The Final Score
Sermon by Rick Clark
I like soccer a lot. I’ve played, coached and refereed, and I like watching matches on TV.
I have a friend in Woodbury named Terry who is a real fanatic. He follows teams from all over the world. Often he’ll tape games that are played during the day somewhere in the world and watch them in the evening at home. I sometimes join him in these ventures.
Now, Terry goes to great lengths to avoid finding out the final score of the game. People at work aren’t allowed to talk about the game that day. He tries not to listen to TV or radio. I’ve even seen him put tape on the bottom of his TV so he can’t see the rolling scores on the bottom of the screen.
For Terry, knowing the final score ruins the game for him. For him, some of the intrigue – the flow of the game – the successes and the near misses – are somehow diluted and made less meaningful since he already knows the outcome of the game. One time he didn’t even watch the game.
I don’t see it this way. If I happen to find out the final score somehow, I don’t let that bother me. Just the opposite. I actually find I tend to focus even a little more on all the plays of the game when I know how it ends. I see how the whole game develops, and I observe a little more keenly all the little things that lead up to the known conclusion. I appreciate the twists and turns and can see what things led to the winning or losing of the game.
How about you?
If you know the final score, does it ruin the game for you? Would you watch it anyway?
If you knew the final score of a game you were to play in, would you play in the game?
Would you play only if you knew you were on the winning team?
Would you play if you knew you were on the losing team, or would you pack up your spikes, take your ball and go home?
How would knowing the final score affect how you play the game?
It occurred to me that we as Christians find ourselves in a similar situation. Don’t we know the final score? Done we know life’s final score? As God-loving Christians, don’t we know the ultimate outcome of life? And if we do, what effect should that have on how we play the game?
Well, what is it? What happens ultimately at the end of this game of life?
We die.
But then what? What you now believe at this point makes all the difference.
My belief tells me that I will “shuffle off this mortal coil” and be resurrected, reunited with God and all the peace, joy, understanding, and love that that brings with it. I believe this because I believe God’s love for me is unconditional, now and always.
I just wish I really believed this more deeply on a daily basis. I think that if I truly believed that the ultimate outcome of life is assured, then my life on earth would be a lot less stressful. I think if I lived the gladness of knowing the gift of God’s love every day, then a certain perspective – a certain calmness – a certain distancing from the urgency of daily living would take place and I could roll more smoothly through life.
It seems pretty simple: believing in the final outcome should free us up to play the game with joy, to live the way Christ intended us to live, to laugh with love, to try even if we fail, or if things go wrong, to come out a little wiser, a little more knowledgeable, a little more Godlike while we play the game.
But what’s made “living from the end”, so to speak, so hard?
Unfortunately, we often lack the faith to believe that the ultimate outcome of life is assured. We can’t seem to close the door on the idea that the outcome of life is in doubt. But doubt in ultimate outcome creates our greatest enemy, which is fear. If you don’t believe me, think how many times we are told in the Bible to “fear not.” If we doubt outcome, we must doubt creator - we must doubt God.
And if we doubt God’s intentions, God’s ability to produce the ultimate result, how can we ever relax? How can we ever truly find peace?
I work at a faith-based hospital. It’s a Catholic hospital, but they let me work there anyway. Each day the Spiritual Care department emails everyone a daily reflection. This week, I received not one, but two reflections that tie right in to my message this morning. As a matter of fact, the following reflection is based on Psalm 130:5 – which is one of the lectionary passages I just read to you! This is what I received:
Aren’t you, like me, hoping that some person, thing or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire? Don’t you often hope: “May this book, idea, course, trip, job, country or relationship fulfill my deepest desire.” But as long as you are waiting for that mysterious moment you will go on running helter-skelter, always anxious and restless, always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied.
You know that this is the compulsiveness that keeps us going and busy, but at the same time makes us wonder whether we are getting anywhere in the long run. This is the way to spiritual exhaustion and burnout. This is the way to spiritual death.
Well, you and I don’t have to kill ourselves. We are the Beloved. We are intimately loved long before our parents, teachers, spouses, children and friends loved us or wounded us. That’s the truth of our lives.
We must believe that God has full power to match intention with result and he has set up a world that is designed for our success, our happiness, if we understand it a little better. I’ll make three quick observations about life that should help us live it more fully and easily:
Joy is what makes life worth living, but for many, joy seems hard to find. They complain that their lives are sorrowful and depressing. What then brings the joy we so much desire? Are some people just lucky, while others have run out of luck? Strange as it may sound, we can choose joy. Two people can be part of the same event, but one may choose to live it quite differently from the other. One may choose to trust that what happened, painful as it may be, holds a promise. The other may choose despair and be destroyed by it.
I’m not going further with this idea because in three weeks, during her sermon, my wife is going to explore this whole idea with you. We didn’t plan this, it was just a “coincidence”…..
Let’s close the loop:
Friends, we can’t lose.
The final score is assured. Let this free us to live in joy. We are all on the winning team.
Amen.