The Problem with Assumptions

Have you ever made an assumption before? That’s the word of the day: assumption. Assumptions usually get us in trouble. So let’s just clarify what an assumption actually is. It’s a belief or statement taken for granted as true or certain to happen, despite a lack of concrete proof or verification. Now, we make assumptions every single day. And usually we make those assumptions because we’re not listening. We jump to conclusions. We don’t ask enough questions to find out the facts. And you may have made an assumption today already that when the alarm went off and you hit snooze a couple times, you would still have enough time to make it to church on time. You see, that’s an assumption as well.

Today I want to share some insights from a book that had a great impact on me. The book’s been out for about 20 years now. It’s called How Good is Good Enough. It’s by Pastor Andy Stanley. And if you tap your phone there on those little pads, it will bring you to a site that shows you where you can purchase the book if you’d like to dive into this topic a little bit deeper. And I think they’re only seven or eight bucks for this small little impacting book.

And today I want to start off by talking about two assumptions. The first assumption is: good people go to heaven. Why is this an assumption? Well, if you were to ask a non-church person just casually, “How do you get to heaven?” they’d fumble along a little bit, but ultimately they would land on, “You need to be good.” That’s what a large majority of people would say, or that you have to try really hard in life to do the right thing. Good people going to heaven is a popular assumption, not just here in our city, but all around the world.

Assumption number two is that I am a good person—that you are a good person. We assume that we are good. Now, there’s a scattering of people that would say, “Oh, I don’t want to go to heaven. It’s going to be boring. I want to hang out with my friends, whatever the other place is. And I’m bad. I’m a bad person.” But that’s just a minority of people that would actually claim that. So here are the common assumptions: that good people go to heaven, and I am a good person.

The “Fairness” of Goodness

That just seems fair. That just seems like it makes sense in our minds, mainly because when we were kids and we went to the grocery store, our parents would say, “Now, if you be good, you’re going to get a treat. You’re going to get a reward.” And then when you go to school, if you do your homework and you listen to the teacher and you be good, you’re going to get really good marks. You’re going to get a reward. So it’s this popular way of thinking that not only good Christian people go to heaven, but oh no, it wouldn’t just be Christian people. It’s good Jewish people that go to heaven. It’s good Catholic people go to heaven. And the assumption continues: good Hindu people go to heaven. Good Buddhist people go to heaven. The assumption keeps going. Good Jehovah Witness people go to heaven. Good Mormon people go to heaven. Just fill in the blank.

It’s not just one group. God doesn’t limit it to just one group of who’s going to get to heaven. It’s all the good people from all those groups who are going to get to go to heaven. That just seems fair. That just seems just. And further to that, church people or non-church people often hear church people say things like, “God is good,” and then you say, “All the time,” and “All the time,” “God is good.” That’s right. And then people look around, they say, “Well, look at our world that God created.” And you see the Artemis go up there, Artemis 2, and looks at our world and God created this world. He’s so good.

Even though some people haven’t read much of the Bible, they know that somewhere in the Bible it says that God is love. And so the assumption starts to piece itself together and it takes shape so that people start to believe this: A good God lives in a good place called heaven and God rewards the good people. Therefore, I’m gonna go there when I die because I am good. And that’s the superficial thought thinking of most people. That’s just the way it is. It’s the most common assumption about heaven and of course you think you’re good. You don’t ever really say it out loud too much or it would come across as arrogant, but when you see the crazy stuff that people post online and when you say to your spouse or whoever you’re with, “Take a look at what they said,” you think, “Well, I’m better than, and I’ve done more charity work and good deeds than, and don’t even get me started about that family.” And so you come to the conclusion in your own mind that you are good. Good people go to heaven, and I am good.

The Five Challenges of the Goodness Standard

And so with those as our superficial assumptions that good people go to heaven and I’m a good person, the logical question to ask is: how good is good enough to get into heaven? It’s just a slight little pushback on that thinking. It’s just a slight little questioning just to ensure that we’re all on the same page. When you ask that question, there are challenges that begin to emerge.

The first challenge you come to is: What is good? You see, we have no indisputable agreed-upon standard of what good is. If you think about it, it’s not just from 2000 to 2026 that we’re talking about. We’re talking about multiple generations, and justice and morality has changed over the centuries and in different parts of the world. Things that one generation thought was good now think that it’s bad. Many examples probably come to your mind. The one I want to share today is the example of slavery. Just think about that. For centuries, the thought was that some people are born to own and rule others, while other people are born to be owned and be ruled over. And so with that as our set of assumptions, or those as our assumptions that we stated earlier, no one before the 1800s would be good enough to go to heaven because slavery was so popular all over the world. What could be worse than that? So you see, there’s no indisputable, agreed-upon standard of good. And you say, “Well, what is good when good is a moving target?” Well, let’s take it a little bit further. You think culturally. If you’ve ever traveled abroad or gone on mission trips and stuff, you think, “Oh my goodness, that’s acceptable here?” So culturally, good changes. Generationally, it changes, as we’ve just explained, and then personally, it changes. Check this out: Is there anything that bothers you now in this phase of your life that you did not think was wrong when you were younger? Let me ask the question another way: Is there anything that you thought was okay when you were a teenager and in your 20s that you wouldn’t want your teenager and your 20-somethings doing? Hmm. See, good starts to change a little bit.

The second challenge with these assumptions is: What is the passing grade? We don’t even know what the percentage of our actions have to be good to make the cut. Now, this is so timely because university is going through their exams right now. My oldest, Brooke, she’s got Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then she’s going to be home and we’re so excited about that. And is the passing grade to get into heaven 51 percent? Is that what you have to be? Like again, you die and you get to heaven and you stand before the judgment seat. And again, the thinking is, “Okay, well, bring in all the good things here that they’ve done.” And so you bring in this big block of good, this gold, that’s all the good things you’ve done. And then you say, “Okay, bring in all the bad things and let’s measure it and let’s see which one wins. Okay, it looks like you’re going to heaven. It looks like you’re okay. You’ve been doing all right.” Does God grade on a curve where you’re compared to other people? So maybe not the whole world—that’s probably too much. Let’s just grade ourselves on a curve for Canadians. Let’s just compare ourselves to Canadians. You see, in this way of thinking, good people go to heaven, it’s conceivable that you could miss heaven by one good deed. You get a 49%. You die and you get to the judgment seat and they say, “I’m sorry, you know that last day you spent on earth, you didn’t know it was gonna be your last day. But those two things that you shouldn’t have done, that took you out. That you just missed. Sorry.” I mean, have you thought about this?

Here’s the third challenge: When does the scorekeeping actually begin? Does the heavenly scorecard begin when you step into grade one? So we’re going to let the kindergartens and preschool, that’s okay. But once you enter grade one, once you’re five or six, that’s when the heavenly scorecard begins. Or maybe some—”Oh, that’s not really fair. They’re still developmental and they’re still trying to think things through. Let’s wait until they get to grade 12 and then when they become 18, that’s when we’ll start the ledger sheet then.” You see, if good people go to heaven, don’t you think we should know when the tally sheet begins? Don’t you think God should have told us that? We don’t know what good is. We don’t know what percentage we have to get to to get into heaven. And we don’t know when the scorekeeping actually starts.

Let’s go to challenge number four: Is there a way to find out your current score? How many of you would wanna know? Down here in the front, they don’t wanna know. But if only good people go to heaven, you may have done so many bad things up to this point in your life, you don’t have enough time left on earth to make them up. You get to your 80s and you’re thinking, “Why even try? It’s too late. I’m not gonna make it.” Good people go to heaven, and I am good.

Here’s the fifth challenge with these assumptions: Are all bad things that you’ve done weighed equally, or are some sins so heavy that they just disqualify you? Have you thought about that? I mean, I’m not going to name all the possible severe sins. You guys can come up with a list over lunch if you’d like to. But maybe if you’ve gone to jail and you were convicted for something against your country’s law, then maybe that weighs more than just lying to somebody. And so that may take you out.

The Unfairness of a “Good Teacher” God

You see, if eternity depends on it, don’t you think God would have told us the rules to the game of life? Speaking of games, have you ever had a family game night and you all get at the table and you know how it’s all gonna end, but you’re excited and you’re gonna start anyway. And you start to play this game that everybody thinks they know how to play, but nobody has really ever read the real rules. You just kind of play it as is. And then there’s always that one person in the family—don’t look at them, don’t nudge them right now—there’s always that one person in the family that starts to make up rules as the game goes along to benefit themselves. Do you have that person in your family? It’s so frustrating, isn’t it? Not knowing how eternity works.

I mean, if entry to heaven is boiled down to the score clock of good versus bad, and God never took time to tell us what good is, and if our eternity of knowing the divine rules depends on it, I’m here to tell you then God is not a good God. Take a look at this quote from Pastor Andy Stanley, the writer of the book. He says this: “What do you call a teacher who does not give any notes, provides no reading assignments, only gives a final exam, but doesn’t tell you the date of the exam? That’s not a good teacher. What about a running race official who does not post signage for the running route? There is no indication for the distance of the race. And the race official establishes the finish line once the race has begun. Likewise, if good people go to heaven, God is not a good God.”

The Scriptural Pathway

We’re just pushing on it just a little bit. We’re just asking a few questions from this superficial thinking. We’re coming off an incredible Easter season here at Hillside—about three weeks of celebration. And there is a lot of staff and hundreds of you who have volunteered over the last three weeks. Why do we do that? Why do we give up our free time on the weekends?

I mean, the reason we did Walk With Jesus, the immersive experience, is because we want all ages to know Jesus better, to understand what he did for us. And the reason we offer church on a holiday Friday is because we want people from all 56 nations that we’re aware of to understand Jesus better and the sacrifice that he made. And the reason we began three services last Sunday on Easter weekend is to share with people the greatest miracle of all, the resurrection of Jesus, the greatest story ever told.

Rather than believing assumptions, we as a church choose to believe what the Word of God says about the pathway to heaven, not just some casual accepted assumptions. And so here is a few verses from Scripture that will help us with that: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Whoever believes in him. That’s the pathway.

The person writing this is the disciple or the apostle John. And he spent three and a half years with Jesus, listening to all of Jesus’ teachings. He saw all of the miracles, watching him in action. And we know that he was a very close friend to Jesus. And on Good Friday, I mentioned this, that Jesus actually entrusts his aging mother to the disciple John to take care of. And you see, John grew up around this system of rules and religion, keeping tabs on the 613 Old Testament laws. That’s how many laws there were: 613. You break those down, it was 365 “do nots” and 248 “do this.” That was the scorecard. And the Pharisees and the Sadducees, oh, they kept a really good scorecard. And the disciple John is writing to us and he’s saying, “It’s a new day. Things have changed.”

And he continues. John 3:16, then we go to John 3:17: “God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” You need to know that Jesus showed up one time to tell us the way and to show us the way instead of this long list of do’s and do nots. Instead of a scale where the good things you do are measured up against the bad things you do and they’re weighted to see, God gave us himself. And he said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” That’s the pathway.

Closing Challenge

I know over three services that there are people who grew up in different religions and grew up in different countries, different ways of thinking. And I just want to share with you very clearly why Christianity is the most just, fair system in an unjust, unfair world. Three things for you:

1. Everyone is welcome. Romans 10:13 says, “Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
2. Everybody gets in the same way. Jesus said “I am the way the truth and the life.”
3. Everybody can meet the requirement. John 3:16—”whoever believes in him” in Jesus shall have eternal life.

No large stack of good deeds needed. Becoming a Christian is about putting our trust in what he has already done on the cross, the only perfect one to have ever lived. It’s not about what you do. It’s about what he has done. And if you catch anything, catch this: Christianity does not teach that good people go to heaven. Christianity teaches that forgiven people go to heaven. And there’s a huge, huge difference.

Try it sometime this week in a casual conversation with somebody. “How do you think people get to go to heaven?” It doesn’t have to be a rehearsed script. Just have a conversation. See what they say. Just push down on it a little bit. And I want to ask before we close, if you can remember a time in your life when you realized that your sin was gonna separate you from God and that you needed a savior? Was there a time where you realized, “I want to be a child of God. I want to live for him, not for myself”? And if you can remember a time like that, you likely prayed a prayer to surrender your life to Jesus, to put him in the driver’s seat of your life and remove yourself from the driver’s seat. It’s a beautiful thing when people realize that Jesus has bridged the gap, and to believe in him and to begin to live a new life in him is the greatest decision you’ll ever make.