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TRYING TO BE IMPERFECT #9
PROUD OF MY FOUR-AND-A-HALF POINTS
There’s a cute theological joke making the rounds these
days — and in case your Internet friends haven’t already sent it to you,
it runs something like this. Deacon Jones gets to heaven, and of course,
he meets St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. True to the form of these jokes,
St. Peter tells him that it’s going to take a thousand points to get into
heaven.
And Deacon Jones turns pale. A thousand points?! But with faint hope in
his heart, he tells Peter, “Uh, I went to church every single weekend
for 68 years.” And the gatekeeper checks his log book. “True,” he says.
“I see that. You get two points for that.”
What?! Only two? Out of a thousand? And the deacon remembers all the offerings
he gave over those 68 years. Many thousands of dollars. And Peter does
the calculations. One point. How about 53 years of faithful marriage?
Deacon Jones asks. One point. Many, many hours of community service. Half
a point. Now he’s up to 4.5 . . . and needing a thousand.
Finally, in despair, he cries out: “Woe is me! The only way I’ll get into
heaven is by the grace of God.” And St. Peter immediately throws open
the gate. “Come on in!”
Well, it’s a marvelous story, but today I want to rewind the video and
ask this question: What would it mean if it really DID take the thousand
points . . . and there were no grace to cover it? What if you had to earn
the entire sum by your own good deeds?
We’ve been studying for two weeks now on this topic: TRYING TO BE IMPERFECT.
And the main points of our discussion — three of them — have been as follows:
first of all, it’s a good thing to aim for perfection. No faithful Christian
should try to be IMperfect, try to mess up, try to sin. When you go out
into a field with your bow and arrow, you aim at the bulls-eye, not at
the parking lot over on the right. Jesus Himself mandated that His followers
should accept these marching orders:
“Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching
them to obey EVERYTHING I have commanded you.”
So perfect obedience is a good thing, a thing Jesus
invites us to strive for, and to invite others to strive for as well.
Abraham Kuyper once wrote:
“An office-bearer who wants something other than to
obey his King is unfit to bear his office.”
But here’s the second point: God Himself promises to
work IN us, HELPING us to grow, SHAPING us into perfect men and women
for His kingdom. And the third point is key: perfection is NOT the basis
of our salvation. That St. Peter story is at least half true: because
of the grace of God, the gate is thrown wide open and Jesus says: “Come
on in! Not because you’ve got a thousand points, but because I can GIVE
you a thousand points which flow from Calvary.”
Still, you know, friend, the first half of that St. Peter story — just
the first half — really does infect the Christian church today. It always
has, and I guess it always will. A thousand points. Earned by YOU — a
thousand points. And with heaven REQUIRING a thousand points.
In his book, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, Philip Yancey points us to
perhaps THE key moment in history when legalism, or perfectionism, reared
its ugly head. It was Friday afternoon, and Jesus was just hours away
from death. The grace that would purchase heaven for all of us was about
to take place. But what were the “good people” of the church doing that
afternoon? Here’s what he writes:
“The low point of legalism played itself out at Jesus’
execution: the Pharisees took pains to avoid entering Pilate’s palace
before the Passover feast and arranged the crucifixion so as not to interfere
with Sabbath rules. Thus the greatest crime in history was carried out
with strict attention to legalistic detail.”
What do you think about that? Here were people saying,
“Let’s kill the Son of God — let’s string Him up on a tree — but we’ve
got to make sure we earn points at sundown by keeping the Sabbath.” They
put to death the source of grace — a thousand points — and got ONE point
by washing the blood off their hands before the Sabbath hours began.
Let me tell you something today, neighbor. I’m so hugely and humbly grateful
that God stays with us while we learn about grace. While we learn that
although obedience is wonderful, and growth is wonderful, and that perfection
is wonderful, we don’t get heavenly points for any of those things. It’s
so hard to learn that . . . but God has always loved the Pharisees and
the legalists and the perfectionists who have been slow to get the point.
My own denomination, the Adventist Church, has preached for more than
150 years about the great blessings that come from obeying Jesus. Listen,
it’s a wonderful thing to honor God by following His law. We lift up Jesus
when we obey what He teaches. In our own faith community, we want to exalt
Christ by celebrating the Sabbath as we believe He has invited us to do.
But all through our experience — and I’m sure it’s the same in your church
as well — it has been so very difficult to grasp that obedience is not
the BASIS of our salvation.
Early in our history, we had a godly leader named Uriah Smith. He loved
the Lord; he was an influential man who helped chart the early days of
the Adventist faith. But a great scholar, George R. Knight, who teaches
church history at Andrews University in Michigan, discovered an early
sound bite in the archives of this faithful believer. Listen:
“Obedient observance of all the commandments was central
to his view of [the faith.] In fact, a person came to Jesus THROUGH obedience.”
Another exceptional pioneer, a man of vision and dedication
to God, was a ship captain named Joseph Bates. He came out of the Christian
Connexion, a broad-based spiritual movement in the 1830s and ‘40s. And
as he studied the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation and met with like-minded
believers, he had this to say about God’s final saints: “The remnant are
at last saved BY keeping the commandments.” “The Lord REQUIRES perfection
from His redeemed family” was another expression from that time period.
Well, friend, I’m so thankful that God takes us from where we start —
our well-meaning misconceptions — and kindly leads us to Calvary. He tells
us about the thousand points His own Son is offering to give us. But what
happens to a Christian who falls into the deadly trap — not of seeking
perfection — but of pinning his hopes on perfectionISM? If you are earning
your OWN points, where does that lead?
In that same Yancey book, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, he tells a story
which brings me a certain sorrow. A young man in my own Adventist church
family was concerned about healthful living. Well, it’s good to honor
God by being in good health. “Whatever you eat or drink,” the Bible says,
“do it to the glory of God.” Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
But this young man, as Yancey tells the story, had literally starved himself
to death over a concern regarding which foods it was all right for him
to eat. He actually died; one of Philip’s close friends conducted the
funeral service.
And in that chapter, entitled “Grace Avoidance,” he writes these very
straightforward words:
“I have little resentment against these particular
rules” — the ones we so often use to try to rack up those “points” — “but
much resentment against the way they were presented. I had the constant,
pounding sense that following an external code of behavior was the way
to please God — more, to make God love me. It has taken me years to distill
the gospel out of the subculture in which I first encountered it. Sadly,
many of my friends gave up on the effort, never getting to Jesus because
the pettiness of the church blocked out the way.” Then he adds this P.S.
about the dangers of legalism: “Nothing represents a greater threat to
grace.”
That gives us all something to think about, doesn’t
it? And notice the crucial turning point: friends never getting to Jesus
because perfectionism was in the way. Rules — even good rules, helpful
rules — blocking a person’s path to Calvary.
So it comes down to this for you and me. Every single day of our lives
. . . we need to head for the foot of the Cross. Head for Jesus. And say
to Him: “Jesus, I guess I don’t even have four-and-a-half points. I don’t
have any. Zero. I need Your thousand points, Jesus. I needed them yesterday,
and the day before, and now today, and then tomorrow and the next day.”
And then, when you get up from your knees and thank God for the Calvary
dust on your pants, you then resolve that all day long you’ll allow God
to live in you and work in you to seek perfection. Not to get more points
. . . when you’ve already got Christ’s perfection applied to your bank
account. But just to honor Him. Just to show Him how grateful you are.
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