Dance teams compete and are gradually eliminated. Each week the "stars" improve and the judges and public vote on whether they stay or go. Near the end the stars who are not quite up to par are in jeopardy. Jeopardy is the risk of losing. In this day of self-esteem "being in jeopardy" seems so passe'. However, most of the dancers will lose and nearly all will be in jeopardy!
The stars learn to dance and end up dancing well. The "goodness" of their dancing or their excellence doesn't guarantee success, but one team consisting of an amateur who's a star and a professional dancer will win the prize. The analogy here is how some endeavor to be Christians. People start out as amateurs in regard to knowing and loving Christ:
1 Peter 2:2 "As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby..."Peter is speaking to the newborn Christians in Asia Minor. They became Christians the right way which is by faith. However, a new Christian doesn't make a perfect Christian. They are just as babies. They have much to learn. However, liberal Christianity tends to teach that Christians become so through social justice; by doing good things and being good. They're just like the dancers! When those Christian want-to-be's seek a position in the church, they just start doing good things. Each day they do more good things. At some point in time they hope to impress their fellow do-gooders and the Supreme Judge well enough that they are no longer in jeopardy! They're on the way to winning. Winning means that they'll have eternal life if they are the best of the best. They in effect, mimic the dancers by dancing their way to self-improvement. "Dancing With the Stars" judges are impressed. God is not! The public is impressed. Discerning Christians are not!
Ephesians 2:8 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast."The dancers who perform better each week do often boast. Others are a little more insecure and leave room for failure. However, they all get puffed up with high scores and dismayed with lower ones. Want-to-be Christians are the same way. Many relish the flattery they get for doing good. Just read the obituaries! You'd think that most people who die were ambassadors of God for all the good they have done. Surely if we do good all our lives we're good enough for God. Not so!
Galatians 2:16 "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified."That means that God isn't impressed by "good". That's stuff we do! If we do "good" second rate, we're in jeopardy. If we do "good" par excellence we're still in jeopardy! As Ephesians 2:8 says, we're saved by "grace" through faith! It's nothing that we do ourselves! If we are just as loving as Mother Teresa, but have not faith, we're in jeopardy of losing. The judge won't be pleased with our performance and others won't be impressed by our "goodness" because no matter how good we are, we're sub-standard.
James 2:10 "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all."Let's look at the dancers. Even the professionals make mistakes. Although they are "really really good", they still make errors. The stars are even less perfect, but get pretty good before they're through. Let's say that they win if they get through all weeks without a flaw. They have to be perfect! However, the best of the best in dancing gets careless and missteps. If the judges used God's rules, not only do the losers lose, but the near perfect dancers lose as well. That means all the dancers are always losers! They can never be good enough to be perfect because they're mere humans!
However, gracious judges overlook errors and some win. That's grace, but that's not how God works. God can take the lousiest dancer who has faith in him for help and overlooks the missteps. The poor dancer who's meek, contrite, and loving who believes in the Supreme Judge and love him, gets an excellence award! They don't deserve it, but that's God's rules. He has a right to love us anyway he desires! What's more, the poor dancers tend to love God more because he overlooked so many of their missteps. The near excellent dancers, even if they love him, are still in love with their own performance as well. If they love God at all, they don't love him as much because they can't empathize with grace:
Luke 7:47 "Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little."It seems then that our love for God is proportional to the number of missteps we make. The more flaws we have in our dance, the more we're forgiven and the more we love God! You can see that in the faces of dancers who are sub-par. When they get praise from the dancing judges they beam. Likewise, I beam when I think that in spite of all my own missteps that someday God will say to me because of his grace:
Matthew 25:23a "His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant..."God will say that to me not because I was "good" but because I was faithful. That's "good" in God's Lexicon! Doing good is an effect of being faithful. Being "good" is not a pre-requisite to faithfulness. Indeed, if we count on being "good" for justification (Gal 2:16) that puts our justification in jeopardy. That's not the way to win the contest! We're justified (Christ paying the price for our sins) for doing nothing "good"! We can be complete Bozos on the dance floor and as long as we have faith in the grace of the judge, we win!
Aren't you thankful that your performance determines whether you have eternal life. Most religions believe that God carries scales and puts your "good" and "evil" on opposing scales. If the good deeds have more weight than the evil, then you get your reward. Even if you try to be good, consider your thoughts and your deeds. The scales would still balance toward the bad because most of us live for ourselves, at least until we submit to God. All the dancers would be in jeopardy all the time.
Being in jeopardy means our hope is dim. You can see that in the dancers faces when the moderator makes the announcement "You are in jeopardy!" The dancers can work harder and do more "good" in their routines with the hope in doing well enough to move from jeopardy to winning. We can't do that! There's only one thing that takes the do-gooder out of jeopardy. That person must admit that they're not really good at all, but indeed fail most of the time in their dance before the public. Poor performers, which we all are, must admit to our poor performance.
Then we must believe that one of the judges went through what we do, only that judge made no missteps. He danced in our place without even one flaw! Although that one judge danced perfectly, the audience boo'd at him, spat on him and even had him killed. He danced no more, but he ascended! That judge won the prize for our poor performance. We look to that judge for hope and because we know that he took our place we love him. We know that we deserve the ridicule for our dance, but he took it for us. We love that judge because he loved us so much that he took all the penalty which we deserve for our own poor performance.
Loving that judge will take you out of jeopardy. That's the only way to see the prize! Run that race. Dance superbly! You need only to believe.
1 Corinthians 9:24 "Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain."
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