted Abel more than him.

Why did the brothers of Joseph throw him into a pit and then sell him as a slave? Because they were keeping score and felt like Jacob loved Joseph more than them.

Why did Saul try to murder David? Because he felt like David was getting more of the adulation of the people of Israel than he was. "Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands," the Bible says.

And from that day on, Saul kept an evil eye on David. He kept score by number of kills and popularity with the most people.

And....John Ortberg went on to talk about the way we keep score last night. The big word - comparison.

It's interesting that we use what he calls, upward comparison, lateral comparison and downward comparison.

We compare ourselves upward with those who are better off financially than us. For some reason, we can never get enough, we want a little bit more, as "so and so" has.

We compare ourselves laterally with those who are at the same level. That can cause a tremendous amount of competition in our lives.

We compare ourselves downwardly with those who are worse off, materially, emotionally and morally. That makes us feel a whole lot better doesn't it? "Well, at least I am not as bad as __________"

Ortberg writes, "Each type carries dangers: the first incites envy, the second competition, and the third arrogance."

A lot of people throw themselves into work because that it an easy place to keep score.

How does God keep score?

Paul writes that our attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who, being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made hismelf nothing, taking the very nature of a servant."

In God's eyes, the way of keeping score is by service, humility, giving ourselves away. Washing other people's feet.

Going to the top by going to the bottom.

Our calling as a church is to be what God has called us to be. Full of His Spirit; full of His power; full of his life.

After all, who are we trying to impress, others or God?