“Doing All the Right Things For All the Wrong Reasons”
by Rick Labate
Introduction
A burglar broke into a house one night. He shone his flashlight around, looking for valuables, and when he picked up a CD player to place it in his sack, a strange, disembodied voice echoed from the dark saying, “Jesus is watching you.”
He nearly jumped out of his skin, clicked his flashlight out and froze. When he heard nothing more after a bit of time passed, he shook his head, promised himself a vacation after the next big score, then clicked his flashlight back on and began searching for more valuables.
Just as he pulled the stereo out so he could disconnect the wires, clear as a bell he heard, “Jesus is watching you.” Startled, scared and inquisitive, he shone his light around frantically, looking for the source of the voice. Finally, in the corner of the room, he saw a parrot.
“Did you say that?”
The parrot responded, “Yep. I’m just trying to warn you.”
The burglar relaxed, “Warn me, huh? Just who do you think you are?”
The bird replied, “My name is Moses. My name is Moses.”
The burglar laughed, “Moses, huh? What kind of crazy people would name a parrot Moses?”
The bird replied, “Probably the same kind of people that would name a rotweiller ‘Jesus.”
How do you respond to the sentence, “Jesus is watching you?” Does it bring up images of a heavenly RCMP just hiding behind some trees with his camera aimed your direction? Does it remind you that you better be careful how you live because if you’re not careful, come Judgment day you’re going to fry?
Last week we explored God’s grace. That God’s grace is everything we need for eternal security. It’s free, it’s abundant and it’s amazing.
TRANS: Romans 12:1 reads, “I urge you brothers, in view of God’s grace, that you offer yourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service.”
Did you catch that? Paul says that because of God’s grace it is only reasonable to live honorable lives.
Obeying God For the Wrong Reasons
Please hear this. It is very possible to do all the right things for all the wrong reasons. People obey God:
· Out of obligation
· From fear of punishment
· From lack of assurance that God’s grace is sufficient for eternal life
· From misconceptions or a mistrust of His love
John Leo is a columnist that I enjoy very much. He writes for U.S. News and World Report. In the Oct. 12, 1998 issue he comments on the relationship today between rules, Madison Avenue and society. He titles his column “The Selling of Rebellion.” He writes:
Consider the recent ad for the Isuzu Rodeo. A grotesque giant in a business suit stomps into a beautiful field, startling a deer and jamming skyscrapers, factories and signs into the ground. One of the giant’s signs says “Obey,” but the narrator says, “The world has boundaries. Ignore them.” Trying to trample the Rodeo, the hapless giant trips over his own fence. The Isuzu zips past him and toppling a huge sign that says, “Rules.”
But the central message here is very serious and strongly antisocial: We should all rebel against authority, social order, propriety, and rules of any kind. “Obey” and “Rules” are bad. Breaking rules, with or without your Isuzu, is good.
A great many advertisers now routinely appeal to the so-called postmodern sensibility…Burger King’s “Sometimes, you gotta break the rules.” Outback steakhouses (“No rules. Just right”), Don Q Rum (“Break all the rules”), Neiman Marcus (“No rules here), Columbia House Music Club (“We broke the rules”), Comedy Central (“See comedy that breaks the rules”), Red Kamel cigarettes (“This baby don’t play by the rules”), and even Woolite now says, “All the rules have changed.”
“No rules” also turns up as the name of a book and a CD and a tag line for an NFL video game (“no refs, no rules, no mercy”). The message is everywhere—“the rules are for breaking,” says a Spice Girls lyric.
Lest we shake our finger at society and say, “That’s right all you bad people out there.” Listen to these perceptive startling words written in 1897 by someone whose convictions I respect:
“A sullen submission to the will of God will develop the character of a rebel.”
You see, if we obey God simply out of obligation we are only a hair width away from being like all those rule breakers we scorn. I repeat. You can obey God for all the wrong reasons. And there is nothing that is more of a drudgery than doing the right thing based on the wrong attitude.
It was around 8:45 on Sabbath morning in Virginia and I was on my way to the smaller church in my first district. I was driving an old Datsun B210 that burned oil. You could find me quite easily if you just followed the bluish smoke exiting the rear of my car.
The speed limit was 55 mph and I was doing 65. I came over a rise in the road and there sitting on the side was a State Patrol car. I looked in the rear view mirror and it was several seconds before he turned his lights on and pulled out onto the road.
My first two reactions were “Oh, no and oh, good.” Oh no, because I knew that I was about to get a speeding ticket. Oh good, because in just about another 10 seconds, in order to get where I was going, I had to turn off the main road onto a smaller road that was surrounded by cornfields with stalks 8 feet high.
If I could just make it to that road, maybe he would drive right on past. I made my right turn onto that road through the cornfields smug with my temporary escape from the law. Then I looked in my mirror again. A long thick streak of blue smoke coming out behind me like one sees the streams of white smoke coming from jet airplanes in the sky. He didn’t have to use radar. My blue exhaust was a homing device that led him right to me.
He pulled me over and said, “Son,” they always call you “son” down in the south, “Son, ya were doin’ sixte six in a fifte-fav zone.” What could I say in my defense? I know! I’ll remind him of the separation of church and state…I’ll tell him I’m a minister! He was not impressed.
As he wrote out the ticket, the only two members I had who traveled that road almost never attended Sabbath School. That morning they decided to attend Sabbath School. They saw their beloved pastor sitting in the front seat of a police car.
I received the ticket with it’s $55 fine and continued on my way. I entered into the city of Hopewell with thoughts of the previous speeding ticket on my mind. The speed at that point dropped from 55 mph to 35 mph. I was not doing 35. I knew it and so did the city policeman parked just ahead.
He pulled me over. Before he could say anything I blurted out, “Officer, I just a speeding ticket 15 minutes ago!” I thought that would invoke some mercy. He said, “Well son, you’re about to get another one.” Two different lines of defense I used and neither one worked. I was feeling pretty tense and upset by the time I reached my church.
I fought the law and the...law won.
Whenever I drove that route in the future, every Sabbath morning, I obeyed the law…with my teeth clenched. For a long time all I could think about was the money it cost me; the policemen, albeit, doing their job but not letting me off with a warning. Outwardly, I obeyed the speed limit signs, but inside…I felt like James Dean.
TRANS: There’s a better way. A sullen submission to the law of the land may be necessary to keep society from destroying each other, but obeying God with a heart overflowing with gratitude for His grace is the only way to go.
Obeying God for the Right Reasons
Experiencing, but more importantly, focusing on God’s daily bestowal of his forgiveness and blessings will lead us to a response where we now do all the right things for all the right reasons.
Karl Barth, the great theologian, once said, “All of salvation is grace, all ethics is gratitude.” In other words, how we live flows from an understanding of how good God is to us.
Allow me to tell you of another driving escapade I had while living in the same town. This one happened two years earlier. We had only lived there for 2 months and married for 9 months.
I had went golfing that day and toward the end of the round it had started to rain. I was soaked, cold and the only thing I could think of was getting home to a warm house, dry clothing and hot food.
Once again I was exceeding the speed limit. Once again, going about 10 mph over. But this time the consequences were more a little serious. As I rounded a bend in the road that I had forgotten how sharp a turn it was my vehicle lost control on the wet pavement, did lateral 360° and slammed my car up against the bank. The first car to come by was a policeman. He asked me if I was okay and what happened. I told him, “I’m think I’m fine. I lost control of my car on the wet road around this turn.”
“How fast were you going?” he asked.
“About 10 mph over the limit.” I replied
He said, “Tell you what I’m going to do. I have to write you up for reckless driving but you can go to traffic court if you wish.”
Needless to say I wasn’t too pleased but I sure didn’t want a reckless driving charge on my record so I decided to go to court, explain my situation and hope for the best.
My day came in front of Judge Luke. Judge Luke had a reputation for being tough on people with moving violations. When he asked me to explain what happened I told him everything—the golf, the wet clothes, the rain, my speed—everything.
He turned back to his calendar to verify that it did indeed rain that day looked at me and said, “All charges dismissed. Welcome to Sussex County.” I was dumbfounded! Not even a reduced sentence to speeding! Completely free! Just as if I never broke the law!
Whenever I drove that route in the future, I obeyed the law…with a smile on my face. All I could think about was my good fortune and the forgiving judge. Outwardly, I obeyed the speed limit signs and inside I was only too happy to do so.
There’s no denying it. Each time I was guilty. But the grace of the judge in one county led me to obey both inward and outward. The legalities of the policeman in the other county led only to outward compliance.
1 Cor. 15:10 says, “But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”
Let me tell you of the story of a dog named “Gelert.” Gelert’s master was a prince from North Wales who lived in the 13th century in the town of Beddgelert.
The prince returned from a hunt, walked into his bedroom and found his infant son missing and his crib bathed in blood. There by the crib was Gelert. His mouth was bloody and the prince in a fit of rage and fearing the worst took out his knife, stabbed and killed his pet.
Gelert’s yelp of pain awoke the baby—who was hidden amid the blankets. Under the bed, the prince found a dead wolf. Its throat had been torn out by Gelert when he saved the life of the baby son of the prince.
Sometimes we hurt the one who loves us the most. This is such a sad story. But it is no less sad than the hurt we often cause our God who has done nothing but lavished His love upon us.
The natural response to God’s grace is to live a life of honor and morality. The only response worth mentioning is to live holy lives which stems from an attitude of gratitude. The natural response of the one who has been touched by God’s grace is to do all the right things for all the right reasons. And the best reason of all is a love to God because God first loved you.
