Lesson One: How Good Is Good Enough?

LESSON ONE

HOW GOOD IS GOOD ENOUGH?

Chapter 1 of The Discipline of Grace

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good —except God alone.”

MARK 10:18

CENTRAL IDEA

Contrary to a common misconception, we do not earn or forfeit God’s blessings in our daily lives based on our performance. Regardless of our performance, we are always dependent on God’s grace, which is His undeserved favor to those who deserve His wrath.

DEVELOPING THE DISCIPLINE OF GRACE

What’s your initial reaction to this statement: “The pursuit of holiness must be anchored in the grace of God; otherwise it is doomed to failure”?

___ The grace of God and the vigorous pursuit of holiness cannot be brought together; they seem like direct and unequivocal opposites to me, sort of like “jumbo shrimp.”
___ The pursuit of holiness sounds to me like legalism and man-made rules.
___ An emphasis on grace seems to me like an open door to irresponsible, sinful behavior, setting us free to sin as we please.
___ I realize grace and personal discipline go hand in hand.
___ I do not understand what it means to live by grace in my daily life, especially the relationship of grace to personal discipline.
___ Other (describe it):

The picture of a well-chiseled man —with hammer and chisel in hand —depicts how many Christians try to live the Christian life. It seems we are always trying to change ourselves with self-help tools (hammer and chisel). Put yourself in that picture and consider this book as a tool available to sculpt you. What would be the difference between using this guide as a tool in your hands and letting God use it as a tool in His? What would each of these look like in practical terms?

Consider two radically different, but typical, days in your own life. The first one is a good day spiritually for you. The second day is just the opposite. Then answer the questions that follow.

a. Would you enter those two witnessing opportunities with different degrees of confidence? (Would you be less confident on the bad day than on the good day? Would you find it difficult to believe that God would bless you and use you in the midst of a rather bad spiritual day?) Why?
b. Think back to your last really “good” or really “bad” day. Did God’s blessing seem any more real or remote to you on one day than the other? Why?

The question of good days and God’s blessing raises the question of whether it is possible to somehow be good enough for God. How good would “good enough” have to be to please God? What answers would Jesus or Paul provide? Have each group member look up one or more of the following Scripture texts and report his or her findings to the group.

Matthew 5:48
Matthew 22:36-39
Luke 18:9-14
Luke 18:18-25
Romans 3:9-20
Philippians 3:4-10

Draw a simple time line of your life, with three points of time demarcated: your birth, the day of your salvation, and the anticipated day of your death. Regardless of your age when you trusted Christ, the Cross divides your whole life into two periods: you as an unbeliever and you as a believer. When along this time line was grace more than a theological concept to you?

Bridges makes the point that we have relegated the gospel to the unbeliever and foisted the duties of spiritual disciplines, holiness, and service onto the believer. Is that true in your own experience? Why do you suppose that happens?

The Pharisee-type believer and the guilt-laden believer both misunderstand the meaning of grace. How so?

How does “preaching the gospel to yourself every day” relate to this performance trap?

One practical way of “preaching the gospel to yourself” is to adjust the lens through which you read Scripture. With a corrective lens, you could see gospel and grace everywhere in Scripture and thus feel motivated. Without that lens, you might see only law and duty and thus feel unmotivated.

Consider, for example, what motivated Paul. How do you read 2 Corinthians 5:14? Do you think it was Paul’s love for Christ that compelled him to do good works and pursue holiness? Or was the compelling factor, rather, Christ’s love for him? (Read 2 Corinthians 5:14 in context and in several translations. You might also look at Romans 5:5 and Philippians 3:10.)

Mutua Mahiaini makes this observation:

God’s Grace is GREATER THAN ALL OUR SINS. Repentance is one of the Christian’s highest privileges. A repentant Christian focuses on God’s mercy and God’s grace. Any moment in our lives when we bask in God’s mercy and grace is our highest moment. Higher than when we feel smug in our decent performance and cannot think of anything we need to confess. . . .

That is potentially a glorious moment. For we could at that moment accept God’s abundant Mercy and Grace and go forth with nothing to boast of except Christ Himself, or else we struggle with our shame, focusing on that as well as our track record. We fail because we have shifted our attention from Grace and Mercy. One who draws on God’s Mercy and Grace is quick to repent, but also slow to sin.

Are you willing to “bask in God’s mercy and grace” as your “highest moment. Higher than when [you] feel smug in [y]our decent performance and cannot think of anything . . . to confess”? How would you go about adopting this attitude?

(Optional) To some, an overemphasis on the gospel raises the specter of “cheap grace.” Does knowing that your sins are and will be forgiven anyway permit you to keep on sinning and grow slack in your spiritual disciplines? Or does knowing forgiveness compel you to pursue holiness with all the more diligence? Compare your answer with those of Jesus and Paul, provided in the following Scriptures. (You could have each group member look up one text and report to the group.)

Matthew 23:23-28
Luke 9:23-25
Romans 6:1-2, 15-18
Galatians 6:13, 16-18
Philippians 3:12-14
Hebrews 12:14

Take a moment at the end of your group meeting to thank God for His abundant grace.

WHAT’S THE POINT OF ALL THIS?

The good news of the gospel is that God’s grace is available on our worst days. Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace. We will be exploring more of what that means as we look at the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. Meditate on Luke 18:11-12 and read chapter 2 of The Discipline of Grace for the next lesson. In preparation for that lesson, reflect on what it means to be smug and self-satisfied in your Christian life.

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