And the weeks prior, we've seen
Paul several times discuss a couple of things. Look at Philippians
chapter 3. And let's get this word in our
head this morning, in our heart. Look at verse 7. Let's start
there. He says, but whatever gain I
had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count
everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing
Christ Jesus, my Lord. For His sake I have suffered
the loss of all things, and I count them as rubbish in order that
I may gain Christ and be found in Him. not having a righteousness
of my own that comes from the Law, but that which comes through
faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends upon faith,
that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may
share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by
any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead."
Now church, I want to focus on one thing specific this morning,
and that is what we see in verse 9, the second part. He says,
"...and be found in him this, not having a righteousness of
my own that comes from the law, but that righteousness which
comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that
depends on faith." I want to focus on this for a minute because
what we have here is we have an incredible phrase, an incredible
sentence that teaches us a lot of things, but there is not any
real exposition in Paul's writing here that relates to that. What he does is he shares us
some things about what the law did and did not do for him. And
then he explains that that means his righteousness doesn't come
from the law, but that it comes from Christ. And you say, well,
isn't that clear? It is very clear. However, he
goes on to say that righteousness comes by faith alone in Christ
Jesus, and that the righteousness that comes from God is dependent
upon personal faith. And so from there, I want to
explain some things so that we can answer the question, if the
righteousness that we have is not our own but belongs to Christ,
how do we get it? And if it is by faith, what does
that mean? And if all this is true, so what? What difference does it make?
These are the things that I want us to look at today. Because
I'll be straight with you. Most people in the evangelical
Protestant world, if you took a poll, and this is a fallacy
because it's a supposed poll that never happened and it's
an appeal to statistics that aren't true, but if we were to
take a poll and we were to see all the Christians coming out
of all the churches just in our area. And we would just stand
in the parking lot and as they came out the door, we'd say,
do you believe that you are righteous without Jesus Christ? Most people
would say, absolutely not. To which you could then ask,
then how are you righteous before God? Does not Job ask that question?
How can a man be right before God? to which they would say,
by believing in Jesus, or something in that nature, by accepting
Christ as one's personal Savior and Lord. And then, of course,
the implication from that would cause more and more questions
to where most people would get more and more frustrated, and
then they would say, what are you asking? Are you questioning
my salvation? And so on and so on. And some
people would give you good answers, some people would give you canned
answers. All in all, what you'd find is that Out of one's mouth,
most people would agree that righteousness, that their personal
righteousness is not theirs but belongs to Jesus. But then when you start asking
them the question about how they are certain of their salvation,
how is it that they are truly standing before God in a righteous
way, you get a real mixed bag of tricks. You get a mixed bag
of tricks. You get some people who say that
righteousness is all of Christ but then maintained and kept
by us. People would say that if we ever found ourselves in
sin that we lose our salvation. And then you've got the other
side of that camp who are so secure in their salvation that
you can just live like the devil and live like the world. It doesn't
matter. Go home, kick your feet up, rest in the grace of God.
Jesus has got your back. And I'm not even going to say
that the right answer is a good balance between the two. The
right answer is that which is explicitly taught in Scripture.
And you find the words that are thrown out, the word imputation,
which is that which is not ours, and since we're speaking righteousness,
that is given to us, which belongs to Christ, but that it's credited
to us as righteousness, but it's not our righteousness. That's
imputation. Some people would even argue
that imputation is not even biblical, that it's not Christ's righteousness
in me. Or some people would say that
it's not that at all, that it's not Christ's righteousness, that
it's Christ's righteousness given unto me, therefore then I am
righteous apart from Christ because Christ's righteousness is now
shared with me. But I would say to you that Paul,
not only in the letter to the Philippians, but in most of his
writing, argues against such things. He argues very clearly
that righteousness... And friends, let me tell you
why it's important. This is an assumption I've made this morning.
Well, who cares about... Friends, if we're not righteous,
we go to hell. Let's just put it like that. Without holiness,
we are condemned. And see, this is a whole other
discussion, isn't it? Because most people in our world today
who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ give zero attention
to the idea that they are required to be obedient to the commands
of Scripture. And the hyper-grace movement
is so popular right now because it takes that little rub of working
out our salvation with fear and trembling by putting faith in
the One who is faithful to save us, it takes that rub away. It
takes that rub away so that when we see all of these little things
in our life that are sin, we are able to go, eh, got it. Jesus paid it all. All to Him
I owe. You know, now it's just white
as snow. I'm white, I'm clean, everything's
good. That's true. But it doesn't mean then that
there is no transformation of the heart of those who are born
of God. Personal holiness. You'll hear
that phrase a lot in the realm of Christendom. You'll hear that
a lot in preaching and writing. And what you'll find is that
most people will take that also to extremes. Isn't that what
we do as human beings? We find something that we know
is true and then we build upon that truth with everything else
but truth and then we end up with this monstrosity of a monument. We end up with this 50 million
ton vehicle and it got little hot wheels underneath it trying
to push it down the road. And wonder why they're always
flattened to the axles. And we think, now how are we supposed
to carry such things? The Bible says, Jesus says, my
burden is light, my yoke is easy. Come to me, all you who labor,
I will give you rest. The Scripture says in 1 John
that the obedience to the law of Christ, the law of faith,
is not a burden to the believer. It's what gives us our joy to
know that we have not only been gifted the gift of faith, but
we've been gifted the Holy Spirit to empower us to obey the laws
of Christ. So that we fully understand that
when we disobey, not only was in our unbelief our fault, but
so much more is at our fault when we disobey as believers.
It's our fault. Obedience is a very, very frustrating
thing because it implies that we are bound to be obedient to
the law. But Paul argues, especially in
Romans, that we're not bound to law because there is no way
that we could keep the law. And he uses that term interchangeably. He's not talking about the commands
of Christ. He's talking about the law that
supposedly in the minds of Jews for centuries gave them righteousness
before God. And so when he talks about these
things, when he says, if I have a reason to boast, If they have
a reason to boast, I have more. Because their righteous living
in the flesh is nothing compared to mine. So Paul then gives his
spiritual resume and his Judaistic resume and he says, look what
I have accomplished, look what I've done, look what I've been
able to stand before God and man. He even goes as far to say
in a boasting way in the flesh, not sinfully because he destroys
it. He says, if anyone could stand before God and say they
have obeyed His law given to Israel, you're looking at him. And he says, and it gave me nothing.
The priceless gain of knowing Christ. I gave all that up. Not just his religion, but any
righteousness that he felt he had gained by it. You might think,
now what does that look like? I just want to talk for a minute.
I want us to be on the same mindset if we can. What does it look
like? And by God's grace, He'll allow
me to do that. What does it look like for us to put our faith
in our works? Well, it could look very obvious
like this. I know that I'm justified before
God. I know that I'm righteous because I don't cuss, drink,
smoke, dance, or date women who do. That's an old joke. Okay, anyway. And it just popped
into my head. I don't hate my neighbor. I tithe. I go to prayer meeting. I'm in church. I have my Bible
with me at all times. And we could even say that with
tears in our eyes and thank God for it, much like the Pharisee.
I thank you God that I'm not like the publican. I thank you
God that I'm holy. I thank you God that I'm righteous.
We could even take... Hope in the fact that we are
transformed and we should rejoice in that. But we don't put our
hope in the transformation of our lives because even the most
wicked and lost people can live morally. As a matter of fact,
if you were to go and look at most people who are leaders in
a community, they are motivated by their moral standing, not
their righteousness in Christ Jesus. So sometimes I believe
our self-righteousness and motivation to rely upon works. looks like that. It looks like
that in our culture above all things because we can look at
the cultures of the world, even the subsets of culture in our
own country, and we can say, look, I'm not like that. I'm
not a pagan like that. Even some people who are extremely
concerned about everything they do, and they should be, it's
their conscience, but they take pride in it. I don't celebrate
this, or I don't do that, or I don't let my children listen
to this, or I don't watch that type of thing. and they feel
esteem deep in their soul. Even if it's a humble, self-deprecating
esteem, it's an esteem. And so that's what that looks
like a lot of times. But what happens when in that
type of hope, when the one bad thought, the one temptation,
the one sin, the one area of doubt, the one grievance, the
one little moment of pity, you realize self-pity is sin. You
realize depression is sin. Realize unbelief is sin. Covetousness
is sin. Oh, I wish I was a stronger Christian.
Like Johnny. That's covetousness. That's not
desiring to be like Christ and know Christ. That's desiring
to compare yourself to another brother or sister. It's sin.
So even these little things begin to pop up in our lives. When
those seasons come, we rely upon the expression of our holiness
and our right living as our hope. Then what happens when we start
to have those things is one of two things. We begin to tear
those other people down. Well, you know, he's really not
as holy as he seems to be. Or he's really not as... I saw
him smoking behind the rock over there. Or I saw him point his finger at
his wife the other day. He's got a waggy finger. That's
a scary fellow. He's not one of those guys you
want to trust. Smoking, wagging. I mean, he
probably dances too. He's probably a little bad to
cost. And then we start, so we don't even, so that's how we
justify it. And in our minds, then we start
thinking, well, you know. Then God understands. God understands
my sin. It's okay. I'm okay. You come to reality, well, it's
not an issue of holiness now. It's not my works. There's some
problems in my life. Now I can see them. But God understands
them. Sometimes we go there, don't
we? Oh, God will understand that I'm having a hard time in my
marriage. God understands I'm having a hard time with my finances.
God understands how my boss is. He treats me like a slave and
He'll understand when I just don't do work. I'm just going
to clock in and ride the clock. He'll understand because He knows
what I'm going through. No, He doesn't. God understands
one thing about sin and it is death. And it is a just consequence
to sin. And so when we count ourselves
righteous based on the works that we perform, friends, we
haven't looked very closely at our works. And Paul, yes, is
talking about a work, a righteousness that comes from the law. But
friends, there's a difference in righteous living and being
righteous. Now they go together. When we
are made righteous by God through Jesus Christ, there is a wholehearted,
absolutely certain and visible striving for righteousness. That's
why Paul says he wants us to obey, wants us to have a unified
spirit, one mind, be on mission, pray. We are to be doing the
things that we do as faithful Christians. But why? Is it liturgy? Is it just rote
precepts? Is it a practice that we do?
No. Why are we praying? Because there is some reason
to labor before the throne of God. And it is an honor to pray
for each other. It is a blessing to pray so that
we know that our Father is interceding on behalf of our body. If my
foot hurts, I want our Father to heal it. And you may be our
foot. You may be our hand. So in the
same way I would pray for my own body, I would pray for you
with a greater zeal and a greater passion. Not because I have to,
it's because I want to. Just like Paul says in Ephesians
5 and Colossians 3, that husbands ought to love their wives as
Christ loves the church and gave Himself up for her to present
her holy and blameless and spotless. Husbands, love your wives in
the same way. For no one hates his own body
but loves it and cherishes it and nourishes it. Your wife is
your one body. And friends, our physical unions
and our marital unions in this world are a direct, small, microscopic
picture of the macrocosmic reality of Christ and His church. Because
Paul begins then to say, he says, I say to you that this mystery
is profound. When God said, let these two
become one, I say it is Christ and His church. That's why God
instituted the institution of husband and wife. So marriage is not a worldly
institution, nor a government institution, nor anything to
do with us. Matter of fact, when we say our
vows before God and before each other in holy matrimony, we are
saying, when you hate me with everything in your fiber, and
you despise me, and I'm disgusted by your sight, I will stay with
you and I will live in misery. for better or for worse. Isn't
that what it means? I think we should start now, from all of
now, from this point forward, all of my wedding vows are going
to be sort of like that. When you make me nauseated, I
will stay. Whether it be your cooking or
your face. I mean, you know, could you imagine?
And you think, oh my goodness, hateful fellow, you don't know
what I'm talking about. Hopefully there are only like fleeting
moments. Usually Sunday right after church, where you want
to eat, it doesn't matter to me. How about here? No, I hate that place. Then you go home and you don't
eat. And about 3 o'clock everybody's, you know, you been there? I've
been there. That's why we settle it. We eat at one place. Somebody
goes somewhere else, they eat by themselves. But it's about the gospel. And
where did that come from? If we get separated from the
purpose of which we are to walk, if we fail to continue to remember
why it is that we fellowship as a church every week, if we
fail to remember the power of Christ in us, we will in some
way be working out of a self-righteousness that is death. It is not my righteousness. Paul then argues, look at verse
7, So all these things that I was doing were righteous according
to the standard of the law. However, I had no true gain in
these things, but if I had any gain, it never got me to Christ. It never got me to righteousness.
I may have looked righteous, I may have lived righteously
in the standard of the world. I may have even obeyed to the
letter of the law that which God had commanded of me, but
there was no gain in it. But if there was, I counted it
all as loss in comparison for the sake of Christ. So that when
God showed me that all of these things that were required of
me, that I thought I was keeping, had no merit unto my salvation,
but yet I was still required to keep them. I realized that
what they were doing was pointing to the necessity of the Savior.
The Messiah had to come. The Logos came to tabernacle
with us, John 1.14, so that we could see the fullness of the
glory of God face to face in the living Word. And now that
I've seen that Word, now that I have been sent by the living
Word, I proclaim to you that this righteousness that I now
stand in is not because I lived my life in Judaism. It is not
because I lived for the last 25 to 35 years in obedience. I started at the day 8 years
old when my parents circumcised me, he said. and I've obeyed
God ever since, but none of this has counted as righteousness. I do not stand before God. He
does not favor me as I stand before Him based on anything
that I even attempted to do. God does not stand in front of
His people and say, you know what? You came by faith, but
man, did you work a lot harder. Here's a sticker. Here's a star. Here's three gold
stars. Matter of fact, here's the key
to the city. Here's a bigger mansion. You
know, people teach that. Yeah, we're all equal, faith
alone in Jesus Christ, but those of us who live a little bit less
sinful lives are going to get a little bit more good stuff
in heaven. Well, friends, if there's any mansion, any gold,
any crown, any position, any authority, any role, any body,
any of you between me and Jesus, you better watch out. I don't
think He's going to erase my Kung Fu ability when I get there.
And I'll charge right over you. You see that? I don't want all
that stuff. I count all that as rubbish for
the priceless gain of knowing Christ. What else do we look
at when we see our righteousness? Friends, in America, it's churchmanship. I want to say this very delicately. You all know especially those
of you who have walked with us for years, you all know from
where I come in my churchmanship, in my ecclesiology, to where
God has called Grace Truth to be, it's not just a little different,
it's absolutely on another plane. And when people look at it, they
go, wow, that is a loser church. They don't have anything. They're
not doing anything. They don't have a program for
it. They don't even have a changing table in there hardly. I like to dig through letters.
I like to dig through cards and I like to dig through emails.
And I love to go through and if it were up to me, I'd throw
away all the bad ones. But I knew better to do that
because sometimes even the bad ones, even the bad letters, even
the bad phone calls, even the bad voicemails, I save them all. have some truth in it. And if
nothing else, there's always a way to grow when somebody challenges
you and speaks ill of you. Even if it's wrong, there's a
way to grow in those things. And so as I was going through
some files over the last few months, I found some letters.
And I found a letter once about the ridiculousness. And what's
crazy is that, you know, the church goes, yeah, we're going
to go this way. We believe it. And then when we do it, people
go, I don't like it. But the ridiculousness of having
children in the worship service. And the argument from this person
was this. Do you really think these children
get anything out of the worship service? Question mark. Are you that pompous to think
that you're good enough to reach their ears? Question mark. You're going to stand before
God judged because you're not giving these children what they
need." And I thought, that is really harsh. Hallelujah. I broke for her, for this person. I have that letter. Why would
you keep that kind of stuff? Because, man, that keeps me reminded. I'm not being whipped. We're
not in prison. And your family hasn't been beheaded.
But we'll suffer in our own way. Sometimes a beheading would be
easier. And that's a mild, mild rebuke. But if we believe that
the Word of God teaches that only by hearing the Word of God
does God supernaturally bring faith to someone, then only through
the hearing of the Word of God with the family together under
the preaching of the Word will that child, as they play and
color and sit, be exposed to not just the Word, but the discipline
of knowing that it's time to learn God's Word. And I've been
in the ministry for 20 years. And I think, really? Has it been
that long? It's just a snap. Longer than that, but professionally,
quote, 20 years. Working on church staff for 20
years. And I look back at all the times
when I have done children's ministry, when there were 400 to 500 children
who were responsible to be taught. And I remember all the years
of being exposed and intertwined with student ministry, middle
school and high school ministry. And do you know what we do historically
with that? We teach them to act a certain
way. We teach them to do certain Christian
things. We teach them to modify their
behavior that they may look like Christ instead of showing them
Christ. And friends, there are a handful,
a handful, four or five, of young men who are now in their twenties
who have walked away from the faith. Two of them were seminarians
going into the pastorate. One of them was a better expositor
than I will ever be in his teen years. And they no longer believe. Because at the mid-twenties,
early twenties, they looked at their lives and they realized,
I've been playing this church Christian game for the sake of
my community and my family, and what happens if I step out of
my... I was esteemed because I lived
a Christian life as a child. And when I realized I was just
a slave to other people's expectations, I walked away from this baloney
as quick as I could. These are the Hebrews 10 people
who the writer says are experiencing the Word and the power of the
Word and the Spirit, hanging out with the church, doing the
works of ministry, and then they just decide to just walk away. The Bible says there's nothing
left but an expectation of judgment. Now, that is God's doing, but
let me tell you what was not God's doing. was not God's honorable
will. And I say that very lightly.
I'm not taking away God's supremacy. But God uses even wickedness
and laziness for His purpose. God uses evil for His own purpose.
God orchestrates it and sends it where it needs to be. And all of those years when I
was the purveyor of that behavior modification, some of these people
bought it. and then walked away from the
gospel. But by the Lord's grace, these young men have heard the
gospel. They have been rebuked. They have heard the error of
such things. Friends, we don't want to put
people in touch with a personal righteousness that looks like
churchmanship. I forgot why I was starting to
tell you that. That's why I'm talking about it. We don't want churchy people. In fact, we want to see Christ. Which means that there's a radically
transformed people who beyond all comprehension understand
the love of Christ, the power of the gospel, the power of the
resurrection, and that there is nothing normal about them. There's no world standard by
which they can stand and be measured. It doesn't fit any of the cookie
cutter molds of Christianity that the world has created. We
don't fit in, church, to the status quo, church. We don't
fit in as truly born again people to the machine of professional
ministry. It doesn't work. God doesn't
allow His children to just be moved through the stockyards
like a cow and say, here's this and now here's this. Every world
and false religion known to man follows that type of methodology. And Christianity, the neo-evangelicalism,
the new Christianity of the last 60 to 80 years is nothing but
a world religion with a false God and no Savior. And people
are putting their faith in their own righteousness while they
say, Christ alone is my righteousness. They put their faith in their
church work, in their ministry, and in their missions, and in
their preaching. Well, I know I'm born of God. Look at my ministry.
Joel Osteen says he's born of God because he's got 70,000 members
in his church. So by that same logic, Jesus
was not from God because all the people that followed Him
left Him when He preached. After He said, I am the bread
that comes from God. Why does the bestseller list
not include Spurgeon? Why is Edie's commentaries not
lying on the walls of Lothway stores? Why is Burkoff's systematic
theology hard to even find? Culver, you can't find those
people. Why is the word propitiation
not in the mouth and the ears of most Christians in America
when it's written down three times in every English translation
in the Bible? Except maybe the... I said translations,
yeah. The caveat's there. Whatever gain I had, I count
it as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as
loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ my Lord.
For His sake, I count it as garbage that I may gain Christ and be
found in Him." Do you realize that righteousness that comes
from God is proof that you're found in Christ? And here's the reality that a
lot of us Brainiacs don't get. A lot of us Reformer guys, we
don't have a clue what we're talking about when we first start,
so we tear everything around us up. We destroy relationships. We split churches just because
we're asking questions. And what does this mean? He just asked about something. What do we do? Lock the door.
It's like when Jehovah's Witnesses used to come by. Nobody's home! You turn all the lights out and
hide behind the couch. Ring the doorbell. Or the Avon
lady. Whoever it might be. You know
what I'm talking about. And then we just get into it. We ask too
many questions. Then we get aggravated. Nobody wants to talk. And then
we start having these teas and coffees and breakfasts. And then
these people go and bear false witness against us. And the next
thing you know, we're a pariah. And when you're in a church of
about 2,000 and that happens to you, it gets really sticky.
It's really sticky. And so, we get to the place where
all of a sudden we realize that what we thought we knew we didn't
know, but the one that we do know is Christ and that's all
that matters. Listen, when we get to the point where we know
we need Christ, it doesn't matter that we know all the words. It
doesn't matter that we know all the theological principles. Friends,
salvation is not based on our theological understanding of
doctrine. Salvation is based on faith alone that there is
no righteousness in you, but that all the righteousness that
ever existed in the world is in Christ. And unless you have
it all, you've got none of it. I want you to hear that. That's
the gospel. You are hopelessly unable to
satisfy God's righteous requirements. And because of that, you, my
friend, are going to perish under the mighty and just and loving
hand of the wrath of God. And it is good that He destroy
you. but in His mercy, because of the great love with which
He loved you, He gave Christ to be your propitiation, to be
received by faith. There's Romans 3. Ephesians 1, in order that you
may by faith become the elect of God, the children of God,
the predestined of God, the beloved of God, and have all spiritual
blessings in the heavenly realm. and that by Christ's blood you
are made righteous, because He paid the penalty of your sin
and your morality, so that you could be just before God. For
by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not
of your own doing, but is a gift of God that no one can boast. For you are God's workmanship,
created in Christ Jesus, to walk in good works that He created
before you were created. That's not just Ephesians 2,
that's also in Galatians, and that's also in John 3. And so Paul is saying here, I
want to have a righteousness and be found in Christ. This
righteousness is not my own. This righteousness is not from
the law. This righteousness is not through
my obedience. This righteousness is not through
my holiness. This righteousness is not through
my religion and my preaching and my learning. This righteousness
is not through my academic pursuits. This righteousness is just God's
to give. And it came to me because I believed
that God had it for me. It is mine. And I don't deserve
it. It depends on faith, believing. Paul says to the Romans, for
the wages of sin is death. Living good life equals what? Death. Living a holy and good,
moral, Christian-like life equals death. Christ alone is life. But the free gift of God is eternal
life in Christ Jesus. That means that there's no work
that we could muster. Even the exercising of our striving
for faith would not please God in the least. Do you hear me? That's why we don't work to our
faith. We don't stand before God because
I exercised my right to believe. That's bragging before God. And friends, when God convicts
the heart of a wicked sinner and brings it to life in Jesus
Christ, there's a whole plethora of emotions and thoughts and
things that are flooding us. And when we're in that state,
we will do what we think is necessary by that which we've been taught
to attain whatever it is that we want. And when we are told that we
must believe alone in Christ alone, it should cause more of
a question than it does, oh, that's all. What does it mean to believe?
What does it mean to have faith? Oh God, I don't know what faith
looks like, I don't know what faith is, but Father, You, God,
if You don't save me, I have no hope. Christ has satisfied
Your judgment. Oh Lord, have mercy that His
righteousness would be my righteousness." That's a sinner's prayer. That's a prayer of salvation. Not the ABCs, the 1, 2, 3s. Not the checking box A, B, or
C. Not baptism. Not church membership. Not altar calls. Not praying.
Not proclaiming. Yeah, I believe in Jesus. Every
cult in America believes in Jesus. Faith is so mysteriously beautiful
that we just have to believe that we believe. that God has
given us faith to trust and rest in the sufficiency of the righteousness
of God, which is given as a gift through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Keep in mind that Paul says this righteousness, not of my own,
that I have, comes not from the law. I have nothing. The law
brings nothing. It brings death. But the righteousness
that comes through faith in Christ, It is a gift of God through Jesus
Christ, the righteous. This is truly how we stand justified
and holy before the Lord. But that which comes through
faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes through faith in Christ,
which comes from God that depends on faith. That's what Paul just
says there in verse 9. This righteousness is not from
the law, it's not from my doing, it's not from my exercise of
my own will and the disciplines of my life, but it is the righteousness
that comes from faith, which comes through God, from God,
through Christ, from Christ, that depends upon faith, which
is God's doing anyway. So that God gets the glory for
it all. Friends, I want you to understand
this, that the righteousness of Christ is from the Lord. Few
people would argue that, but they don't understand it because
they've not been taught the gospel first. They've been taught the
process, a worldly process, and then they've been trying to shove
the Bible to fit it. It's like I want to build a 5,000
square foot building inside of here. How's that work? It'll work. You want me to walk
around? We'll frame it all up. Let's
just frame another wall in front of that wall. How about another
wall in front of that? He's got 5,000 square feet of
wall space, but it's only going to give you about 5 square feet.
And that's what happens in our world. That's what happens in
the late 19th century when people who were desperately... Listen,
I believe desperately desiring to see people come to faith and
be saved. But in order to create revival,
they manipulated the Word of God by manipulating the actions
of men. And all of the evangelical style,
evangelistic efforts that we see today so prevalent in our
world came from there, not from the apostles. Free song. Dun-dun-dun. That's what we need. We need somebody to play while
I preach. That would really keep the mood, wouldn't it? The devil and his guitar. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. They manipulated that. They transformed
what faith was and turned it into an action. They turned faith
into a work. That's all it was. How do you
know that you know that you know? You know how many times I heard
that in my life as a child? You want to know? It's usually
a big bearded guy, had to stand way far away because his belly
was about that big too. I mean, you know, had big glasses
because he couldn't see his Bible. You want to know that you know
that you know that you know you have eternal life? I'm not mocking
these people, but this is... I'm like, yes, I do. Then come on down. Come on down. I mean, what's he going to do?
Slap me? Put the spirit in me? What's happening here? You know,
come on down. Do you believe? Were you sincere?
Are you sure? Do you want to be sure? I mean,
you know, y'all laughing because you know these people. They preach
to you as children. And you were scared to death
for about 25 days. And you got up in your Bible
every night in the bed and you cried. And you're like, Lord, help me,
God. I went up. I mean, the revival's
seven straight nights. You went up every night. Everybody
stand up. You know, you know, you know
that you know without a shadow of a doubt you're going to heaven. And then
everybody else is standing up going, oh. Do you want to know? No. I'm just standing. My back hurts. Of course they
want to know. That's why they're standing there.
All you've got to do is come on down. All you've got to do
is say these words. All you've got to do is act this
way. All you've got to do is join this church. All you've got to do is be baptized.
All you've got to do. All you've got to do. All you've got to
do. I saw the surgeon and said, I need some help in here. We've
got a brain that's open. My other guy left. Can you help
me? Here, take this scalpel. Take this laser. All you've got
to do is just shoot the laser and slice the scalpel. You know,
right there, just get one of them. I don't care. That's all
you've got to do. I mean, you're doing brain surgery, the outcome's
not going to be any good. You're exercising some type of
faith, but it's not in the faith that God has given you. It's
not believing in the righteousness of Christ. That type of faith
is just believing in that type of faith. Because 20 years from then, somebody
says, how do you know that you have eternal life? You say, I
believed in Jesus. And they say, well, tell me what
that means for you. Well, when I was 9, for 7 days
in a row, I came forward. When I was 14, I was baptized.
When I was 21, I went into the mission field. That's what I'm
talking about. Well, this morning I put on my
left sock, and then I put on my right sock. And then I looked
for my shoes. And I looked for them again.
What does that make me? A cobbler? I'm not trying to be cynical,
but I'm being serious. A righteousness that comes by
faith is not a righteousness that we just get nailed down
and all go, oh yeah, I did the right stuff to get the righteousness
of Christ. Friends, believing is not a point
in history, but a present reality. Faith is not something we exercised,
it's how we live. The righteous shall live by faith. By faith, not because of our
past faith. Believing on the righteousness
of God is an every day, every moment, every second expression
of the hope that comes through Jesus Christ given to us by God
alone. It is from the Lord. And to the
one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly,
his faith is counted as righteousness. Romans 4 verse 5. Romans 5 verse
6, for while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died
for the ungodly. Remember Tiny Titus? It says
He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness,
but according to His own mercy. by the washing of regeneration,
the renewal of the Holy Spirit. We are saved because God regenerated
us in Christ Jesus by His Spirit. We have been, according to John
3, born of God, born from above, born again. We've been born of
God. That is the awakening, that is the revival, that is the renewal. That is what causes people, as
Peter preached, to say, what must we do to be saved? We're
struck to the heart. We know we're wicked. And you
preach of this Jesus. What do we got to do? Where do
we got to go? We got to follow Him? We got to nail some stuff
up? We got to hand out some handbills? We got to ride bikes across the
country in white shirts? What are we going to do? Sorry. I saw something yesterday. He says, believe the gospel. of
Jesus. Believe the good news of Jesus. Believe that Jesus is the only
good news you'll ever hear that will ever count for anything.
And if you want to be righteous before God, you believe that
Jesus is your only hope for righteousness. And as you're believing, you
repent of your sin, which includes your ideals on how you're going
to get there. Righteousness. And it is by faith
alone, friends, we could preach a series of 50 million sermons
on faith. I'm almost thinking that there
needs to be a little teaching about faith every week. Because
it is the means through which we gain salvation. It is the operative, how does
Paul put it? Dependence. Faith is what gives
righteousness. And there's some of us who like
to believe in the sovereignty of God so much that we just don't
even think we have to exercise faith. Yeah, I don't have to
believe. God's going to save me. I've
got the faith that God's going to save me and I don't have to
follow Christ. You see how that goes back to
what we started with, personal righteousness? There's a very
evidence of our salvation is that we've been changed. That
the old man is dead and the new man is alive. and one of the greatest stumbling
blocks to true faith in Jesus Christ. Listen. We see it in
2 Corinthians 4. We see Jesus talk about in the
parable of the sower that the devil takes the Word of God from
your heart when you leave here. That the God of this world blinds
your eyes that you can't believe. But the hope is not in worrying
about how to overcome the devil. The hope is in the fact that
God who said, let light shine on darkness has shone in your
hearts to give you the truth. Through the hearing of the Word of God,
Romans 10. That's the hope we have. That's faith. Believing
in the fact that God is faithful to do that which He promised
to do. And that when you find yourself today, oh man, I'm in
my twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, beyond. And
I thought I was a believer and now I come here today and I'm
not quite sure I've exercised faith today. Don't put your faith
in your pride. Because the wisdom literature was not being stupid
when it said in wisdom that pride comes before the fall. It was the pride of Adam and
Eve that caused them to fall from grace, from perfection, from
righteousness. It wasn't even grace. It was, but they had no need
for unmerited mercy because they were righteous. It was pride. I'm going to get what I deserve.
You surely did. They got death. Friends, you may be sitting here
today and go, man, I've been in the church my whole life.
If someone sees me come to faith now, I'm going to be embarrassed.
Really? Is that really an embarrassment that God saved you? How silly
is that? Well, you know. I tell you, it was an embarrassment
not being baptized for almost ten years after salvation. But
you know what's greater than that? The glory of God's working out
obedience. Maybe an embarrassment, man, I've never read my Bible.
I've been saved my whole life. What's a greater overcoming than
the embarrassment of that? Why is it embarrassing? God in
His mercy gave me the heart to read the Bible today. And now
I love the Word. Well, we haven't had family devotion
in 25 years. I have no sense to start it now.
Why? You skip food for three or four
days or can't go to sleep for a week? You just go, well, I'm
never going to eat again. Been up all week, might as well
stay up. Now you're going to catch up. But you can only take
so much. You're going to catch up your
food, but you can only hold so much. Start today. Faith in the righteousness
of Christ. and being found in Him, not having
a righteousness of my own that comes from the Law, but that
which comes through faith in Christ Jesus, the righteousness
from God that depends upon faith." Faith is a gift of God through
His grace. In Romans chapter 3, we see starting
in verse 21, Paul arguing this. And he says in verse 24, "...and
that those who are justified by grace as a gift through the
redemption that is in Christ." The gift of God is His grace. And this faith that we have in
Christ Jesus is a gift of God. Ephesians 2 says the same thing.
It also teaches us, the Bible teaches us in Romans 8, that
the obedience to the law, even if we do it with all of our heart,
obedience to Christ, even in all of our heart, does not do
what Christ has done. It does not come and give us
righteousness. It does not effect any favor
from God at all. He says, for God has done what
the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. God has done what the law could
not do by sending His own Son, this is how God did it, in the
likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, He condemns sin in the
flesh. That's Romans 8 verse 3. Let's
do it again. For God has done what the law,
weakened by the flesh, could not do, by sending His own Son
in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin. He was truly flesh,
He was fully God, He was fully man, but He was not sinful. So in the likeness of sinful
flesh means that He looked like a sinner because He lived and
breathed like we did, but He had no sin in Him. So He sent His Son in the likeness
of sinful flesh, and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh. God has condemned sin in the
flesh of Jesus Christ, who paid the penalty of all good and bad
works, because they're all wicked. And this is all done, and this
is all effectual, because God is an amazing and gracious God.
He is a God who saves. In verse 10 of Philippians 3,
we find him not having a righteous model that comes from the law,
but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness
from God that depends on faith. And then there's a hyphen there,
and in verse 10 it picks up, but whatever gain I had accounted
is lost for the sake of Christ. I count everything as lost because
of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. I've suffered
that I may count it all as garbage in order that I may gain Christ."
And then verse 10, "...that I may know Him, that I may know the
power of His resurrection, that I may share in His sufferings,
that I may become like Him in His death, that by any means
possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead." And so Paul then
argues, as we saw two weeks ago, that the righteousness of Christ
given to him by God through faith is effectual not just in His
eternity, but in His present reality. that He lives for the striving
of righteousness. He lives for the longing to be
with Christ. He breathes every breath, every
chemical exchange of carbon dioxide to oxygen is for the sake of
Christ. Everything He owns, everything
that He is, everything that He ever desired to be is nothing
except that He lives to honor Christ whether He lives or whether
He dies in His body in this earth. Because Christ's righteousness
is His. Therefore, because of that, He
knows the power of the resurrection of Christ. Because He knows that
the death of His flesh is done. And He's been raised to the newness
of life. These are Paul's words. I was arguing this with a young
man on Wednesday who told me, at the end of it, he just could
no longer believe the Bible. To which I closed and just stood
up and walked off. Where are you going?" I said,
if I can't use the Bible to teach you God, I can't talk to you
about it. It's just stupid. It's a fool's
errand. I'll just call somebody on my shoe and get them down
here. That's how silly it is. The righteousness
of God gives us the truth of God's grace because it transforms
us and we are participants in the suffering of Christ. We are
partners with Christ in His death so that our man, the old flesh,
is dead. Friends, and when it taps us
on the shoulder, we have, by the Lord's power, the grace and
the ability to say no. Hear that. Well, aren't we supposed to sort
of grow in sanctification? We're not talking about sanctification
in itself. We're talking about where we
stand in Christ as righteous and what it should produce in
us. That's the whole argument here. That we're going to suffer
and we're going to do it well and Christ is going to be glorified
in it because He was raised from the dead and one day this corruptible
flesh that's already been put to death will be raised in the
newness of life in Christ. This is what Paul's arguing. I guess the question is, do you
understand the amazing grace of God? God's amazing grace, for by grace
you've been saved through faith and this is not of your own doing.
It is the gift of God. You know what's crazy? Some people
like to take that Scripture and they take it and they make a
pretext out of it and they tattoo it on their hearts and they say,
if I don't believe, it's not my fault. And when you do not believe,
it's your fault. And when you do not not believe, it's your
fault. But when you believe, God is praised. Debating this,
It might be fun for you. It might be fun for some. It
might be fun... Well, if that's the way God wants it... Listen,
you know what Romans 1 tells us? That there's an answer to
every objection in the Scripture. Romans 1 says that God has turned
them over to reprobate mine because they refuse to believe what is
obvious. and the judgment of God is going
to be poured out on all unrighteousness, including that which says, I'm
going to argue with you that if God's going to give me faith
as a gift, it's not my responsibility. Okay, great. Well, take that
to God and tell Him that. Debating the means of faith is
no excuse for the ends. And quite honestly, Scripture
doesn't teach that. The Scripture teaches you believe
or you perish. And you exercise faith. You know
what I've found? People who can have a hard time
believing whom God has called and shown the truth, they strive
to find it. They don't argue. They don't
settle. They strive. They long after
it. They call in sick from work.
I'm sick. They lie so they can get close
to Jesus. But they are sick. They're dead. They're sins. The exercise of faith is on us. And when we try to say that God
is not merciful, we deny what the Scripture teaches in Scripture.
What the Scripture teaches about God. What the Word says about
itself. Believe or perish. There it is. Do you believe in
Christ alone as your hope for righteousness? Or do you believe
in everything else we discussed today? All these examples of
how people believe. And when you do believe in Christ,
that belief will produce a fruitfulness of striving to be like Christ
with everything you are. Even when we fail, church, We
strive to repent and stand. And it's not our getting it right.
We don't have to make up for our sins when we are in Christ
Jesus, because Christ has paid for those sins. So that in that
truth, we don't want to offend that Savior who has already purchased
us. We don't want to come and say,
well, it's already paid for, because Hebrews tells us that
when we continue to sin, deliberately, we spurn the Son of God. We hold
Him up to public reproach and shame. That we're saying to the
world, Christ paid for that sin, well, I'm going to go ahead and
sin, let's just hang Him back up there and get it. That's the attitude,
and that's not the mind of Christ. That's not the mind of the saints.
The mind of the saints is to do all that we do, whether in
word or in deed, whatever we eat or drink, for the glory of
Christ, so that when we live our lives before men, our Father
in heaven is glorified and honored. Does this sound familiar? So
that we might exist as a people for His glory, by His grace,
as we praise Him for His grace forever. Believe in the gospel. Believe that Jesus Christ alone
is your righteousness. Let's pray. Lord, sometimes I just talk too
much. Your words are enough. So, Father, just take Your Word
that is planted within us and grow us. Produce all the fruits
of Your work and the work of Your Son so that You would be
glorified and honored and esteemed. And we thank You, Father, that
You are surely a great Father and that Christ is surely a certain
Savior. God, help us to pray for each
other. Those who are ill or heartbroken or trapped in a job or whatever
it may seem to be, a prison in their own lives. Those who just
did not come today because something else seemed to be more pressing.
Help us to labor for each other, not to think ourselves better,
but to praise You for the grace that allowed us to assemble together
today as we pray for our brothers and sisters, knowing that their
joy is weakened when they're not with us. And Lord, help this
preaching be more than just knowledge to take and put in a tool belt
or to sell on a shelf, but Father, help what we learn each and every
moment through Your Word to be living and breathing in our lives,
that we sharpen each other as we're transformed into the likeness
of Your Son. And Father, I pray that as the
children hear every week Your Word, that Lord, at that moment
when You have appointed, that they would understand the language.
Not because they're smart or able, but Lord, because Your
Spirit has given them understanding. Jesus is God. He is the man who took our sins
on Himself. And You killed Him, and You raised
Him to life that we might be forgiven, so that we might also
live. Let that be the message of our
mouths, and let that be the song of our hearts today. In Jesus'
name, Amen.