CAN WE BE RIGHTEOUS IN OURSELVES BY LIVING A GOOD LIFE?

By Rev. Ernest O'Neill

Loved ones, we human beings were meant to feel good about our lives.  We were meant to feel good about our jobs.  We were meant to feel good about our relationships.  We were meant to feel good about our futures.  We were meant to feel a sense of rightness about our lives.

And the sense of rightness that is based on faith says, "Don't think you are ever going to come to a sense of everything being right in your life by living up to all the ideals that you find in the self-improvement courses or in the religions.  You will never do it.  You will never feel right or come to a sense of rightness by succeeding in living up to all the ideals you think you should live up to."

Now here is the way that it is put.  We talked about it a few weeks ago.  Romans 10:6: "But the rightness based on faith says, Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?' (that is, to bring Christ down).”

Your Creator says to you, "Look, you will never get a sense of rightness in your life by thinking that somehow you are going to live high enough, that you are going to ascend into heaven by a very good behavior and by successfully disciplining all your wrong passions, that by managing to do that you will get a sense of rightness.  You will never do it.  All the religions in the world are based on that except mine -- the idea that somehow you will live good enough in order to create a sense of rightness in yourself.  It will never happen."

You see, verse seven says the opposite thing.  “’Who will descend into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).”  Don't pretend that you haven't a conscience, and that somehow you will get a sense of rightness by just being as miserable and wretched as your worst feelings want you to be.  Don't sink into the position of the existential writers who think they are being realistic when they choose the worst of human nature and base their plays on that.

Don't think that by being that way you are going to find a sense of right, or that somehow we will create the Christ-life or the sense of rightness in ourselves.  The rightness that is based on faith and that we are meant to have says, "You will never come to a sense of rightness in your life either by idealistic striving or by amoral passivity.”  This verse says, "Well, what does the rightness based on faith say?”  Well, it says, “Be what you are."

What are you?  Well, we are infinitesimally small creatures who come

into this world in unbelievable weakness and vulnerability.  We do.  Human babies must be the most vulnerable animals in the whole universe.  We come into this world in incredible weakness and vulnerability, and after 70 years we go out of it in even more weakness and vulnerability.  And in between we are utterly dependent on the One who sent us here, and the One who will receive us when we leave.  But despite our puny coming and our pathetic going, in between the coming and the going, we act as if we control the whole universe, and could control it, and ought to control it for our own benefit.

The rightness based on faith says, “That’s not right.  If you can’t control either your coming or your going, then it is obvious that you are utterly dependent on the One who sent you here and the One who will receive you when you leave.  So everything in between is surely equally dependent upon Him, and the only right thing to do is to acknowledge that.  Acknowledge that you are utterly dependent on this God for your relationship with your colleagues, for your status with your peers, for your success in your job.  For the security of your future, for your own personal happiness.

Surely the wise thing is to acknowledge that you are dependent on the Creator that made you for all these things.  And you ought to simply live trusting him and depending on him to provide these things for you."

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