Are You A Good Person?

(Can you have your cake and eat it too?)

 

A popular argument against the need for exalting Jesus as LORD goes like this:

         “I am a good person, I don’t need to go to church.”

You have probably heard that one, right? In fact, you may have used it yourself at some point.

For a Christian, this argument is very troubling, because it has serious implications. It may be that the person who makes it is just naive or they may be just plain hard of heart. Either way the argument needs to be answered, because at the very heart of it is a challenge to God’s truthfulness.

 

I.               Who makes this argument?

A.   This person wants to be good

B.    This person does not want to be bound by religious obligation.

C.    In other words they do not want to reject God, but they do not want Him to intrude in their lives.

D.   Atheists may use this argument to supplement their main argument that God does not exist.

II.             Is there any truth in the argument?

A.   Goodness is a reality

B.    It is important for a person to know if he / she is good or not.

C.    By implication:

                                               i.     There are people who are not “good.”

                                             ii.     There is a God who judges.

III.           Where does the argument fail?

A.   It fails when God is involved,

                                               i.     Very often the person making the argument is claiming to be confident that God will accept him / her into Heaven.

                                             ii.     The question here is, “which God?”

                                            iii.     If it is, in any way, the God of the Bible (Jesus, judgment, mercy) then there is an insurmountable conflict in the argument.

1.     The person is calling on God as a witness to his / her goodness.

2.     The only witness God has given about goodness is that all men, apart from Christ, are sinners (not good), but all men, in Christ are sinless (good).

B.    It fails because the person is “self-righteous.”

                                               i.     He / she is the judge of his / her own life contrary to the testimony of God.

                                             ii.     This is basically being your own God.

                                            iii.     Most people have to acknowledge the forgiveness factor at this point.

C.    It fails because it makes God out to be a liar

                                               i.     Does this person not need forgiveness or does he / she not need as much as other people?

                                             ii.     Once you acknowledge that there has to be forgiveness for everyone, you are moving closer to what God’s testimony actually tells us.

                                            iii.     That testimony is Jesus and He convicts us of sin, righteousness and judgment. He is the sacrifice for all our sins.

                                            iv.     He laid His life down for everyone, because there was, and is, no one who is good in and of themselves.

                                             v.     Anyone who says otherwise, and yet claims to accept God’s Testimony is a liar and makes God out to be a liar.

 

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

  If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

1 John 1:9,10