I’ll never forget, something my high school principal once said to me:
“Success in life is 5% ability and 95% blood, sweat and tears.”
I guess I’ve always believed that with hard work and dedication we can achieve almost anything we put our minds to. My motto in life has always been, ‘forget what’s reasonable or practical … with blood, sweat and tears, we’ll make it happen’ …
It strikes me that that 5% ‘ability’ that is needed to succeed, might only be 5%, but it matters a lot. Without ability, all the hard work in the world won’t be enough.
Take, for example, my performance in mathematics. I don’t know if you know what it’s like to work really really hard at school, just to achieve a pass grade … well, that was me in maths. In maths, all the hard work in the world, was never going to get me a high distinction … because I just didn’t have the ability … it’s like that part of the brain that grasps mathematical concepts, just isn’t in me. I could work really hard at it, but I will never be successful at it because I don’t have that 5% factor: ability.
But you know … that 5% ability factor that my school principal was talking about … it doesn’t just apply to study does it? It applies to life.
My sister-in-law is severely autistic. So her 5% ability to have a normal life just isn’t there.
I have a very good friend was in a bad relationship for a few years … but her 5% ability to see her boyfriend for what he is … not there …
An alcoholic has no 5% ability to control their drinking or to choose to drink in moderation.
I sometimes think it must be so hard for parents who watch their adult children making bad choices in life … and to feel the powerlessness of that 5%.
We all have that missing 5%, don’t we? We all have something that we desperately want to be free of … the friend we want to help, but they won’t be helped … the relative we want to love but they’re just so hard to love … the marriage we want to save … or the habit that we try and try to change … but no matter how many diets we go on, or therapists we see, or how much good advice we get … we just can’t.
But hey, let’s not focus on the 5%. Surely Christmas is a time for us to think about that 95% … what we can do to make the world a better place. Sponsor a child. Donate to the Salvos. Recycle your Christmas cards. Make a new year’s resolution to get fit. Isn’t Christmas a time for us to all think about what we can do to bring peace on earth?
Well, yes, it is … except that every year we are confronted with the same reality, that there isn’t peace on earth … that there is still global poverty, and cancer and troops in Afghanistan … and actually, if we were honest, we would admit that we can’t actually succeed at world peace … because it seems that there’s just this 5% ability factor that is missing in the human race.
But here’s the thing … What we celebrate at Christmas is first and foremost all about that missing 5% … and where to get it.
And his name is Jesus.
And he came into the world so that we could be free from that inability that we all have … and to companion us through the blood, sweat and tears of life.
We read tonight from Paul’s letter to Titus where he summarises what God has done through Jesus Christ .. and he addresses both the 5% ability factor and the 95% hard work factor, both of which are part of God’s plan to set us free.
5% - Ability
2:11 - “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all …”
What does that mean?
The grace of God is God’s choice to love us when we don’t love him, and to be faithful to us, even when we aren’t faithful to him.
We first see this grace in God’s covenant relationship with the people of Israel, in which he promised to be their God, to protect them in the land, he gave them the law. But then, even after they consistently disobeyed him, he eventually said to the prophet Jeremiah that he promised to forgive his people and make a new covenant.
And he says this time:
“I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.” (Jer 31: 33)
How will he do this?
“I will cause a righteous branch to spring up for David; and he will execute justice and righteousness in the land.” (Jer 33:15)
That is, that God will raise up a descendant of David who will fulfill his covenant promise and he will do so with justice and righteousness, which means that this man will be in right-relationship with God (he will be totally obedient to God).
And what this branch of David is going to achieve (whose name is Jesus by the way), is salvation for all.
But salvation from what? Well, it’s all that 5% inability stuff … the fact that no matter how hard we try we just can’t seem to change the fact that the world is contaminated with injustice and suffering and we ourselves aren’t free from it.
Have you noticed that everyone’s got a theory on how to fix the world? Maybe the answer is socialism, or maybe it’s democracy, or maybe it’s human rights treaties.
You know there’s a reason why Borders bookstores have massive sections dedicated to self help, lifestyle, health and spirituality … it’s because every human theory fits into that 95% bracket called our effort to change … and it is always limited because it doesn’t fix our inability to change.
And so the problems of our world come down to one thing which all our theories overlook: and that is our inability to have a relationship with God.
We can’t see God or know God … and we can’t love him. We keep cheating on him by creating other gods you see.
What does this have to do with the state of the world? Everything!
Because you see, God is the source of our very life. He made us and this world. His love for us, is what makes us live and breath. Rejecting him is what makes us die. If we can’t love him, how can we love his world; how can we love each other; how can we love ourselves?
We can’t love perfectly. That’s our 5% inability that accounts for 100% of the problem. But Jesus can, and he came to save us from that problem, and to give us his ability to love. This is why he gave us a new commandment, to love one another as he has loved us. He doesn’t ask us to do something we can’t do, because he restored our ability to love like God loves, and how?
… with “justice and righteousness” … he took the punishment for our unfaithfulness to God on himself, so that justice is served, and our relationship with God can be made right, and God’s covenant promise to forgive us is fulfilled … by Jesus’ blood of the new covenant which is poured out for the forgiveness of sins.
In Jesus we can see God, know God, love him and his world … his grace has appeared, and he has brought salvation.
But we don’t want to be like the student who has an IQ of 160 but fails all their subjects because they never do any work. I think it’s right, that success still comes with:
95% - Training (blood, sweat and tears)
In Paul’s letter to Titus, after telling us that the grace of God has been revealed, bringing salvation for all, he gives us a picture of what it’s like to then be in a relationship with God …
… and it’s one where curiously, his work is ongoing …
2:12 – (Jesus) is training us, so that renouncing ungodliness and worldly passions, we should in the present age live lives that are of sound mind, righteous and godly …
See, he’s working with us, teaching and training us to be like him … in right relationship with God, able to turn away from behaviour that is unloving and ungodly.
Do you see what this means? It means Jesus isn’t just a cute baby or some wimpy hippy make love not war kind of mystic … He’s more like a personal trainer. He’s the teacher who reads our essays and says, ‘not good enough, write it again’. He’s like my flamenco dancing teacher who yells at me when I get the steps wrong and makes me repeat the routine in front of the class until I get it right. He’s like the friend who will take you kicking and screaming into re-hab and get you to de-tox until you’re clean. If anything or anyone is leading you into bad habits he’ll cut them out of your life (Matthew 18). He’ll take you where you don’t want to go (John 21). He’ll get you up at 4am for training and keep you up at midnight to prepare for that final exam.
Who knew being a Christian would be so much hard work? Why does Jesus want to train us? He’s God, right, so can’t he just get rid of all the sin and suffering in the world in an instant if he wants to?
One day he will do that … while we’re training we’re also waiting …
Waiting (Paul writes) “for the blessed hope and manifestation of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ.” (v13) But until the day that Jesus returns to finally destroy everything sinful in this world … to make his glory fully known in the word …
We’re waiting. So far it’s been 2000 years … and why has Jesus got us waiting?
A big part of the reason, is because he wants to train us. This is something that I ponder a lot … why couldn’t Jesus just instantly remove sin and suffering from everyone who believes in him?
If we don’t understand this, then we don’t really know why he came and died. He did this so that we could have life … and having life, remember, means having a relationship with the God who gives us life. And I guess, in the end, the strength of a relationship can only be known, when it is tested. So, we’re in training.
Jesus is a lot like Mickey … you know, the boxing trainer in the Rocky movies?
There’s this particular scene in the third movie that reminds me so much of Jesus … Mickey gives Rocky a gift (it’s a chain to wear around his neck during fights), and he says to him, “This is my favourite thing that I have on this earth, and now I’m giving it to you, and it’s gonna be like a little angel on your shoulder. If you ever get hurt and you feel that you’re going down, this little angel is gonna whisper in your ear. It’s gonna say, “Get up … because Mickey loves you.”
Sometimes when I am just drowing in my own fear and doubt and I’m saying, “No Lord, I can’t do it, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t’ … that’s when he grabs me by the hand and he says, ‘Heather, get up, do it! I’ve got you. I won’t let go. I love you.’
And that kind of love changes us in ways that we never thought we could change. And so Paul writes:
Jesus “gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all sin and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.” (2:14)
He redeems us from that critical 5% inability to love God.
And then he finishes the job by purifying us, teaching and training us to be like him.
Christmas is not a bad time to re-commit to the training program. Let’s pray together now and ask the Lord Jesus to set us free from our inability to fix ourselves … and give our lives to him … and if you’ve never prayed that sort of prayer you might like to pray with me now …
Jesus, thank you for coming into the world to save us from our sin. Thank you for dying for us, so that we could be free.
We’re sorry for the ways that we have failed to love you and for all the wrong that we have done to others. Please forgive us.
Please come into our lives and train us to be like you. Show us the way to the Father.
We commit ourselves to following you. We pray this in your name Jesus, Amen.
