GOOD ENOUGH?
Can you think of a time when you weren’t good enough? Maybe it was the time you went out for the basketball team in high school. You worked hard. Attended sports camp in the summer. Practiced at the park every night. You thought you had a shot to make the cut. But when the team roster was posted, your name wasn’t among the players. “Sorry,“ said the coach, “but you weren’t quite good enough.“
Or maybe it was the time you applied for that scholarship to a top flight university. Your grades were solid. Your test scores were more than decent. You had quite a few extra—curricular activities listed on your application. You thought that your favorite teacher had written a wonderful letter of recommendation. But when the response arrived from the university, and you tore open the envelope, the letter inside began: “We regret to inform you . . .“ Others had squeezed their way to the front of the line and grabbed the money. You threw the letter in the trashing thinking to yourself, “I wasn’t good enough.“
Or maybe it was the job of your dreams. You wrote a great letter of application. You thought the interviews went well. But then the waiting started, and the longer you waited, the less optimistic you became. At least the company had the decency to give you a phone call rather than just send you an e—mail. “We really appreciated your interest,“ said the interviewer when he called, ?but we had a lot of great candidates. I’m sorry to inform you that the position has been filled.“ Of course, you weren’t suppose to think it. But as you hung up the phone, you thought to yourself: “I’m not good enough.“
Odd. It seems that we spend much of our lives comparing ourselves to other people. And deciding whether we measure up. Deciding whether we make the grade. We spend a lot time wondering whether we are “good enough.“ Often with rather negative conclusions.
“Good enough.“ How about in matters between you and God. Are you ?good enough?“—good enough for God?
Perhaps you say: “What a question! It’s a question I don’t even want to think about. How am I to know whether I’m good enough for God?“ But then again, maybe the question doesn’t throw you. You say to me: “I’m a good person. My life is as decent as the guy next to me on the bus. If God puts my deeds in the balance, I’ve done as many good things as bad. I guess—I hope—I’m good enough for God.“
OUR PAINFUL PAST But do you really believe that—down deep? In his book, The Kiterunner, Khaled Hosseini tells the story of a young Afghan boy, Amir. Amir has a secret. A terrible little secret about his past. It is a secret of betrayal. It happened in a moment of weakness, when his courage failed him. It is a betrayal that he has tried to rationalize away. But he can’t do it. His nasty little secret sticks with him down through the years. There is a blot on his soul that he can’t wash away.
Amir is someone ashamed of his past. And the truth is, many of us know such shame too. Oh, we bluster. “I guess I’m good enough for God,“ we say. But down deep we know that we are just talking tough. There are sins in my life and yours that would shame hell. There are memories that just wouldn’t disappear with the passing of time. Down deep, we know we’ve messed up bad. Down deep, we are certain that when it comes to God, there is no reason to think that we can make the cut.
I find that many people who identify themselves as Christians struggle with such feelings. Oh, I know that Christians should know better than to look at their own lives to determine whether they are good enough for God. Still, old habits die hard. Our pride wants us to make it with God on our own merit.
Is that what you want? Let me ask you a question: “If you are a Christian, do you ENJOY that identity?“ I mean that seriously. If you are a Christian, do you ENJOY your faith?
I am sure that there are some who are listening today who are going to say to me—Enjoy the Christian faith? Of course I don’t enjoy my faith. Christianity isn’t meant to be enjoyed, is it? Frankly, you say to me, I find religion something to be endured—it’s a burden. It’s a load to be carried. In fact, being a Christian is so demanding that it sucks the joy out of my life. For me Christianity always means doing more, achieving more, ——for the bar of discipleship is so high I’ll never attain it. I just fail, fail, fail all the time.
If that is your experience when it comes to the Christian faith, let me ask you another question. Would you like to be free? Would you like to be free of the tormenting question of whether you are good enough for God?
THE LIE WE BELIEVE
If I’m describing your struggle, then it’s time for you to face the truth. The Devil is a Deceiver. And you’ve fallen for one of his major deceptions. You have come to believe that “God’s love must be earned.“ Yes, you believe that. Even if you know that you SHOULDN’T believe it, the fact is you DO believe it. And believing that lie is killing the joy and the peace that God wants you to experience in your walk with him. Let’s talk about how to leave that lie behind, right after we hear this song.
AMAZED BY GRACE
We’ve been talking of the way many of us question whether we are good enough for God. We’ve been talking about our attempts to earn our way into God’s favor. And we’ve decided that no matter how hard we run, no matter how high we jump, we aren’t going to measure up to God’s standards. That really shouldn’t surprise us. For the Scriptures say in Romans
Yes, all of us. If we are honest with ourselves, far from measuring up to God’s standards, we don’t even measure up to our own. So what are we to do? Well, there is a truth that answers the Devil’s lie. It is the truth about GRACE.
What is grace? Well, just the opposite of getting what you deserve, grace is getting what you DON’T deserve. Grace is feeling God’s smile when you deserve God’s frown. Grace is receiving God’s love when you should be on the receiving end of God’s judgment. Grace is divine favor that you had no right to, no claim to.
Now, for those of us who have hung around religious circles for some time, the word grace isn’t exactly new. In fact, you’ve just heard sung the most popular hymn of all time. It’s a hymn written by an old slave trader named John Newton. His song, “Amazing Grace“ is the story of his own personal journey with God. It’s also been the story of millions of others. That is why it is the best loved hymn of all time.
And the fact is, people have been singing about grace, they’ve been celebrating grace, long before John Newton wrote that hymn back in the 1760’s. People have been amazed by grace for thousands of years. But here is the problem. People also have had a hard time BELIEVING that GRACE is real.
OUR HANGUPS WITH GRACE
Now why is that so? Why do we have such a hard time with grace? Maybe because grace is a shock to our religious sensibilities. Frankly, we’ve got some serious hang—ups about grace that we are going to have to work through if we are going to think straight about these things.
You see, GRACE is foreign to our fallen human natures. It really is. GRACE is not the natural way things work in a bent world. Just read the papers and you will see that the state of things is what you might call the state of UNGRACE.
Why does ethnic violence drag on for years—even decades—in so many parts of the world? Because both sides are looking to get in the last word. No one wants to break the cycle of revenge. For to break the cycle will take GRACE. You kill my friend, I will kill your friend—and maybe one or two more, just to show you who’s in charge. This senseless violence is fed on what we might call a state of UNGRACE.
But UNGRACE isn’t just found in countries with histories of war. UNGRACE is the state in which you find many of our personal relationships.
Consider what happened some years ago, when eight scientists underwent a two—year isolation experiment in a biosphere in Arizona. All were accomplished scientists. They had undergone rigorous psychological testing. They had been prepared in every way possible. All entered knowing the challenges. But within a matter of months, the bio—nauts, as they were called, split into two warring groups of four, and spent the last months of the experiment refusing to speak to each other. They lived in a state of un—grace.
We swim in a world of such UNGRACE that we just assume this is the way things are. It’s been that way since the fall. After all, people just don’t forgive each other naturally. They don’t let grudges go. As much as grace is a beautiful thing, most people think grace is just too otherworldly to make it in our society. And so the suggestion that God operates on the basis of grace cuts against the grain. In fact, let’s be honest. To sinful people for whom un—grace looks normal, grace in contrast looks so, well, unfair. Yes, that’s the word for it: unfair. Many of us have a problem with grace because it’s unfair.
Let me illustrate by telling you the story of Jeffrey Dahmer. Perhaps the name is familiar to you. Jeffrey Dahmer was a well—publicized mass murderer. He killed 17 young men. If that wasn’t bad enough, he cannibalized them. When interviewed after his arrest, he admitted that he had no reason for doing what he did. He just got into random acts of violence. Little acts of evil led to greater acts of evil, and finally to murder and worse. Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to life in prison. After a number of years behind bars, Dahmer was beaten to death by another inmate with a broom handle.
Now, some months before Dahmer was killed, Dahmer became a Christian. In an interview taped several weeks before his death, Dahmer said that he had been baptized and since then, spent all his time reading religious material. The chaplain of the prison affirmed that Dahmer was one of his most faithful worshippers.
Now, I realize some people ?get religion’ in prison for less than noble reasons. It is God alone who knows the true integrity of our faith. But what I want to point out is that when people heard about Dahmer’s conversion, many were not pleased. In fact, they hoped that Dahmer’s conversion WASN’T genuine. And why? Because most people believe a person should be forgiven by God only if he deserves it.
And now we have come to the nub of the problem. At its heart, grace is a scandal. Yes, a scandal. GRACE seems so UNFAIR. It is UNFAIR that a Jeffrey Dahmer shouldn’t face the fires of hell for what he did. Grace messes up our sense of justice. It messes up our sense of fair play. We have no intention of bringing the word grace even near to someone who commits heinous crimes. For what if—what if—grace allows them to miss out on their just desserts——dodge the bullet of divine justice.
And so we will attempt to——let’s admit it—IMPROVE upon grace. We will get rid of its embarrassing edges. We will make GRACE for nice, people, good people, people like us. We will make grace for people who EARN IT! Yes—down deep we say, that’s the way it should be—GOD’S GRACE WILL BE EARNED—it’s the only way to keep riff—raft out the kingdom of God! Who wants to get assigned their heavenly mansion and discover that they are living next door to a former rapist, or murderer, or extortionist who stumbled into grace. Why, there would go the neighborhood! Yes, we will keep grace for people who deserve it! We will save God from his rather extreme redemption program. God, you can’t mean this! You can’t really mean to offer a gospel of grace. Lord, we will save you from yourself!
And what do we find? That in our effort to improve upon grace—we have destroyed it.
THE WAY GOD WORKS
Could it be that this strange, unfair way of grace is God’s mode of operations? Could it be this way of working, which is so strange to us, is not strange to God? Well, check out the words of Paul in Romans, chapter 4. There Paul takes up the ultimate case study of a man of God—a man by the name of Abraham. Now Abraham is the spiritual father of us all. It would make sense, then, to think that Abraham gives us a clear idea of what it takes to be ?good enough’ for God.
Now the truth is, Abraham did quite a few notably good things. He heeded God’s voice and journeyed to the land God showed him. He rescued his nephew Lot from sure death in the city of Sodom. He offered significant gifts to the high priest Melchizedek. Abraham did a lot of great things. There were folks around in Paul’s day who said it was those good things that made Abraham right with God.
But the truth is, Abraham also messed up a lot. He tried to save his own skin by offering his wife to Pharoah as an addition to Pharoah’s harem. He tried to take the promises of God into his own hands by taking a servant as a second wife, with the result that he made a mess of his family life. When you get down to it, not even Abraham, that father of believers, was ?good enough’ for God.
So how did Abraham sustain a relationship with God? Well, Paul says, Abraham’s relationship with God was based on the grace——divine grace—amazing grace—that Abraham received in faith.
You say to Paul: “That’s it?“ “That’s it,“ says Paul. “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.“ Abraham trusted a promise that came by sheer GRACE, and he took his place as God’s child! And anything that Abraham DID was in RESPONSE to the promise. Obedience flowed from the grace—not the other way around.
And if that is true of Abraham, the Father of all believers, then it is also true for us, Then this way of being right with God through grace, by faith, must be open to everyone. It doesn’t matter your nationality, your social status, your reputation—or how good you are, or how badly you’ve messed up. If those things mattered, then grace is no longer grace!
It is amazing grace that saves us: grace that God displayed on a cross at Calvary. Grace ultimately displayed in a Savior who gave his life for people who were still on the run from God. Listen——Paul announces in Romans 5:8, “God demonstrated his own love for us in this: While were still sinners, Christ died for us.“ God didn’t wait until we were ?good enough.’ While we were still enemies of God, writes Paul, Christ reconciled us to himself.
That humbles us. For that cuts from under us any hope that we can save ourselves. God’s scandalous grace—his amazing grace—is our only hope.
GRACE TO FACE OURSELVES—AND OUR GOD
Not long ago the pastor of a church in out—state New York contracted cancer. It isn’t unusual for pastors to develop cancer. But Jim Van Tholen was only in his mid thirties when he was struck by a very aggressive cancer that put him out of the pulpit for several months. The chemotherapy treatments were only partially successful. When Jim returned to the pulpit, he knew that his condition was terminal.
His first sermon back was entitled “Surprised by Death.“ In that sermon, Jim said he was scared. Not of the cancer really. Not even of death. No, Jim said, his real fear was meeting God. Now, why would it be scary for a preacher to meet God? Because of what Jim called the ?grace scandal. The scandal of grace says there is nothing that I can DO to get right with God. The scandal of grace says that God’s love CANNOT be earned. No, not even by a preacher. Not even going to seminary and pastoring churches can make you right with God. Not even having a Reverend in front of your name means you earn a passing grade with God.
Jim said, I thought I had years before I was to meet God. I don’t. I have months. I will meet God not later, but sooner. And I don’t have enough time to undo my wrongs, and straighten out what’s crooked, and clean up my life. No, he said, for the first time in my life, I need to preach GRACE and not only believe it but rest in it, depend on it, stake my life on it.
Jim staked his life not upon his calling, not upon his sacrifice, not upon his good deeds. But upon the grace of God. Jim had no choice.
And neither do we. For as Jim said before he died, “the grace of Jesus Christ carries us beyond every cancer, every divorce, every sin, every trouble that comes to us.“
Good enough for God?
I’m not. And you aren’t. And we never will be.
But that doesn’t matter.
Not to God.
Not in a world where GRACE gets the last word.
Amen
Amen:
Prayer
Our Father, ”Nothing in our hands we bring, only to your cross we cling.” Many of us have sung those words. Help us to believe them. Grace is what we need. Grace is what you show us in your Son. May we be held in the grip of grace as we trust the strong work of our Savior. Amen
Robert Heerspink
Rev. Robert Heerspink is a native of west Michigan. He completed his undergraduate studies at Calvin College and holds the degrees of Master of Divinity and Master of Theology from Calvin Theological Seminary. He has also received a Doctor of Ministry degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Bob was ordained a minister of the Word in the Christian Reformed Church of North America in 1979, and has 26 years of parish experience, having served four churches throughout west Michigan. He was appointed the Director of The Back to God Hour in 2006. Bob has written several resources related to congregational stewardship, including the book, Becoming a Firstfruits Congregation. He is a regular contributor to TODAY, the monthly devotional of The Back to God Hour. Bob is married to Edith (Miedema) and they have three children. His hobbies include reading fictional and historical works, watersports, and occassional golfing.
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