When being good is not good enough

Transcription

1 When being good is not good enough Bible Readings Self righteousness is no righteousness Morning Worship, Lord s Day 26 July 2009, 9.30am New Testament: Philippians 3:1 11, 1Timothy 1:12 17 Hymns/Songs Main Points 1. Approach: God the Lord is King 2. Forgiveness of sins: Today your mercy calls us 3. Thanksgiving: Breathe on me, Breath of God 4. Response: Marvellous grace 1. Introduction is grace unfair? 2. A very difficult matter for those who are good people 3. The good apostle a. He received the sign of God s covenant b. He was of the people of Israel c. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews d. He was a Pharisee e. He had a zeal for pure theology f. He was lost 4. All things lost its value when he discovered the righteousness of Christ 5. A good man saved as being bad 6. Conclusion Rev D. Rudi Schwartz 1 1. Introduction is grace unfair? My dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, the last two weeks we heard the Word of God as it speaks about the grace of God towards the undeserving sinner. We looked at the life of the godless Ahab and how God time and again dealt with him and showed him mercy. He rejected it and died in sin, without hope. And perhaps we sighed: he got what he deserved! Last week we heard about the grace of God in the life of the sinner of sinners: Manasseh, a king described as the worst of them all. We heard about all his detestable sins and how he led the people of God astray to worship idols which he erected in the temple of the living 1 Feel free to copy, quote or duplicate this document.

2 When being good is not good enough 2 God. He ended up in Babylon with a hook in his nose and chains on his angles. And here we sighed too: he got what he deserved; what a pig of a man! But then, perhaps not according to our expectation, he turned to God, heartily confessed his sins, and received forgiveness of God, who restored him as king. We sometimes fell like the labourers who were hired to work in the vineyard. They agreed to work for a sum and some began early in the morning, working hard all day long. Then they noticed that the owner of the place kept hiring people, paying them the same as what they originally agreed upon, even for half a day s work. To top it off, there was a fellow who waltzed it an hour before knock off, and he got the same wage as those who worked all day long. Hot under the collar they argued with the owner of the vineyard that they were treated unfairly! The owner answered: Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous? (Matthew 20:13 15) Today the Word comes to us to show us that good people need salvation too. See, being good is not good enough to inherit eternal life. 2. A very difficult matter for those who are good people The young rich ruler, a man who ostensibly had it all, came up to Jesus and asked what he should do in order to be saved. Jesus told him to go away, sell all his things and give it to the poor, and then come and follow Jesus. Although this man had followed the Law in all its detail since his youth, he walked away from the Saviour, lost for all eternity. He was, in his own eyes, too good to be saved. Self righteousness is the state one finds him or herself in where one looks at oneself as morally superior. It is to have the feeling that in terms of morals and spiritual achievements one has arrived. You ticked all the boxes of being good. For such persons to see the need for salvation is very difficult. They are those who constantly find excuses not to be there where the Lord wants them, for they are busy with other things. Like in the parable of the man who invited all the important guests to his banquet. One bought a pair of oxen and had to try it out. The other bought a piece of land and had to go and have a look at it. The other just got married and had to spend time with his bride. They asked to be excused in spite of the fact that they knew the time and date of the banquet. They did not get a place in the banquet hall in the end, but others, the lame and the sick, and the crippled and the blind got the opportunity to sit at the table of the master. They got it because of the grace and mercy of the one who invited them; they deserved noting and just could not believe it when the servants of the master called them into the banquet hall. But one of the crippled and the blind and the sick slipped into the hall without the robe provided for the guests. And like the original guests he was thrown out and could not attend the banquet.

3 When being good is not good enough 3 Here we have the good and the ugly and the bad. The self righteous did not get in but the bad did not get in either. What is the similarity here? Both tried by their own standards. It is possible for the good to be too good to be bad enough to be saved. But it is also possible for the bad to think he is so bad that he can get it on his own terms. After all, God loves sinners; therefore God has to love me, irrespective! But what the Bible teaches is that both good and bad need to be clothed with the righteousness provided by Christ. God does not look at our good works to save us; that would be an offense to the cross of Christ, as if the cross of Christ was in some way or to some degree enough to purchase our salvation. It is the righteousness of Christ alone, or nothing! This is a difficult thing for many Christians. We are talking about the ones who never openly committed grievous sins, or openly offended anyone in society. Because they are such good people, they argue that they have a better chance to be saved. For God to just get the sinner in at the last moment after they have given their whole life in being good is just unfair. Roman theology of good works as part of God s infused grace corrupted the theology of grace and spurred our society on to believe that being god will count towards being saved when Jesus comes back again. This is not what the Bible teaches. 3. The good apostle We need to look at the life of the apostle Paul to understand this truth from the Bible. a. He received the sign of God s covenant In Philippians 3 Paul gives us an inventory of the things he could regard as good things which might give him a place in heaven. And indeed, that is actually what he did for a long time in his life. Let s look at those things. He was circumcised on the eighth day. Circumcision was the Old Testament sign of God s Covenant just as baptism for the New Testament. To receive this sign is to visibly receive God s invitation to be part of his universal church as we receive Jesus Christ by faith and live a life pleasing to Him. There are how many people who are just happy that their name appears on the baptism roll of a church. There are also those who marvel in being baptised as an adult as if this would be their salvation. My brother and sister, this sign is important, but if the sign does not take you to what it signifies it is nothing. Paul refers to people who boast in circumcision only as mutilators of the body. Listen to Romans 2: He who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law? For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God. (Romans 2:27 29) In other words, no person is a Christian just because he or she is baptised. It is to be washed clean be the blood of Jesus Christ that counts, because that is what the sign signifies.

4 When being good is not good enough 4 b. He was of the people of Israel What he means is this: there were some who became Jews after they had been heathens. They were originally Greek or Babylonian. But he was of the tribe of Benjamin; he did not need to become a Jew by conversion out of some other religion. He was born into it. Like many people who were born into the Church by having good Christian parents. If this is your story, please don t stop thanking God for your parents. I was born of parents who took their baptismal vows very seriously and who made it their business that we would know the way of the Lord and walk in it. They prayed for us and with us. Even to this day this is what they do. And I can't thank God for their godly lives, example and admonition in the Lord. But this did not make me a Christian. It surely helped. The faith of my father does not make me a child of God. My personal response to the Gospel call of the Lord and personal walk before the Lord is what counts. Paul said that fact that he was born an Israelite did not give him confidence in the presence of God. c. He was a Hebrew of the Hebrews Paul said if you look at him, the way he dressed, the way he talked, the accent, the language, his customs, his diet, the whole package, you would have seen a Hebrew. In every respect of the word he was a Hebrew even to the Hebrews. He stood out even amongst his own people as someone who has achieved something more than the others. He says in Gal 1:14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions. (Galatians 1:14) d. He was a Pharisee Pharisees were more pious that the other group, the Sadducees. They were meticulous in the way they tried to live according to the Law. So good were they that they actually took the Ten Commandments and expanded it into a set of legalistic rituals which became 613 laws. They tithed, they prayed regularly, they studied the Scriptures, they helped the widow and the orphan, they visited the temple or a synagogue regularly and they fasted regularly. This is more that what the majority of us can say. Paul says he was one of them. He was a good bloke. He did not need salvation of grace. He had it all worked out: God has no option but to take him as a child because he achieved his own righteousness before God. As far as legalistic righteousness is concerned, he said, he was faultless. He was indeed a student of the renowned professor of theology, Gamaliel. Although Paul grew up in Tarsus, miles away from Jerusalm up along the northern western parts of Mediterranean Sea, he enrolled in Jerusalem in this school of Gamaliel to become one of the best. He knew the Old Testament inside out, on top of that, he could resite the laws of the Pharisees and he respected the traditions of the fathers like only a few of his days.

5 When being good is not good enough 5 But there was ultimately something missing. There was the gnawing uncertainty which robbed him his confidence before God. All these good things he did might just not be enough, what then! e. He had a zeal for pure theology When a new sect was formed, disregarding the traditions of the fathers, a group who believed in a certain Jesus who was raised from the dead, a group who did not believe in circumcision but baptism, a group who worshipped on the first day of the week rather than on the seventh, Paul made his business to protect the true faith of the Old Testament but violently apprehending people and throwing them in jail. He approved the stoning of one of them and thought nothing of it to persecute these people and even see them homeless. He testifies about himself in 1Timothy 1:12 as being violent man, a blasphemer and a persecutor. He says he came to a point in his life that he looked upon himself as the chief of all sinners. This is what this good man said about himself, even in the sight of all the good things he achieved. f. He was lost Paul said he was circumcised and yet it did not give him any confidence before God. Paul said that fact that he was born an Israelite did not give him confidence in the presence of God. Look at a man of good works. This was him! But he said this did not give him any confidence before God, although he thought so for many years. There was ultimately something missing. There was the gnawing uncertainty which robbed him his confidence before God. All these good things he did might just not be enough, what then! 4. All things lost its value when he discovered the righteousness of Christ There was this day in his life on his way to Damascus where Jesus met with him. Then, and what followed after that, made him see himself in the light of God. What counted then is not what he thought, but what God thought. The standard was the standard of God: the standard was the righteousness of Christ. He therefore says: I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith. (Philippians 3:8 9) On the road to Damascus his heart was circumcised. And all other things counted for nothing. As a matter of fact he looked at it as rubbish. Does it count to baptised and then not live as a child of God. Paul says count it as rubbish in the sight of the righteousness of Christ. Does it count to be born into a Christian family? Does it count to be good by obeying the law to the letter? If you look it as a way of gaining righteousness in order to be saved,

6 When being good is not good enough 6 better consider it as rubbish and of no value, in order to get the righteousness which is by faith in Jesus Christ. 5. A good man saved as if being bad What happened in Paul s life? He writes about it in 1Timothy: And further: the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. (1 Tim 1:14) Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life. (1 Tim 1:15 16) He needed grace and mercy. This good man needed grace and mercy. Why? In his own eyes he was good like those who deserved the invitation to the banquet; in the eyes of God he was lost, like the blind, the sick and the crippled. Was he too good? No! Was he too bad? No! What did he need? The robe of Christ s righteousness. 6. Conclusion Can anyone be too good for the kingdom of God? Surely, if we are our won measuring stick. Can we be too bad? Certainly not, just remember Manasseh. What do we need then? Christ s righteousness. This becomes yours by faith alone in Christ alone. There is no other way. Amen.