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College and High School football is a huge reality this time of year. Sometimes people argue for months and even years about which team would have won had this happened, or had the other thing not happened. If you are in the typical office workplace, chances are better than even that you will hear some “Monday morning quarterbacking” going on before the morning is over. However, the score will remain just as it was when the final whistle blew regardless of the “self-proclaimed experts” who hash and rehash the game until they are blue in the face.

With sports, as far as winners and losers go, there really is but one perspective that matters; it is what the scoreboard says at the end of the game. However, not everything is that way. In some endeavors, the winners are not who they appear to be, and the same goes for the losers; sometimes those who appear to have lost turn out to be the real winners. Paul wrote of such a perspective when he said, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. Do you look at things according to the outward appearance?” (2 Corinthians 10.3-7a).

The final question in this sobering text is truly one which everyone who values the prospect of eternity ought to consider; do I look on things according to the outward appearance? Just how do I keep score when it comes to spiritual matters? How does the world keep score? How does God keep score? Which score is right? Of which score am I most mindful? I have already stated that in the matter of sports and winners and losers, only the scoreboard matters. However, Grantland Rice (1880-1954), sports author and columnist, had it right when he wrote in his poem Alumnus Football, “For when the One Great Scorer comes To write against your name, He marks - not that you won or lost - But how you played the Game.”

In eternity, how many of the following things will matter: The size of my church’s sanctuary? The number of stained glass windows in my church building? The number of degrees which my “pastor” earned? With which denominational conference or synod my church was affiliated? How much land my grandfather donated to the church? How much better dressed I was than the lower class people with whom I worshipped? How well I could word a public prayer? Whether or not the community in which I lived was dramatically impacted by the way I lived?

In reality, none of these things matter except as they impinge in some matter which God has legislated; they are scoreboards of men! Paul stated it best when he said, “For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.” (Galatians 1.10). You cannot serve God and mammon; you cannot please men and be the servant of Christ; in spiritual matters, you can’t pay attention to the scoreboards of men!

Questions:

1. Why did Paul use the analogy of warfare in the focus text? Are we in a battle? If yes, what kind of battle?

2. Why is the outward appearance NOT the place to look to see who is winning this type of battle?

3. Can you name some biblical characters that looked on the outward appearance and wound up fighting for the wrong side?

4. Why can’t we please men and be the servants of Christ?

"Point of Reference" from Fred Price

Counting the Cost and Bearing the Cross