DOES GOD GRADE ON THE CURVE?

Habakkuk 1:12 - 2:1

INTRODUCTION:   

As a youth, I was a terrible student.  I never got very good grades and my teachers often said that I was easily distracted and not working up to my potential.

Last November, as we were preparing to move to Clay City, Sandy and I sorted through some boxes that we had moved several times and had never even opened.  One of them was a box my mother had given me of all the grade cards and school papers I had brought home during all my years from first grade through high school. 

As early as first grade, teachers were writing that I was easily distracted and that I talked too much in class.  Go figure!

As I say, I was never a very good student – until I got into graduate school and then I made pretty good grades.  Because I wasn’t a very good student and was easily distracted, there were two words that struck fear into my tender heart: “Pop-test”!  But because I wasn’t a very good student and was easily distracted, there were four words that brought hope to my tender heart: “graded on the curve”.

The theory seems to have been that if everybody in the class did a poor job on the test, the teacher must not have done a good job teaching the material so the standards were lowered to meet the level of performance of the class.  Now don’t get me wrong; grading on the curve rarely saved my bacon.  Almost always, there was some girl who would have listened in class, read the book and understood the material and she would blow the curve for the rest of us.  No, grading on the curve rarely helped me out much but at least it gave me a moment of hope.

Unfortunately, many of us got out of school believing that life is like being graded on the curve.  And in some ways, it really is.  In manufacturing, a plant does not have to make a perfect product; it just has to be better than the competitors’.  In entertainment, we rank movies against one another to see who had the highest box-office scores and that is how we determine a successful movie.  Television programs are ranked against other programs in the same time-slot to see which is the most successful.  There is no standard of excellence other than how that program compared with others.

I’m afraid that some of us may have carried this same concept into our relationship with the Lord, too.  We believe that God will surely save us so long as we are better than most of our friends and neighbors.

Scripture teaches that God has an inflexible standard of righteousness by which we will all be measured.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been introducing you to a friend of mine by the name of Habakkuk.  Habakkuk knew that the Jews of Judah were not living up to God’s standard of righteousness and that troubled him.  But he figured that they were safe because at least they were better than their neighbors.

One of the messages of the book of Habakkuk is that God does not grade on the curve.  God requires righteousness and anything less will not be blessed.

Hear the words of Habakkuk, the prophet:

Habakkuk’s Second Complaint

^12 O Lord, are you not from everlasting?

My God, my Holy One, we will not die.

O Lord, you have appointed them to execute judgment;

O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.

^13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil;

you cannot tolerate wrong.

Why then do you tolerate the treacherous?

Why are you silent while the wicked

swallow up those more righteous than themselves?

^14 You have made men like fish in the sea,

like sea creatures that have no ruler.

^15 The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks,

he catches them in his net,

he gathers them up in his dragnet;

and so he rejoices and is glad.

^16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net

and burns incense to his dragnet,

for by his net he lives in luxury

and enjoys the choicest food.

^17 Is he to keep on emptying his net,

destroying nations without mercy?

2     I will stand at my watch

and station myself on the ramparts;

I will look to see what he will say to me,

and what answer I am to give to this complaint.

I.                    The Holiness of God (1:12-13)

Habakkuk begins his address to God by focusing on God’s holiness.  He reminds God that since He is pure, holy and upright, He cannot even look on evil or tolerate sin.  Why, then, would God condescend to use the wicked Babylonians to punish the people of Judah? 

As I suggested in last week’s sermon, most of us have wondered the same thing.  How can God use someone who doesn’t love Him, honor Him or respect Him as much as we do, to punish us for our sins?

In a perfect world, we’d like to think that the good guys never make deals with the bad guys.  We’d like to think that our government would never negotiate with terrorists, that the police would never bargain with criminals and that the Cardinals would never make a trade with Cubs.  It surprises us to know that in God’s perfect world, He does deal with the bad guys to accomplish His will.  This fact does not diminish the holiness of God.  We must remind ourselves that God does not grade on the curve so that even the most upright of men are unrighteous before God.  As Isaiah the prophet observed, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.”  (Isaiah 64:6) 

Some of us tend to blame God and say that He has set the standard too high and that no one could achieve it.  But then we see Jesus who, although fully God, was also fully human: Jesus, who was tempted in all points as we are yet who committed no sin.  And when we see Jesus, we know that he blew the curve.  We could have lived up to God’s standards, we just chose not too because we gave in to the temptation to sin.

II.                  The Helplessness of God’s People (1:14-15)
After considering the holiness of God, Habakkuk turns to the helplessness of God’s people. 

Habakkuk uses a figure of speech to illustrate his point.  He compares people with the fish of the sea.  His observation is that the fish of the sea have no ruler, no leader, no god so they swim through life aimlessly until they are caught with a hook or snagged in a net by the one who intends to devour them.

In Habakkuk’s analogy, it is the Babylonians who are the enemy of whom he writes.  But the figure has a wider application.  Satan also hooks or nets men and then rejoices at his catch.  Satan delights in ensnaring God’s children and devouring them.  Habakkuk felt hopeless because he felt helpless before the enemy.  And so do we, at times.  But we do not need to.

It is true that Satan is a cunning angler.  He baits his hooks with the choicest temptations to try to lure us into his grasp.  He hides the barbs by making evil seem so good that it seems irresistible; so we take the bait and swallow his temptation hook, line and sinker. 

Know this, though: your foe has not changed his tactics since Eden.  Even back then, he was convincing his prey that God’s didn’t mean what He said when He gave a commandment to man.  Even back then, Satan tried to convince mankind that disobedience was more appealing than obedience.  Even in the Garden, Satan tried to tell the first family that they could sin without consequences.  And Adam and Eve swallowed those lies hook, line and sinker. 

So have I. 

So have you. 

And if you are like me, you’ve probably sinned some sins so many times that you now feel like you are helpless to resist so you hit on the lure as soon as Satan casts it. 

But the truth is that Satan is a liar and when he tells you that you are helpless, God tells you that you are not.  When Satan tells you that you cannot resist him, God says that you can and that when you do, Satan will flee from you.  The idea of the helplessness of God’s people is a lie of the devil; it is from the pit of hell and it smells like smoke.  Don’t be hooked by the lie.  You are not helpless in the face of temptation.

III.                The Haughtiness of God’s Foes (1:16-17)

As Habakkuk continues to pour out his heart to God, he reveals that he is not only discouraged because of the apparent helplessness of God’s children, he is also discouraged because of the haughtiness of God’s foes. 

He describes the enemies of the people of God as worshiping the tools they use to defy God because it is by their nets that they have the means to live in luxury and enjoy haute cuisine.

Again, in Habakkuk’s case, he was specifically writing about the Babylonians.  But the same could be said of any of God’s enemies today.  They praise the illegal, immoral and shameful methods they employ to achieve their opulent, luxurious and lavish lifestyles.  And they look down on those who worship the Lord, who sacrifice for Him and who serve Him.

I’ve often felt like Habakkuk.  I’ve often found the very defiant, insolent and impudent attitude of the enemies of the Lord to be demoralizing.  From an earthly point of view, it seems as if they are defying God’s laws, disrespecting God’s people and getting away with it.

Let me give you a brief preview of next week’s sermon: they only seem to be getting away with it.  Looks are deceiving.  Do not let anyone’s haughty attitude sway you.  Those who defy the Lord will eventually be called to account for their disobedience.  And so will we because we’ve all disobeyed and fallen short of God’s design for us.

CONCLUSION:      

The really bad news is that God does not grade on the curve.  He has an absolute standard of righteousness by which we will all be judged and if we have failed to be the righteous, blameless and holy people that He requires us to be, we will be lost for eternity.  The really bad news is that God does not grade on the curve; the really good news is that He does grade on the cross.  God is willing to allow the righteousness of Jesus to count for you if you are willing for that to happen.

It is as if a teacher assigned some reading from the class textbook.  Maybe you got distracted and failed to read the assignment.  Or maybe you read the text but had trouble understanding it.  Either way, you get to class the next day and the teacher tells you to put all of your books away, get out a clean sheet of paper and prepare for a pop-test.  The entire class groans because they know that this is a teacher who never grades on the curve.

But then the classroom door opens and a man walks in.  The teacher introduces him as the one who wrote the textbook and then offers that, if you wish, the author of the text can take your test for you and his knowledge will be counted as yours.

Can you imagine the relief you would feel?  I can only think of two reasons why anyone would not take that offer.  Some may believe that they know the textbook better than the author does so they would refuse to allow the author to take their test.  And some may believe there is a catch and that this development is just too good to be true so they do not accept the offer.

Hebrews 12:1-2 reads:

¹ Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. ^2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Jesus is the author of the test by which we will be judged and he is the perfecter of it.  God has decided to allow the righteousness of Jesus to be counted as yours.  There is no catch.  While almost too good to comprehend, this good news is not too good to be true.  It is true.

The only other reason that a person might refuse God’s offer is if he believes he is good enough so that he doesn’t need the righteousness of Christ to count for his own.

If you acknowledge that you have fallen short of God’s standard and if you are willing for the holiness of Jesus to count as your own, then we extend an invitation to come forward and accept Christ as your savior.  That means that you are going to allow him to take your test for you…and we already know his grade because God said of him, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.”  “This is my son whom I love; I am very pleased with him.”

Wouldn’t you like to hear those words in the judgment?  You can if you accept Jesus as your savior and let him be judged in your place.

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