"Questions About God and Life" Part 4
“I’m a good person. Isn’t that enough?”

This is the fourth in a series of messages entitled “Questions About Life and God”. This series was born out of a desire to address some of the questions that non-Christians are asking about life and about God and about Christianity. Today I want to examine a viewpoint that many outside the church have. It's indicated when someone says, “I’m a good person. Isn’t that enough? I may not go to church and get into all this religion stuff, but I try my best to live a good life. Isn’t that what counts in the end?”

You know, I think not only is this a common view that people outside the church hold, but I suspect that when all is said and done, many inside the church believe this too. The bottom line is the belief that the fundamental issue in life is: Are you a good person or not?

In fact, many people equate being a “Christian” with just being a “good person”. There's an instance of this in my own extended family, where an elderly father was concerned for
his grown son, who didn’t go to church or seem to have much interest in spiritual matters.
When the elderly man suggested that the younger man needs to be thinking about his soul, the son was irritated and insulted and remarked, “I try to live a good life.” The unspoken assumption left unsaid was: what more do I need to do?

Many have the idea that if there is a God, and if there is some kind of final judgment, what counts in the end is whether the good things we do outweigh the bad things we do. Reader’s Digest once asked famed boxer Muhammad Ali what his faith meant to him. Ali replied, “(It) means (a) ticket to heaven. One day we’re all going to die, and God’s going to judge us, (our) good and bad deeds. (If the) bad outweighs the good, you go to hell; if the good outweighs the bad, you go to heaven.” A lot of people believe that.

So how do you answer someone who says, “I’m a good person. Isn’t that enough?”

First, I think it should be said that whether we live a good life or not is important! There are Scriptures that tell us that we will be judged on the basis of what we do in this life – our works. Jeremiah 17:10 says, “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward everyone according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.” Jesus said, “For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward everyone according to what they have done” (Matthew 16:27). And it says in 2 Corinthians 5:10, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that everyone may receive what is due them for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”

In a world where there are so many selfish people, and people who will lie and cheat and take advantage of you, there’s certainly something to be said for someone who sincerely strives to do good.

But is that all there is to the Christian message? Is that all the Bible says about what God expects of us in life – just try to be a good person? Does that sum up Jesus’ message – c’mon now, folks, try to be good! I don’t think so!

The Bible has a totally different perspective on this matter of our being good. Psalm 53:3 says, “There is no one who does good, no, not one.” The writer of Psalm 130 wrote, “If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?”(Psalm 130:3). Proverbs 20:9 says, “Who can say, ‘I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin’?”
The prophet Isaiah said, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). I guess you could sum up these verses by saying, we ain't that good!

Now a person who’s not a Christian might respond to this and say, “See, all you want to do in the church is put people down, and tell us how bad we are!” No, that's not my reason for quoting these verses. It’s just that this is the truth about human nature!

I can say, “Well, I just live a good life, and that’s enough.” But there’s a million mile difference between my goodness, and God’s holiness. And when I compare my life to the life of Jesus – the only Person who ever lived as God really intended us to live - my goodness seems rather puny and paltry!

Some years ago I was doing some painting in the dining room of a house we had bought. It was an older home, and we had these radiators on the floor that gave out heat. There was a metal covering over the radiator in our dining room. It was late at night, and so I turned on all the lights in the room so I could see. I finished painting the cover and it looked great. The next morning I got up, and the sun was shining in that room. And my paint job looked terrible. I could see spots I missed and I thought, my goodness, it looked great last night, but not now! See, when I judge how good I am in the dim light of comparing myself to others, I may look pretty good. But when I look at my goodness in the dazzling Sonlight of Jesus, God’s Son, I don’t look so great!

Think about this also, if I'm going to bank on my living a good life as being enough, the question is, how much is enough? How good a life do I have to live? Do I have to be as good as Saint Francis of Assissi, or as good as Billy Graham or Mother Theresa? On a scale of goodness from 1 to 10, how high do you have to be on the scale?

Being a Christian, and being acceptable to God, isn’t a matter of being good enough. In fact, we only become a Christian when we realize we aren’t good enough! Christians are big on the idea of “grace.” Do you know what grace means? Grace means that God is kind and good to us even though we don't deserve it and can never earn it.

The Bible says we are saved by grace. Hear what Ephesians 2:8-9 says: "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God - not the result of works, so that no one may boast." Notice, not by works!

The Bible says that God’s grace came to us through Jesus! 2 Timothy 2:1 says, "Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”

The whole idea of “grace” has no meaning unless first of all we realize we don’t deserve God’s goodness and mercy. Billy Graham once was driving in one of the southern states and got stopped for speeding. When talking with the highway patrolman Billy admitted he was in the wrong and he was guilty. But when the police officer realized that he had just given a ticket to the world famous evangelist, the policeman paid the ticket himself – and on top of that, took Billy out for a steak dinner! That’s what grace is! Now if Billy had been stopped going 35 mph in a 45 mph zone, and the policeman left him off the hook, that wouldn’t be grace – because he didn’t deserve a ticket!

Grace begins, and a relationship with God begins, when we realize we don’t deserve it and there’s nothing we can do to earn it.

See, if all God requires of us is that we try to live a good life, why did Jesus have to die?
If we could do it ourselves, what a waste for Jesus to go through the agony of His suffering and crucifixion! Galatians 2:21 says, “If righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing.” I like The Message rendering of this verse: “If a living relationship with God could come by rule keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.”

Does this mean it doesn’t matter if I try to be a good person or not?” No, not at all. For instance, we've looked at Ephesians 2:8-9 where it says we are saved by grace, not works. But the next verse goes on, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works” (Ephesians 2:10). In fact, once we become a Christian by accepting God’s grace in Christ, Christ comes and lives in us, and increases our potential to do good!
But here’s the difference: One person (over here) is saying, “I’m a good person.
That’s enough.” In this case the good works done are supposed to earn God's approval, which is a rather selfish motivation. But another person (over here) is saying, “I know I’m not good. I need God. I need God’s grace.” And Christ comes into this person's life and changes him or her. And the person wants to do good as a way of pleasing God and thanking God for His kindness and mercy shown in Christ.

Whenever someone says, “I try to live a good life, isn’t that enough?” you can be sure that this person has missed the gospel message!

There’s a parable told by Jesus that helps us understand God’s point of view on this matter.
It's found in Matthew, chapter 20. It begins, "For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard"
(Matthew 20:1-2). In Palestine at the time of Jesus the market place was sort of the labor exchange of the day. Men would come early in the morning with their tools and hope someone would hire them for that day. These were the laboring classes who lived a hand-to-mouth, day-to-day existence that depended on finding daily employment.

In this story, a vineyard owner hires some men very early in the morning, agreeing to the
normal day’s wage. Later, around 9 o’clock, he goes by and finds others waiting for work, and he hires them too. Same thing at noon, and at 3 p.m. And even at 5 o’clock, he stops by and there are still some poor souls waiting for work, and he hires them.

Now it gets interesting at the end of the day when he pays them for their work! "When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, 'Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.' When those hired about five o'clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage. Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, 'These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat'" (Matthew 20: 8-12). Can you blame those who were hired at 6 in the morning for grumbling because they were paid the same as those who only started working at 5 p.m. I mean where is the labor union when you need it!

Look at the owner’s response: "But he replied to one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?'"

This is a parable of the kingdom of God – a story that shows what God is like and how God operates. Like the workers who were hired early in the morning, we may think we certainly have a claim on God – we live a good life, we’ve done a lot of good things, we’ve worked long and hard! Certainly we deserve more rewards and a place in heaven! But none of us deserves God’s kingdom. None of us can parade up to the Almighty and say I have a right to a certain pay. None of us can have a relationship with God based on what we have done to deserve it. It’s a matter of grace. We’re all like the people hired at 3 p.m. or at 5 o’clock. Any good we receive from God is based upon God’s sheer graciousness and generosity.

During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world debated what belief, if any, was unique to Christianity. What does Christianity teach that other religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam don’t? While the debate continued, C.S. Lewis, the noted Christian writer, wandered into the room. “What’s the (commotion) about?” he asked. His colleagues told him that they were discussing Christianity’s unique contribution among world religions. C.S. Lewis responded, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.” The notion of God’s love and acceptance coming to us free of charge, no strings attached, goes against this human instinct that somehow we have to try to be good enough to earn His approval. Rock music star Bono, lead singer of the band U2, said in an interview with beliefnet.com, “The most powerful idea that’s entered the world in the last few thousand years – the idea of grace – is the reason I would like to be a Christian.”

Harry L. Kaufhold, Jr.
Preached at Lititz United Methodist Church
January 28, 2007

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