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HOW MANY COLLEGE CREDITS FOR MY OBEDIENCE? #4

A RETIREMENT FUND FILLED WITH CONFETTI

It's the Enron stock of religion: our good deeds and obedience. No matter how much of it you pile up in your spiritual 401(k) plan, it's worth absolutely zero when it comes time to retire and move into your heavenly home. It's useful for other things, but not as a passport to Paradise.

He was just a blue-collar guy who'd followed the rules his whole life. Now, when you're a pipeline operator, you don't expect that to usually be the path to millionaire-dom. But he'd worked hard, 40-hour weeks, overtime when needed, punching the clock, on time, steady on the job. What's more, he didn't jump from job to job; he was a loyal company man. For the last 15 years he'd hooked up with just one company, keeping with them from their inception the whole way, going in Monday through Friday, with the corporate logo on his plain blue denim work shirts. He'd contributed to the 401(k) plan. He'd looked forward to a few golden years now, a nice retirement. And in October of 2000, when he finally punched the clock for the last time, attended his farewell dinner, and enjoyed the toasts of all his buddies in the work force, he could anticipate enjoying some R & R with a retirement fund worth $1.3 million. Not bad for a guy in a blue denim shirt.

There was only one problem, and if you get Newsweek magazine, you saw a picture of Charles Prestwood, standing next to his work shed with a tight look of frustration on his face. Because those one million three hundred thousand dollars were in Enron stock . . . which, in just a few short months, had death-spiraled into confetti. "I feel betrayed," he told reporters. "All those dreams are gone now. I've lost everything. I'm just barely surviving."

Well, friend, our hearts go out to the thousands of people just like Charles who lost their retirements, their jobs, even their houses. But you know, it's ironic, that this photo and brief vignette about Charles Prestwood appeared in Newsweek magazine, because this is the journal that always has its "Conventional Wisdom" report, with its up- and down-arrows for the week. In that particular issue, January 21, 2002, Bush, Cheney, and the Arthur Anderson accounting firm all got big DOWNS, with the possible whiff of financial scandal in the air. But the point is this: here's a man who does everything right! He works hard. He saves. He contributes to the 401(k). He hits his 65th birthday with more than a million dollars salted away. Who could fault him? He did what he was supposed to do. But when it comes time for him — and thousands of others — to go on a cruise to the Bahamas, or to buy a new car, or to help his grandkids with college bills, and he presents those Enron stock certificates at the cash register, it's going to be hard to hear: "Sorry, friend. These are no good. They're worth nothing."

We're here in the second chapter of Ephesians, going verse by verse through this incredible letter by the apostle Paul. And even as we started, all of us knew that dead center, here in chapter two, was what is perhaps our hallmark text: the Magna Carta of the Christian Church, and most certainly of the Voice of Prophecy. In our more than 70 years of broadcasting, I've used these two verses time and time and time again . . . and before me, Pastor H. M. S. Richards, Jr. And before him, his dad, Pastor Richards, Senior. Ephesians 2:8, 9 is just the whole thing when it comes to the Christian gospel; it really is. But what does it have to do with a wiped-out Enron portfolio? Notice as we read it together:

"For it is by grace you have been saved," Paul writes, "through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God."

So far so good. Believers around the world have believed in grace, in the free gift of salvation based on the blood of Jesus shed at Calvary. But let's go on into verse nine:

"[Salvation] is the gift of God," he writes, "NOT by works, so that no one can boast."

And here's where Enron stock comes in. Because every single person born on this planet seems to move, one way or another, into a company plan, a retirement scheme where our good deeds pile up and accumulate compound interest and turn into a respectable nest egg . . . and at the end of the day, you present this bulging, in-the-black portfolio to the guardian of the gate and the keeper of the records, and you say: "Please let me into heaven. ‘Cause I've got 1.3 million dollars' worth of good deeds here." Friend, that is the basis of every one of the world's great religions — except for Christianity — and very often in the Christian faith too, we ignore Ephesians 2:8, 9 and spend a life- time buying spiritual Enron stock just like our unsaved neighbors.

And what are the Wall Street facts of the matter? The bottom line is that this particular kind of stock — as wonderful as it is for some things — has absolutely no value when it comes to getting past the gate of heaven. At that point, at that moment, the Enron stock of obedience and good deeds simply carries no currency value. It's worthless. "NOT by works," Paul says. "NOT by works. Works are great, works are good, works are important, works are necessary. But they have no value whatsoever when it's time to try to get past St. Peter at the turnstile" (to borrow that popular metaphor.)

The wonderful scholars who put together the text note study helps for the New International Version are crystal clear about this point:

"No human effort can contribute to our salvation," they write. "It is the gift of God." Then they tack on this vital P.S. "One cannot earn salvation by ‘observing the law.' Such a legalistic approach to salvation (or sanctification) is consistently condemned in Scripture."

And in case you think this is just a liberal theology from a pool of modernist Bible scholars, let's get it right from Romans 3:

"Therefore no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law."

Or Galatians 2:16:

"Know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ."

We need to emphasize, as the Bible consistently does, that obedience and good deeds are wonderful things. Paul, the writer here in Romans and Galatians and Ephesians, writes passionately about the fact that Christians uphold the law, not destroy it. Jesus Himself came to fulfill it and expand upon it and exalt it, not do away with it. The law is a wonderful tool, a helpful blueprint, a useful divine pattern. It's good for many things. The one thing it's NOT good for, though, is to be a passport on Judgment Day. Or a 401(k) retirement fund to buy a mansion on Paradise Boulevard.

I like how Eugene Peterson "translates" Ephesians 2:8, 9 in the Message paraphrase. Listen to this:

"Saving is all HIS idea, and all HIS work. All we do is trust Him enough to let Him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves." That's sobering, isn't it . . . and oh how true. "God does both the making and the saving. He creates each of us in Christ Jesus to join Him in the work He does, the good work He has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing."

It's marvelous how even this fresh, 21st-century paraphrase goes right into verse 10, where Paul says again: we're created to do good work. Jesus made us, and will help us, to do good work. We'd better be doing it. Live for God and obey Him and give Him the glory for your good deeds, as Matthew 5:16 directs us to do. But when you face God the Father on Judgment Day, only a fool is going to claim as Exhibit A his own little pile of good deeds instead of the Cross of Calvary.

Again, friend, the Christian faith proclaims the gospel of grace. We know Ephesians 2 is there. And yet, it is part of the human condition, the sinful, fallen human condition, to build up that manmade 401(k) retirement account of obedience, or what we might call the Babylon Fund. And of course, we have a mortal enemy named Lucifer who is happy if we do away with the Law of God, and equally happy if we begin to think that the Law of God has salvation merit in it. He wins either way.

In his Tyndale New Testament Commentary, Dr. Francis Foulkes expresses the same alarm we've mentioned here: that working our way to a heavenly prosperity is a lifelong temptation. Listen to how he warns us:

"Such is the heart of man, and so great is man's temptation in every age and race to deceive himself into thinking that his life is good enough for God, that the reminder of this verse, [Ephesians 2:8, 9] is still needed."

Especially here in these last days, friend, when we "retire" from all human endeavors and manmade accounting schemes, we need the warning more than ever.