We're Not Good Enough

            There’s an old story about a guy who dies and is standing just outside the Pearly Gates, hoping to get into heaven.  St. Peter asks him, “Why should you be allowed into heaven?”  The guy answered, “Well, I attended church all my life and once I went twelve years without missing a Sunday.”  St. Peter said, “Well, that’s not too bad.  I think I can give you one point for that.” 

Well, the guy starts to get a little uncomfortable.  He didn’t know how many points he needed, but he was pretty sure it was more than one.  So he said, “Well, wait now, that’s not all.  I’ve always been kind to children, too.”  St. Peter says, “Well, that’s good, too.  I’ll give you half a point for that one.” I

Now the guy’s starting to get nervous.  He says, “Now, wait a minute.  I’ve also given lots of money to help the needy.”  St. Peter says, “Well, that’s pretty good, too. I guess I can give you another half a point for that.” 

Well, the guy thinks he must be in serious trouble.  He starts to panic.  Finally, he cries out, “Well, good grief, at this rate, I’ll only get into heaven by the grace of God.” 

St. Peter says, “Now you understand.  Welcome to heaven.”

We only get into heaven by the grace of God.  The reason I bring that up is because of what Paul was writing about in our reading from Galatians.  He says we are “justified” by our faith in Christ.  The word “justified” doesn’t mean that we are perfectly holy.  What it means is that we are considered to be perfectly holy.

What’s the difference?  Well, it’s a pretty big one.  See, God knows what sinners we are.  Believe me, God knows it a lot better than we do.  That’s why Jesus was sent here to us, to die for us, so that our sins would be forgiven.  God knows that we’re not actually perfectly holy, and we’re not likely to be.  God knows that if humans were required to be perfectly holy to get to heaven, heaven would be a pretty lonely place. 

But being considered perfectly holy is different from actually being perfectly holy.  That’s why Paul tells us that we’re justified through our faith in Jesus.  If we believe in Jesus, if we truly have faith in him as the Son of God, God will forgive our sins.  That means that God will consider us to be perfectly holy, even though we’re not.  That’s what Paul means about we’re justified by faith—our faith in Jesus leads God to forgive our sins, and that leads God to look at us as being perfectly holy, even though we’re still sinners.

When you think about it that way, it’s such an amazing gift.  God knows exactly what we are, and yet considers us perfectly holy if we only have faith in the Son.  In one sense God sees us just as we are, and yet in another sense God does not see us that way at all.  God knows our sin is there, yet God ignores it, and sees us as perfectly holy, if we only have that faith.

It sounds so simple when we think of it that way.  Still, we sometimes have a hard time accepting it.  It runs contrary to everything we’ve ever been taught by society.  We grow up with these ideas of justice, of right and wrong.  We grow up with the idea that we’re responsible for our actions, that we earn what we get and get what we deserve.  We grow up with the idea that good behavior should be rewarded and bad behavior should be punished.  Those ideas make it hard to understand that God does not work that way.

Even though we read verses like this, and we hear about God’s grace and mercy, we still never quite get over these ideas we grew up with.  We look at our lives, and we know we’re not worthy of God’s grace and mercy.  So, instead of just accepting God’s grace as the wonderful, amazing gift that it is, we do exactly what Paul tells us won’t work.  We start trying to earn our salvation through works of the law.

Now, that doesn’t mean we try to follow all the old Jewish laws that Paul was talking about.  Most of us don’t have a clue about what they even were.  But still, we

have this idea that we have to be “good enough” to get to heaven, that heaven is a place we have to earn our way into.  It’s like we have this idea that God has this big scale and is going to take all the good things we’ve done and put those on one side of the scale, and take all the bad things we’ve done and put them on the other side of the scale, and then weigh it all out, see which side comes out on top, and decide whether we get to heaven.

Now, when we put it that way, it sounds kind of silly.  But still, somehow, we have that idea in our heads.  So when we fall short, we tend to beat ourselves up, to tell ourselves we’re not good enough and God could never want us to be in heaven.

But that’s where grace comes into it.  God does want us in heaven.  If we just have faith, if we just believe in Jesus as the divine Son of God, we’ll go there.  We will be justified.  Our faith will justify us.  We will be considered perfectly holy by God, even though God knows perfectly well that we’re not.

Faith is not an easy thing to have in our society.  We’ve seen so many people let us down.  Celebrities, athletes, politicians; it seems like every day we hear something in the news about someone who’s failed us.  But God never fails us.  God is the One we can put our faith in.  If we trust God, if we trust the divine Son, Jesus, we will be justified.  God will consider us holy.  God will lead us home.