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2001
15th April (am) - Not Good Enough and Not Strong Enough

Not Good Enough

Boys and Girls, have you eaten any Easter Eggs yet - or are you saving them up for this afternoon - I've got this lovely 'Yorkie' Easter Egg waiting for me! It's making my mouth water already!!!

But I'm very glad that you came to Church today - it's such a special day - the best Sunday in the whole year ..... and it's not just because of eating Easter Eggs!

Who can tell me why Easter is so special and so important?

At Easter we think very specially about the things that happened to Jesus at the end of his life on earth:

- how he was crucified - an absolutely awful death - even though he had lived such a good life of helping people and telling them about God and his love for them, the people who didn't like Jesus and didn't want him around, eventually got their way - Jesus was arrested, they made up all sorts of untrue things about him, and he was taken away to be killed on a cross - the kind of punishment that was kept for the very worst criminals in those days, even though Jesus wasn't a criminal of any kind.

Maybe sometimes we forget how bad the Cross must have been for Jesus.

But we mustn't forget, either, that the Cross wasn't the end of Jesus' story - even though he died at the Cross, the story of Easter tells us that on that Sunday morning, when the friends of Jesus went to visit the place where his body had been put, they found that he wasn't there - a messenger from God told them that Jesus was alive again - that Jesus was even stronger than death. Although they could hardly believe it at first, soon they knew it was really true, because Jesus came to meet them and to show them that it was true - that he was alive again, and that he would be their friend and their Lord for ever and ever - and that everyone who trusted in him would go to be in heaven with him after death.

This is what makes Easter so very, very special - Easter is very, very Good News.

But I wonder why it really had to be like that for Jesus - why did he have to die and be buried and then rise up from death? Why did God allow all those things to happen? Well we're going to learn about that this morning.

I want to begin by showing you some things that help us to understand what the Bible tells us about Jesus' death at the Cross - why Jesus had to die.

Here's the first one - Spirit Level - lots of these in use around our new buildings - builders use them to make sure that the walls are straight - because a wall that is not straight is not much good to anyone - it would probably have to be knocked down and rebuilt. I hope ours are straight, because the new halls are nearly finished - I wouldn't like them to have to start again!

There is a verse in the Bible which tells us that sometimes our lives are like a wall that is all crooked and slanty and which needs rebuilt - Amos 7:7-8

'I am setting a plumbline among my people' - A plumbline does the same job as a Spirit Level - and God was saying to his people long ago that when he tested their lives he found that they were like crooked, slanty walls - they weren't the kind of people he longed for them to be - 'I will spare them no longer'

The Bible tells us that when God takes a look at your life and my life - when he measures it carefully, he finds that our lives are not the way he would like them to be either - our lives are a bit slanty - we're not good enough!

Weighing Scales - used by cooks to weigh out just the right amount of flour etc - but look at this bag of flour - it say 1kg but when I weigh it, there isn't a kilo in it - it's not what it's supposed to be!

(By the way do your scales measure in lbs and ounces or in grams - the man in court this week for selling bananas in lbs.!)

Here's another verse from the Bible - this time about scales: Daniel 5:27 (P.1029) 'You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting'. God was telling a king called Belshazzar that even though he was a very successful and important man, his life had been found wanting - his life was not the kind of life it should have been; it wasn't the kind of life that made God happy.

Maybe it's like that with us too - even though we are not kings, not even important people, when God looks at us he finds that there are things which make him sad and disappointed.

If we were weighed for goodness, would it turn out that we were not good enough?

Measuring Tape: the kind used by a carpenter or joiner - like the men who have been hard at work in our church this week, beginning to put everything back the way it should be. They would need one of these to measure the wood - like this piece - it needs to be ......, but it's a few cms. short - not much, but it still won't do - it's not good enough!

The Bible tells us that it's like that with our lives - we don't measure up to what God wants. Most of us aren't too bad, but we're still not just right (like my piece of wood!).

That's what it says in Rom.3:23'There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

We don't measure up to what God is looking for - we know that is true, for sometimes we all say and do things that must make God sad and disappointed with us - no matter how hard we try. We know that it's true - we know that we should stop those things, but it's so hard - we just keep on doing them.

And sometimes, we almost completely forget about God - we don't remember that he is there and we begin to think that we don't need him too much - we feel that we're getting on fine without him!

All of these things - the spirit level, the scale, the tape measure - they all remind us that when God looks at us - when he looks at us in the way that only he can - and there is nothing that he doesn't notice about us - not even our thoughts - he sees and knows that we are just not good enough - The Bible is right when it tells us that we are not really good enough for God, or for going to be with God in heaven - there are too many things that are not just right - too many things that are wrong.

But the Good News of Easter is that God still loves us so much - he still wants to be our God - he still wants to help us all through life and bring us to heaven ....... and that's why he sent Jesus to live in the world and to die on the Cross - this was God's wonderful way of loving us, forgiving us, and making us able to go to heaven.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

You and I are not really good enough - but Jesus was good enough - and because of Jesus and his terrible death at the cross, God loves us and assures us that he forgives us, God invites us to trust him with our lives in faith and in worship and service, God promises to bring us to be with him in heaven.

Isn't that a great piece of good news - we all know that we are not really good enough - but at Easter God made things god enough - because of Jesus, he loves us as if we were good enough - his good news is for everyone who will trust in Jesus as their Saviour and Lord for life.

As the Easter hymn says: There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin; he only could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in.

Not Strong Enough

Earlier on we concentrated on the inescapable Easter message from the Cross - that we are not good enough - that there was no other good enough to pay the price of sin - for everyone who knows that they are not good enough, Jesus and his Cross is God's way of love and pardon.

When we read what the Bible tells us about Jesus and his death at the Cross we cannot really get away from that emphasis: Christ died for sins, once and for all, wrote Peter, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. We must not ever make the mistake of thinking, even sub-consciously, that while we know we are not really 'good enough', we're not really 'bad enough', we're not that bad either, for God to turn us away - but all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God -All fall short, says Paul - therefore the cross was the way of forgiveness, and faith in Jesus and his cross is the way of receiving that forgiveness - 'Not good enough' means what it says!

But there is another 'not enough' that we need to speak about on Easter Sunday - for the message of Easter, and especially the message of Jesus' resurrection, tells us about what is 'more than enough' for our 'not enough'. I want to call this one, Not Strong Enough.

You and I are not strong enough to cope with all that life throws at us or can eventually do to us. We are not strong enough:

- to cope with the serious illness that can suddenly strike us, or someone close to us.

- to deal with the devastation of some tragedy or accident that can come into our lives.

- to carry the heavy burden of some desperate problem that hits us through work or in the family circumstances etc.

- to come to terms with the fact that life passes so quickly, and before we know it the best years seem to be over.

We could go on listing the ways in which life reminds us over and over again, that we have our severe limitations, that there is so much in life that is outside our control, and that ultimately it does not go for ever.

We just have to come to terms with the reality that, by ourselves, we just are not strong enough!

Yet there is so much in life that is sweet and good; and when life becomes more difficult we have to cope the best we can - and it is humbling to see the courage and the strength which some people show in the face of great adversity.

Sometimes people with the worst imaginable problems astound us by their courage and strength of character and ability to cope - even if they don't feel it themselves.

But no matter who we are, no matter how well we try to cope, under the surface we all know that we really aren't strong enough - indeed we know that we are actually very weak indeed. There are so many things in life which frighten us, so many possibilities which threaten us ....... and even if we are fortunate enough to have had a relatively quiet, uneventful life where things have run fairly smoothly, we all know that it doesn't go on forever, and at the end is the unavoidable spectre of death.

We are not really strong enough to cope with this kind of reality. Sometimes our main way of coping is to get on with living life and not dwelling too much on what might happen or when - and in a way we must do it that way. But while that gets us through much of the time, it's not really an ultimate answer - it's not the answer we really need to the problem of not being strong enough for life and for death.

There is an answer, however, at the very heart of the Easter message - an answer which speaks directly to the hard experiences of life, and which speaks specifically about the hard realities of death.

The story of Jesus' resurrection is not just about something that happened a long time ago - that it did happen, as the gospels tell us, is, I am convinced, solid fact - mysterious message though it is, that Jesus who was crucified, dead and buried, rose again - the record is there to be examined, and the impact on peoples' lives, there to be seen.

However Jesus' resurrection is not just about him coming back to be with his friends for another little while - it is about Jesus demonstrating the unbreakable power and lasting love and eternal wisdom of God - it is the message that while we may not be strong enough, God is!

God is indeed the Lord - he has the final say and the ultimate hope - no matter what people may do, no matter what way things may go, no matter what the world is like.

The message of Easter, the message of the Resurrection is that it is God who counts - not even the worst suffering and sin in all the world could destroy Jesus - not even death - God is strong enough - the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is stronger than all else.

Now this is an incredibly important message for all of us who live our lives in this world where there are such threatening forces of suffering and sadness and evil.

- for all of us who are prepared, in our heart of hearts, to admit that we are not strong enough, Easter is the message that God is strong enough and can bring us through;

- for all of us who know only too well that we do not have the ultimate answers to life and to death, Easter is the message that God, the God we know in Jesus, does have those answers.

This is the assurance of which Paul speaks in Romans 8 - that on the basis of the Easter message of the Cross and the Resurrection, even though we are certainly not strong enough, God definitely is. He makes some momentous statements:

'For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.'

'We are more than conquerors through him who loved us.' i.e. by the cross and the resurrection ..... for he who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, give us all things?'

Do you feel strong enough to cope with what life throws at you, and what death unavoidably means? Do you really, honestly, in your heart of hearts? ......... I don't!

The message of Easter is that although we are not strong enough, God is - and he has demonstrated and confirmed his love and power and unbreakable hope through Jesus Christ and what he did at Easter.

This message of strength and hope is not just wishful thinking - this is the message which the first disciples came to know and believe, despite all their initial doubts and hard questions - which are so understandable.

This is the message of strength and hope which has steered and anchored countless Christians in the very choppy waters of life down through the centuries.

This is the only message which can make us strong enough to cope with our own lives and circumstances, now and in the future.

Not that it will smooth everything over for us, but rather that it will bring us through the storms with help and hope, and will bring us to that destination which we call heaven.

Nor is this just a message about our own inner peace and reassurance - this is a message of love and strength and hope which should inspire us to care about the suffering and the storms of trouble that we see all around us in life. Because we are convinced about the one who is strong enough, we ought to want to bring something of his love and strong help to other people, through our weak lives - at a practical level:

- something of his love and hope into the struggle for survival that is life for so many in our needy world;

- something of his love and hope into the seemingly full, but actually empty lives, of so many in our materialistic world.

The message of Easter which gives us the inner strength for our own lives must also motivate us to put some of that strength into outward , caring action.

It should give us enough strength to make sacrifices for the sake of others; to speak up for the rights of others; to do something to alleviate problems which are destroying the lives of others.

'Not strong enough' - few of us would really say otherwise, I think.

But there is strength for living and hope for dying in the Cross and Resurrection of Easter - strength and hope that is for real.

But that strength and hope for those who know, only to well, that they are 'not strong enough' comes as part of a package - a package which also tells us, in no uncertain terms, that we are 'not good enough' - and we cannot have one part of the package without the other.

It's probably easier to accept that we are 'not strong enough' - it's probably all right to say that we are 'not good enough', but pretty difficult to accept that that means that we are 'bad enough' to be outside God's love and hope - maybe it takes a whole lifetime of faith in Christ for that to sink in, fully - for us to realise that he died that we might be forgiven, he died to make us good, that we might go at last to heaven, saved by his precious blood. But that's where true faith and hope in Christ begins - admitting that we have sinned and fallen short, recognising that his death and resurrection was for us, coming sincerely to God with a repentant heart and a willingness to acknowledge him, truly, as God for our lives and to commit ourselves to Christ for now and for always.

That is true faith, and when we come like that, then while we may not be good enough or strong enough, the Easter message assures us that Jesus was good enough to pay the price of sin, and that God was strong enough at the Resurrection - so that nothing, in life or in death, will ever separate us from his love for us in Christ.