This past weekend at Zion, we kicked off a new series called “Keeping Score.”
Scorekeeping is one of those ingrained, nearly involuntary habits of modern life. We calculate the dollars in our bank accounts, the hours we spend at work, and even the steps we take using our Apple watches. Some of the math is helpful. It can help us discern where we are and decide where we want go next.
But numbers make cruel masters.
When we demand that these scores not only inform us, but define us—to tell us whether we are winning, worthy, ahead, or enough—we become slaves to the scores we keep.
Keep score in your marriage—what she said, what he forgot, how many times you swallowed your pride and apologized first—and you aren’t merely keeping a record. You’re tallying reasons for resentment. Keep score of other people’s successes—their promotions, vacations, children, homes, or happiness—and you can turn their joy into kindling for your envy.
So, what if we stopped? What if we cleared the scoreboards that keep us trapped in resentment, envy, guilt, and exhaustion? What if we kept score no more?
In my message this weekend, we met a man who did just that.
The apostle Paul grew up in a rigorously religious Jewish household. And his rigorously religious upbringing as a child blossomed into a religious obsession as an adult. And that obsession expressed itself as math. He lived his life by a religious abacus, carefully counting up every single way he had earned his spiritual pedigree:
If anyone else thinks he has reason for 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; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. (Philippians 3:4–6)
But then, Paul collided with Jesus. And he didn’t just put his religious abacus down, he threw it away:
Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ … not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. (Philippians 3:7, 9)
Keeping an ever-swelling tally of your religious rigor always breeds one vexing question: When is my score high enough? A scoreboard can flash numbers, but it can never tell you your soul is safe.
Jesus can.
Paul realized that with Jesus, there is no scorekeeping. There is only gift-giving. Jesus doesn’t act as a religious coach helping you scrape together a few more points; He desires to share His perfect score of righteousness with you, completely free. We obtain it simply by trusting Him. So, Paul eagerly made the trade—swapping the ultimately fragile record of his religious rigor for the profligate and secure righteousness of Jesus.
And yet, this trade wasn’t a vaccine. It didn’t immunize Paul from the temptation to dust off his old scorecard from time to time. He admits as much:
Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. (Philippians 3:7–8)
Notice the subtle shift in Paul’s verbs. In verse 7, he talks about the past—how, when he first encountered Jesus, he counted his religious resume as a loss. But in verse 8, he snaps into the present tense: “I count everything as loss.”
He was still clearing his religious scoreboard. Even as a Christian, the old arithmetic lurked in the shadows, waiting to creep back in. Stopping scorekeeping isn’t a one-and-done decision; it’s the gritty journey of a lifetime.
So, where are you keeping score in a way you already know is hurting you and the people around you?
Maybe you’re keeping score in your relationships. Tallying another person’s offenses, slights, and failures can produce a small spark of superiority—the delicious assurance that you are right and they are wrong. But eventually, those tally marks harden into the prison bars of bitterness.
Maybe you’re keeping score in your ambitions. Someone else’s success may spur you to climb a little higher, but the ladder never ends. Every rung only reveals another above it. If your peace depends on passing everyone ahead of you, peace will remain forever out of reach.
Maybe you’re keeping score in your own mind. You replay your failures, rehearse your regrets, and stack up old guilt as though enough shame could somehow reset the clock of your past. But hoarding shame cannot atone for your past; only Jesus can do that.
So, go on the journey. Shatter the scoreboard. And tomorrow, when those glowing numbers flicker back to life in the back of your mind—and they will—clear the board again. You don’t need to chase those points anymore. You already hold a perfect score—Jesus’ score.