The Gospel is what gives you the freedom to lose the scorecard. When we finally stand before God, there will be no scorecard of our righteousness that we can present. There will only be Christ. And Christ is enough. You are forgiven in Christ. Now live like someone who has been forgiven. Lose the scorecard. Find life.
The Christian hope isn't, “Everything will always get brighter.” It is, “Christ has overcome.” The darkness is real, but it does not have the final word.
Jesus does.
Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? Jesus does not point to the person standing highest on the ladder. He points to a child. And then He points us to Himself. So lose your ego, lose the ladder, and find your life in Christ.
The God who used a cross to bring salvation can be trusted even when your life does not look like the picture you had in your head. You do not have to make your life work. Christ has done what you could never do. He has given you life.
So when the picture falls apart, do not assume that God has.
The picture may be changing. The promise has not.
And in Christ, that is enough.
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Matthew 16:16. That is Discipleship 101. Listen. Confess. And live as a disciple of Jesus in the world.
And remember the promise Jesus gives His Church: “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Matthew 16:18.
The building may change. The generations may change. The culture may change. The community may change. But Jesus Christ does not change.
He is the Christ. He is the Son of the living God. And He is still building His Church.
When He blesses us, when His face shines upon us, when He gives us His peace, may we not simply turn around and keep the blessing for ourselves. May we carry it. May we speak it. May we live it. May we share it. And may God use His blessed people here in this place to make His saving power known to the ends of the earth.
Because the blessing is not the end of worship. The blessing is the beginning of our going.
Christ went to the cross for sinners. Christ rose from the grave. And the Word of God has not failed.
Maybe that is why we cannot get enough of love stories. Maybe somewhere deep within us we know that we were created to love and to be loved. Taylor Swift can give you a catchy song about it. Shakespeare can give you a tragedy about it. But only Jesus can give you the real thing. And His love story does not end dead in a tomb. It ends with an empty tomb. And because that tomb is empty, you are forgiven. You are His. You are loved.
Now go love the person whose name God has placed on your heart.
None of us should ask baseball (sports) to answer the biggest question of our lives: Who am I? Baseball can't answer that. Neither can your job. Neither can your accomplishments. Jesus can!
And in Him, you have something that no strikeout can take away, no championship can add to, and no scoreboard can ever change. You belong to Him. Let that be upstream.
And then watch how it changes everything downstream.
Don’t mistake ordinary for powerless. The same Word that said, ‘Let there be light,’ is the Word that says to you, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’ And that Word never returns empty.
If you’ve been praying for someone, don’t stop. If you’ve been speaking God’s Word to your family, don’t stop. If you’ve been wondering whether anything is happening, don’t lose heart. Because underneath the surface, beneath what your eyes can see, your faithful Lord is still at work.
This is who you are. You are God's treasured possession. You are a kingdom of priests. You are a holy nation. And by His grace, you are doing exactly what you were made for when you point others to Jesus.
Matthew never could have imagined what Jesus would do through him. Neither can we fully imagine what Jesus may yet do through us. But we know this. The same Lord who called Matthew still calls sinners today. The same Lord who transformed Matthew still transforms sinners today. The same Lord who did the unimaginable then is still doing the unimaginable now.
The disciples saw the ugliness of sin and death. But then they saw something greater, the risen Christ ascending with hands raised in blessing. And that is the image Christ leaves with His Church still today.
Not abandonment. Not rejection. But blessing.
Go into the places God has given you. Go to the people He places in front of you. Listen deeply. Pay attention. Look for the points of contact. And when the moment comes, speak. Speak of Jesus. Speak of the One in whom we live and move and have our being. Speak of the resurrection. Because Christ is risen, we engage the world differently.
As you go into another week filled with noise, with responsibilities, with distractions, with voices competing for your attention, remember this: You are not left to figure life out on your own. You have a Shepherd. He knows your name. He speaks to you. And His voice is the one that brings your life back into tune.
When life begins to sound out of tune again… and it will… you return to the note that God has already sounded over you. When guilt weighs on your conscience, you return to Christ. Come here again to hear that your sins are forgiven! When fear and uncertainty fill your mind, you return to Christ and hear His promise that He is with you always. When life becomes busy and faith drifts into the background, you return again to the place where the note of the resurrection is sounded clearly: in God’s Word, among His people, around His table.
The same Lord who fed His people day by day is feeding you. The same Lord who did not abandon them will not abandon you. The same Lord who led them forward is leading you still.
And the journey is going somewhere.
Here is the question Jesus asks you today, “Do you believe this?” (John 11:26). Not just when things are going well, but when he feels late, not just when prayers are answered, but when they are not, not just in life, but in death.
Your Baptism is your exodus. Not a symbol, not a memory, but a present reality. You are free. Yes, the journey continues. Israel still had wilderness ahead of them, and you will still face struggles, temptations, and fears. But the outcome is no longer in doubt. Because the God who makes a way where there is no way has already acted for you in Christ.
When the world disappoints us, when people fail us, when life feels confusing and painful, Jesus comes to us. He comes through His Word, through His promises, through His body and blood. Again and again He opens our eyes to see the truth: that we are forgiven, that we belong to Him, and that even in the darkness the Light of the world is still shining.
When you wake up each day, you do so not as a slave to guilt or fear, but as one who has been set free. Marked by the blood of the Lamb in Baptism, fed by the Lamb in His Supper, you live your life in quiet confidence: the Lord has passed over you in mercy. And so you walk through this world as God’s redeemed people, trusting His promises, loving your neighbor, and praising the Lamb who was slain for you.
