OPEN: Comedian Ken Davis tells of the time he gave a speech in his college class. The title of his talk was, "The Law of the Pendulum."
For 20 minutes he carefully explained the principle that governs a swinging pendulum. The law of the pendulum is: A pendulum can never return to a point higher than the point from which it was released. Because of friction and gravity, when the pendulum returns it will fall short of its original release point. Each time it swings it makes less and less of an arc, until finally it is at rest. This point of rest is called the state of equilibrium where all forces acting on the pendulum are equal.
As part of his presentation, Davis attached a 3-foot string to a child’s toy top and secured it to the top of the blackboard. He then pulled the top to one side and made a mark on the blackboard where he let it go. Each time it swung back he made a new mark. It took less than a minute for the top to complete its swinging and come to rest. When he finished the demonstration, the markings on the blackboard proved his thesis.
He then asked how many people in the room BELIEVED the law of the pendulum was true. All of my classmates raised their hands, AND so did the professor. The teacher then started to walk to the front of the room thinking the class was over. In reality it had just begun.
Hanging from the steel ceiling beams in the middle of the room was a large, crude but functional pendulum (250 pounds of metal weights tied to four strands of 500-pound test parachute cord.). Davis invited the instructor to climb up on a table and sit in a chair with the back of his head against a cement wall. Then he brought the 250 pounds of metal up to his nose. Holding the huge pendulum just a fraction of an inch from his face he once again explained the law of the pendulum: "If the law of the pendulum is true, then when I release this mass of metal, it will swing across the room and return short of the release point. Your nose will be in no danger."
After that final restatement of this law, Davis looked the Professor in the eye and asked, "Sir, do you believe this law is true?"
There was a long pause. Huge beads of sweat formed on his upper lip and then weakly he nodded and whispered, "Yes."
At that point Davis released the pendulum. It made a swishing sound as it arced across the room. At the far end of its swing, it paused momentarily and started back.
“I never saw a man move so fast in my life. He literally dived from the table.” Said Davis.
Deftly stepping around the still-swinging pendulum, Davis then asked the class, "Does he believe in the law of the pendulum?"
The students unanimously answered, "NO!" (Ken Davis, How To Speak To Youth, pp 104-106.)
APPLY: When it came to the law of the Pendulum what did that Professor believe?
He believed that pendulum was going to hurt him... and so he ran.
What he believed dictated how he behaved… and where he went.
In Romans 3 – Paul is telling the same thing is true about what we “believe”
When it comes to Christianity… people believe one of two things:
1. They either believe that their FAITH in Jesus will make them acceptable to God…
2. OR they believe the number of good WORKS will make them acceptable and make it so that God will love them.
The repeated message throughout the New Testament is:
Good works are good… but faith is better.
Good works will not save you (says Scripture)
Good works will not make you righteous before God
Good works will not make God love you more or less.
Romans 3:20 says: “…no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law…”
AND Titus 3:5 tells us:
“He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy…”
Now that seems to go against all common sense.
Godly people should do Godly things shouldn’t they?
And if a Christian doesn’t do “good things” they’re probably hypocrites aren’t they?
Inherently everybody realizes that a holy God wants His people to do “holy things”, therefore… it would just make sense that the more “righteous things” we do the happier God gonna be…. the more He’s going to love us… AND the more justified you’ll be in His sight.
That’s one of the reasons ALL the other world’s great religions teach that UNLESS you do a certain number of good works you’ll never please God and you’ll never see heaven (in whatever form that may be for them.
It just seems to stand to reason: the holier you are… the more God’s going to love you.
But the Bible says “That’s Not How It Works!
We’re justified by faith… not works.
As Romans 3:28 says “… a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.”
Well, how’s that work?
ILLUS: One time I visited some prisoners in jail and they were struggling with this idea. They were in prison because they had done “bad works”. That’s often why people are in jail. They either don’t play well with others, or they tend to take things that don’t belong to them.
They were now under the penalty of the law because they did “bad things".
Everything in the legal system (and in life in general) has taught them that if they wanted to get of jail and stay out of jail they had to devote themselves to “good works.”
And it made sense to them that this is the way it should work with God as well.
But the prison chaplain had just taught these two prisoners that they couldn’t justified before God by their good works - and this confused them.
So I told them my parable of the glass of chocolate milk.
I like chocolate milk.
Almost every night, I’ll pour a glass of milk, mix in some powdered chocolate, stir it well and sit down to read a book or watch some TV. Then I’ll put the glass on kitchen counter and go to bed. I rarely wash it out… so in the morning, the glass is coated with dried chocolate milk.
Now, let’s say you come over to visit me. It’s been a hot day and you’re thirsty. Being a good host I ask if you’d like a glass of Pepsi. “Sure” you say, and I reach into the refrigerator and I pull out a can of pop that’s never been opened. It’s been there for a day or two so it’s nice and cold. Then I pull back the tab and reach over to the counter and pick up the glass I used the night before for my chocolate milk. I pour that cold undefiled Pepsi into that glass and hand it to you to drink.
How many of you would drink it? (Nobody raised their hand)
Why not? The Pepsi has never been opened. It’s cold, it’s refreshing.
Why wouldn’t you drink from it?
The problem is not with the Pepsi.
The Pepsi is cold and refreshing, it’s clean and undefiled.
The problem is with the drinking glass I pour it into.
Unless the glass has first been cleansed, that cold/clear Pepsi will make us sick.
And that’s how God sees our good works.
There’s nothing wrong with doing good deeds to please God. In fact, holy people should do holy things. But, unless our souls have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus - you can do all the good works you want and they’ll just nauseate God, because we’ll be pouring those good works into an unclean vessel. If you want your good deeds to please Him you’ve got to let Jesus clean you up on the inside first.
So how do we clean ourselves up?
As we discussed last week – we don’t.
God does that for us.
If it weren’t for the grace of God none of us could be forgiven of our sins.
But there are some things we can do to respond to God’s free gift.
Faith, repentance, confessing Jesus as Lord and being buried in the waters of baptism and risen up to a new life. All these are ways that God asks us to sign up for His gift of salvation.
Of those responses to God, faith is the most important aspect of how we respond.
If you were to do a study of what the Bible says “saves you” you would find that the majority of those verses would tell us it is by the grace of God. But running a close 2nd in that list of verses would be: “You are saved by faith”
Ephesians 2:8 says “… it is by grace you have been saved, THROUGH FAITH…”
Mark 16:16 “WHOEVER BELIEVES and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
And of course John 3:16 tells us "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that WHOSOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Those verses all echo what we find here in Romans 3
“God presented (Jesus) as a sacrifice of atonement, THROUGH FAITH in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice… so as to be just and the one who justifies those WHO HAVE FAITH IN JESUS.” Romans 3:26-27
Faith is the basic requirement of all who would be acceptable to God.
Well, if all I need is faith in Jesus… why should I even bother to do good works?
I mean – if they don’t give me “brownie points” or add anything to my salvation with God, why not intellectually believe what I need to about Jesus and go about living my life the way I want to? After all, it’s God’s grace that does the work for me.
As Paul asks in Romans 6 “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” Romans 6:1
The world is filled with folks who behave like this. According to a 2003 Gallup poll 80% of Americans said they believed Jesus rose from the grave.
80 % BELIEVED!
Intellectually, all these people bought into the Gospel message… but many of them haven’t acted like it makes any difference to them in how they live. And if it doesn’t make any difference to their salvation whether they do good works or not, why should it matter to them anyway?
Well, Jesus said "If you LOVE Me, keep My commandments.” John 14:15
Now keeping those commandments won’t make me righteous, they won’t give me brownie points with God or bring me salvation. So why do them? I do them because I love Jesus. If you don’t love Jesus, you don’t really believe in Him.
We don’t do good works to earn anything from God. We do them because we love Jesus, and if we love Him we will keep those commands because He asked us to.
ILLUS: It’s kind of like this:
Let’s say you’re driving down US 29 out here on your way to Indianapolis.
What’s the speed limit? (55 mph)
If you went 55 down that road, how many people would pass you? (about everyone)
In fact, I’d be willing to bet that if I were driving down 29 most of you’d be passing me.
Now – do you believe the speed limit is 55 mph?
But not many obey that law, even though they believe in it.
But let’s say you have someone you care about – in the car with you.
Someone you love who really wasn’t comfortable going over 55 mph on that road.
For the sake of the LAW you might not keep that commandment, but for the sake of someone you loved… you would.
• So if you love Jesus, you’ll be in church
o If you love Jesus you’ll study your Bible, you’ll pray, you’ll give to the poor.
o If you love Jesus you’ll be careful what language you use, what kind of friends you hang out with, what kind of movies and TV shows you watch
So if I believe in Jesus it’s going to effect how I live my life.
True belief in Jesus will lead to live our lives to please Him because we love Him.
The next question that occurs to me is this: what does it mean to have “BELIEVE in Jesus”? What am I supposed to believe about Him?
There are a lot of churches try to make this really complicated.
They’ll have people weeks of classes before they allow them become a Christian or a member of their church. They do this because they think religious things ought to be fully understood before folks can be acceptable to God.
ILLUS: They’re remind me of the story of Walter P. Chrysler, the founder of Chrysler Motors. Back when cars were just beginning to be manufactured, Chrysler bought his first automobile… a $5,000.00, four-door Locomobile. He put the car in his barn took the vehicle apart, spread the pieces on newspapers and made sketches; then he put it back together.
His theory was - he had to understand it before he could drive it.
Now, I don’t usually do that.
I buy a car, put the key in the ignition, and drive it down the street
I don’t have to know how it’s put together in order to get in and go someplace.
Now if you want to take your car apart… you can do that.
You just don’t HAVE to do that in order to drive it.
And the same thing is true for belonging to Christ.
You don’t have to understand everything there is to know about Jesus in order to become a Christian.
On the day of Pentecost, Peter stood up before a crowd and preached the first sermon about Jesus. I don’t know how long he preached but when Peter was done, 3000 people had believed and were baptized into Christ.
The heart of Peter’s message was this:
• Jesus came down from heaven to die for your sins
• He died, was buried and rose from the grave
• And the only way you’re going to be acceptable to God is to repent of your sins and be baptized into the name of Jesus.
It probably took longer to baptize those 3000 people than it did for Peter to preach his sermon
And throughout the book of Acts the message was always the same:
Jesus died for your sins and you need to believe in Him. And the response took place almost immediately.
One woman named Lydia was baptized right after a Bible study down by the riverside (Acts 16:14-15)
An official from Ethiopia was on his way home in his chariot when Philip (sent by an angel) came along side and taught him about Christ. The Ethiopian stopped his chariot by the side of the road and declared “Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, "See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?" Acts 8:36
A Philippian jailor had fastened Paul and Silas in stocks in the inner prison after the missionaries had been arrested and beaten for preaching about Christ. In the middle of the night a violent earthquake shook the entire prison so that the doors sprung open and the chains fell off the prisoners. The Jailor was about to take his own life (if the prisoners escaped he would face a terrible death) but Paul cried and assured him no one had escaped. Then Paul and Silas began to teach the Jailor and his family about Jesus, and they were all baptized at midnight that same night. (Acts 16:25-33)
Over and over again the story was the same.
Every time - it didn’t take long for people to make up their minds.
They ALL believed the message that Jesus was Christ, the Son of the Living God and they wanted the forgiveness God freely offered.
CLOSE: So the question this morning is this:
What do you believe?
Has your faith made a difference in how you live your life? Has it made love Jesus so much that you do your good deeds to please Jesus rather than to gain brownie points?
Or perhaps you’ve not yet made that decision to belong to Jesus. For you the question is: has your faith led to believe that you need to make a decision to follow Jesus. A faith that leads you to realize that you’re a sinner in need of forgiveness? A faith that leads to accept Jesus on His terms rather than your own?
If so, we offer a time of invitation...
