Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to a live recording from Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. Thanks for joining us.
Good morning, everybody. If you've been with us for the last six months or so, you'll know that we started in the Book of Luke. We went all the way through the Book of Luke immediately following Christmas, and that took us through Easter, and then we jumped into the Book of Ephesians right after that and went through that as a church, and that finished last week.
By the way, my favorite way to understand Scripture is to just start at the beginning of a passage or a scripture or a book, a letter, and go all the way through. I think it helps us read the Bible better. I think it helps us understand context and want to understand context. So we're not just pulling out our favorite little scriptures or sayings and calling that reading scripture. Instead, we're getting a better understanding of the history of God's people, our own history, as well as the nature of God. When we do that, we're taking a short break or a little break from that, and we're going to what we would call topical.
When we gather together and we start talking about teaching, we're going to go through topical questions. And that is big questions that many of you have had and have communicated to us and some that we have ourselves and want to talk through. So we're talking. We're calling these. This next section of teachings, we're calling it Big Questions, trying to answer as best we can, a lot of the big questions that we encounter as we read scripture. We simply just walk through life. And today's question, the first question is, how good is good enough? Or how do I become good enough? Or how do I receive, as you'll see in this story, the kingdom of God. And so it says in Luke, chapter 18, verse nine is where we're going to start. Says then Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else. Elbow someone next to you that has great confidence in their own righteousness and scorns everyone else.
Don't do that. That's not nice. Two men went to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee. The other one was a despised tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer. I thank you, God, that I am not like other people, cheaters, sinners, adulterers.
I'm certainly not like that tax collector.
I fast twice a week and I give you a tenth of my income.
The tax collector who stood at a distance and dared not even Lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed, and instead he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, oh, God, be merciful on me, for I am a sinner, sinner. I tell you, the sinner, not the Pharisee, return home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. He tells this parable about humility. And then there's an expression of this humility as Jesus encounters some children in the passage following this, and he embraces them as other people are trying to keep the children who are considered less than away.
And Jesus marks how they're humble and pure. Childlike faith impresses him. And then it says in verse 18, it goes on, there's another story that's connected to these other two about the rich young ruler. And it says, once a religious leader asked Jesus this question, good teacher, what should I do to inherit eternal life? Which is a question that maybe we have today. It was certainly a common question for people to ask a rabbi in order to begin conversation at the time.
He says, why do you call me good? Jesus asked him, only God is truly good. But to answer your question, you know the commandments. You must not commit adultery, you must not murder, you must not sin, steal, you must not testify falsely, honor your father and mother.
And the man replied, I've obeyed all of these commands since I was young.
And when Jesus heard this answer, he said, there's still one thing you haven't done. Go sell all your possessions, give your money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and then come and follow me.
When the man heard this, he became very sad, for he was very rich. When Jesus saw this, he said, how hard it is for the rich to enter into the kingdom of God. In fact, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter into the kingdom of God. And when those who heard this said, this is Jesus looking up and acknowledging the rest of the crowd, that's actually really sad. Just like the ruler was says, then who in the world can be saved? Says the crowd, he replied, what is impossible for people is. Is possible for God.
Peter said, we left our homes to follow you. Yes, Jesus replied, and I assure you that everyone who has given up house or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will be repaid many times over in this life. And we'll have eternal life in the world to come.
Let's pray. Father God, we pray for your guidance. And wisdom as always as we gather together here under your scripture and your word. Lord, I pray that we would feel welcomed into this space with all of our questions and our wonderings.
And I pray that we wouldn't feel a sense of shame by the doubt that we have or the questions that we bring to the table. Instead, I pray that we would acknowledge and see that this is actually part of this journey with you.
That as we ask these questions, I pray that we would remain humble and sensitive to your spirit. That we would see your character, your true self and character in this place. In Jesus name, Amen.
Amen. We live in a world that loves fairness. We love it when our effort then equals a certain result.
We like it when the math works out this way. It allows us to feel justified. It feels like justice is served. But this can. This kind of thought can also create an interesting relationship with religion or with God.
I grew up in a pastor's house, like I said, and somewhere along the way, I don't think I was taught anything like this in church or by my parents or anything like that. But somewhere along the way, I created in myself the idea that my dog would live longer if I behaved well.
And so we had this golden retriever named cedar, who's probably 12 years old at the time and 12 older for a golden retriever. And she's going through all these different fits and starts when it comes to her health. And sometimes she's slipping on the linoleum floor and sometimes she's not as responsive or hearing as well as you might think. And every single time I am clocking these different health ailments in my dog Cedar, I am thinking, this is my fault, I have done something wrong as a 10 year old kid, an 11 year old kid, a 12 year old kid. And if I can behave, if I can listen, if I can be obedient, if I can do what God is asking me to do, my dog won't die.
This is the words of a crazy little child. Okay, I know it doesn't make any sense. I know it sounds weird, but maybe you've had this experience as well where you're saying, if I am successful, if I listen, if I discover the will of God for my life, then everything will work out right.
My kids will turn out right, my job will turn out right, I'll make the right amount of money, I'll find success, I'll feel fulfilled, I'll feel like I've received purpose in the way that I have intended to feel. But here is the problem is that once we start saying good people go to heaven or good people inherit the kingdom of God, or if I'm a good person, I will go to heaven. Once we start doing this, we enter into an interesting conversation about the word good.
What does good mean?
How is it defined exactly? If we can define good properly, how good do we need to be? 70% good, 60% good? Is goodness really only relative to the people around us?
Do we need to be better than the Nazis? And then we go to heaven, and that's the standard. It's kind of a low bar.
Do we need to really excel? Do we need to be Mother Teresa level, like boss level good in order to make it to heaven? Maybe heaven's smaller than I think. Maybe it's bigger than I think.
We have all these questions. You have to consider a couple things. You have to consider exactly like I said, what is the definition of good, which is hard for all of us to define, and we would have different definitions. And then you have to consider who's even the judge and who is making the decision on who or what is good. I was listening to some friends have a conversation about the five greatest basketball players in NBA history the other day, which, by the way, these conversations never end without a pretty substantial amount of passion somewhere toward the end.
And even as a kid, I was brought into this culture where you argue over sports. One of the only fights I got into as a kid was over whether or not Shawn Kemp was better for the Seattle SuperSonics or Shaquille O' Neal was better for the Orlando Magic. At the time, my friend Eric Thompson took the side of Shaq, and I took the side of Shawn Kemp. He was right in the long term, of course, but at the time, he did debate. We got in a fist fight over it on the playground. This is how important this stuff is.
[00:08:34] Speaker B: And, you know, we're judging and we're.
[00:08:36] Speaker A: Deciding based on all these different things. And I'm listening to my friends kind of recreate this idea just the other day, and we're talking about the top five. And somebody mentions Michael Jordan as LeBron James, and where does Kareem Abdul Jabbar? And then somebody mentions Larry Bird? And the other guy goes, larry Bird. He makes that face.
Magic Johnson.
[00:08:58] Speaker B: And I'm listening to this, and I'm going, I don't want to live in a world in which Larry Bird gets that face.
Magic Johnson's amazing.
These are some of the greatest athletes that have ever lived. And now I'm standing at a baseball field with a few Overweight white guys who play, play open gyms.
They ended up getting Larry Bird.
I'm like, no, come on.
If you play like him and you're as legendary as him and Magic John, these guys, these names, and that is what you get on the other end of this unbelievable career, then what on.
[00:09:39] Speaker A: Earth is my life going to amount to?
Well, you know, great preachers, you know Ben Fleming, you heard that guy, he's on like a 10 minute introduction right now.
So who is defining what is good and what is not? Right? Watching these guys define it, and I'm having a hard time understanding it. Who's the judge?
Exactly?
A lot of times we give this piece of our lives, a measure of our goodness to unreliable judges.
One of those unreliable judges can be ourselves.
Sometimes those unreliable judges are people that we have allowed to have authority in our lives that should have never had authority in the first place.
They hold us to ridiculous standards without what Jesus brings into our life. And that is a gift, and that is the gift of grace.
Andy Stanley, the author of a book that's actually called How Good Is Good Enough, which a lot of this message is based on, he points out that no one can really answer this idea of goodness definitively because the idea that good people go to heaven sounds nice, but it's not really found in scripture.
You can hunt all you want, but you won't find it in the Bible.
What you can find in the Bible in Romans chapter 3 and verse 10 is you can find a phrase that says, there's no one righteous, not even 1, Romans 3. 23.
A few passages later says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Which leads us to believe that God's standard isn't relative. It's not better than most. It's not, can I just be better or eke myself out over the worst dictators that have ever existed.
Instead, God's standard is perfection.
It's holiness.
And no one, no matter how well behaved or generous or glorious or successful, meets that standard.
If we rely on our own goodness, we're left with a couple different destinations that I believe that God has not intended for our lives.
We're either headed for pride, like the Pharisee that we read about in Luke chapter 18 to begin this message, or despair, like the rich young ruler at the end of the passage.
Both come to the table with this idea that they have achieved a certain level of goodness.
Jesus confronts the very idea that good people can then earn or curry God's favor. The Pharisee is religious and disciplined and moral, Also deeply proud, considers himself to be set apart from the rest of the world and the people in it.
But then we have the tax collector as a juxtaposition who is morally bankrupt.
To the people who are listening to Jesus parable, this is someone who is a traitor that has given up his own people for the sake of money, has stolen from them, is morally bankrupt, but throws himself on the mercy of God.
And then Jesus says, of course it's the tax collector who goes justified, not the Pharisee. Why?
Because entry into God's kingdom is not earned. Instead, it's received.
It's not through goodness that we see this, but instead it's through grace.
Now, this is interesting because this is where Christianity stands apart from a lot of other belief systems, you know, or religions even, or kind of humanism. It stands against the current cultural context, right? That tells us in just about every way, shape and form, whether it's school or athletics or in our job performance, that you need to try harder and you need to be better, and then you need to earn it, and then you'll get the promotion, you'll get better, you'll do, you know, all these things. And by the way, I want to invite you in to that. In your own life, in your own job, in your school. I hope you excel, I hope you try.
I hope you give yourself over to the vulnerability of trying everything that you can to excel or to win. I think there's something beautiful and wonderful and very Jesus in the middle of all those things. I gotta tell you, when my son wants to get better at a sport, I don't look at him and go, you know, it'll all take care of itself. I go, well, here's how you train, here's how you get better, here's how you learn the game, here's ways that you can get stronger and faster.
But this is another reason why our faith, when it's done well, and why I think so many people in the Christian faith have a tendency to drift, is because this concept of grace is so hard and so unlike anything we experience in our life. And that is by design.
Jesus is saying, I know how the world works. I know how you set up your structure for value, the currency in your social order. I know how it works. I understand that hard work pays off. I understand that if you give everything into one thing, you should be able to reap the rewards and the benefits. But here is one thing, is that you cannot possibly try harder your way into heaven or into righteousness or into Perfection. Because I've seen you, says God.
I know your ways.
I know that you fall short every single time because the standard is so unbelievably and ridiculously high.
And so while many other belief systems and ways and even our own human nature says, try harder, be better, and earn it, Jesus then comes along and says, you can't possibly earn it, but I did it for you.
The work is already done for you.
You didn't deserve it, and while you were sinners, I did that for you. On the cross, Jesus bore the punishment our sins deserved, and he lived the perfect life that we couldn't. And then he offered up this perfection, affection, as a gift to those who do not deserve it.
You know, it makes sense that it's on Father's Day because, you know, this is a little bit like life, parenting with a small child.
My kids are 10 and 8. They are older and more responsible and more interesting to talk to than they have ever been. And I still have not seen a rent check, not a single time.
And yet my son still reclines on the couch and says, I would like a Fresca, please, and sausage and Cheetos.
I call you little.
My kids have not earned a single ounce in the traditional way of food or of clothing or a place to stay.
But of course, a good father, and in my case a very imperfect one, goes out of his way to give children something that they haven't earned yet simply because we share the same last name.
My only motivation to continue to love and to care for these kids is that they belong to me. And thus I feel as though I belong to them.
The same is true for the good Father that is God, that sees all of our insufficiencies and how we fall short and insists on lavishing grace on us, not because we have gone out of our way to earn it. And we've said all the right things and done all the right things in the right moment and we've prayed the right prayers, but it's. But instead, instead of checking boxes, we simply belong to him because he has chosen us and loves us.
Heaven isn't a reward for the righteous, it's a gift for the guilty who trust in Christ.
Now remember in Ephesians 2, we weren't there too long ago says, for it is by grace you've been saved through faith. It's not from yourselves. It's the gift of God and not by works so that anyone can boast.
The apostle Paul, in his writing to the Ephesians, removes the temptation for self righteous to say that I have done so well and earned so much that now God loves me and he even loves me more than you. That is not the intention, because this grace does not come through anything other than a simple faith and willingness to throw ourselves at the feet of Jesus to receive his mercy.
So what does this mean for you?
It means you can stop trying to earn it.
If you're exhausting yourself trying to be good enough for God, hear this. You don't have to be because Jesus is.
It means you can start trusting Jesus and not yourself.
Admit your need like the tax collector and say, God have mercy on me, for I am a sinner.
Often we need to get used to praying in that way.
It can be tempting to try to have all the right requests stated in the right way when it comes to prayer, but often the best prayer is to simply bow at the feet of Jesus and say, I do not know what to do next.
I don't know how I got here, but I know I need you.
And finally live a changed life. Live from this place of grace, and then see what happens.
Live as someone that is confident in the end of your story that while grace exists here and now, it will exist for all eternity.
I find this often to be evidenced in people that have already accomplished the thing that I want to accomplish.
I remember talking to people that had been married for 50 years, you know, before I had found someone that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. And you'd ask them the question, and then the response was always completely maddening to me.
Say, 50 years. What would you do if you could go back and you'd be in my shoes? And they'd say something like, I would worry a whole lot less.
And I'm like, oh, what?
Yeah, it's all going to be taken care of. It's going to happen for you.
That's a desire of your heart. And I look at them and I say, easy to say for someone who's already there on the other end.
You listen to pro athletes sometimes say, kids just need to play more, a little bit more Wiffle ball. That's how they train and they get better. I'm like, easy for someone to say, has made $50 million doing the thing already.
But they speak from this perspective and this understanding, knowing the end of their story.
And so there's so much confidence in that way. I wonder what it would look like if the church lived and cared for and loved itself and the community around it in a way, knowing that we have already received the grace of God and that we can't earn more.
We're not trying to build up storehouses of grace in this place so that we can save it for a rainy day for ourselves. Instead, we live in this understanding of this lavish love of God that we can't possibly earn anymore, but we can't effort our way into it. And so, because we have received this grace, we're now confident in loving the unlovable people around us. We're confident in giving away resources in ways that some may deem irresponsible. But we do it so that the broken and the hurting of the community can have a way of living that they don't currently have.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: We live in a way that looks extravagant and ridiculous and crazy in light.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: Of the grace of Jesus because we know the end of the story. And that is, we will not be forsaken and left behind and left to our own devices, suffering under the weight of our sin. Instead, we receive the grace of Jesus and we live confidently from that grace.
That is the job of the church.
We're not protective and inward and frightened and scared. We are confident in the grace and love of Jesus.
So we live changed from that place, not hoping then to get there. Instead, we live from that changed place of grace.
Grace doesn't excuse sin, but it transforms our hearts. And we obey not to be saved, but it's simply because we are saved. We are already who we are in that moment.
So how good is good enough?
Do you wake up every day with this sense of shame? Feeling like you need to earn it all over again?
Sometimes this cycle of shame or trying to be good enough can look a little bit like the movie Groundhog Day of some of you. You seen this before?
Or Bill Murray, the main character wakes up every day and it's the same day. It's February 2nd all over again. And he goes to this journey through cynicism and joy and laughter and pain, and living this day over and over and over again, feeling like nothing mattered the day before. Instead, the clock starts again. How good can I be if that's you? And you wake up with that sense of dread, needing to accomplish and check the boxes every time you go to church. You feel good for a little while and justified for a little while, but the effect wears off.
Gotta go back and pay our dues again.
I want to encourage you that that's not how grace works.
The grace that you have today is the grace that you will have forever because it turns out that you're not good enough.
Jesus, standard and way has made that clear.
But the good news is that Jesus is good enough.
Because of him, you don't have to wonder where you stand with God.
We can know with confidence that we're forgiven and we're loved and we're safe and secure.
So I want to encourage you to stop asking the question, am I good enough? And continue to ask the question, have I given myself over to the one who is good enough?
