Being Good Isn’t Good Enough

Hi everybody, welcome back to Ignite. Our focus on this session is being good isn't good enough. And it's amazing phenomena that's going on today because most people feel like they're Christians and they're sharing their faith because they're being good. Christians love being good. We have a lot of statistics that we could share with you. Just as a reminder, when I give you stats, you can quote stats all day long. No matter you can have the most bizarre factoid in your mind that you've made up and you can probably find a study that will support that thought. I have to say that to pastors. They can preach with the authority saying, this is what this study says. You can say before God that is, but you know there's two or three of the states that don't agree with it. Our statistics are certified. What we mean by that is we don't print our certified stats unless they're confirmed with two or three, at least three other major studies. So they all kind of go together. That's pretty critical. So you can take it to the bank when I give these statistics and I can tell you that most Christians believe that they can earn their way to heaven. The break is against all scripture, but most Christians believe that. You know that almost half of people who call themselves evangelicals think you can earn your way to heaven, but you have to earn your way to heaven. That's some of those who call themselves even. I don't know what evangelicals are anymore. It used to be those who totally had commitment to the scriptures of living, living biblical truths in their lives. And now that you interview evangelicals and you can't even believe what they say. You know, I think it's only that it's 6% of Christians now still hold a biblical worldview. So we're living in strange times. But here's a phenomenon in the American church today. We are, as American Christians, I talk about this a lot in future podcasts because it's a huge issue. We are really good at knowing, memorizing and quoting scriptures and then totally ignoring them without giving it a second thought. It's just amazing. I mean, most of us as Christians, if we can't quote this scripture by memory, we certainly know it really well. We've heard it so many times. Four by grace, are you saying by faith, not of yourselves, less any man should boast. It's an Ephesians 2, 8, 9. Four by grace, are you saying by faith, not of yourselves, less any man should boast. If we can earn a way to heaven, if we can earn God's favor, we would be so puffed up with our own pride. God really loves me because I've done this and I've done that. And boy, you got to really be proud of me there. I gave to those people and I helped that little lady today and I gave money to the poor today and all these things you can do are feeling really good about yourself. But it's not about being good, folks. You can do all that good and not have anything to do with eternity or pleasing God. We can't earn a way to heaven. We just can't. This is so prevalent in the church. And I suspect that most of you listen to me and I was like, whoa, wait a minute, you know, I'm a good person. I have so many people that are not Christians in my life or car guys. I have to tell me if you can earn your way to heaven, you can get the front of the line because they're really good people. In fact, I often tell people in church, I have a lot of car guy friends that are living better lives than most of my church friends. Probably it's not about what we do. It's about what, of course, Jesus did on the cross. He paid the price for us. We can't earn that. It's a gift. It's a gift. He turned life as a gift. But most Christians know that and yet they're still trying to earn their way. I'm just telling you when I came out of our first marriage, we got burned out trying. We were volunteering for everything. And we were there several nights a week in addition to the regular services and we were so dry looking back at it over a period of time we realized it was almost like we were Jewish and we felt like we needed to do things to earn God's favor. And there's a lot of Christians in that place right now. Skip ahead to the point of sharing faith. Okay. You know, the statistic is that somewhere around 33 35% of all Christians share their faith. Wow. I mean, I wish that was true. I wish that was true. But the research going in behind the tough line, what do you think it is it's sharing your faith? Most of them feel that being good is sharing their faith, being good and doing good things. And it goes back to this, you know, this saying action speak louder than words. I mean, we've heard that all of our lives. It's alive in the pit of hell. It's wrong. I can tell you that statement gets me so upset because it is at the heart of almost every Christian I know actions don't speak louder than words. Nobody's going to get saved by you being good. You're being good. Doesn't get you or anybody else saved. It doesn't. It doesn't. Actions don't speak louder. Faith comes by hearing by the hearing by the faith comes by hearing by the hearing by the hearing by the word of God. Okay. Yeah. Actions don't speak louder than words. Actions speak before your words. Okay. Here's where this you bring everything into where you realize everything you say and do all day long is moving people closer further away from it. People are watching you. We're a city set on hill. If you're a Christian and people know it, you're a city set on a hill. You're a witness. They're watching you. And everything you do and say moves people closer or further away from God. If here's the bottom line, if your actions don't match your words, it doesn't matter how eloquent you are and how much scripture you've memorized. It really doesn't matter. You have no credibility. Nobody's gonna listen to you. You're not gonna change lives. Okay. It's all about you. Oh, but when your actions match your words, it really doesn't matter if your eloquent or not eloquent. It really doesn't matter how well you speak. You're just speaking behalf of God. I ought to tell the story of Bob. What are my great friends married? What are my college friends and he's good bit older than me and was not all that fancy in the way he talked. You've got a farm boy and I can tell you, I don't know anybody I've ever met that I wanted to be closer to and everybody wanted to. You know why? Because God lived him and you watched everything he did. You just watched him and everything he did matched his words. This guy knew God and that's why we need to live our lives. Action speak before your words but they don't speak louder than words. Your words have power only if your actions support him. Okay, you get the point. So I'm often with people and they were the friend that they've known for a lot of years and the friend walks away and I turn to my friend and say, so are they Christian? And I'm amazed how often people say, I don't know. I don't know. You know, I can determine that about 30 seconds. The easiest way to do it is not absolutely conclusive but the easiest way to do it is when you talk to somebody and you just met them and you mentioned something about your pastor, your church friend or a Bible said just in passing. If they're a Christian, they will always, always, always say, oh, you're a Christian. You're a Christian. Where do you go to church? When they say nothing, it tells you they're not a Christian. And so now you've qualified them and you know where your job is cut up where you need to go next. When you say, I don't know if they're a Christian, what you're really basically saying is, I don't care. There's an incredible video that I mentioned several times by Pindjilette. Pindjilette and the Bible. Pindjilette is this extremely talented, very bright guy who has the magic show, pit and teller show in Las Vegas. And at the end, he tells the story. You go there, just YouTube or whatever and search for Pindjilette in the Bible and he talks about how this man came up to the end of a service and end of service, end of whatever his show is. And talked to him for a few moments and told him how much he respected him and gave the Bible. And Pindjilette said one of the most powerful faith-sharing imperities I've ever heard. He said, you know, I don't mind procession. It might surprise you. The fact of the matter is, if you thought I was going to hell, how much would you have to hate me? Do not tell me. How much would you have to hate me to not tell me? How much you have to hate your friends and not tell them, you're not hating your friends, I know, but you're not loving on them. Are you? We were talking about this in our ministry group a couple of years ago, trying to feel why, why, why aren't people not sharing their faith? They were lost around us and we had this good news and we didn't share them. My Kennedy has been with me for almost 40 years, critical member of our team. He said, Barry, I've thought about a lot and I come to the conclusion, they don't care. It's true. It's true. If you don't know if the people run in your life are Christians or other way to heaven, it's because you don't care because if you care, you're going to fight out and you're good to do everything you can to get rid of it. You follow my point. I know being good feels good and it brings you glory. I'm amazed. I get these calls for supporting ministries all the time and come to our event and we're going to be at this resort and we're going to play golf and we're going to go here, we're going to go on a ship and we're going to do all these wonderful things and if you do this, we'll put your name on the building and there's all these things and so, hey, you know, it's so, I mean, I spent a lot of time with people that tell me how much they're giving. You know, I did this. I just, I love that ministry so much. I love God. I love that ministry so much. So I just gave them $100,000. I just gave them $500,000. I just gave them a million dollars. I gave them $10,000. But they're very proud of what they give it and they're reading. And then now they're being favored. They're being invited to dinners. They get to hear so many speak and that's, that's the role that happens. And it's intoxicating. You get caught up and now you're choosing where to give based on, hey, we get to go back to so and so place. You know, you got to go. Well, you basically say, you're going to get some more money so you get to go. I'm not saying those programs are bad. But I say beware because we're stewards of our time and we're stewards of our monies. And you need to look for ROI. When you invest in a ministry, the question is, what's the ROI? How many souls are being saved? It's one of the feed people and clothing people and do all kinds of wonderful things. But there's no salvation message to it. That's all you're doing. You're just making them well fed and better dressed on the way to hell. We'll run out of time folks. Our focus needs to be on moving everybody every day closer to Jesus. You know, you can gain favor with your pastor when you fund something particularly that's that's a hot button for your pastor. And while I'm talking about those with a larger body give them the big things, but it's it's active in your own church where all of a sudden you're you're supporting things in the church and the pastor's paying you more attention. And he may even say duron's you're a sermon, you know, and and and Bob and I are out to lunch the other day. And we were talking about this great plan. And you know, so you get favor it. All the people are looking at you saying, wow, it has nothing to do with your own salvation. It has to do the tree giving money to your pastor. One of the maybe the biggest certainly one of the biggest givers to Christian causes passed away last year. Nobody dared ever ask him about his own salvation because he did so much good. And the often said he was doing the good because God taught him to do the good. And so all right, just thank God for this person. It was just he was so wonderful. He's so godly. But when it was close friends came to him just before he died. And because he felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to do that. And found that he was not settled in his own life. He'd been given all kinds of money away. And he was was proud of all the money given away. But he he never settled the issue in his own life. You know what he give to a big giver and ask him if they're saved. You are just presuming you know what a family might stop giving. But you follow on and say this whole thing can be corrupted so easily on the smallest of scales. Sit down to it. If you don't have very much money but you but you sacrifice and you gave and sacrifice is great obedience is better. There's a there's a passage in Matthew chapter 6 that I think really says at all. Watch out. Don't do your good deeds publicly to be admired by others. For you will lose the reward from your father in heaven. I know what it will lose by reward. You want your reward here? You want you want the accolades everybody here? Wow. Look at what he's doing. Look at what you're doing. If you're real good about that greatly honored in your church and your ministry or maybe on a national scale. Just you what your reward here or in heaven. When you give to someone in need and don't do as a hypocrite do, hypocrites do, blowing trumpets in the synagogues and streets to go attention to their acts of cherry. Hey guess what I did. I hear it all the time. I have lunch with somebody and they're quick to tell me all the stuff they're giving to it. Do you? I think is he a Christian? I tell you that you they have received all the reward they'll forget. When you give to someone in need don't let your left hand know what your right hand is doing just basically just keep it quiet. Give your gifts in private and your father who sees everything or reward you and heaven. Wow. Life is not about being good. It doesn't get you or anyone else to have. Life is about God's purpose. It's about God's purpose and he didn't say go into the world and be a good person. He didn't even say go in the world and pray or go in the world and read your Bible or go into your world and fund all these projects. He's going to the world and tell people about Jesus. That's what we're about folks. When we get to have the only thing that's going to matter is how many people are in heaven because of your influence. Okay. The only thing that's going to matter how many years from now is how many people are in heaven because of your influence and the way things going right now where the rapture coming soon it may be a lot sooner than that. I suspect that it is. Anyway folks I just want to remind you every day your focus needs to be to move everybody every day closer to Jesus. Please please please for your good and God's glory. See you next time.