The surest formula for unhappiness is have to be right, all of the time. If you are expected to be one hundred percent correct, never making a mistake, no blunders allowed, then you are asking for a serious heart attack, for high blood pressure, and for plain old unhappiness. It’s an awesome burden to have to be correct, all of the time.
And yet a lot of us are right there. A good many of us put ourselves in that position. And it’s disaster.
I remember the first time I donated blood to the blood bank. I particularly wanted to know what my own blood type was. It was just a few months before Margaret and I were to be married, and we had been reading up on things like Rh factors and what could go wrong with babies if the father’s plus or minus sign didn’t line up right with the mother’s.
And so after I had given blood, they went off to do something, and I sat up on the cot and leaned over to read the report sheet. Right there, very clearly, it was written out, "0 Negative." There wasn’t any missing that, because the word “Negative” was written out.
I lay back down to clear my fuzzy head, only to be brought up short by the Red Cross worker, who had come back with my donor card. When she gave it to me, down in the corner where it said "Blood type", she had written, "0", and then a plus sign. Not a word, just the plus sign. I looked, and I looked over at the sheet again, and said, "There seems to be a mistake here." Well, that was the wrong word to use: mistake. "Let me see that; we don’t make mistakes." She snatched the card out of my hand, she squinted at it, she looked over at the report sheet, and taking pen in hand, she scratched something out on my card and barked at me, "Just like it says, O Negative". I sputtered a little, and asked, "Well, now, which is it? Because the report says one thing and your card said another." I got the most blistering lecture you can imagine on how medical people do not make mistakes, they are trained to be precise, and that’s all for you today, Mr. O Negative!"
Wow! Isn’t it an awesome burden to have to be right all of the time? To have to be so correct that you cannot admit, ever, to a mistake? And the surest formula for unhappiness is to be stuck in correctness.
Oh! You want to know whether I am negative or positive? Well, if you ever have to haul me out of here on a stretcher, when the paramedics come, could you just give me a toe tag that says "O question mark"?
It’s very unhappy, it’s very unsatisfying, to be stuck in correctness, where you feel you have to be right, no room to admit mistakes. It’s very unhappy; it’s very unsatisfying; and it is sin. It is sin.
I’m going to ask you to learn three truths about being stuck in correctness. I’m going to ask you to learn them and say them with me to help drive these ideas home.
Here they are: It’s easier to be smug than to be satisfied; it’s easier to be correct than to be compassionate; and it’s easier to be religious than to be real.
Would you try these with me? First, it’s easier to be smug than to be satisfied (repeat); it’s easier to be correct than to be compassionate (repeat); and it’s easier to be religious than to be real.
And all of these are symptoms of being stuck in correctness. The sin of correctness, for which we need to be forgiven.
In Jesus’ day there was a group among the Jewish people called the Pharisees. The Pharisees were the good people, the solid people, of Jesus’ day. They were the pillars of society, the movers and shakers, the professionals, the technocrats, the ones who got things done. They were the politically correct, they were the hill staffers, they were the bureaucrats and the businessmen. Make no mistake about it; the Pharisees were good people. So good you could hardly stand them! These folks gave Jesus more trouble than any other single group. Jesus spoke with more disappointment about the Pharisees more than anyone else. Jesus had a lot of trouble with these folks, because, in their zeal and in their insistence on being right, they were stuck in correctness, and they sinned seriously.
And we know what it’s about to be stuck in correctness, don’t we? Remember? It’s easier to be smug than to be satisfied; it’s easier to be correct than to be compassionate; and it’s easier to be religious than to be real. But it’s all sin.
I
Having to be right all of the time is a sure fire formula for unhappiness. Being stuck in correctness is a recipe for never being happy, never being satisfied with ourselves.
To me, the most telling word about the Pharisees, here in the Bible, is the one they pronounced on themselves. Jesus had done something glorious; he had raised Lazarus from death. No one had ever seen anything like this before. No one had ever spoken like this man, no one had ever done what He had done. You would think that the Pharisees, with all their devotion to God, would have been jumping for joy. You would have supposed that they, self-anointed protectors of God’s truth, would have been ecstatic that the work of God was being done.
But did you hear them? What a profound sadness! What a terrible testimony to their insecurity! "The Pharisees said to one another, ’You see, you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him.’’’ How lonely they made themselves! How isolated, how hopeless, how unsatisfying, always to be right, and the rest of the world is wrong! How profoundly, incredibly unsatisfying!
I wonder if the faith you live is one which brings you happiness. Or it is one which makes you suspicious, unhappy, defensive? Some religious people, good people, are so negative, so joyless, so sour, that you wonder how they can possibly find any satisfaction! Do you know what I’m talking about? There are some forms of religion which are so strict, so narrow, so smug, so self-righteous. And the issue is that the more we think we have to do everything right, the more we feel as though it all depends on us to get it right, the more we shut out God’s love. That’s pretty serious.
You know the old story about the Quaker brother who had begun to complain about nearly everything? This group was wrong, that person was mistaken; this church was heretical, that teacher was off the mark ... until he said to his friend, "Friend, the whole world is wrong except for me and thee, and sometimes I even wonder about thee!" How sad!
I run across people every now and again with whom I just cannot enter into conversation. They always have the answer, and it’s the right answer, it’s the Biblical answer, it’s God’s answer ... and my answer, of course, is wrong. But do you know what I notice? Do you see what I see? I see profoundly unhappy people, people who are not satisfied with themselves and their own spiritual life, because it’s all based on correctness and not on grace. It’s all built on thinking right and doing right, and not on grace and forgiveness.
Oh, don’t hear me encouraging anyone to go out and be careless in the way you live. Not at all. Don’t hear me suggesting that it doesn’t matter what you believe. It certainly does. But I am saying that when we focus on being correct, on having the right answers, on never being stumped by the questions ... that’s joyless. that’s Pharasaism. And that’s sin. It’s sin because there isn’t any room in for humility, no room for repentance, and therefore no room for grace, no room to be forgiven.
I’ll tell you what! I’m glad that we aren’t perfect! I’m glad that we aren’t complete. Because that means we have room to experience the fresh air of God’s grace and mercy.
Otherwise, I’m afraid, we’d just have to live with the fact that it’s easier to be smug than to be satisfied. But it would be sin.
Now not only is it easier to be smug than to be satisfied, but what else? It’s also easier to be correct than to be compassionate, and it’s easier to be religious than to be real.
II
What do you think it was like to be around the Pharisees? What is it like to be around someone who is never wrong? What does it feel like to be with someone who is so stuck in correctness that he has an answer to every question, even the questions you haven’t asked yet?
Let me share with you just a little bit more of what we know about the Pharisees. These folks, as I have said, were the intellectuals of Jesus’ day. They were the ones who knew how to do things, who had the knowledge, who invented the rules of political correctness.
Now you think it’s a modern thing to be politically correct? You think PC is a 90’s thing? Then let me tell you about the Pharisees.
The Pharisees had elaborated to a high art the rules about keeping the Sabbath. They had formulated some 638 regulations, just on the single matter of observing the Sabbath day. And it was not only that they had created all of these rules, which it was virtually impossible to keep; it was also that they became very contemptuous of everyone who did not try to keep the rules. They believed that it was all these other people, these lesser breeds, these low-Iifes out here, who were holding back the nation. They got very good at putdowns!
So, for example, one of the teachings of the Pharisees was that if even one Sabbath were to be kept perfectly, then the Messiah would come! If one Sabbath were to be observed, all the rules and regulations meticulously kept, by every child of Israel, then at that time the Messiah would appear. So, you don’t have to be a Solomon to figure out what happened.
Each Sabbath came and went, week after week, month after month, year after year, and no Messiah. No Savior on a white charger. And so what did the Pharisees say about that? "You see, you see? One of them messed up again. One of them failed to keep the Sabbath again. One of them ... the ignorant people of the land."
What do you hear in that? What comes through? Not only smug self-righteousness, but also a complete lack of compassion. A total lack of understanding. Correct folks just blame, blame, blame, but have no compassion.
When you are stuck in correctness, you see, it’s far easier to blame others than it is to accept your own limits. It’s far easier to criticize others than it is to understand them. It’s easier to be correct than it is to be compassionate. But that is sin.
Folks, I’ve seen it happen over and over in our church. Someone gets hostile because they hear what someone else has done. And we are ready to lay down the law and blame, blame, blame.
But, thank the Lord, sometimes we take the time to ask why, to find out why somebody did what he did, why somebody said what she said. Well, we still may not agree with it. We still may find it sinful. But at least we will have tried to understand. At least we will have heard them out. At least there will be some compassion. What good does it do to be correct, if you are correct all alone? What is the benefit of being right, if you lose the love of others around you? As Paul, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and though I give my very body to be burned, but have not love, it gains me nothing,"
The problem with being stuck in correctness is not only that we cut ourselves off from grace, feeling smug rather than truly feeling the satisfaction that comes with forgiveness. The problem with being stuck in correctness is also that we cut others else off from the chance to repent, the chance to be forgiven. And that is sin; that is grievous sin.
For again, as we are learning, it’s easier to be smug than to be satisfied and it’s easier to be correct than to be compassionate. Sheer sin.
III
But one more thing: it is not only easier to be smug than to be satisfied; and not only easier to be correct than to be compassionate. It is also easier to be religious than to be real. It’s easier to play the church game than it is to be an authentic human being, living in that risky place before God Himself, trusting in nothing more than His grace. It’s easier to be religious than to be faithful.
As Jesus moved closer and closer to the cross, the Pharisees became more and more strident in their demands. They pushed Him hard to tell them what He claimed to be. And when He did tell them, when He reminded them that He and the Father were one, they took up stones and were ready to kill Him, right then and there.
Listen to what they said, "It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human being, are making yourself God." And Jesus answered, "If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father."
They were saying, "It is not for doing good that we are going to kill you, Jesus; it is because you’ve got your theology wrong. It’s because you don’t say it the way we say it. It’s because you don’t use our buzz words. And so, Jesus, you’ve got to go."
Religious people do that. Religious people retreat behind religious activities, trying to be correct, instead of being real human beings, standing before God in naked trust. It’s so much easier to be religious than it is to be real.
Several years ago Joseph Bayly published a delightful little book called "The Gospel Blimp". This book, "The Gospel Blimp" was the story of a man named George who had looked over his back fence one day and had seen his neighbor drinking something obviously alcoholic. At this George was offended; George was upset; and George, being a churchgoing man, felt he should do something about it. Specifically, George felt he should offer his neighbor an evangelistic witness.
Now the obvious thing would have been to go over and sit down and talk quietly with his neighbor, but no! George felt that the situation demanded a more elaborate strategy than that. George copied some verses of Scripture, wrapped each one in a little piece of colored cellophane, and waited until this neighbor came out in the backyard again, beer bottle in hand. When the neighbor wasn’t looking, George lofted two or three of these gospel packages over the fence, managing to get them right in his friend’s lap. George noticed with delight that one even landed in the drink glass.
When George saw his friend reading the little bomb, an idea was born. I’ll spare you the details, but will just report that from one little episode of lofting tracts over the fence, George conceived the idea of spreading them all over town. He would buy a blimp, the gospel blimp, and from that great airship he would bombard the whole city with his gospel bombs.
Of course for this George needed volunteers and workers; he needed fund-raisers and direct mailing and marketing specialists. He even bought himself an admiral’s uniform, so that he could be properly fitted out, and set out to bomb the town, night after night, with gospel tracts.
Well, of course, after a while, the people of the town were fed up with the whole thing. They had to spend every evening sweeping up the crinkly colored things, which they soon discovered were not in the least biodegradable. They were not only bombarded with gospel bombs every day, but every night their radios and television sets bombarded them with appeals to give, give, give.
And when the whole thing came down, literally came down, as the blimp impaled itself on something and crashed to the ground ... when the whole thing came down, George’s neighbor came to see him in the hospital and said, "George, I’ve been thinking. I’d like to find out more about Christ. Do you think that when you’re well we could go bowling together one night?"
It’s so much easier, so much more tempting to be religious than to be real. But it’s sin. It’s sin. For, you see, the God we know in Jesus Christ simply offers His arms outstretched in love. The God we know in Jesus Christ, from His cross, simply cries out to each one of us, "Come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." This Christ wants to make us whole, He wants to give us life, He wants us to be free.
And, though we Pharisees, we religious folks don’t like to admit it; though it’s painful to acknowledge it, it is not the Pharisee, praying "I thank you that I am not as other men are" who receives the gift of salvation. It is not the person who is stuck in correctness who really knows the grace of Christ. It is the one who can pray, with a repentant heart and an authentic soul, "Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner" .. it is that one who gets to be real. That one who knows salvation. That one who is free, unstuck.
The trouble with the Pharisees, no, the trouble with us, church folks, is that it’s easier to be smug than to be satisfied, easier to be correct than to be compassionate, easier to be religious than to be real.
But if Christ could hear Saul, Pharisee of the Pharisees, when he cried, "Lord, forgive my sin", then there is hope even for us who are stuck in correctness.
