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Hidden Treasure | Part 9 · Rewind

Rock Point Church

Pastor Scott Rodgers · Jul 28, 2019

Pastor Scott Rodgers · Jul 28, 2019 · 60 min watch · 2 min read

Hidden Treasure | Part 9

Devotional days

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7

Scripture in this message

Ephesians 2:8-9
Luke 18:9
Isaiah 6:3
Isaiah 6:5
Galatians 2:19
Galatians 6:14

Big Idea Key points Application

Big Idea

Quoting the message: Beware the temptation of spiritual comparison, end quote. — the moment we start keeping score with God, we stop gazing at His goodness and start admiring our own devotion.

We're saved by grace alone, not by our performance, yet it's easy to drift from awe and wonder at God into quietly keeping score against other people. Jesus' parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector shows that the truly devoted can walk away unjustified while the desperate sinner who simply cries for mercy goes home right with God. The call is to keep pursuing growth while never graduating from grace, with our eyes fixed on the cross rather than on each other.

Key points

1
1Salvation is a gift of grace, not something earned by works.
Pastor Scott reads Ephesians 2:8-9 and stresses that no one can boast because being accepted by God isn't the result of impressing Him. He notes the sense of awe and wonder this produces when someone first grasps that God loves them fully knowing their whole story.
2
2Awe and wonder in our walk with God can quietly curdle into keeping score.
Using the story of coaching his daughters' six and seven-year-old soccer team, Pastor Scott describes how fun turned competitive the moment someone asked the score. He says the same shift happens spiritually — we move from wonder at God to comparing our spiritual stats with others.
3
3In Jesus' parable, the devoted Pharisee left unjustified while the desperate tax collector went home right with God.
Pastor Scott walks through Luke 18:9-14, explaining the Pharisee's genuine, admirable devotion (fasting, tithing, moral living) and the tax collector's despised status as a Rome-funded traitor. The Pharisee's problem wasn't his practices but that he compared himself to the tax collector, while the tax collector simply cried, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
4
4We build our own mental scorecards of spiritual superiority without even realizing it.
Pastor Scott shares his own story from early in his faith, mentally ranking himself as more spiritual than friends who missed church, didn't study the Bible like he did, or didn't pray as visibly. He shows how this comparison replaces gazing at God's goodness with admiring our own devotion.
5
5Isaiah's vision of God's holiness shows how small any of us are next to God, so He alone is the bar.
Pastor Scott reads Isaiah 6:3-5, where Isaiah sees the Lord's glory and cries out that he is ruined and unclean. He applies this to say Isaiah would laugh at our temptation to set ourselves as the standard, since God alone is the bar and we all fall short of Him.
6
6Paul models the posture of a Pharisee saved by grace who quit performing to become God's man.
Pastor Scott traces Paul's shift from zealous, murderous Pharisee to a man transformed by an encounter with the risen Christ, reading Galatians 2:19-20 (The Message) and Galatians 6:14. He distills it into the equation that Jesus plus anything equals nothing, and Jesus plus nothing equals everything.
7
7Keep your eyes on the instrument — the cross — or you'll spin into spiritual vertigo.
Pastor Scott recounts John F. Kennedy Jr.'s fatal 1999 plane crash, where losing sight of the horizon caused fatal disorientation unless a pilot trusts the instruments instead of feeling. He applies this directly: taking our eyes off Christ and comparing ourselves to others causes the same kind of spiritual spiral, whether we feel superior or defeated.

Application

Pastor Scott's charge is to beware the temptation of spiritual comparison and keep our eyes on the instrument — the cross — instead of on ourselves or each other.

Throw out the mental scorecard
Stop tracking how your church attendance, Bible reading, or prayer life stacks up against others. Crumple up that mental list and get rid of it completely, whether you're feeling spiritually ahead or behind.
Pursue growth without graduating from grace
Keep worshiping, praying, serving, and giving, but remember every response God gives you is an act of grace, not something your spiritual performance earned.
Keep your eyes on the cross, not the horizon of others
In your best spiritual moments and your worst, look at Christ on the cross instead of comparing yourself to people around you, so you don't spiral into spiritual vertigo.
If you're exploring faith, simply come to Jesus
If you're not yet a follower of Jesus, know that this same grace is for you — you don't need to perform or measure up, just place your faith in Him and receive His gift.

Take it into your week

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“It's not Luke 18, you just stay there. I'm gonna read something out of the book of Ephesians in the New Testament and it'll be on the screen. So check this out. Ephesians chapter two verse eight and nine. It says, for it is by grace you have been saved”
Read the whole chapter →
From the transcript
“Let me try to explain it to you by digging into our parable for today. It's in Luke 18 and it's often called the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. So let's unpack this for a few minutes. Go to Luke 18 verse nine and here's what it says”
From the transcript
“Here's what he says in Isaiah six verse three. He says, and they were calling to one another, holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory”
From the transcript
“And then in this moment in God's presence, here's what he begins to realize. He says in verse five, woe to me. I am ruined for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of glory”
From the transcript
“I'm gonna read you from the message paraphrase which is really colorful. Galatians two verse 19, Paul writes, what actually took place is this, I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God and it didn't work”
From the transcript
“Let me read one more verse out of Galatians where he expands on this. Galatians six verse 14, Paul writes, may I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ through which the world's been crucified to me and I to the world”
Paraphrase of the transcript
Let me read again to you Ephesians two where we began, and then I'm gonna pray for us. Ephesians two eight nine, it says, for it is by grace that you've been saved through performance and your talents and your skills and you're going to church all the time.

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

Sign in to track your progress through this devotional.

Day 1

Jesus didn't aim this parable at obvious villains. He aimed it at people who were doing the right things — people who prayed, fasted, gave generously, and lived morally. That's worth sitting with for a moment. The warning in Luke 18:9 is specifically for those who were 'confident in their own righteousness and looked down on others.' In other words, the more seriously you take your faith, the more quietly this temptation can take root. Pastor Scott pointed out that spiritual comparison doesn't usually announce itself. It creeps in. You notice someone who seems less consistent in their Bible reading, less faithful in showing up, less disciplined in their habits — and without quite meaning to, you've started keeping score. The scoreboard feels harmless, maybe even motivating. But Jesus calls it out as a spiritual problem, not a spiritual strength. The fact that Jesus told this parable at all is itself an act of grace. He isn't leaving us in the fog. He's naming the drift so we can recognize it, own it, and return our gaze to where it belongs. Today is simply a day to be honest: have you noticed the scoreboard in your own heart? You don't have to be proud of it or ashamed of it. Just notice it.

For reflection

When you look at your own spiritual life lately, is your attention more fixed on how you're doing compared to others, or on how you're doing in relationship with God?

Pray

Pray for honest self-awareness about where comparison has quietly taken root in your heart.

Day 2

Here's what's striking about the Pharisee in this parable: he wasn't lying. He really did fast twice a week. He really did tithe. He really did avoid the kinds of sins he listed. Pastor Scott was clear about this — the problem wasn't the Pharisee's discipline. Fasting is good. Giving is good. Moral integrity is good. The problem was the posture of his heart as he prayed. He wasn't talking to God so much as he was presenting a résumé. There's a version of spiritual growth that quietly becomes about building a case for yourself before God — and maybe before other people. The practices are real, but the goal has shifted. Instead of drawing near to God, you're building a record. Instead of receiving grace, you're earning credit. And almost without noticing, the person next to you has become a reference point for how well you're doing. Jesus isn't calling the Pharisee's practices into question. He's calling his gaze into question. The Pharisee's eyes were on himself and on others, not on God. That's the drift. Good things done with a comparative heart can still pull us away from the very Person those practices are meant to bring us closer to.

For reflection

Is there a spiritual habit or practice in your life that has gradually become more about your own record than about closeness with God?

Pray

Pray for a fresh, simple desire to draw near to God — not to perform for Him, but to be with Him.

Day 3

Pastor Scott brought Isaiah into the sermon to make a single, clarifying point: when you actually see how big and holy God is, the impulse to use yourself as the spiritual measuring stick collapses. Isaiah was a prophet — a serious, devoted, faithful man of God. And the moment he caught a glimpse of God's glory, his response wasn't pride in his own record. It was 'I am ruined.' Not because God condemned him, but because the sheer holiness of God made every human standard of comparison irrelevant. The angels in Isaiah's vision are crying out, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Heaven's Armies! The whole earth is filled with His glory!' That's the bar. Not the person in the pew who seems more consistent than you. Not the person who seems less consistent. God Himself is the standard, and when we see Him rightly, we all land in the same place Isaiah did — undone, humbled, aware of our need. This isn't meant to be discouraging. Isaiah's story doesn't end with his collapse. It ends with a coal on his lips and the words 'your guilt is removed.' The same vision that collapses comparison also opens the door to grace. Seeing God clearly doesn't crush us — it frees us from the exhausting work of measuring up.

For reflection

What would change about how you see yourself and others if God's holiness — not human performance — were your daily frame of reference?

Pray

Pray for a renewed sense of God's holiness and greatness that quietly puts your own scorekeeping in perspective.

Day 4

Paul knew what it meant to keep score. Before he met Jesus, he was, by every measurable standard, winning. He was a Pharisee, trained under the best, zealous beyond his peers, and morally spotless by the law's requirements. He had the résumé the Pharisee in Luke 18 was presenting to God — and then some. And then grace found him. And everything changed. In Galatians 2:19-20, Paul doesn't describe a man who is trying harder or tracking his spiritual progress against others. He describes a man whose ego is no longer the engine: 'My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.' Pastor Scott summed this up simply — Jesus plus nothing equals everything. The equation isn't Jesus plus your prayer streak, or Jesus plus your church attendance, or Jesus plus your giving record. It's Jesus. Full stop. This is not a call to stop growing. Paul grew deeply and pursued Christ relentlessly. But the fuel changed. He wasn't running to impress God or outpace anyone else. He was running because Christ lived in him and that life wanted to move. That's a different kind of pursuit — free, unhurried, and rooted in love rather than performance.

For reflection

What would it look like in your daily life if Jesus were genuinely the 'plus nothing' — the whole equation, not just the starting point?

Pray

Pray for the kind of freedom Paul describes — a life where Christ is the center, not your own spiritual record.

Day 5

Pastor Scott's point here was direct: grace is not the starting line you leave behind as you grow. It is the ground you stand on every single day. Ephesians 2:8-9 is one of those passages that can start to feel familiar to the point of fading into the background — but read it slowly today: 'God saved you by His grace when you believed. And you can't take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.' None of us. That word 'none' levels the playing field completely. It doesn't matter how many years you've been following Jesus, how many chapters you've read, how many times you've served, or how consistent your giving has been. The standing you have before God is entirely a gift. It was given, not earned — and it cannot be added to by impressive devotion. This isn't an argument against growth. It's an argument against boasting — including the internal boasting that shows up as comparison. When grace is truly the ground you're standing on, the scorecard has no power. You're free to grow, to serve, to give, to pray with full energy — not to earn standing, but because you already have it.

For reflection

How does understanding grace as the ground you stand on — every day, not just at the beginning — change the way you approach your spiritual life this week?

Pray

Pray for a deep, settled confidence in God's grace that doesn't waver based on how well your week is going spiritually.

Day 6

Pastor Scott used a vivid image from aviation to land this point: a pilot who loses sight of the horizon can feel completely level while the plane is actually banking into a dangerous spiral. The instruments are the only thing that can be trusted. And for the follower of Jesus, the cross is that instrument — the fixed point that tells you where you actually are. In Galatians 6:14, Paul writes, 'As for me, may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.' The cross, Paul says, is where his boasting begins and ends. Not his résumé. Not his growth. Not his sacrifice. The cross. That's the fixed point. When we take our eyes off the cross and start watching what other people are doing — or comparing our spiritual performance to theirs — we get disoriented in the same way a pilot does in the clouds. We feel like we know which direction is up, but we're actually drifting. The antidote isn't trying harder to stay level. It's returning your gaze to the instrument. Look at the cross. Let it recalibrate you. However your week has gone, whatever you've done well or poorly, the cross is still there, still sufficient, still the ground of everything.

For reflection

When you find your eyes drifting toward comparison — either pride or discouragement — what does it look like practically for you to 'look at the instrument' and return your gaze to the cross?

Pray

Pray for the grace to return your eyes to the cross quickly — especially in the moments when comparison pulls hardest.

Day 7

Come back to the whole parable today. Two men. One with an impressive record and a heart full of comparison. One with nothing to offer and a prayer that was simply, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' Jesus says it was the second man — not the first — who went home right with God. This week, you've traced the thread Pastor Scott pulled through the sermon: comparison is a real temptation for serious, devoted people; seeing God's holiness collapses it; Paul's testimony shows what life looks like on the other side of it; grace is not a phase you outgrow; and the cross is the instrument that keeps you from drifting. The invitation at the end of it all is the same one the tax collector accepted: come as you are, without a case to make. Whether this week felt like spiritual growth or spiritual struggle, the grace extended to you hasn't changed. You don't have to be the Pharisee, and you don't have to perform like him to be loved. The cross is the fixed point — for the person who feels like they're far ahead, for the person who feels like they're far behind, and for everyone in between. Stop keeping score. Fix your eyes on Christ. That's the whole thing.

For reflection

Looking back over this week, where did you most feel the pull toward comparison — and where did grace feel most real?

Pray

Pray with open hands — releasing whatever scorecard you've been holding this week, and simply receiving the grace that was always already yours.

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

One of the quieter traps in the Christian life is the one no one talks about: the mental scorecard. This message takes a hard look at how spiritual growth can quietly drift into spiritual comparison — and what it looks like to fix our eyes back on the cross.

Discussion questions

1
In Luke 18:9, Jesus directs this parable specifically at people who 'were confident in their own righteousness and looked down on others.' What does that tell us about who this parable is actually for — and why might that be an uncomfortable answer?
2
Pastor Scott pointed out that the Pharisee's fasting and tithing were genuinely good things — the problem wasn't the practices but the posture. How does keeping score change something good into something spiritually dangerous?
3
In Isaiah 6:3-5, Isaiah's response to seeing God's glory isn't pride in his own devotion — it's an immediate sense of his own smallness. What does that reaction suggest about what happens to comparison when we get a clear view of who God actually is?
4
In Galatians 2:19-20, Paul — a man who by his own account had an impressive religious résumé — says his ego is no longer driving him and he's no longer trying to impress God. How does grace produce that kind of freedom, and what might it look like for people to live that way in community?
5
Pastor Scott used the image of a pilot losing sight of the horizon — spiritual vertigo sets in when a believer takes their eyes off Christ and starts measuring against others instead. What are some of the ways that drift tends to happen, even with good intentions?
6
This message holds two things together: pursue growth relentlessly, and never graduate from grace. How might a community of people actually hold both of those at the same time — without collapsing into either complacency or comparison?

Pray together

Gratitude for a grace that is not the starting line we leave behind, and an honest ask for eyes fixed on Christ rather than on the scorecard

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Topics

Eyes on Christ Grace Over Performance Pharisee and Tax Collector Spiritual Comparison Spiritual Pride

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