I want to deal with a subject
today which is absolutely vital that we understand. This is a
matter of life and death, this subject. A matter of knowing
the true God, knowing true salvation. Now, the subject I'm dealing
with is righteousness. Now, some form of the word righteous
is used 500 times in the Bible. And here in Romans chapter 10,
which I will read from in a moment, Romans chapter 10, the Apostle
Paul mentions the word righteousness six times in the first six verses
alone. Sounds pretty important, doesn't
it? Well, it is. And Paul says here in chapter
10 that some people are ignorant of this righteousness. Well,
let's look at it. Here in Romans chapter 10, verse
1, the Apostle Paul begins this way, ìBrethren, my heartís desire
and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved.
Brethren,î he calls them. Heís talking about his kinsmen
according to the flesh over there in Romans 9, verse 3, or his
fellow Jews, that is. Now, all men and women are brothers
in the sense that they are children of Adam, Adam and Eve, our first
parents. All men and women are brothers
and sisters in that sense, but all persons are not the children
of God. Romans 9 verse 8 says that. It says, They which are the children
of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children
of the Thomas are counted for the sea. God is not the Father
of all mankind. God is going to save his children,
but he plainly says there are some people who are not going
to be saved. But God has a family, and this
is why Paul goes on to say in verse 1 there, this is why he
says, My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel or my kinsmen,
is that they might be saved, that they might be God's people. God's going to have to do the
saving. And so Paul prays that he might do this for them. Now,
Paul was a kind and compassionate and considerate man. He wasn't
a mean fellow or a bigoted fellow. Some people call him that. But he was truthful. He spoke
very plainly. And although there were some
hard things to understand, yet it's a true thing, and the truth
is necessary. It's vital. Only the truth will
set you free. And Paul tells the truth about
some religious folks in his day and in ours. Read on with me.
In verse 2 and verse 3, he says, Now I bear them record, these
kinsmen of mine, these fellow citizens, I bear them record
They have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. They are zealous for their God
that they worship. They're ignorant, he says in
verse 3. They, being ignorant of God's righteousness and are
going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted
themselves unto the righteousness of God. Now, let me see if I
can make you understand what he's saying here. He's saying
that there are many persons who are very sincere in what they
believe and what they're doing. It was so in his day, and it's
so in our day. And many who are very sincere
or zealous or enthusiastic in their worship of God or what
they're doing, claiming to worship God. But if you may remember,
over in Acts 17, in Athens, where Paul came, he said they had their
gods that they worshipped, but they didn't know the true God,
didn't know the true Christ. And it's so today. Many are very
zealous, very sincere about a gospel. But Paul said there's some who
preach another gospel. There are many in our day who
are very sincere and very zealous about a Jesus. You see that name
everywhere. But Paul said, plainly, there
are some who preach and believe another Jesus, not the true ones. And here he says they are ignorant
of something. They are ignorant of God's righteousness. and going about to establish
their own righteousness, having submitted themselves unto the
righteousness of God. Now, what is this righteousness
that he's talking about? God's righteousness. Well, very
simply, righteousness means rightness. Rightness. It means to be right,
or to be found right, proven right. It means to be just. And
that means perfect is what right means, or just means. It means
to be morally, or that is in character, perfect and judicially. That means according to the law.
So in other words, to be righteous or have a righteousness, a person
must be just or perfect in character and before the law of God, before
the perfect law or justice of God must be blameless, absolutely
perfect. All right? Paul says many are
ignorant of this righteousness, God's righteousness, haven't
submitted to it, going about to establish their own. What
is God's righteousness? Well, it's two things principally. It's two things. Number one,
it's God's personal righteousness or his own character, and secondly,
it's God's provided or imputed righteousness. Now, I hope you
stay with me. These aren't just big words or
theological words that some man made up. These are scriptural
terms, imputed. Romans 4, the whole chapter is
about imputed righteousness. All right? The first thing, God's
personal righteousness we're talking about. God is absolutely
holy, just, righteous. God is absolutely perfect in
character and in his law. God, everything God does, he
does according to righteousness according to his holy, perfect
law. Listen to Psalm 11, verse 7. It says, The righteous Lord loveth
righteousness. God loves only righteousness. That's what makes him God. God,
who is holy, loves only holy things, holy people. God, who
is perfect, loves perfect things. He said, Be ye perfect, for I
am perfect. Righteous things, righteous people. That's why there's a hell, people. That's why there's a hell. God
put away all unrighteousness, all unrighteous people. This
is the reason heaven is a holy place. There's nothing going
to enter heaven that defiles it, no sin or unrighteousness. Now, many people, Paul says,
are ignorant of this. They don't believe that God demands
perfection. They don't believe He's that
strict. He said in verse 3 here that they have not submitted
to that righteousness. They haven't bowed to that. They
don't believe that. They don't accept this, that
God is that strict. And so, he says, they go about
to establish their own righteousness. In other words, since most people
think that God is not that holy, that God is not that just, God
is not that strict or righteous, they believe He will accept the
best that we can do. This is what most people believe
about salvation. They believe if you'll just live
right, if you'll just quit our meanness, quit our this or that,
what they call sinning. If we'll just quit that and we'll
start going to church and do our best to live according to
the Ten Commandments, then it'll be all right with God. He'll accept it. But that's not
so. The Bible does not teach that.
Oh, no. The Bible teaches that God is
absolutely righteous, perfect, and holy, and He'll only accept
perfection or righteousness. And it's got to be perfect in
not only just what you do, but what you think. Because God doesn't
look and see as we see on the outward countenance of what we're
doing only. God looks on the heart. God looks
down into the very motive why you do something. And even the
motive must be absolutely perfect. And the scripture says that every
man, every woman, every human being is altogether unrighteous,
imperfect, imperfect creatures, sinful as a matter of fact. That's
what the Bible says now in Psalm 14, Romans chapter 3, it says,
none righteous, no, there's not one, there's none that doeth
good in God's eyes, none. And Isaiah 64, 6 says this, listen
to this, it says, even our righteousness says, Our filthy rags in God's
sight. Our best deeds, there's sin in
them. Our religious works, there's
sin in them. Now, I'm talking about everybody.
I'm talking about this preacher. I'm talking about everybody.
There's sin in us. And God won't, God can't accept
us as we are. Now, once again, Paul said that
some people won't submit to this. Some people just refuse to believe
this. They believe that's just too
strict. Well, that's what this book says, and God wrote this
book. Well, here is the good news,
all right? I'm still reading from Romans
10, and he says here in verse 4, Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believes. This is what is
called imputed righteousness. God's provided righteousness. It's how we become righteous
before this righteous God. Now, look at verse 5. It says,
Moses described the righteousness which is of the law. He said,
The man which doeth those things shall live by them. This do and
live. Well, there's none that doeth
good perfectly according to the law. And so God won't accept
what we do And one transgression or one breaking God's law in
one point is to be guilty of it all, James said. Well, look
over at 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21 with me. And this is the gospel
in one verse of Scripture. 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse
21. How are we going to be righteous
then? How are we going to be found holy before God? Christ said this righteousness,
we can't do it. God said this righteousness is
not something we can do by the deeds of the law. No flesh is
going to be justified or found righteous before God. Now that
means every part of the law, whether we know what it says
or not. Well, the righteousness that
God gives to some people or imputes, that means charges too, is something
somebody else did. It's a righteousness or a holiness
that Jesus Christ Himself worked out as a man. That's why Christ
came down here. He was a righteous substitute
or representative. He came down here as a man, born
under the law, made of a woman, born under the law, to fulfill
righteousness as a man. Now, look at this. In 2 Corinthians
5, verse 21, he's talking to believers, and he said, God hath
made him, Christ, to be sin. That is, he put all the sins
of all God's people on Christ. He who knew no sin. He put all
the sin of those people on him that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. His righteousness, Christ's righteousness
on them, and put their sins on Him. And so when God sees these
people, He sees them as righteous as Christ. And when He saw Christ,
He punished their sins in Him. Only what Jesus Christ did for
us will save us. Now, don't be ignorant of God's
righteousness. Submit to it, or rather, Him. Ask Christ for this righteousness.
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free of charge. Until next Sunday, good day.