Works Righteousness

Is there really an afterlife? While most people think humans will never be able to prove what happens after death, half of adults still believe their spirit lives on—somewhere.

The new survey of over 1,000 people in the United Kingdom, finds 50% of respondents believe in an afterlife. Of this group, 60% believe everyone experiences the same thing when they die—regardless of their individual beliefs. However, two in three believe scientists will never be able to tell us what really happens when someone passes.

Regardless of whether people think they’re going to heaven (55%) or worry their life choices could end up sending them to hell (58%), the poll finds 68% of all respondents have no fear of what comes next. Overall, one in four think people go to heaven or hell, 16% believe they’ll exist in a “spiritual realm,” and 16% believe in reincarnation.

No matter what happens after death, respondents are confident it’ll actually be an improvement over their current life. The poll finds adults think heaven provides people with a chance to recapture the things they’ve lost throughout their life.

The vast majority (86%) think the afterlife involves a sense of peace and 66% describe it as a place of happiness. Three in five adults believe there will be no more suffering when they die.

However, respondents think there are a few conditions people need to follow in order to reach this peaceful realm. Over four in five people (84%) say you have to live a good life and be a generally good person to reach heaven. One in three claim you have to place your faith in a higher power to reach the afterlife and one in five say it requires you to confess all your sins.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This survey was taken in mid-life when old age and illness are seen as far away. When one gets closer to the end, it is likely many of them will change their opinion, or fall deeper into denial with the help of Satan who wants to soothe them with lies.

Garret Keizer was asked by his minister to visit an elderly parishioner, Pete, in a nursing home. Garret finds out that Pete loves bananas, so he starts bringing some on each week’s visit. Garrett said:

I was standing with my Chiquitas in line at the supermarket behind one of those people who seem to think they're at a bank instead of a store. She must have had three checkbooks. I shifted from one foot to the other, sighing, glancing at the clock. I wanted to catch Pete before supper. No doubt I was feeling the tiniest bit righteous because I was about the Lord's business on behalf of my old man, who needed his bananas and was looking forward to my company. And here was this loser buying an armful of trivial odds and ends and taking my precious time to screw around with her appallingly disorganized finances.

When I finally got through the line, I watched her walk to her vehicle feeling that same uncharitable impulse that makes us glance at the driver of a car we're passing just to “get a look at the jerk.” She got into the driver's seat of a van marked with the name of a local nursing home and filled to capacity with elderly men and women who had no doubt handed her their wish lists and checkbooks as soon as she'd cut the ignition.

A high-level NFL star (it’s Tom Brady if you want to use his name) recently expressed the essence of works-righteousness that lurks in all our hearts apart from Christ. After what he called an “amicable divorce,” he said, “All you can do is the best you can do, and that's what I'll just continue to do as long as I'm working, as long as I'm being a dad."

Then he defined what it means to be a “professional” athlete:

So I think the interesting thing for, you know, a football player, an athlete in general is, you're out there--I always say we're not actors, even though we're on TV--that is our real self out there and we're trying to do our best … We all have our unique challenges in life and we're all humans and we do the best we can do.

He concluded:

I want to … always try to do things the right way as well. And to deal with things that are in your life, that have challenges--you want to deal with them in the best possible way. So, I want to always be able to hold my head high on and off the field, and I'm going to try to continue to do that for as long as I'm here.

Possible Preaching Angles:

This illustration is not meant to criticize this athlete. It shows our need for a Savior because no matter how much we try to do our best it will never give the new life Jesus promises. This athlete shows the futility of works righteousness for all of us.

Beatrice Fediuk decided to write a resumé for heaven as her obituary. When she finally passed at age 94, the Winnipeg Free Press printed the resumé in its entirety. It starts: "Dear Lord, please accept my application for Eternal Life. My resumé is as follows." She divided her obituary into sections—like a real resumé—objectives, references, training, experience, volunteer work, and hobbies.

Beatrice gave a summary of her life history, saying she was born on October 22, 1927, to “loving parents Eugenie and Alfred. ... I have left my daughter Michelle, her husband Perry, my granddaughter Kali, and many nieces and nephews on earth, as there are no openings for them in Heaven just yet."

She shared her memories, saying: "Lord, you know that (as a teacher) I never had any 'teacher's pets.’ Rather, I put my heart into teaching those with learning challenges, or difficult family situations. It was here that I feel I did my best work. … I also continued volunteer work, knitting scarves for underprivileged children.”

Summing up her CV, she added: "Lord, I hope that you will find that I have met my Objectives and deserve a place in Your heavenly home. You know where to find me to further discuss my qualifications."

Possible Preaching Angle:

Sadly, this is how many good people plan to arrive in heaven—on the basis of good works and good intentions. But as Scripture clearly says, “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy (Titus 3:5).

A survey by Pew Research Center shows that American Protestants believe that:

46% Faith in God alone is needed to get into heaven

52% Both good deeds and faith in God are needed to get into heaven

46% The Bible provides all the religious guidance that Christians need

52% In addition to the Bible, Christians need guidance from church teachings and traditions

In a survey, two in three Americans told LifeWay Research, “Yes, I am a sinner.” But on what to do about it, self-confessed sinners were split.

All Americans:

34% I work on being less of a sinner

28% I depend on Jesus Christ to overcome sin

5% I am fine with being a sinner

Men:

38% I work on being less of a sinner

22% I depend on Jesus Christ to overcome sin

6% I am fine with being a sinner

Women:

33% I depend on Jesus Christ to overcome sin

30% I work on being less of a sinner

4% I am fine with being a sinner

Protestants:

49% I depend on Jesus Christ to overcome sin

31% I work on being less of a sinner

3% I am fine with being a sinner

Catholics

48% I work on being less of a sinner

19% I depend on Jesus Christ to overcome sin

4% I am fine with being a sinner

Throughout history, human beings have always attempted to regulate behavior in order for people in a society to live peacefully and productively. Religious and secular values, societal laws, education, and politics have all been used to motivate people to adopt the better sides of our nature. The great atheist nation China has begun to implement a bold new plan to foster a more moral and industrious society.

The government has begun evaluating and ranking every citizen based on their behavior. As of 2020 all citizens have a new identity number and a social-credit record. Because of widespread concerns by Chinese citizens of the prevalence of corruption, scams, and scandals, the Communist Party has developed a system that would “allow the trustworthy to roam freely under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step.”

Good behavior is rewarded while bad is punished. “Rewards for high social credit—in other words, being deemed trustworthy—may include perks like free access to gym facilities, public transportation discounts, and shorter wait times in hospitals. Punishments for low social credit could include restrictions on renting an apartment, buying a home, or enrolling a child in one’s preferred school.”

Psychologists warn of the downsides: “People whose futures are tied to the score may make cold calculations about friends’ likely numbers in an effort to make sure no one becomes a drag on their or their family’s prospects. And they may decide against friending some individuals—or whole groups of people altogether.”

After stating that Jesus Christ was “one of the greatest men that ever walked the earth,” rocker Sammy Hagar was then asked: “What do you think about the claims of Christ to be the Way, the Truth and the Life – No one comes to the Father but by Me?”

Hagar replied, “I think that’s something man made up – I’m not sure, though I can’t say in my heart that I believe that, but I also can’t say that I know for a fact that it’s wrong. I think it’s just been misinterpreted and taken out of context … I really interpret that as Christ saying, ‘The way I preach life, is you don’t hurt another, you don’t kill …’ you know, the Ten Commandments. Let’s use those for the example. I believe that He’s saying, ‘This is the way to God.’ You don’t have to go through Him, and use Him, like He’s saying, ‘I’m the egotist,’ or ‘I’m the vehicle.’ He’s teaching. ‘If you don’t obey these rules, you will not go to heaven, and not be in touch with God.’”

Hagar continues, “I think too much emphasis on the Man Himself, and if He were walking around here today, He would go, ‘Hey man, don’t be looking at Me. I can’t save your (expletive). Only you can save your (expletive). And He made it pretty easy on us. Those rules are so simple, The Ten Commandments … Anybody in their right mind could live by those rules. I think that’s all Christ was really trying to do.”

The brilliant American writer David Foster Wallace committed suicide on September 12th, 2008. He was only 46-years-old. For many months prior to his death, Wallace had been in a deep depression. About ten years after Wallace’s death, Dr. David Kessler M.D. wrote an article in Psychology Today reflecting on what may have caused Wallace’s tragic end:

Wallace’s 2008 suicide at the age of 46 devastated the literary community. He was, at that time, acclaimed as the boldest, most innovative writer of his generation ... Despite Wallace’s frustration with his inability to complete the book [The Pale King], in some ways his life had never been better. He had married four years earlier and was comfortably settled in California, with a teaching job he loved. Why then did he take his own life?

Wallace’s life offers an example of what can happen when … striving perfectionism, which evolves into relentless self-criticism and becomes coupled with an uncanny ability to analyze the flaws in one’s own analysis … Wallace was caught up by this very loop, which resulted in a despair that ultimately he could not conceive of ever escaping. Yet, swimming upstream through his own torrent of disapproval, Wallace always hoped for more: more achievement, more recognition, more love.

In a skills article for Preaching Today, David Prince writes:

I know a family who adopted an older child from an unspeakably horrific orphanage in another country. When they brought her home one of the things they told her was that she was expected to clean her room every day. When she heard about that responsibility, she fixated on it and saw it as a way she would earn her family’s love. In other words, she isolated the responsibility and applied it to her existing frame of thinking that was shaped by life in the orphanage. Thus, every morning when her parents came in her room, it was immaculate and she would sit on the bed and would say, “My room is clean. Can I stay? Do you still love me?” Her words broke her new parents’ hearts.

Eventually, the girl learned to hear her parents’ words as their unconditionally beloved child who would never be forsaken, not as a visitor trying to earn her place in the family. After she knew that she was an inseparable part of the family story, even correction and discipline did not cause her to question her family’s love for her; she understood correction and discipline to be part of what it meant to be in the family.

An article in USA Today reports that the American Psychological Association has published new research exploring the rise of perfectionism in young people. Compared to prior generations, today's college students are harder on themselves, more demanding of others, and report higher levels of social pressure to be perfect.

The study examined over 40,000 college students who took a special survey between 1989 and 2016. The more recent students scored higher in all three forms of perfectionism. Between 1989 and 2016, the scores for socially prescribed perfectionism—or perceiving the excessive expectations of others—increased by 33 percent. Other-oriented expectations—putting unrealistic expectations on others—went up 16 percent, and self-oriented perfectionism—our irrational desire to be perfect—increased 10 percent.

One of the lead researchers concluded, "Today's young people are competing with each other in order to meet societal pressures to succeed and they feel that perfectionism is necessary in order to feel safe, socially connected and of worth." Unfortunately, perfectionism can lead to anxiety, clinical depression, anorexia, and other health issues.

Fleming Rutledge writes: Sin is a category without meaning except in reference to God. A Calvin and Hobbes comic strip illustrates this in an endearing way. Calvin, a little boy, is hurtling down a snowy slope on a sled with his friend Hobbes, a tiger, conducting a discussion about sin (the wildly improbable nature of this scene is part of its charm). Here is the dialogue:

Calvin: I'm getting nervous about Christmas.

Hobbes: You're worried you haven't been good?

Calvin: That's just the question. It's all relative. What's Santa's definition? How good do you have to be to qualify as good? I haven't killed anybody. That's good, right? I haven't committed any felonies. I didn't start any wars. … Wouldn't you say that's pretty good? Wouldn't you say I should get lots of presents?

Hobbes: But maybe good is more than the absence of bad.

Calvin: See, that's what worries me.

For over 100 years Michelin has not only produced high-quality auto tires but also the premiere guide to fine dining. Achieving or losing even one star in Michelin's restaurant rating can have a dramatic effect on the success of a restaurant. One famous French chef claimed, "Michelin is the only guide that counts." That's why the restaurant world was shocked when SÉbastien Bras, one of France's most celebrated chefs, declared that he wanted to be dropped from Michelin's rankings. For over 20 years Bras had been honored with three stars (the highest rating). Michelin's restaurant judges called his food "spellbinding."

But in September 2017, Bras said the pressure to perform was too much. Bras announced, "Today, I want to give a new meaning to my life … and redefine what is essential." He said his job had given him a lot of satisfaction but there was also huge pressure that was inevitably linked to the three Michelin stars first given to the restaurant in 1999. He asked to be allowed to continue his work with a free spirit and in serenity away from the world of rankings, without tension.

Bras said, "Maybe I will be less famous but I accept that," adding that he would continue to cook excellent local produce "without wondering whether my creations will appeal to Michelin's inspectors."

Once upon a time, there was a king who looked from his palace window and saw one of his children collecting flowers in a distant field. The king watched as the child collected the flowers into a bouquet and wrapped it with a royal ribbon of royal colors. The king smiled because the ribbon indicated that the flowers were being collected as a gift for his own pleasure. Then the king noticed that the child—because he was a child—gathered not only flowers. From time to time, the child also added some weeds from the field, and some ivy from the border of the woods, and some thistle from the unmown banks of ditches."

To help his laboring child, the king gave a mission to his oldest son, who sat at his right hand. The king said to his eldest son, "Go to my garden and pick from the flowers that grow there. Then, when your sibling comes to my throne room with his gift, remove all that is unfit for my palace from his bouquet. Make it fit by putting in its place the flowers that I have grown."

The elder brother did exactly as his father had instructed. When the younger child came to the throne room, his brother removed the weeds, the ivy, and the thistle, substituting all with flowers from the king's garden. Then, the firstborn son rewrapped the royal ribbon around the bouquet so that his sibling could present his gift to the king. With a beaming smile, the younger child entered the throne room, presented the gift, and said, "Here, my father, is a beautiful bouquet that I have prepared for you." Only later would he understand that his gift had been made acceptable by the gracious provision of his father.

In many instances, duct tape is highly reliable—but as a means of water transportation, it may not be a prime choice.

Just ask the Alaskan man who attempted to cross a channel near Juneau on a "homemade watercraft"—more specifically, "an inflatable, duct-taped craft"—complete with a paddle, his dog, and a conspicuous lack of a life jacket.

A local news outlet stated that while the "[w]eather on scene was reportedly calm with 9 mph winds," a local Coast Guard crew still ended up coming to the man's aid: when the makeshift boat started to fill with water.

Having "deemed the craft unsafe," they "transferred it, the man—and his dog—to [nearby] Douglas Harbor."

(Perhaps to guard against embarrassment, the news release "did not identify the man.")

Potential Preaching Angles: This man's "boat" was homemade, patched together with duct tape and carrying no life jacket on board—yet he still trusted it with his life (and even his dog's life). Is there anything in our lives that we rely on to give us health, happiness, and meaning when we should instead be relying on the ship that will never sink, the fortress and refuge in which we trust (Ps. 91:2)?

What is more important: who we are or what we do? Here's how pastor Noel Jesse Heikinnen answers that question in his book Unchained:

Down through history, the predominant viewpoint has been that what we do determines who we are. We've all heard the old adage, "You are what you eat." This isn't a new school of thought. Aristotle wrote, "We are what we repeatedly do." A recent TED talk declared, "You are what you tweet." Each one of these proclamations, while carrying a significant nugget of truth, gets the core message of the gospel backward. Frank Zappa, of all people, got it right: "You are what you is." In other words, it's not what we do that determines who we are; rather, who we are determines what we do. This is the biblical paradigm.

In the original fairy tale version of The Wizard of Oz, the Tin Woodman had once been a real man who was in love with a beautiful maiden and dreamed of marrying her. The witch hated their love, so she cast a spell on him so that one by one his limbs had to be replaced with artificial tin limbs. The tin limbs allowed him to work like a machine. So with a heart of love for his maiden and arms that never tired, he seemed destined to win over the witch's spell.

But the Tin Man said, "I thought I had beaten the Wicked Witch then, and I worked harder than ever; but I little knew how cruel my enemy could be." The Wicked Witch made Tin Man's axe slip and cut himself in half, and though a tinner was able to fasten him back together again, alas, he had no heart … so that I lost all my love for the girl, and did not care whether I married her or not."

Most of you know the rest of the story: caught in a rainstorm, the Tin Man began to rust, remaining in that spot until Dorothy came all the way from Kansas to rescue him and begin his journey to Oz. In the book by Frank Baum, the Tin Man tells Dorothy, "During the year I stood there I had time to think that the greatest loss I had known was the loss of my heart. While I was in love I was the happiest man on earth; but no one can love who has not a heart, and so I am resolved to ask the Oz to give me one."

Possible Preaching Angles: John Eldredge comments, "Notice there was a man who was once real and alive and in love. But after a series of blows, his humanity was reduced to efficiency. He became a sort of machine—a hollow man." Life has a way of doing the same thing to us. We, too, have suffered a series of blows. And, as a result, we may still go through the motions of life—busy, productive, efficient, and religious—but we've lost our heart. But the risen Christ can renew our hearts with his hope.

In his film, A Hologram for the King, Tom Hanks plays a middle-aged American businessman who is sent to Saudi Arabia, where the king is planning to build a new city in the middle of the desert. Hanks' character, Adam Clay, must persuade the Saudis to let the company he works for provide IT technology and support for this new city.

In an interview after the film debuted, Hanks told Terry Gross, host of NPR's "Fresh Air," that he felt particularly connected with his character's sense of self-doubt and dislocation. Hanks said, "No matter what we've done, there comes a point where you think, 'How did I get here? When are they going to discover that I am, in fact, a fraud and take everything away from me?'

Despite having won two Academy Awards and appearing in more than 70 films and TV shows, Hanks says he still finds himself doubting his own abilities. "It's a high-wire act that we all walk," he told Terry Gross,

There are days when I know that 3 o'clock tomorrow afternoon I am going to have to deliver some degree of emotional goods, and if I can't do it, that means I'm going to have to fake it. If I fake it, that means they might catch me at faking it, and if they catch me at faking it, well, then it's just doomsday.

In the early 1980s the city of Philadelphia had a huge problem with graffiti. The mayor established the Anti-Graffiti Network, committed to combatting the vandalism, which morphed into the Mural Arts Program, led by the artist Jane Golden. Golden said, "I spent the first five years of my life in Philly being told that graffiti is never going away and the kids you're working with are going to end up in jail." But she didn't give up. When police caught kids painting graffiti, program officials first asked them to sign an amnesty statement, pledging to refrain from graffiti writing, then assigned them scrub time, cleaning spray paint from walls.

Then without warning one Friday night, about a dozen guys showed up at Golden's door. As they introduced themselves, she recognized most from their graffiti tag names, like "Rock" and "Cat." Golden invited them inside. "They came in and went right for my art books, pulling out all the books on abstract expressionism," she said.

Many of them had dropped out before high school, but they had learned about art from books they had checked out or stolen from the library. Most had brought Golden their sketch books, so she could see the type of work they were doing. "They'd learned about drawing from comic books; they had an intuitive sense of color and design," Golden said. After talking with the young artists about their work, Golden explained the anti-graffiti program, and before they left her house, all had agreed to sign the pledge and commit themselves to scrub time.

Golden connected with the young graffiti writers not as "criminals," but as artists. She offered them a lifeline, a way they could be paid money to paint murals legally. The organization is now the largest public art program in the U.S, with a collection of over 4,000 murals.

Editor’s Note: The program is still going strong in 2024, you can read the latest here

In an interview in The New York Times, award-winning actor Ben Affleck reflected on the pressure to hide our broken areas. When he watches other movies that strain to make their heroes entirely likable and valiant, Mr. Affleck said: "I find that boring. Instead, I think it's interesting how we manage the best version of ourselves, despite our flaws and our weaknesses and our tendencies to do the wrong thing."

The article noted, "[Affleck] has also realized that for all of his Hollywood success, some part of him will always feel like a relentless striver who must prove, through his work, that he has a right to be there." Affleck put it this way:

That [relentless striving] never goes away. All these habits that we develop, that help us at some point, they have flip sides. In this case, it's hard to turn that feeling off … The urge of making it good and trying to make sure that it works, that you've done the most interesting version that you can—it's like a neurosis that drives me to work every day.