Flip the Scoreboard
A few years ago, right out of college, I had a job interview at an ad agency.
And I walked in thinking, “Okay. This is it. This is my adult moment. I’m about to become a professional person who says things like, ‘Let’s circle back.’”
So I’m in the lobby, and it already feels like I’m underdressed. Everybody walking by looks like they were born holding a leather portfolio. There’s cold brew on tap. There’s a wall with minimalist art that I’m pretty sure costs more than my car at the time.
And while I’m waiting, I’m doing what all of us do in that moment. I’m quietly running the inventory.
Do I look right?
Did I shake hands too firmly, or not firmly enough?
Is my resume paper too thick? Is that a thing?
Why are my palms sweating like I’m about to defuse a bomb?
Then they call my name, and I go into this conference room and sit down across from a couple of people who look very calm. Which is unfair. They’re calm because they already have jobs.
They start asking normal interview questions. “Tell us about yourself.” “What are your strengths?” “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
And I’m trying to answer like a functioning human being, but inside I’m translating everything through one single question.
“What do I need to say so you think I’m worth something?”
Because that’s what a job interview is, if we’re honest. It’s an hour-long conversation where you’re trying to prove your value. You’re trying to show you belong in the room.
And here’s what’s wild. Even after you get the job, that pressure doesn’t go away. It just shape-shifts.
Now you’re trying to prove yourself in performance reviews.
You’re trying to prove yourself when you meet new people.
You’re trying to prove yourself when someone asks, “So what do you do?”
You’re trying to prove yourself when you scroll past somebody else’s life and it looks like they’re doing better than you.
We live like we’re in a constant interview. With the world. With other people. With ourselves.
And here’s the danger: we start letting the world’s scoreboard tell us what we’re worth.
Job title. Bank account. Zip code. Followers. Success. Failure. Who noticed you, who didn’t. Who promoted you, who passed you over.
And we may not say it out loud, but we start believing, “If I can just get enough of the right stuff, I’ll finally feel solid.”
James has something to say about that today. And honestly, it’s going to mess with all of us a little bit. If you’ve got a Bible, turn to James chapter 1. We’re going to be in verses 9 through 20.
Movement 1: Redefine Your Worth (vv. 9–11)
7–8 minutes | Warm, pastoral, eye-opening
Read James 1:9–11 aloud
Okay. So James does this thing right out of the gate where he lines up two people side by side. On one side you’ve got the "lowly brother." The Greek word there is tapeinos, which basically means humble, low, small. And it’s not just talking about someone who’s broke. In the first century, this was the person nobody invited to dinner. No connections. No platform. No influence. If this person walked into a room, nobody stood up.
And James looks at that person and says: boast in your exaltation.
Which is a strange sentence, right? Boast? In what? You’ve got nothing by the world’s standards. And that’s exactly the point. James says you’ve got the one thing that actually counts. You belong to God. You’re rich in faith. You are an heir of the kingdom. James says it even more directly in chapter 2, verse 5: "Has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom?" This isn’t a consolation prize. This is the actual scoreboard of heaven. And the person the world overlooks is winning on it.
Now, on the other side, James brings up the rich person. And here’s a fun little detail that Bible scholars have been arguing about for roughly two thousand years, which I find kind of comforting because it means even really smart people can’t agree on everything. James doesn’t call this person a "brother." He just says "the rich." Some scholars think that means this is an unbeliever. Others think James is just making a rhetorical point. Honestly, the application lands either way, because here’s what James tells the rich person: boast in your humiliation.
Try to imagine telling somebody who just closed a big deal and bought a new house to celebrate the fact that none of it is going to last. That’s essentially what James does. And then, in case the rich person thinks he’s being dramatic, James pulls out this image: "Like a flower of the grass, he will pass away."
He’s borrowing from Isaiah chapter 40 here. If you’ve ever been to the Middle East or seen pictures, the wildflowers are stunning. They bloom in these brilliant colors across the hillsides. And then the sun comes up, the hot wind blows, and they’re gone. Not in a week. In hours. James isn’t saying that wealth is sinful. He’s saying it’s temporary in a way that should make us very uncomfortable if we’re building our identity on it. The flower doesn’t get a warning. It just wilts.
There was a guy named Billy Bray who lived in Cornwall, England, back in the 1800s. He was a tin miner. And if you’re not familiar with that particular career path, I’ll just tell you it did not come with stock options or a dental plan. Billy was poor. Not "I’m watching my budget this month" poor. He was genuinely, consistently, sometimes-didn’t-eat poor. His clothes were patched. His shoes were falling apart. By every measure the world uses to determine a person’s value, Billy Bray was at the bottom of the list. And by every account from the people who actually knew him, he was one of the most joyful human beings who ever lived. He used to walk around the mine shafts singing at the top of his lungs. His coworkers thought he’d lost it. And when people would ask him why he was always so happy, he’d grin and say, "I’m the son of a King!"
People thought he was out of his mind. But Billy understood something that most of us spend our whole lives struggling to believe: his poverty did not get the final word on his identity. His Father did.
That’s James 1:9. That’s what it looks like when a lowly brother boasts in his exaltation.
So here’s where this gets personal for all of us. Because most of us live somewhere in the messy middle, right? We’re not Billy Bray, and we’re probably not the person with the corner office either. But we are constantly, quietly, almost unconsciously measuring our worth by the wrong scoreboard. We check the bank balance and either exhale or panic. We drive through a neighborhood nicer than ours and feel a little sting. We scroll past somebody’s vacation photos and something tightens in our chest that we don’t really want to name. Or we go the other direction. We look at someone who has less than us and, without even meaning to, we feel a tiny bit better about ourselves. And that’s the same lie working from the other side.
James is saying: stop keeping score that way. It’s a rigged game. The scoreboard of heaven has already been posted, and it says something absolutely shocking. The person with the least in this room might be the richest one here. And the person with the most might be building on something that’s about to wilt in the afternoon sun.
God’s kingdom flips the scoreboard. And the sooner we stop playing by the world’s rules, the freer we’re going to be. Not free from responsibility. Not free from hard work. Free from the exhausting, never-ending treadmill of trying to earn an identity that God has already given us.
But James isn’t done. Because once he’s rearranged how we see ourselves, he turns to the thing that really tests whether we believe any of it: suffering. Because it’s one thing to say "my worth isn’t in my bank account" when everything is going fine. It’s another thing entirely to believe it when the bottom drops out.
Movement 2: Reframe Your Trials (vv. 12–16)
8–9 minutes | Honest, building, theologically rich
Read James 1:12–16 aloud
Verse 12 starts with the word "blessed," and if you’re like me, you hear that word and immediately picture it on a throw pillow from Hobby Lobby. But the Greek word here is makarios, and it’s the same word Jesus used in the Sermon on the Mount. It doesn’t mean "happy." It’s not a feeling. It’s a verdict. It means God looks at a person and says, "That one. That one has my approval." And who gets that approval? Not the person who avoids trials. Not the person who explains away trials or posts an inspirational quote about trials. The person who remains steadfast under trial. The person who stays in the ring.
And then there’s this promise at the end of verse 12 that I don’t want us to skip: "He will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him." A crown. Not for the strongest. Not for the smartest. For those who love him and keep showing up.
But then, in verses 13 and 14, James does something really important. He draws a line that most of us blur all the time. He separates trials from temptation. Because here’s what happens when life gets hard. The most natural thing in the world is to look up and say, "God, why are you doing this to me? Why did you put this in my path? If you really loved me, I wouldn’t be going through this." And James says: stop. That’s a dead end.
God tests. That’s real. He refines us through difficulty the way fire refines gold. But God does not tempt. He never, ever dangles sin in front of you to see if you’ll take the bait. So where does temptation come from? Verse 14: "Each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire." James actually uses fishing language here. A lure. Bait. That thing that looks so appealing glinting in the water, and you don’t see the hook inside it until it’s already in your mouth.
And then verse 15 traces what might be the scariest progression in the entire book of James: desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death. Notice the language James uses. He talks about it like a pregnancy. Desire conceives. Sin grows. Death is born. It’s a life cycle of destruction, and the terrifying part is that it starts so small you barely notice it. Nobody sees the conception. By the time the thing is full-grown, everyone wonders where it came from. But it was there all along, growing in the dark.
I heard a wildlife researcher describe once what happens when frogs try to cross a highway. They don’t hop out into oncoming traffic and get hit all at once. What actually happens is they start crossing a road that’s completely quiet. Middle of the night. No cars anywhere. Looks perfectly safe. So they keep going. And by the time the sun comes up and rush hour starts, they’re sitting in the middle of four lanes of traffic with absolutely nowhere to go.
That’s verses 14 and 15. Nobody wakes up one morning and decides, "You know what, I think I’ll wreck my marriage today." Nobody pencils in "destroy all my closest friendships" on their Tuesday calendar. It starts on a quiet road. One compromise that feels totally fine. One shortcut that seems harmless. One thought you entertain a little too long, a little too often. And by the time you realize where you are, the traffic is already moving.
And then verse 16 is James grabbing us by the shoulders. You can almost hear his voice change: "Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers." He calls us beloved in the same breath that he warns us. The deception is thinking our worst impulses are God’s fault. Or thinking they’re just harmless background noise that we can manage on our own.
So what do we do with this?
First, we stop blaming God. I know that’s hard to hear, but honestly, it’s the most freeing thing James says in this whole section. Because think about it: if God is the one dangling temptation in front of you, then you’re stuck. You cannot outfight the Almighty. But if temptation comes from your own desires? Now you’re in a category where grace and honesty and accountability can actually do something. That’s not bad news. That’s the door to freedom.
Second, we get honest about the quiet roads. What’s the thing in your life right now that feels harmless but somewhere deep down you know it’s pulling you toward a place you don’t want to end up? Maybe it’s a relationship that’s slowly crossing lines nobody has named out loud yet. Maybe it’s a spending habit you keep justifying to yourself. Maybe it’s bitterness toward somebody that’s starting to feel so comfortable you’ve stopped recognizing it as bitterness. Name it. Bring it into the light. Because desire works best in the dark, and it loses most of its power the second you drag it into an honest conversation.
And third, we remember that endurance is not about gritting your teeth and surviving. It’s about trusting that the crown of life is real. That what God is building in you through this hard, unwanted, uncomfortable season is worth more than the comfort you’re missing. The enemy of endurance is misplaced blame. And the friend of endurance is an honest heart that says, "God, I trust you in this, even though I don’t like it."
Now, if James had stopped right there, we’d all feel kind of heavy walking out of here. He’s told us our worth isn’t what we thought it was, our trials aren’t what we thought they were, and our desires are more dangerous than we want to admit. That’s a lot to sit with. But James doesn’t leave us there. He’s about to tell us something about God’s character that changes the entire equation and makes everything he’s said so far not just survivable but actually good news.
Movement 3: Recalibrate Your Response (vv. 17–20)
7–8 minutes | Conviction meets tenderness
Read James 1:17–20 aloud
Verse 17 might be the single most beautiful sentence in the whole book of James. Read it again slowly in your mind: "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change."
Do you see what James just did? He spent five verses telling us what does not come from God. Temptation doesn’t come from God. The bait and the hook and the drift toward destruction? That’s not Him. And now James tells us what does come from God: every good thing. Every. Single. One. That breath you just took. That person sitting next to you. That moment last week when something unexpectedly beautiful happened and you thought, "Where did that come from?" It came from above.
And then James gives God this incredible name: the Father of lights. Now, if you know anything about astronomy, you know that every light source in the sky shifts. Stars move. The moon has phases. The sun casts different shadows depending on the hour. Everything in the sky is in constant motion. James says God is not like any of that. No variation. No shadow caused by turning. He doesn’t have good days and bad days. He is not generous on Sunday and stingy on Wednesday. He is not warm toward you when you’re performing well and cold when you’re falling apart. Every single interaction you have ever had with God, and every interaction you will ever have with God, flows from the exact same unchanging, relentlessly generous character.
That changes things. That changes everything, actually.
Because verse 18 takes it even further: "Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures." Your spiritual life, your new birth, your place in this family? That was not your idea. That was God’s idea. You didn’t earn your way in. He chose to bring you to life. And He calls you His "firstfruits," which in the Old Testament was the first and best of the harvest. The part you set aside because it was the most valuable. That’s how God talks about you.
And then James lands the plane in verses 19 and 20 with the practical payoff of everything he’s been building toward. Because of who God is, here is how we get to live: "Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God."
Notice the order. Listening comes first. Speaking comes second. And anger comes last, if it comes at all.
I want to be honest with you for a second. My house has a smoke detector that goes off every single time I cook. Every time. I am not even burning anything. I’m just making eggs and the thing starts screaming like the house is engulfed in flames. After a while, you know what I did? I just started ignoring it. I fan it with a towel and keep cooking.
Now here’s the problem with that. If an actual fire ever starts in my kitchen, I have trained myself not to listen to the alarm.
That is what happens when we live in a constant state of reaction. When we are quick to speak, quick to anger, quick to fire off that text, quick to post that comment, quick to assume the worst about somebody’s motives without bothering to ask, we turn ourselves into smoke detectors that go off at everything. And after a while, nobody takes us seriously. Our spouse stops listening. Our kids tune us out. Our coworkers just nod and walk away. Worse than that, we stop being able to tell the difference between something that genuinely matters and something that’s just eggs.
James says there is a better way. But it only works if you actually trust the Father of lights. Because the only reason you can afford to slow down, to listen before you speak, to hold your tongue when everything inside you wants to let it fly, is if you believe that God is stable and generous and in control. If you think the whole thing is up to you, of course you’re going to react to everything. You have to. But if the Father of lights is running this? You can take a breath. You can listen for thirty more seconds. You can set the phone down instead of firing off that text you’re going to regret.
Let me get practical for a second, because "slow to speak" sounds really nice in a sermon and it is an absolute war zone in real life.
Think about the last argument you had with someone you love. Not a stranger. Someone you love. How much of that argument could have been avoided if you had just listened for thirty more seconds before you opened your mouth? I’m not talking about letting people walk all over you. I’m talking about the kind of listening that says, "I’m going to actually hear what this person is saying before I decide what to do about it."
Or think about the last text thread that went completely sideways. You typed something fast because you were frustrated. You hit send. And three seconds later your stomach dropped because you realized you said it wrong, or you said too much, or you said the exact thing that was going to make this situation ten times worse. And then you spent the next two hours trying to undo what took you three seconds to create. Apologizing, clarifying, explaining what you "actually meant." What if the next time you feel that rush of "I need to say something right now," you set the phone down for five minutes? Just five minutes. Go get a glass of water. Walk around the block. James would call that being "slow to speak." I would call it saving yourself a whole lot of unnecessary apologizing.
And anger. James does not say "never be angry." He says be slow to it. Because here’s the honest truth about anger: it feels powerful, but it almost never produces what we actually want. It doesn’t fix the marriage. It doesn’t change the coworker. It doesn’t raise better kids. It doesn’t undo the injustice. Most of the time, it just burns the bridge you’re going to need tomorrow. The righteousness of God is produced by something quieter, something steadier, something that looks a lot more like trust than rage. And trust, by the way, is not passive. It takes more strength to hold your tongue than to let it loose. Anyone can explode. It takes a person anchored to the Father of lights to stay calm when the room is on fire.
When you trust the Giver, you can loosen your grip on control. You don’t have to fight for your worth. You don’t have to manage every outcome. You don’t have to win every argument. Because the Father of lights has already given you everything that matters.
The Landing
5–6 minutes | Warm, hopeful, unhurried. Let the room breathe. Slow your pace.
Let me pull all of this together, because James just covered an enormous amount of ground in twelve verses.
He looked at a room full of people who were struggling with all the same things we struggle with. Some of them were poor and overlooked and wondering if God had forgotten about them. Some of them were comfortable and quietly building their lives on things that were already starting to crack. Some of them were just trying to get through another hard week without falling apart. And James told them a story about a God who operates on a completely different value system than the world they were living in.
In God’s economy, the person who has nothing can celebrate, because they have everything that actually lasts. The person who has everything should hold it with open hands, because it’s vapor. The person sitting in the fire can stop blaming God, because He is not the one holding the match. He’s the one holding the blueprint, building something in you that comfort never could.
And the reason any of that is possible? Verse 17. The Father of lights. No variation. No shadow. No shifting. The same God who was generous yesterday is generous right now and will be generous tomorrow morning when you wake up and the hard thing is still there. The same God who called you His child last week is calling you His child right now, even if this has been the worst week of your year. Every good gift you have ever received traces back to Him. And because that is true, you can live a fundamentally different kind of life. A life where you listen before you talk. Where you pause before you react. Where your identity is not chained to your bank account or your reputation or your last performance review or that comment somebody made that’s been rattling around in your head for three days.
Paul wrote something about Jesus that I think captures the heart of everything James is getting at here. He said, "Though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich." Jesus is the ultimate proof that God’s scoreboard is upside down. He had everything and laid it all down. He embraced humiliation so that we could be exalted. He endured the trial so we could wear the crown. He is the Father of lights’ greatest gift, and He is the reason any of this works.
So here’s what I want us to carry out of this room today. Not three points. Not a theology lecture. Just one thing.
The ground is level at the foot of the cross. Every single one of us stands in the exact same spot. Same need. Same grace. Same Father. The person who showed up today feeling like they’re barely holding it together and the person who showed up feeling like life is pretty good right now? Same spot. Same cross. Same invitation. And that Father is not shifting. He is not going anywhere. He is not withholding good things from you.
This week, when you are tempted to measure your worth by your circumstances, remember the scoreboard of heaven. When you are tempted to blame God for the hard stuff, remember that He is building something in you that you cannot build in yourself. And when you are tempted to react out of anger or fear or the desperate need to be right, remember the Father of lights. He is steady. He is good. And He is not done with you yet.
Let’s pray.
