Life isn’t a Scantron

[podcast]http://www.revkwon.com/podcast/life-scantron.mp3[/podcast] Next week we’re going to start a brand new series titled, “#struggling” where we will talk about struggling through some areas of life that cause so many of us sleeplessness nights like contentment, relationships, authenticity, compassion, and rest. Woah. It’s like everywhere we look we’re all hashtag struggling… But that’s next week. This week we will conclude our series on “What do I believe” with a sermon entitled “Life is not a scantron.” I hope everyone knows what a scantron is. I’ll put it up on the screen for you, if you’re too young to know what these are. These forms were the bane of my childhood. Every time people saw these growing up there was the ugly stench of pee permeating through the once dried cotton stitching holding together the sweats on peoples’ legs. Our lives would be defined by these forms, or at least our acceptance into the next level. But sometimes our lives reflect the scantron. Or at least we believe that life is like a box of scantrons. If we know the answers and study the right questions, then life would place us in that next level. People often ask me why God places tests in their lives. It’s like, they say, that God wants to see whether I will pass like He doesn’t know that I will fail. Why does he make me prove to him that I will indeed fail? I often laugh at that because God knows you’ll fail. He was pretty certain of it when He sent Jesus into this world. But I think that most of us would feel more confident about what we believed if all we had to do was memorize the right vocabulary and understand the right concepts. Wouldn’t that make life so easy? Wouldn’t that make being Christian super easy? Just sit in Pastor’s Jonathan baptism course and you’ll sail through life. But God never intended for life to be an exam we passed just by simply knowing the right things. I want to look at Mark 10. This is a story that you’re all pretty familiar with, I think. But it is a story of a man who pretty much did the right things and knew the right things. The problem was that he was still failing at life. Let’s read, Mark 10, verse 17. ¹⁷ As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” The great life test is to get to heaven. That’s absolutely true. It is to be with God forever and ever. A lot of people think it’s the SAT or the ACT, which will determine which college you go to and what company you work for and how much you make and where you live and who you marry and how your kids will grow up. It’s just like that, the one test that we are preparing for in life, is the test to see if you can enter into God’s country. The man knew this. I think sometimes we have the tests all confused. We just don’t know what the test is. So we’re preparing for the wrong one. I’ve done that before. I’ve gone into tests studying the wrong chapters and the wrong notes and then asked the professor or the teacher, “um, I think you gave me the wrong test…” Understand what test you are taking so you can prepare for the right one. The man knew that he was preparing for and will be taking the test to enter God’s country. Life’s grand test is the test to enter God’s country. Let’s recognize that. It will be the most difficult test you will ever face. Let’s keep reading. ¹⁸ “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. ¹⁹ You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, you shall not defraud, honor your father and mother.’” ²⁰ “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.” When you’re taking the test to enter God’s country, there is two grades—good to go to His country, not good to go to His country. Good is passing the test. The big problem is that nobody can pass the test except God alone because He set the standard, which is perfection. The man did everything in his power to pass the test and be good. Jesus recognized this, the man recognized this. You’ll see it later on in the passage we’re looking at, but everyone around this conversation recognized this. This dude was legit. He should have gone to Notre Dame, or at least Harvard or Yale, and maybe even Princeton. But he wasn’t fit for heaven. He wasn’t fit because for him, the priest would have to go into the temple every day and offer a sacrifice to take away his sins. He wasn’t perfect. God is good because he is perfect. There is no flaw. He didn’t get a single thing wrong. It is this perfection that allows for heaven. Nobody has this except for God alone. I want you to know that despite your best efforts, you still fall short of the glory of God. He will never ever be able to enter heaven on his own power and we’re no different. It’s simply impossible. It sounds sad, but it’s not. The reason we come to church is because we believe that God is good and there is good news. That’s right, the good news is that we know will fail, God knows we will fail and so he lets Jesus take the test for us. Let’s keep reading in verse 21. ²¹ Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” ²² At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. (Mark 10:17-22 NIV) I’m not going to get into it too much here, but I’m going to tell you why this guy was sad, it wasn’t about having great wealth. It’s not a bad thing to have great wealth. I hope everyone in this room can experience great wealth one day. The guy was sad because the great wealth that he has was the thing that defined him and he didn’t want to let go of it for something better. Sometimes we fail tests because we have to wrong formula and apply the wrong formulas to the problems we have. It’s a fatal mistake. It’s a good thing that God loves us. It’s a good thing because what we couldn’t do alone, Jesus allows us to copy his test and be granted entrance into God’s country. I want you to see this, because I wrestled with this sermon in that I didn’t know what to believe about the futility of my life except that it was hopeless. Then I realized that Jesus had already passed the test. He was coming to us and taking the test of life for us so we can pass the test and gain entrance with him. It was such a brilliant move. Just imagine your teacher taking the standardized test for you. You would pass with perfection. After all, the test was made by the teacher. When Jesus was being tempted for forty days and forty nights, it wasn’t his test he was taking. He was taking our test for us. He was hungry, thirsty, sleepy, and become merely human. He lived in our country because he came from God’s country. Those things were tests for us to enter God’s country. When he came in as king in Jerusalem, he took the greatest test for us—to give everything up for our sake. Jesus did this because he loves us. The one thing the man lacked was Jesus—the only way into heaven and perfect is to follow perfection and give up on everything else. Perfection can only be achieved through following Christ and giving up on everything else. You probably already know this because you’re all super smart—so how do you pass the test? Pursue Jesus. When you believe you can gain entrance into heaven by pursuing Jesus, you will recognize that life is a lot easier than you make it out to be. The impossible test with impossible obstacles that appear to be unmovable, well, they become nothing. Let’s read on in verse 23. ²³ Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!” ²⁴ The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! ²⁵ It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” ²⁶ The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved?” ²⁷ Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.” ²⁸ Then Peter spoke up, “We have left everything to follow you!” ²⁹ “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel ³⁰ will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. (Mark 10:23-30) I said earlier that the test was taken for us. We already passed. When we believe Jesus took the test and passed the test for us, life is not about entrance—it’s about placement. Did you catch that in verse 30? When you live for God and the good news, that is to say, when we live like we believe it, that Jesus took the test for us and that there’s nothing else we need to prove, then we will never fail. I want you to believe this, we can’t fail because Jesus already passed for us. I don’t want to lie to you, let’s look at verses 29 and 30, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions…”  I want you really believe it because this is an incredible promise of what happens when we hang in there when life is testing us. It is just a matter of where we are placed. The persecutions (these life tests) that come along with the blessings of God for pursuing Jesus is a measure of placement. I want to wrap up the series here, our final memory verse in this series. It goes like this: With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God. If you remember nothing else in this series, you need to remember that. When we believe that nothing is impossible with God, then there is nothing that can stand in front of us and defeat us. There is nothing that can stand in front of us and do us any long lasting damage. There is nothing that we need to fear. That is because impossible is nothing to God. He is the God of perfect. He is the author of the great test. He passes that test with flying colors and by his stripes we are saved. When you face adversity, I want you to remember this verse. It may be impossible for us when we are alone but not with God. We are always with God, He is always with us. Because He is with us, all things are in the realm of possible. Don’t give up. Don’t lose hope. Never say can’t. This is what we believe. Let’s pray.