Another fantastic night in Surge as we continued our discussion on Salvation by asking the question "Why isn't being 'good' good enough?". After all, we're pretty good people here in Surge. So I started by getting them to stand up and move to a spot on an invisible scale between 1 and 10 to show where they felt they were on the "good" chart. Most of them rated themselves between “9” and “6”, which by the standards society uses, would be pretty accurate.
But let’s get into the Word and see what God says. We started in Psalm 14:2-3. Here we read David telling us about God looking down from heaven - looking for anyone who understands and trusts Him - but that all have turned away and all are evil. In the NIrV he uses the word "all" 4 times and the results are bad. No one does anything good. Not one. Yikes! But maybe David is just having a bad day. Just to be on the safe side, we flipped to Matthew 19:16-17. Here we see the rich young ruler asking Jesus what “good things” he must do to receive eternal life. Jesus replies that nothing is good. Only God is good. The son of God is saying that nothing is good, except God. So if the standard for good is equal to God, then it is easy to see why David says that none of us are good.
But why stop there? Isaiah 64:6 says that we have all become like someone who is "unclean" to God. We didn't get completely into the Old Testament laws (specifically the lists like what we see in Leviticus chapter 15) regarding "unclean" but we did at least talk enough about it to get the gist of what Isaiah is talking about. Then he talks about how the good things that we do are like "filthy rags" to God.
Parent Note: The most accurate translation for "filthy rags" relates to menstrual cloths. And while I personally hate it when people dilute the Word, there is a time and place for everything. A mixed-gender, 4th and 5th grade class is not the place to bring up something that is going to embarrass them or introduce something their parents haven't had the chance to discuss first. To that end, the wording that I used was vague enough that the kids who had no clue, still have no clue, but those who do know could read between the lines and understand what Isaiah was referencing. While even bringing it up might seem unnecessary, I think it is important to distinguish just how gross our best efforts are to a holy God. This isn't the rag you wash your car with or dirty socks gross... this is a used sanitary pad gross.
Isaiah goes on to say that we are like dried up leaves. We don't even choose what we do or where we go, but rather, sin just blows us around and we are helpless against it. This paints a very good picture of how sin works in our life. We stopped and referenced what we talked about last week regarding our sin nature. I also talked about how - as sinful, fallen creatures - we tend toward sin even when we want to do what is right. When we make choices, they are based almost entirely on the reward/punishment system. Our "goodness" isn't so much good as it is either seeking to gain reward or to avoid punishment. We are conditioned that way. So even our best effort fall short and gross out God.
Paul takes this one step further in Philippians 3:8 when he says that, compared to God, everything is garbage. I love the King James Version of this as it is actually translated to "dung" and some commentaries would even go so far as to describe it as another 4-letter word. The point is the same no matter how the word is translated. Not only our actions but everything in this world is worthless compared to the treasure of God. Nothing is good. Only God is good.
Pretty depressing, huh?
So basically, we are all bad and there is nothing good. What are we supposed to do? Even our best efforts disgust God. What chance do we have of being righteous? We then flipped to Romans 3:21-28. Here, Paul gives us some hope. He tells us how to become right with God. And the shocker is... it has nothing to do with being good. It has nothing to do with following rules or obeying God's Law. It is all completely reliant on our faith in His grace. Nothing we can do is going to be “good enough” but God did something for us - a gift that we haven’t earned - that gives us a way out of sin. Through the blood of His son, Jesus, we have a way to be reconciled with God.
So, does that mean we can do anything we want since following the rules don’t matter? We brought up our dot and line examples of justification and sanctification that we talked about last week. The rules, the Law, being good; none of those matter as it relates to justification. Nothing but faith in God’s grace can save us, or justify us, from our sins. However, while God did give us the Law so that “sin would increase”, He also uses the rules to help guide us in being more Christ-like in our process of sanctification. So while following the rules can’t save us, it can make us more like Jesus. And when we do that, we reflect Jesus to those around us as witnesses to his grace.
Hebrews 11:6 wraps it up perfectly. Without faith, there is no way to make God happy. No matter how many nice things you say, no matter how many homeless people you feed or how much money you give to the church, no matter how polite you are or how many rules you follow, it doesn't please God. The only way is through faith. Ephesians 2:8-9 says that nothing you do can save you. It is all through God's grace because of our faith in Christ. It is a gift. You cannot earn it. And because of that, no one can brag about how good they are. We're all bad. It's only when we've been redeemed that we can be good enough for a holy God.
So where does that leave us? I had the kids get back up and re-vote at the end of class to see if they had changed their ideas about where they fall on the 1 to 10, bad to good scale. The vast majority of them went to the “1 spot”. I tried to explain that “1” was equal to the worst people, like murderers and criminals. They wouldn't move. They understood that their sins set them apart and make them as filthy as the worst of what society labels "bad". But we didn't stop there. I told them that while it is important to understand our place as sinful creatures, that as Christians, we are new creations. Through our faith in God's grace, our sins have been covered. They are no longer held against us. God sees us through the filter of Jesus. Our sins have been remove and we are clean in God's eyes - not because of anything we have done - but because of what Jesus did for us. With that being said, I had them all move over to the “10 spot”. We can't brag. Our best isn't good enough. But we can celebrate the fact that God's grace covers a multitude of sin. And that is the only thing that is good enough to matter.
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