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WHO LOOKS GOOD IF YOU DON’T SIN?

I was out speaking at a Christian camp meeting one summer. And after every evening in the big tent, of course, you can understand that all sorts of people come up to visit with the guest speaker. “Pastor Venden, would you please pray with me?” “Pastor Venden, I didn’t get that last verse you mentioned. Where’s it found again?” “Pastor Venden, let me set you straight on such-and-such.” That’s always an adventure . . . and I’m sure sometimes I needed a bit of straightening out.

But then once in a while, a person comes up, and they’ve got all sorts of charts and graphs and timelines. And they say — I’ve heard this a hundred times if I’ve heard it once — “Brother Venden, please look at this. I really believe I’ve been able to pinpoint the date . . . and praise the Lord, Jesus is going to come in the year 1995!”

Well, you try to be polite at moments like that, and lead people back to the balance we always find in the Word of God. But one evening a very determined man came up to me and had an announcement to make. “Brother,” he said, “I want you to know something. I HAVE NOT SINNED in the past four years.”

Well. That was kind of a new one, and I had to gulp a couple of times. “Is that right?” And the man with his Bible said yes. He told me with real conviction, “I haven’t sinned. Four years. Sin is the transgression of God’s law, and in four years I haven’t transgressed God’s law. So there.” And you know, he was actually quite proud of those 48 perfect months. He had done really well.

So, I looked around for my wife to see if she could rescue me. Or maybe an earthquake or a power blackout. But after a delicate moment or two, I was able to extricate myself away from this perfect saint and get back to the little dormitory room where I was staying. A couple of years went by. Lo and behold, my travel itinerary took me back to that same summer camp meeting site. Same tent, same dorm room, same everything. And I said to myself, “Oh boy.” Sure enough, after the meeting one evening, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a familiar sight. It was the same guy coming toward me again. He planted himself in front of me, about six inches away, stuck out his chin, and said just two words: “Remember me?” And I said right back: “How could I forget?”

I guess most of us have an instantly negative reaction to a story like that one — particularly because we feel like WE certainly HAVE sinned in the past four years, and who is this person to claim that he hasn’t? But friend, as we’ve said all week, the Bible invites us to SEEK perfection. We’re encourage to NOT sin. The apostle John explicitly says so in I John 2:1.

“I write this to you so that you will NOT SIN.”

It would be a wonderful thing if you could go for four years without sinning. Or four months or even four DAYS. Jesus Christ did it for 33 years, and the Word of God describes Him as our example. But as soon as someone says to us, “I have done it,” we not only think he HASN’T done it, but we decide that the pride it took to SAY he’s done it PROVES he hasn’t done it. (Did you follow that?)

Here on this Friday program, we’d really like to suggest just one heavenly reality about the topic of perfection. The purpose for whatever perfection God has in mind for His people is to bring honor and glory to HIM. Not us.

And see, the man under the big tent that hot summer night was failing that test — I believe. “Look at me,” he said. “I haven’t sinned in four years! Praise the Lord!” Well, his lips might have said “Praise the Lord,” but his body English was saying, “Praise ME even more. Four years — no sins. Look what I have done!”

You and I have got to keep this reality in front of us every single day of our lives. Listen, friend, God brings honor and glory to HIMSELF through us. If it is Christ dwelling within, then it is HIS work. Are we going to exonerate God by our holy lives? No, God is going to exonerate HIMSELF by whatever He can do in our lives. Let’s never talk about it as if it were our own doing.

Right in the very heart of Jesus’ wonderful “Sermon on the Mount,” where He talks and talks and talks about good deeds and holiness, He makes this incredible statement, which sets in perspective all of our attempts to be perfect.

“Let your light shine before men,” Jesus says.

Right away, that’s saying that shining your light is a good thing. Let me tell you something, neighbor: obeying the law of God is a wonderful witness to the community. When you have a good marriage, when you keep your word, when you respect the property of others, when you take care of your parents — that’s letting your light shine. You ought to do it. You ought to aim for good, not bad. As we said yesterday, it’s better in golf to aim at the pin than at the water, better in piano-playing to try to hit the right notes, not the wrong ones. So Jesus says:

“Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds.” But then come these additional, vital, all-important six words: “And praise your FATHER in heaven.”

Isn’t that a breathtaking paradigm shift? Friend, if you’re perfect — if you have even a sliver of perfection in you, good deeds, obedience, lawful living — the best thing about it is that it honors God. It glorifies His name, as it says in the King James. It doesn’t earn you salvation; it doesn’t qualify you for eternal life. It simply makes God look good. It makes His kingdom appear to be valid. It corroborates the life-changing claims of His gospel.

A couple of stories come to mind — and we always love to dip into the great 1924 Olympic saga, Chariots of Fire. Harold Abrahams was dying to win a gold medal in the 100-meter race . . . mostly because of personal pride, and also to push that medal in the faces of his anti-Semitic persecutors. Eric Liddell, on the other hand, told his Christian friends: “I run for God. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.” Both men ran in the Paris games “perfectly,” we would say, faster than any other athletes, but it was Liddell who honored God by obedience to the Sabbath commandment as he understood it. And he gave honor for his blue ribbon to the God he served.

We’ve mentioned on this program Orel Hershiser, baseball pitcher, who openly confesses Jesus as his Savior. In 1988 he had a dream season, virtually a perfect year. And when he got the last out in a playoff game sending his team into the World Series, he knelt down on the mound at Dodger Stadium in a move seen by millions around the globe. He honored God by his dedication to excellence, to healthful living, to a Christian lifestyle, to the ethic of plain old-fashioned hard work.

Pastor Melashenko mentioned a few years ago a Hollywood comedian you maybe have heard of. His name is Jerry, he’s a multi-multi-millionaire, and he’s one of the hardest-working professionals in the television industry. If you’ve watched one of the 178 episodes of Seinfeld, you know that here was a man dedicated to perfection. Maybe not moral perfection, but perfection in the art of crafting every scene, every nuance, every joke, every syllable of every script.

And why? What was the motivation? Well, fame. Money. Hollywood clout. Rerun residuals. These people are all millionaires, and there are good reasons to want to do a sitcom the right way. People see their good works, and they keep tuning in. There’s nothing wrong with that.

But I contrast Jerry Seinfeld’s story with that of a young woman who got a gofer job in Hollywood because she had one dream: to do television that contained an openly Christian perspective. Chuck Colson tells the story in his recent bestseller, How Now Shall We Live? How she did the gritty, hard jobs: 16-hour-days, pedaling scripts around town, getting coffee for the producers. Waiting for her one big break. And today you see her name on the credits every Sunday evening in prime time: Martha Williamson, producer of Touched By an Angel.

And she shows the world the same commitment to perfection that the Seinfeld people had. Laboring over scripts. Takes and retakes and re-retakes. Long days, short nights. Sweating the details and hustling to promote your precious one hour on CBS. Making sure every single episode is absolutely perfect. But Martha Williamson does it all from a Matthew 5:16 perspective: Let your light shine. Let people see your good works, your labor of love, those perfected sixty minutes of videotape. And then glorify your Father in heaven.