Naughty or Nice?
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
The premise of this bible talk is simple: To find out, are we Naughty or Nice?
Are you Naughty or Nice? Don’t answer it yet! We’ve got to discuss what we mean by these words before you jump to your conclusion. But we will get there in a few minutes, to answer that question: are you on the Naughty list or nice list?
For the moment though, I want you to prepare a preliminary answer in your mind. Are you Naughty or Nice?
It’s a pretty simple question. But it’s a question that when answered well, can make the difference in our lives. How you answer this question, and what you do with the answer will determine whether can experience a Better Christmas than any you’ve had before.
Getting into it
Getting into it
“Naughty or Nice?” is the guilt trip for kids at Christmas. At about November, the cliche is parents using it as behavioral tool: “You better behave yourself, because only nice kids get presents at Christmas!”
It’s usually an empty threat.
Usually, everybody get presents at Christmas whether they’ve been good or bad. Naughty kids who get lumps of coal are reserved for fairy tale, and Christmas mythos. No parent wants to crush their child’s spirit on Christmas!
Even if we spoil our naughty kids at Christmas, we know there’s something to that notion of rewarding the good. It’s something burned deep into our psyche; that there’s naughty and nice.
There’s good and bad.
Virtuous and evil.
We know that good should be rewarded. Evil punished.
Yet we also know that things are a little complicated - people are a mixed bag! There’s parts of us that are both naughty and nice. We know that there are parts of us that we fear to show others, because it is our weakness, our evil indecency. We’re mixed - capable of great good and horrendous evil.
So if we’re going to figure out which way we lean, good or bad, we need to figure some way to judge. How can I assess whether or not I’m a good person?
Usually, when left to judge ourselves, we’re much too kind. We let ourselves off with excuses - “I’m not that bad. I’ve had my off days, but it’s not like I’ve murdered anyone. On the whole, I’m a good person.”
But why would we listen to our own judgment about ourselves?
What nominee get to choose whether or not they deserve an award?
Or what criminal is allowed to weigh in on his own verdict?
Look at the Standards
Look at the Standards
Nah, we need something else, something outside ourselves to weigh our personalities and character. We need some standard to see if our character measures up naughty or nice.
So what outside standard should we use?
What are the options?
Law of the State
Law of the State
Well, maybe we could compare ourselves to the laws of our country?
I pay my taxes, I vote, I obey the road rules (mostly), I don’t shoplift. Does that make me a nice person?
But, I’ve know some really nasty people who are law abiding citizens. In fact I know law-keeping citizens that use the minutiae of the law to inflict hurt on other people with frivolous law suits. I can be a law-abiding citizen and still treat people like rubbish, talking down to people, being rude and arrogant, or failing to stand up for the oppressed.
So it’s good to be a law-abiding citizen, but there's something more to our moral fiber than just the government’s rules.
In order to find out if i’m good person, a nice person, I need more. Something that examines my attitudes and intentions.
Cultural Standards
Cultural Standards
What about our cultural standards?
When we compare our lives to the prevailing cultural flow, can we find out if we’re a nice person?
Well, no, not really....
It’s really hard to get a strait answer about anything other than the most hot button topic right now. The culture is very clear that I should re-use shopping bags as opposed throwing them out after one use, but beyond that, it’s all a bit murky… If I ask 5 people on the street about what makes a good and admirable life, I will get 5 different answers.
Maybe I should just go along with the majority? If more people lean one way then surely that should be the best and most noble way to live right?
Well, that’s a problem because the majority is always shifting; going back a few decades the idea of a multi-cultural Australia was actively outlawed through the “white Australia” immigration policy supported by the majority. That’s hated now, with good reason.
So, the question is, if the majority once supported something, but opposes it now, has the moral imperative changed? Was it once right but is now wrong? Or was it always wrong and the majority used to be wrong? And if the majority used to be wrong, how can I know on what points the majority will be wrong right now?
The cultural “standards” are constantly shifting like sand, there is nothing solid to build a good life on, because just when you think you’re living in a way aligns with what is right and just, you will either have the rug pulled out from under you, or you will be overloaded with another set of arbitrary dos & don’ts.
The culture cannot tell us what it is to be Naughty or Nice, because it cannot figure out itself what is good or bad from week to week. Sometimes society changes for the better, sometimes it changes for the worse. It’s no guide to live a life by.
God’s standards
God’s standards
You will be unsurprised to hear, from a preacher-man, that there is someone <point up> who has some standards worth investigating. Nothing else in the world gives us a firm and clear picture of good and bad quite like what God says in the Bible.
It has stood the test of time.
You see when we order our lives by God’s standard, things are made so much better. The needy are helped, the weak protected, Marriages are better, families are stronger, work is made meaningful, rest is more joyful, societies flourish.
So what are God’s standards?
Well, the 10 commandments are probably the most well known, and provide a easy start point for us. These were 10 Laws that God gave to the Israelites he had rescued out of slavery, before he was about to give them a new country to call their own. You probably heard the story, that God carved the commandments onto stone tablets and gave them to Moses. These Laws were to enable the people of Israel to flourish and to guide them on how they could live the good life.
We’re not the people of Israel fresh out of Egypt, but these 10 commandments still represent the themes of the Bible’s standards for the good life on God’s terms. If we compare ourselves against these rules, we should soon be able to see if we’re on the Naughty list or the Nice list.
Lets look at the last 5. The Easy ones:
“You shall not murder. “You shall not commit adultery. “You shall not steal. “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”
Ok, no murder. Pretty straight forward. Don’t kill people unjustly.
Next, No adultery. Adultery is a word that we don’t use much any more, but it basically means engaging in sexual relations with someone who is not your wife (if you’re a man) or your husband (if you’re a woman).Strictly speaking here it refers to a married person breaking their vows and sleeping with another person, but across the scriptures, the standard is that sex is for husbands and wives to be celebrated & enjoyed in marriage, and anything outside that is contrary to God’s way of life.
Then, you shall not steal. No theft. Don’t take something that doesn’t belong to you.
Next, you shall not bear false witness. That means you must not mislead people about the character and actions of someone else - making up lies about them, or telling half-truths to tear down someone's reputation. Gossip is a very close relation to bearing false witness.
And last of the commandments - you must not covet what somebody else has. Another word we don’t use much anymore, but coveting is that desire to have something that’s not yours. You start to yearn for it. When we think that we deserve, or “must have” stuff and things, or even relationships, that are not ours, we are coveting.
So, how’d you go with those mere 5 commandments.
Does your life align with those standards?
No unjust killing, no sleeping around, no stealing, no misrepresenting others and no yearning for what other people have.
I didn’t meet that bar. And that’s just 5!
I’ve messed up on at least three of those, maybe more.
How about you?
Look at Ourselves
Look at Ourselves
Maybe you’re pretty confident that you’ve hit that standard. You’re good. You’re on the “nice list” in God’s eyes. Hold your horses, there’s more to come.
You see, even if you have the moral fortitude to hit these boxes, there’s a deeper level of each of these commandments. It’s not just “I didn’t kill someone” the deeper level is whether or not we’re keeping these commandments in our hearts - I may not have actually killed someone I hate, but have I wished they would die? Have I denounced them?
Jesus says:
English Standard Version Chapter 5
21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment
I may not have actually had an affair with another woman, but have I dreamed of it, fantasizing how it would happen in my mind?
Jesus said:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
That means those “innocent” longing glances at that person jogging down the road are a heart-based adultery.
What matters to God is not just our outward performance, whether or not we can put on a good show, but rather, he’s interested in our hearts. Our heart is the deciding factor between naughty and nice.
Are our hearts aligning with his standards or not?
You see, I have it on good authority that all of us fail to live up to God’s standards. Every last one of us! Even our best efforts are not enough
The Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
All of us, man, woman and child have fallen short of God’s standards of good. We have all been radically corrupted.
Yes, there is some good in us, but we have been so radically corrupted that is is impossible for us to identify the extent of disease. It has metastasized.
The Bible calls that disease “Sin”.
If we want to know who’s naughty or nice, according to the Bible: every last one of us is on the naughty list. No exceptions!
Some people don’t like to talk about this because it’s awkward, and uncomfortable. But we need to deal with it!
All of us will come to Judgment before God, and not just to receive presents or lump of coal as a reward, but rather to determine whether or not we are worthy of eternal life or eternal death.
Paradise or Hell.
As it stands, we’re all guilty.
You might think that the next step is to knuckle down. Knowing the predicament, if we just try hard enough to live in a way pleasing to God, maybe we’ll tip the scales, outweigh the good with the bad?
Really? It is our natural tendency, to try and “fix it”, but really? We could never do enough to outweigh the bad. For starters, doing what’s right is the standard. If we were to live perfectly from now until our dying day, we would only be doing the minimum required!
Nah, we need something else.
Look at Jesus
Look at Jesus
We need someone external to us to step in and pull us out of the predicament.
And God, even though he sets the standard for what is good and right, knows our sickness, corruption of sin, and he is willing to be merciful. It’s in his nature - to be one who is kind and forgiving, despite how we treat him.
Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.
We have failed to live the good life. We’re all on the naughty list. But God is willing to change that.
That’s what Christmas is all about!
He sent Jesus, God himself, into the world to rescue us. To rescue the failures and the corrupt.
To take people who know they’re on the naughty list and make them nice.
Jesus came into the world to save sinners - like you and me.
He was born as a man in Bethlehem about 2000 years ago, as we celebrate at Christmas, but he did not remain a baby - he grew up. And he won for us salvation.
He was the only man to ever live perfectly. He never put a step wrong. He always obeyed God the Father in thought, in speech and in actions.
He is the only one who could ever get onto the nice list on his own merits. But he wasn’t content just to live the good life for himself - he lived it to save sinners like you and me.
He did a great exchange - a big swap. Even though he deserved honors and reward, he swapped it for all of our sin. He took his perfect and blameless record - his righteousness - and offers it to us, as a swap for our failures.
He went to the cross where he suffered and was executed on our behalf, as if he was a sinner. God the father, laid on the God-man Jesus all of our sin.
And in that great exchange - the swap of our sins for his righteousness where he dies in our place - the slate was cleared.
God canceled the record of failures that stood against us.
Anyone who wants, can have Jesus clear their debts to God.
And for Jesus, who died, he was both God and man, two-in-one, so even though he died in our place on a cross, death couldn’t hold him down. He rose from the dead!
He came out of the grave as a conqueror over sin and death!
Even though we were once failures according to God’s standard, he has dealt with that and given us God’s spirit to enable us to meet his standard. We will still stumble and fail, but Jesus has dealt with our failures once for all, and his Spirit will guide us into living a better, holier, nicer life.
For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
What next?
What next?
Let’s circle back to the first question: Naughty or Nice?
We’ve looked into a clear standard of what constitutes good or bad with God’s laws. It’s clear that all of us have failed, and even if we live a decent life, it doesn’t make up for our past wrongs.
The only way to be made good, is to receive for ourselves the righteousness that Jesus offers. It’s the only way to get on the nice list. The big swap.
Where have you landed?
With Jesus righteous life on the Nice list?
Or with your own failure on the naughty list?
Are you on the nice list? Great! Praise God. Jesus is your saviour and you are free from your failures! But, we must never relax our standards. Even though our sins are forgiven, that does not give us an excuse to flagrantly disregard God’s laws. The bible reminds us:
The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.
We don’t do these things to earn God’s grace, but we do these things as people who are changed in our heart to live this way.
So what if you find yourself on the naughty list? Are you ready to own up to the fact you’re a sinner just like everybody else in this room?
Repent! Turn away from the life you’ve been living, and put your trust in Jesus. You don’t “clean yourself up for god”, he comes to clean you up, but you must take a stand and say “no, I’m done with my failure, and trying in vain to live a good life, I will take the Good life that Jesus lived on my behalf.”
Ask Jesus to make you clean - to cure your sin - to forgive you for the way that you have failed God and others. If you ask for forgiveness, he will give it to you.
Whether you’re ready to make that choice, or you’re not quite there yet come and talk to me, or a trusted Christian friend about what is holding you back. What is stopping you from receiving the gift of Jesus this Christmas?
This could be a better Christmas than you’ve ever had before, if you receive the gift of eternal life!