Turn back in your Bibles to that
passage that Brother Joe just read in 1 John chapter 2 and
chapter 3. The title of my message this
morning is taken from verse 29 of chapter 2, and that's where
I'm going to major on this morning, just this one verse. But I wanted
him to read the whole context there in 1 John 3. The title is Doing Righteousness. Doing Righteousness. The verse
there, verse 29, it says, if you know that he, the he there
is referring to Christ himself, if you know that Christ is righteous,
then you know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of
him, speaking of the new birth. Now, before I get into that verse,
I want to kind of get your attention a little bit, perk you up here,
and ask you some questions to consider for your own personal
consideration. I have an article in the bulletin
about New Year's resolutions. And of course, as I say in the
article, you know, most New Year's resolutions are pretty useless
because they may start out with good intentions, but either your
interest or your zeal kind of wanes as it goes along. And it's
amazing how most New Year's resolutions these days have to do with losing
weight. You know, everybody says, well,
I'm going to go on a diet after the holidays because we're so
concerned with how much gravity shoves us down on this earth.
And that seems to be, I'm not putting that down. I mean, you
know, there's health issues there and all kinds of things. But
the New Year's resolution that I think would be the best, as
I wrote in that article, is, if you haven't already, is to
resolve in yourself to be a student of the Word of God. A student
of the Word. Because now, this is more important
than losing weight now. This is eternal life here. This
is life and death, isn't it? This is the difference between
heaven and hell. This is the Word of God. And
so I hope that you will resolve, again, if you haven't already,
to do what the Bible says. study, to show yourself approved
unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing
the word of truth." And I know there's time factors. We're such
busy people today. But read your Bible. But the
question I would ask you to consider, if you do make that resolution,
is this, how are you going to read it? How are you going to
approach the Bible? Now, there are a lot of different
ways that people read or use the Bible. most of them wrong. For example, many people use
the Bible almost like a book of magic, like there's some kind
of a magic here. You've heard the story about
the fellow who was in a quandary trying to make a decision. He
said, well, I'll go to the Bible. And he said, I'm just going to
open up and I'm going to read the first verse that I put my finger on. And
he opened it up and he put his finger down and the verse said,
Judas went out and hanged himself. And he didn't like that, he said,
well, I'll try again. He opened it up, put his finger
down, and it said, go thou and do likewise. Well, that didn't work. Well,
that's no way to read the Bible. That's no way to use the Bible.
Many people read it, and what Brother Mahan used to say, they
have verse-itis, not verse-itis. You may have versitis, but they
have versitis. And that is, is they just pick
verse here, verse there, whatever suits their notions. And they'll
pick favorite verses, and they'll hammer them down and major on
them, and they'll ignore the context of the Scripture. They'll
ignore what's being really taught. Or they'll do word studies. Now,
I do word studies. I love word studies. Always remember that a word is
a part of a phrase, and a phrase is a part of a sentence, and
a sentence is a part of a paragraph, and a paragraph is part of the
one, the story, the recording, the epistle, whatever. I mean,
it's all context, see. These things do not stand on
their own. I'm glad the Bible is written in chapters and verses
because it makes it easier for us to find. But don't get versitis. And then some people read the
book with preconceived notions. It's almost like, well, I already
know what I believe, so I'm going to jam it in there, and I'm going
to make it fit no matter what. Well, don't do that. Read the
Bible. Study the Bible prayerfully.
And ask God to wipe your slate clean, so to speak, and just
be open to what's being revealed here. Read the Bible humbly. This is the Word of God. This
is not the Word of men. God used human writers to write
it. And that's the way, just like
when you pick up a pen to write, that pen is not doing the writing,
you are. It's just the instrument. That's
the way these men were. Here's John, the apostle, writing
here. But this book is written and
inspired by God. It's God-breathed, the Scripture
literally says. So read it as the Word of God.
And then take time. It's not all going to come instantly
to you. But I said all that to say this.
Now look at 1 John chapter 3. When you read a verse like this,
like the one I'm going to read to you now, what does that do
to you? I want you to look at this. It
says here in verse 8 of 1 John 3, He that committeth sin is
of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning. How does
a statement like that make you feel? Now, you can finagle around
in your mind in a lot of different ways. Look at verse 9. Whosoever is born of God, now
that's a person who has been born again. Christ told Nicodemus,
you must be born again or you cannot see, you cannot enter
the kingdom of God. The new birth is a requirement
to understand and enter the Word of God, enter heaven. And he says, Whosoever is born
of God does not commit sin. What does that say? It says whosoever
is born again doesn't commit sin. Well, how are you going
to read that? How are you going to understand
that? What does that mean? I'll tell you what, if you don't understand
that right, it will scare you to death now, won't it? Huh? I mean, you can look around everybody
else, but you better look right into your own heart now. Whosoever
is born of God does not commit sin. What is it to commit sin?
Well, our general understanding of that term, commit sin, is
just sinning. And then you can compare with
other scripture. I can show you a scripture where
the Apostle Paul, an apostle of Christ, made this statement. He said, I am carnal, sold under
sin. That's Romans 7 and verse 14. He didn't say, I was carnal,
I was sold under sin, and then God saved me. That's not what
he said there. He said, as a saved man, as a
born-again man, he said, I am carnal, I am sold under sin. And yet it says, whosoever is
born of God does not commit sin. It says, his seed remaineth in
him. Whose seed? God's seed. It says,
and he cannot sin. Verse 9 there. Do you read that? He cannot sin. It's something
he cannot do. Think about that. Why? Because
he's born of God. Now, if you know the reality
and experience of a true believer, you're going to have to admit
with me that I do nothing but sin. I've never had a moment
in my life that I could describe as sinlessly perfect, even as
a born-again person. But yet it says here, he cannot
sin because he's born of God. And then he goes on to say in
verse 10, in this the children of God are manifest. This is
how you know a child of God. That's what that simply means.
And the children of the devil. This is the difference between
the children of God and the children of the devil. What's he talking
about? He's talking about two different people here. Here's
a child of God. Here's a child of the devil.
Christ said, to the Pharisees who rejected him, he says, you're
of your father the devil. Now, this is John's way of dealing
with this now. Here's a child of God, here's
a child of the devil. And he says in verse 10, whosoever
doeth not righteousness is not of God. Now, back up here in
verse 29 of chapter 2, it says, you know that everyone that doeth
righteousness is born of him. Over here in verse 10, it says,
whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God. That connects. If you do righteousness, you're
born of God. If you do not righteousness,
you're not of God. Neither is he that loveth not
his brother. Now, when you read scriptures like that, what does
it do for you? Well, you can do like I used
to do. You can just forget them and go on. Let's go on. Let's get on to verse chapter
four real quick. Things like that used to scare
me to death, and I used to hear different explanations of it.
Some would say, well, they would say this. They would say, well,
that means a Christian, now he still sins, but sin cannot be
his tenor of life. When I just told you that I have
never had a moment in my life that I can label as sinlessly
perfect, that sounds like a pretty good tenor of life, doesn't it,
as far as sin goes. How about you? Well, what's John's subject here?
What's he talking about? Now, I want you to go back to
1 John 2, 29. And we're going to study this
passage, and we're going to start off with the foundation here.
Doing righteousness. What is doing righteousness?
Look at verse 29. He uses the word no two times
here, but they're two different words in the original language.
You say, well, how would I know that from just reading the King
James? You wouldn't. That's why you need to study
a little bit. That's why I preach it. That's why I study it. That's what you're doing right
now. If you're listening to me, you're studying the Word of God.
You're worshiping God. We're here to worship, but you
don't worship God without the truth. The Bible says in John
chapter 4 that he desires a people to worship him in spirit and
in what? Truth. So you can't worship God
where the truth is not preached, because God is truth. The Holy
Spirit is the Spirit of truth. The seed that He plants within
you is the seed of truth. So we're not under a lie, you
see. So you've got two different words, know, here. Two different
words. One, the first one, if you know, that means to know
absolutely. In other words, that's something
you know in your heart. That's something you've been
convinced of. Now, who convinced you? He's talking about the new
birth here. He's born of God, born of Him.
It's the Holy Spirit who convinces us, convicts us in the preaching
of the gospel of who Christ is and what He's accomplished and
why He did it, who we are, who God is, convicts us of sin to
let us know what we are by nature at our best and that we cannot
save ourselves and that we're in need of mercy, mercy, mercy,
grace. Salvation cannot be conditioned
on me. I'm a sinner. I must have a substitute. I must have a media. I must have
one who is able and willing to save me from my sins. And then
he convinces us of righteousness. That's Christ. That's what that
is. That's who that is. Christ is
my righteousness. He's the one who paid for my
sins. He's the one who established righteousness for me. He's my
obedience before God. That's right. I have no other
plea, no other qualification, I have no other right to enter
into the presence of God and be accepted but Christ and Him
crucified. He's my wisdom, He's my righteousness,
He's my sanctification, He's my redemption, you see. The Holy
Spirit has convinced God's people, convicted us of that absolute,
we know Him, whom to know is life eternal. That's what that
first word means, if you know. And then the second word, you
know that everyone to do with him. That word know is know by
experience. In other words, what you know
absolutely in your heart, you experience in your life. It's
just not high doctrine that sets up in your brain somewhere. That's
what he's saying here. It's something that plays out
in your thoughts, in your actions, in your attitudes, in your morality,
in your walk. You know it by experience. You
know it absolutely. You know it by experience. We
know there are people who can say they know something is true,
but by their actions and their attitudes and their experience,
they disqualify that. I mean, it's almost like I know
it's true, but I'm not really convinced. But he's saying if
you know absolutely, if you've been convinced, you have an unction,
verse 20 back there, you have an unction from the Holy One,
and you know all things, you've been convinced of it by the Spirit
in the preaching of the gospel, that Christ is righteous, then
you know by experience that everyone that doeth righteousness is born
of Him. That's what he's saying here. And basically, he's got
two points here. Now, this is going to lay the
foundation for our understanding of the rest of what is written
in chapter 3 there about doing righteousness, committing sin,
being born of God. Now, listen to me very carefully.
Here's the first point he gives you. Christ is righteous if you
know that He is righteous. Now, that's the foundation of
grace. That's the foundation of salvation. Christ is righteous. First of all, Christ is righteous
in himself. He's righteous in himself. Look
at verse 5 of chapter 3. He says, verse 4 first. Whosoever commit a sin transgresseth
also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law. And
that's what sin is. You've heard me say several times, you know,
sin, what is sin? Well, there's no way we can describe
it poetically or some kind of a drawlet or anything like that. Sin is transgression of the law. Romans chapter 3 and verse 23
define sin this way, for all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God. Literally missed the mark. There's
a mark. That mark is set by God. If you miss the mark, it doesn't
matter if you miss it by one-enth of a degree or by a hundred miles,
if you miss the mark, that is labeled sin in Scripture. So
he says sin is the transgression of the law, the perfect law of
God. He says in verse 5, and you know
that he, that is Christ, was manifested. That means Christ
came to earth and appeared to take away our sins, to bear them
away as our substitute, as our sin-bearer, our sin-offering.
He was made sin. Christ had the sins of God's
elect charged, accounted to Him. And He bore them away. He paid
the debt. He suffered unto death satisfying
the law's demand of justice. And then He says, and in Him
is no sin. In Christ is no sin. I believe
there's a two-fold application to that, but for right now, just
to put it down this way, in Christ there is no sin. Never has been,
never will be. Plain statement of Scripture.
He didn't have sin in Him before He became incarnate. He is God,
very God of very God. And when the Word was made flesh,
He became incarnate and walked this earth. He was still sinlessly
perfect, had no sin in Him then. And when he went to the cross,
even though sin was laid to his account, laid to his charge,
he had no sin in him then. He was not contaminated with
our depravity. He was not infused with any iniquity. His thoughts, his attitude, his
morality, his heart was always pure and perfect before the Lord.
He bore our sins. He took them away. That's what
that means. He bore them away. He paid the debt. And he established
righteousness, but in him is no sin. And right now he resides
the right hand of the Father as our advocate. Look over at
1 John 2, or over the next page, or the page before, when he says
in verse 1, 1 John 2, he says, My little children,
these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. Now, you wouldn't
have to say that to anybody except that they're sinners. You wouldn't
have to tell a sinlessly perfect person to sin not because he's
not sinning to begin with. He's sinlessly perfect. So when
the command is sin not, who's that to? It's the sinners. Stop
doing what you're doing. That's what that means. Now,
if you're not doing it, you wouldn't have to say stop doing it. All
right? That makes sense, doesn't it? And he says, and if any man
sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the
righteous. And he's the propitiation for
our sins and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole
world. Speaking of his people out of the world. So Christ is
righteous in himself. And then secondly, now, Christ
is the standard of righteousness. Turn to Acts chapter 17. Now,
if you're absolutely convinced in your heart by the Spirit that
Christ is righteous, you know that he's righteous in himself. You know, secondly, that He's
the standard of righteousness. If you want to know the mark
that we miss, look at Christ. You say, well, I'm doing my best
to love everybody. And that's good. You ought to
do your best. I ought to do my best. We ought
to do better than our best. Why? Because our best isn't good
enough. But if you want to know where you stand on the scale,
look to Christ, His love. In other words, when you see
your worst enemy, the one who would do you the most harm in
this world, or has done you the most harm, can you look at that
person and with no thought of malice or vengeance or even harm
to that person say, Father, forgive them, they don't know what they
did? Can you do that without interruption
of sin and selfishness and vengeance and harm? Can you do that? Well,
Christ did. And He's the standard. You say,
well, I'd rather compare myself to you. Well, that's okay. I'm not the standard, though.
Christ is the standard. You see, if you want to see how
your love falls on the scale, measure your love against His
love. Because he's the standard. And
where do we fall? We're not even on the scale.
Now listen to me, we're not even on the scale when it comes to
comparing ourselves with Christ. Isaiah said that in Isaiah 64,
6. He said, when I compare myself
with the Messiah, my righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Now, we can compare ourselves
with each other, and you might say, well, Craig, he does better
than Ron in some areas, and Ron does better than Craig. The problem
with that is, is that neither Craig nor Ron are the standard.
Christ is. Look at Acts 17 and verse 30. He's speaking of times of ignorance.
That's when the Gentiles did not have the gospel. And in Acts
1730, he says, In the times of this ignorance God winked at,
and now commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because he hath appointed
a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by
that man whom he hath ordained. God has appointed the man who
is the sander. And he says, Who is that whereof he hath given
assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead?
That's Christ. And then look at Romans chapter
2. Now, what the subject of Romans 2 is, is this. You have the Jews
who have the law of Moses, and they make judgments against people
based on that law. As if to say, well, I keep the
law and you don't. And what the Holy Spirit by the
Apostle Paul is teaching in Romans 2 is, well, now what's going
to happen here is you're going to be condemned by your very
words. For example, if you look at a
person, you say, well, I know they're lost because they don't
keep the law. You have just condemned yourself
because you don't keep it either. You say, well, I do better than
them. That doesn't matter. You don't keep it. The standard
is not them. Christ is the standard. You see
what I'm saying? The very moment you say somebody
is lost because they are a sinner, you've just condemned yourself
because you're a sinner too. So am I. And that's what Romans
2 is about. And he says this. He says, now
the Gentiles are without excuse here. They don't have the law
of Moses like the Jews, but they have the law of conscience. The
law written on their heart by which they accuse and excuse.
They have laws. They have a conscience that God
gave them. And they accuse. And they excuse. But he says
in verse 16 of Romans 2, look at this. He says, in the day,
there's coming a day when God shall judge the secrets of men,
what men by nature, what we can't see about, what you can't see
about me and what I can't see about you. He's going to judge
those secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to the gospel. Now, what is that? Well, that's
Jesus Christ the righteous. Go back to 1 John 2. But now
here's the third thing. If you're convinced that He is
righteous, you're convinced that He's righteous in Himself, you're
convinced that He's the standard of righteousness, but thirdly,
you're convinced that He is your righteousness. He is my righteousness. Do I have a righteousness? Yes,
I do. Who is it? Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. You see that? It refers to his
righteousness as advocate. When we sin, we have an advocate
with the Father, one who will stand alongside of us and plead
our cause. And he's the propitiation. What
he pleads is his sin bearing, his sacrifice, his dying under
the justice of God to put away our sins, his righteousness for
us. For He was made sin, Christ who
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him." In Him. 2 Corinthians 5.21. That's the Gospel. I have a righteousness,
not my own, it's His. Given to me freely by God. And
that's why verse 28 here, I can have confidence when He comes.
Because He who is coming is my righteousness. He who is coming
is my Advocate. He who is coming is my Sabbath.
I rest in Him. He who is coming has borne away
my sins. He who is coming is my High Priest. He's my Lamb, the Lamb of God. He's my altar. All of that. He's my symbol. All of that.
He's for me. And so he says, he's the believer's
righteousness. We who are saved by God's grace
have been made righteous in him. He's the Lord our righteousness,
Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 23, verse 6. That's his name, Jehovah
Sid Canu. And if you know, if you've been
convinced by the Holy Spirit that he is righteous, well, if
he's your hope, if he's your surety, if he's your Savior,
if he's your Sabbath, If He's your High Priest, your Mediator,
you don't have anything to fear from God's law, God's justice,
from God Himself. He's righteous. Now, if you're
dependent upon your own, if you're convinced in your mind that you're
righteous on your own or within yourself, then you've got a lot
to worry about. Because you're a sinner, and I'm a sinner too.
But if you know absolutely, now, here's the second point. If you're
convinced absolutely that he's righteous, you know this, by
experience, all who are born of him do righteousness. Do righteousness. Here's what
that says. If you do righteousness, you're
born of him. You're born of God. You're born
again by the Spirit. Christ said, as I said before
to Nicodemus in John chapter 3, you must be born again or
you cannot see or enter the kingdom of heaven. We know that the new
birth there is speaking of the work of the Holy Spirit to apply
to each and every one of Christ's sheep in each and every successive
generation, the power of God and the salvation that God purposed
before the foundation of the world that Christ merited on
the cross. That life comes from Christ by means of the Spirit
who births us again, as it were. He imparts spiritual life and
knowledge. That's the new birth. Now, those
who are not born again cannot do righteousness. Now, listen
to me very carefully here. A person who is not born again,
he can be moral as far as the world judges morality. He can
be religious. He can get baptized. He can give
a tithe. He can do all kinds of things.
He can be dedicated in religion. He can be zealous. Think of Saul
of Tarsus before he was born again. He was zealous in religion. A Pharisee of Pharisees. Outwardly
speaking, he said they could not blame him, could not charge
him. A person who is not born again, He can do all that, but
he cannot doeth righteousness. So whatever doing righteousness
is, it cannot be relegated just simply to what the natural man
can do in religion and ethics. Everyone who is born again will
do righteousness. Now what is righteousness? One
old writer described it this way. Righteousness is perfect. Now listen to this. Perfect satisfaction
to God's law and justice. I like that. As sin is the transgression
of the law, righteousness is the keeping of the law. Obedience
to the law in both precept and penalty. Righteousness means
to be conformed perfectly to God's will by way of commandment.
Christ said this. He said, it's my meat to do the
will of my Father. He said, I always do the will
of my Father. Now, how can we who are sinners
then, how can we who are sinners, even born-again sinners, how
can we do righteousness? Nothing we do, even as born-again
people, is perfect and uncontaminated by remaining sin. We have a warfare,
don't we? It's a warfare of the flesh and
the spirit. Sin remaineth. dwelling within. As I quoted
from Romans 7.14, Paul said, I'm carnal, sold under sin. He
went on to say, he said, I know and I approve of what is good,
but how to do good, I don't know how to do it. I know what it
is. I have a desire to do it, but I don't even know how. I
cannot do it. He said, when I want to do good,
sin is present with me. Selfishness. It contaminates
everything I think, say, and do. Nothing within us is perfect
and uncontaminated. Now, the Holy Spirit resides
within us, and He's righteous, and He's perfect, but the Bible
does not teach that the Holy Spirit, when you're born again,
changes you to make you perfect and uncontaminated within yourself
or in your nature. The Bible does not teach that,
and I defy anybody to find one verse that does. It does not
teach that. The Spirit resides within. He
implants the Word of God within our hearts? The circumcision
of the heart? The cutting away of the filth
of the flesh? What is all that about? Let me ask you this. If you're born again, has the
Holy Spirit enabled you to have an absolutely uncontaminated,
perfect thought? Or perform an absolutely perfect
and uncontaminated deed? Now if that's what being born
again is, there's none of us in this building that's been
born again. Now admit that. But what is this doing righteousness
then? Well, it's acting righteously. It's living righteously. It's
doing righteously. The word righteous can sometimes
be translated justice. Living justly. Acting justly. It's right doing according to
some particular standard. Now, what's the standard? Well,
he says it in verse 29. If you know that he is righteous,
he's the standard. So what is it to do righteousness?
Well, here's what it is. To do righteousness, then, first
is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and submit to Him and
rest in Him. as your all in all. That's what
it is. He's the standard, folks. You
don't come up to the standard, and I don't come up to the standard,
but He does. And when you're born again, what's
the first evidence of the new birth? You're looking to Christ,
the author and finisher of your faith. You're resting in Him. You're pleading His merits, the
merits of His shed blood and His imputed righteousness. That's
where doing righteousness begins. It's not doing righteousness
because that which I do is perfect. It's doing righteousness because
I look to rest in and reside in Him who is righteous. Are
you looking to Christ? Is He your all in all? Is He
the Lord your righteousness? Is He your sin-bearer? Is He
your hope? Is He your all in all? If He
is, that's doing righteous. Believing in Him, that's doing
righteous. We know that even our faith is
imperfect. Joe prayed it. Lord, I believe.
Help thou our unbelief. But Him in whom we believe is
absolutely righteous and perfect. And He's my hope. What John's saying here in verse
28, and now little children abide in Him. That's key. Abide in
Him. If you abide in Him by the power
of God's grace, that's doing righteousness. Looking to and
continuing in Christ. He's my hope. Listen, Christ,
when the Holy Spirit brought me to a saving knowledge of Christ,
He was my hope. He was my righteousness. He was
my entire salvation. You know something? He still
is today. That's never changed. And it's
never going to. Now, I've changed. Somebody asked me a couple of
years ago, have you changed? You bet I have. And I hope I
change a lot more. Now, here's how I hope I change.
I hope I grow in grace and in knowledge of Christ. Gospel hadn't
changed. The truth hadn't changed. It's
always going to be the same. But the person who doesn't change
is stagnant. The person who doesn't change
is dead. All right. We change, but He doesn't. That's
right. He's the same yesterday, today,
and forever. And He's able to keep that which I've committed
unto Him against that day. He ever liveth. You see, what
is it to do righteousness? It's to stand in Him before God. I have no other hope, no other
plea, no other worthiness but Christ and Him crucified. That's
doing righteousness. Abide in Him, He says. Abide
in Him. And those who don't abide in
Him are not doing righteous. Look at verse 6 of chapter 3.
Whosoever abideth in Him, what does it say there? Sinneth not. Now, I'm a sinner. But in Christ,
I have no sin. That's what that means. If you
abide in Him, God sees you as righteous. That's an amazing
truth to me. You can't understand the Bible
without knowing that. When God sees me, He sees me
washed in the blood of Christ. What can wash away my sins? Nothing
but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus. This is all my hope and plea.
This is all my righteousness. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
That's how God sees His people standing in Christ, in Him. Somebody says, well, God doesn't
see our sins at all. Well, the Bible says He chastises
us. But as far as our salvation and our justification before
God is concerned, before His bar of justice, we stand perfect,
complete, whole, and righteous in Christ. He that abideth in
Him sinneth not. That means we're righteous in
God's sight. We stand clothed in his righteousness. Consider John's subject here
now. Those who by the power of the Holy Spirit believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ and continue to believe in him, abide in him
and in his word, he abides in them by his spirit and his word.
That's as opposed to what John is writing of here, those who
have a mere profession and fall away, the Antichrist. You remember
he said they went out from us. They didn't abide in him. They
commit a sin. My friend, if you don't abide
in Him, you commit sin. That doesn't mean you lose your
salvation. That means you were never saved to begin with. They
deny the faith, proving they never had been saved. Those who
are true children of God, as evidenced by their faith in Christ
and continuing in Him and in His Word, as opposed to false
children, evidenced by their turning away from Christ and
His Word. He says, they doeth righteousness
in verse 20. Do means to practice. It's a
tenor or habit of life. The bent of our life. You've
heard the illustration about the Mississippi River. It flows
south. But if you follow that river all the way down from the
north to the south, it'll take turns and twists. Sometimes it'll
go east. Sometimes it'll go west. But
the general bent of its life is south of its direction. That's the way it is with the
believer. We struggle. We go this way, we go that way,
we fight and we war, but the general tenor of our life is
what? Looking unto Jesus, the author
and finisher of our faith. Resting in Him. Pleading Him
and what He accomplished. That's doing righteousness. Righteous
and just behavior is demonstrated in obedience to God. To do righteousness
is to confess our sins. He said that over in 1 John 1.
When we confess that there is no salvation for us, no righteousness
for us based upon our best efforts to keep the law, do you know
that we're confessing our sin, we're confessing our need of
Christ, confessing our need of grace? That's doing righteousness.
That's what he's talking about. Doing or practicing righteousness
involves seeing the glory of God in Christ and having the
assurance of faith based on His blood and His righteousness.
Doing or practicing righteousness involves seeking to follow Christ
in His Word in obedience. Not to be saved, but because
we already are. Not to be made righteous, but
because we already are in Him. To do righteousness is to run
the race of grace, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith. John is saying the same thing
when he talks about doeth righteousness. He's talking about the same thing
as walking after and minding the things of the Spirit. It means keeping his commandments.
Now, what are his commandments? God never commanded any sinner
to seek to make himself righteous by his works in order to be saved. It's to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and thou shalt be saved. Old Testament and new. The law
was their schoolmaster to lead them unto Christ. It's to love the brethren. It's
what he says here in verse 10 of chapter 3. In this the children
of God are manifested, and the children of the devil. Whosoever
doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth
not his brother. When we love our brethren, we're
doing righteousness. Not that we love perfectly now,
but that we're showing our union with that brother in Christ. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Repent of dead works and idolatry. Love the brethren. Obey his word.
Prayer. He is doing righteousness, not
because the prayer is perfect, but because the one to whom we
pray is righteous. We pray upon the basis of our
great high priest who has passed through into the heavens, and
he's righteous. All of those things. Worship.
We're worshiping God. When you worship God in the public worship,
in the fellowship of God, you're doing righteousness. Not because
your worship is perfect, but because the one whom you worship
is perfect. You see the difference? Service
to God. Any service we do to the glory
of God is doing righteousness. Not because our service is perfect,
but because the one whom we serve is perfect. You see what I'm
saying? And we don't do it to be saved.
To do righteousness is to walk in the liberty of Christ and
love of Christ. To do righteousness is to walk
in good works which are the fruit of faith and love, not the cause.
To do righteousness, as James said, is to be a doer of the
Word. What does the Word say? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. You see, here's the fact. If
you're trying to be saved based on your works, you're not doing
righteousness. You're committing sin. If you're
trying to be holy by your works, you're not doing righteousness.
You're committing sin. You see, doing righteousness
is realizing and admitting that our doing is not our righteousness. But Christ is, and Him alone. And we're going to rest in Him
and abide in Him by the power of God and His grace. All right. We're going to sing hymn number
452 as our closing hymn, My Savior's Love, 452.