Now, let's turn back in our Bibles
to the book of 1 John chapter 2. 1 John chapter 2. If any of you
have had the opportunity to follow along with our television messages
that come on Sunday morning, I've been dealing with this passage
in 1 John 2, basically one verse here, verse 29, on the subject
of the doing of righteousness. and I have six messages that
we run concurrently on the TV program, but this has been so
much on my mind and on my heart that I decided to deal with it
here in our worship service. I know a lot of you all don't,
you don't get to watch the TV program, but on the subject of
doing righteousness, and so this is the third message on that,
and I'm gonna conclude that today, and I'm gonna hopefully go down
through 1 John 3, around verse 10, somewhere around there, and
then next week I'm gonna pick up right there and talk about
the subject of the reality, the nature of Christian love. He
talks about love there too, and that's another much misunderstood
subject in religious circles today. What is the reality and
the nature the truth about Christian love. It's different from the
world's love. So we could also say about this
issue of righteousness, look at verse John 2, 29, it says,
if you know that he is righteous, now that's Christ. We know that
Christ is righteous. We know that he is sinlessly
perfect, always was and always will be. When the Bible says
that Christ was made sin in passages like 2 Corinthians 5, 21, how
was he made sin? Well, he was made sin as a surety. A surety is one who takes responsibility
to pay the debt of another. And that means sin was imputed
to him. The debt of my sins was charged to Christ. And he, before
the foundation of the world, as my surety, said, put it on
my account, I'll repay it. And he paid the price on Calvary's
trade, didn't he? He satisfied the debt. Jesus
paid it all, all to him I owe. We sang it last week, I think.
Some versions of that song go like this. Jesus paid it all,
all the debt I owe. And so not only did he give us
the freedom to pay the debt, and the liberty from that debt
by paying it with his redemption price, the price of his blood,
he gives us a righteousness in our standing before God so that
we can stand before Almighty God as sinners saved by grace. Not based on our own merits,
our own worthiness or our works, but based upon the merits and
the worthiness of Christ. And that's borne up in the scripture
so much. What's the song of the redeemed
in Revelation 5? Worthy is the lamb that was slain. You see what I'm saying? And
so that's what this is talking about. Christ is righteous. Now,
this is speaking of Christ as my surety. Christ as my substitute. Christ as my sin bearer, my sacrifice. Christ the Lord, my righteousness.
as borne out in 1 John 2. So it says here in verse 29,
if you know that he is righteous, then you know that everyone that
doeth righteousness is born of him. Those who are born of God,
that's the new birth that Christ taught Nicodemus and us, you
must be born again. That's the life of Christ imparted
by the Spirit of God under the preaching of the gospel, which
is the power of God unto salvation. And that's not to make us righteous
within ourselves, but it does give us a new heart, a new mind,
new affections, new life, new knowledge, all of those things
we can talk about. And so those who do righteousness,
now what is it to do righteousness? Now righteousness, I've been
writing on this all week, you know, People's natural view of
righteousness is much lower than God's standard of righteousness.
That's the first thing you have to understand. What is God's
standard of righteousness? You know the word right? Righteous
and righteousness can be substituted in the English language with
the words just, justice, justification. What does God view as something
that's righteous, something that is just? And the answer in God's
view, in God's standard, is perfection. Perfection. Mark that down in
your mind. Now, man's view is something
less. It's a fellow out here or a woman out here trying to
do the best they can do. Morality. Something like that. But in God's view, it's perfection. Alright? And so the only one
who accomplished that perfection is the Lord Jesus Christ. None
of us accomplish that. You see, when I'm measured by
the standard of God's righteousness, I'll fall short. That's what
Romans 3.23 means. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. It means we don't measure up.
You say, well, I'm going to do the best I can do today. Well,
good. I hope you do, but it won't make you righteous. You say, I'm going to try to
be the best father, the best husband, the best worker that
I can. I hope you do. And I'm all for you. We should
all do that every day, but that will not save us. That will not
make us righteous before God. That won't earn us any points
with God as far as a right relationship with him. Well, where's there
any hope for a sinner like me then? Look to Jesus Christ for
if you know that He is righteous. So what is this doing righteousness?
It describes, and this is what I've been shown in the context
of these passages, it describes a sinner saved by grace, whose
sins have been washed away by the blood of Christ, who stands
before God based on Christ's righteousness imputed to him,
charged to him, accounted to him, a sinner saved by the grace
of God, in good standing with God because of what Christ accomplished,
the God-man, what he accomplished, believing in, resting in, and
clinging to Christ. That's what doing righteousness
is. Clinging to Christ, holding on for dear life. And you won't
let go. Well, why did John say it that
way? Well, remember he's talking about professing Christians who
at some time in their walk totally apostatized, totally left, totally
forsook Christ. And what does he say about them?
Well, he says they never were saved to begin with. Look again
at 1 John 2, 19. They went out from us, but they
were not of us. For if they had been of us, they
would no doubt have continued with us, you see? If they'd been
of us, if they'd been truly born again, truly of the family of
God, truly saved, they would have continued with us. But they
went out that they might be made manifest that they were not of
us. But now those who continue, he says in verse 20, you have
an unction, an anointing. And what is that anointing? That's
the life of Christ given to them by the Holy Spirit. You have
an unction from the Holy One and you know all things. You
know better, that's what he's saying there. You know that to
leave Christ is to commit sin. To leave Christ is to render
you with no hope, no salvation, no life. Here's what I'm saying,
here's what John's saying. Without Christ, without His blood
to wash away my sins, without His righteousness imputed to
justify me, I am nothing. That's it. You say, well, you
look pretty good to me. I hope I do. But I'm nothing
without Christ. You say, well, I'm religious.
Religion is nothing without Christ, without truth, without grace.
You say, well, I was baptized. Well, big deal. It's nothing
without Christ. What is believer's baptism? It's a confession that my only
hope is in Christ. My only forgiveness is in Christ. My only righteousness is Christ. That's what baptism confesses.
That's what the symbol is. That's why we go down into the
water. When he died, I died. When he was buried, I was buried.
When he arose, I arose. That's what we're confessing
in baptism. Water doesn't wash away your
sins, the blood of Christ does. And John had made that clear.
So he shows, here's what he's saying, those who follow Christ
and will not leave Him, they do with righteousness. Because
He is righteous. He is my righteousness. Those
who leave Him, they commit sin. Now we're all sinners. We're
either sinners lost in our sins or sinners saved by grace. And
so, How in the world could I say I do righteousness? There's only
one way I can say that and not be embarrassed, and that is as
I look to rest in and follow and cling to Christ. Now, I showed
you last week in the first part of this 1 John 3, and the context
bears this out, what I'm telling you. And I talked about the hope
and assurance of a true child of God. Look at it again in verse
3 of 1 John 3. Now look at it. He says, every
man that hath this hope, This hope in him purifies himself
even as he is pure. How can I say I'm pure as Christ
is pure? Well, it's not in myself. It's
not in my character and conduct. It's not in my thoughts. You
say, well, shouldn't you do your best to fight sinful thoughts
and sinful attitudes and sinful behavior? Yes. But that's not
what makes me righteous. Are you getting there? I know
I'm repeating it, but we need to repeat it. The hope that I
have is that which I find complete in Christ, the God-man, who is
my righteousness. I don't have any other hope.
You know me, I repeat my favorite song all the time. My hope is
built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. Dare
not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name,
on Christ, the solid rock I stand, and all other ground is sinking
sand. When you stand before God at judgment, what is your hope
then? What will you plead as your ground
of acceptance? Well, if you plead anything other
than Christ and his righteousness, my friend, you'll only hear him
say, depart from me, you that work iniquity, I never knew you. But all those who have this hope,
this hope of grace, this hope of a sovereign God who saves
me, keeps me, justifies me through Christ. We purify ourselves as
Christ is pure. In other words, our purity. You know, the Bible speaks of
the heart purified by faith. You know what that means? That's
the heart. You know, what is the heart? The heart is the mind,
the affections, the will, the conscience. Is your heart pure? You say, well, yes. Based on
what? Do you never have a sinful thought? Whatever purity you
have in your heart, does that wipe it all out? The pure heart
in the Bible is one that is purified by the Spirit's application of
the blood of Christ, which bears away all my sins. Takes away
the condemnation. There's therefore now no condemnation. Jim read it there in Romans 8.
The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children
of God. What does the Spirit do when He bears witness? He
points you to Christ. He doesn't point you to yourself.
If you're pointed to yourself, I tell you what, it's not the
Holy Spirit. Somebody said, well, I've got to look within myself
and find a reason to have hope. Well, my friend, it's not the
Spirit of God that's motivating you to do that. That's the Spirit
of the flesh right there. And when you find that which
gives you hope within yourself, you know what the Bible calls
that? Self-righteousness. Pride. Unbelief. Spirit will
only drive you to Christ. Well, there's the hope. All right,
look at verse four. He says, 1 John 3, now, whosoever
commit a sin transgresses the law and sin is the transgression
of the law. Now you can't get away from that. As long as I
don't measure up in all my thoughts and attitudes and motives to
sinless perfection, I cannot call myself sinlessly perfect. Sin's transgression of the law.
So where's my hope? All right, look at verse five.
You know that he, Christ, was manifested. He came to this earth,
made himself known to do what? To take away our sins. And how
did he do it? As our surety and substitute
on the cross of Calvary, he bore them away, he satisfied justice,
he paid the debt, he brought forth righteousness, And verse
five says, and in him, in Christ. Now what that means, as I stand
in Christ before God, no sin, no sin is charged to me. There
is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? That's
talking about God's elect people there. Chosen before the foundation
of the world, given to Jesus Christ, whom he redeemed on the
cross of Calvary, and it's known by what? It says they're born
of God. They're born again. How do I
know I'm born again? Do I have this hope? All right? Now, that's the ground of justification,
the ground of salvation. You know that he's righteousness,
the fruit of salvation. You know that everyone that doeth
righteousness is born of him. Well, Here's what he's going
to say. Now he's going to teach us something
here, but you cannot understand this outside the context. And
I want you to look at verse six. Now, what he's going to talk
about here is evidences of sonship. How do I know I'm a son of God?
I'm a child of God. Well, he says in verse six, now
remember it said in him is no sin. In Christ, no sin is charged
to me. Blessed is the man to whom the
Lord imputeth not iniquity. That's what the scripture says.
Well, verse six says, whosoever, now listen, here's the key, abideth
in him. They don't leave him. They don't
forsake him. Now, why don't we leave him and
forsake him? Basically, two reasons. Number one, and here's the foundation
of it, God will not let us. That's why, why won't I leave
Christ and forsake him? Now let me tell you something
now, you who are believers, you know in your life, here on this
earth, as you struggle through like all of us do, in the warfare
of the flesh and the spirit, there will be many, many, many
rivals. in your life that would motivate
you to leave Christ, just to say, to heck with it all. Why
fool with it? I mean, you think about it. The
whole world's gone after another God. They've got other interests,
even in religion, even in false Christianity. There's multitudes
of people in false Christianity. And they do all kinds of neat
things, don't they? I mean, they take trips, they
got youth camps, they got all this stuff going for them, see?
Everybody loves that. They socialize and all that.
And look at us. We're just a small little group.
Believe it or not, if you're here for the first time, we got
a big crowd today. And you say, why? Why go through
all that? You're out of step with the world,
aren't we? what the world loves we hate
what we love they hate talking about the gospel now and and
you know a lot of times with people they want to talk about
religion all we want to do is avoid them because we know it's
going to make them mad if we speak I mean we go through that
and then we know we have Satan attacking Scripture says that,
his wiles, and he wants to plant doubts in our minds. Have you
ever sat around and you watch a big bunch of people and you
wonder, so few who believe the gospel, and you say, am I crazy
or what? That's the way it is. You're
going to have many rivals. Listen, if it weren't for the
preserving grace and power of God, we'd leave it in a second. But he won't let us go. He said
that in John 10, he said, my sheep hear my voice, they follow
me. He said, nobody's gonna pluck them out of my father's hand,
I'm my father alone. So the basic issue of perseverance
and preservation that by which we will not leave and forsake
Christ totally is that God holds us in check. That's his grace,
that's his preserving grace. But he uses means. and one of
his means is this, the ever abiding presence and power of the Holy
Spirit within us. Born again. Look at it. He says,
verse six, whosoever abideth in him sinneth not. Now in what
sense can a person who continues in Christ say that he doesn't
sin? Not in the fact that his character
and conduct now measures up, You know, and people will tweak
that in a lot of different ways. I had a fellow tell me one time,
he said he doesn't sin anymore. And I said, well, that means
you're gonna just exist right the way you are now. You won't
grow old, you won't get sick, you won't have any problem with
that stuff. Because that's what, you know,
growing old and dying is a consequence of sin. You know that. You read
it. The body is dead because of sin.
This body. The spirit is life because of
righteousness. So in what sense can we say we
sinneth not? We won't leave Christ. That's
what he's saying. God doesn't charge us with our
sin. Why? Because Jesus Christ, the righteous,
is our advocate. He died for my sins. I'll live
forever because he died. How do you know that you'll live
forever because he died? Because he didn't stay in the
grave. He was resurrected from the dead. That's what the resurrection
is all about. Righteousness is established.
So he says in verse six, whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither
known him. Those who leave Christ, those
who reject Christ, they have not seen him. That is with the
spiritual eye. That means they've not been born
again because you have to be born again to have spiritual
eyes. And they haven't known him. Now they may have claimed
to have seen him. They may have claimed to have
known him like those over in 1 John 2, 19, but they did. They
didn't really see him. They didn't really know him.
They had a profession, but they left him. And so he says in verse
seven, little children, let no man deceive you. He that doeth
righteousness is righteous, even as Christ is righteous. Those
who follow Christ, God looks upon them and he sees his son. He sees the blood of his son. He sees the righteousness of
his son. That's what he sees. That's their
hope. That's their standing before
God. Look over at 1st John 4. Now this is a verse a lot of
people refer to, but I don't know how many really know the
meaning. Look at 1st John 4, 17. Now listen to this verse. He
says, herein is our love, and some translations say love with
us, made perfect. Now that word perfect is an interesting
word. You have to look at the context.
sometimes perfect does mean the total removal of all sin and
perfection sinlessly perfect for example in Hebrews 10 14
it says for by one offering he hath perfected forever them that
are sanctified that's Christ's work but the idea of perfection
here is the idea of completeness in the sense of reaching a goal
And he's saying herein has our love reached its goal, reached
its destination, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. Now think about that, boldness
in the day of judgment. Growing up as a little boy, we
used to hand these pamphlets around. It would picture people
coming to the judgment shaking in their boots. You ever seen
that? And you know, they had a screen
and a projector and the Lord, he would shoot all your life
up there, you know, all the things that you didn't want people to
see and shake them. He'd project them up there on
the screen. And they called it something like the burning hell
or something. That's not the life of a believer. That's not
one who does righteousness. He talks about boldness in the
day of judgment. Now, how in the world? Could
I stand before a holy God who knows me better than I know myself,
who knows my thoughts, who knows my motives, who knows... When
I lose my temper, He knows it. When I say things I shouldn't
say, when I have ill feelings towards somebody that I shouldn't
have, He knows it all. How in the world could I stand
before Him at the judgment in boldness? Well, look at it. In the day
of judgment, because as he is, as Christ is, so are we in this
world. Because Christ is my righteousness. I'm not going to plead me, I'm
going to plead him. You see, God's going to judge
this world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained
and that he hath given assurance unto all men and that he hath
raised him from the dead. Look over at the book of Hebrews
chapter 10. Let me show you an example of
this. Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 18. He's talking about the remission of
sin. That means the pardon of sin. And he's talking about how
Christ brought that about by His perfect work as the surety
and substitute of His people. And he says in verse 18, now
where remission of these is, there's no more offering for
sin. There's nothing else to offer. Christ did it all. so he says in verse 19 having
therefore brethren boldness to enter into the holiest that's
the that's the dwelling place of god boldness to enter in the
holiest now up on what ground look at the next line by the
blood of jesus there you go he was manifested to take away my
sin he did it by his blood i have his righteousness And it's a
new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the
veil, that is to say his flesh, and having a high priest, Jesus
Christ the righteous, over the house of God. Let us draw near
to God with a true heart, that's an honest heart, in full assurance
of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil, a condemned conscience,
and our bodies washed with pure water. The water there is an
emblem of the blood of Christ. Now go back to 1 John 3. So he says, little children,
verse seven, let no man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness
is righteous even as Christ is righteous. Verse eight, he says,
he that commit a sin is of the devil. Now, whenever, you know,
this idea that people have the devil made me do it is pretty
much a myth. I'm not saying that the devil
is not powerful and he doesn't influence people to do things,
he does. But our sins, if you wanna blame somebody for your
sins, for my sin, blame yourself. I blame me, I'm to blame. And
so when he talks about they that commit sin are of the devil,
what he means, those who reject Christ, those who leave Christ,
they're of the devil. We won't turn there, 2 Corinthians
4.3. It says, if our gospel be hid, it's hid to them that are
lost, in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds
of them which believe not, lest the light of the glory of God
should shine into their hearts. You know what the devil's main
goal is in working in this world? What he's been set loose to do,
to deceive the nations. His main goal is to keep sinners
from coming to Christ. That's his main goal. Now, if
he can have you sitting in a church where a false gospel is preached
with a false hope, a false refuge, he's just as happy as he can
be. And that's what he's saying here in 1 John 3. He that committed
sin, he that leaves Christ, rejects Christ, is of the devil. For the devil sinneth from the
beginning. What did the devil do? He seduced Eve. And he swayed Adam to stand against
God. And he says, for this purpose,
the son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works
of the devil. What was the work of Christ in
destroying the works of the devil? It's to remove all grounds of
condemnation and to bring in the only ground of justification,
his righteousness imputed. So verse nine. Whosoever is born
of God does not commit sin. If you're born of God, I can
tell you this right now, you will never leave Christ. You might think about it. You
might be tempted to do it. You might have your moments,
but God has you on his leash and he will not let you go. That's
right. It says in verse 9, whosoever
is born of God does not commit sin for his seed. The word seed
there is the Greek word for children, offspring. His children remaineth
in him. They remain in Christ. And he
cannot sin. He cannot leave Christ. He cannot
be condemned. Because he's born of God. The
Spirit, you have an unction, you see? And verse 10, it says,
in this, the children of God are manifest and the children
of the devil. Are you looking to Christ, resting
in him, following him for all righteousness? Whosoever doeth
not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his
brother. And then he goes on, and I'll pick up there next week
on this true nature of God's love. Then he goes on to Cain
and Abel. You know, the story of Cain and Abel, is such a precedent
throughout the scriptures. Because both those boys, as taught
by their mother and father, heard the gospel. Cain was left to his own will,
his own nature. And he rejected God's way of
salvation. He rejected God's way of forgiveness. He rejected God's way of righteousness. How do you know he did that?
He brought the works of his hands before God to find acceptance.
Abel, by the grace of God, the scripture says, he believed God's
way. He received it. He accepted it. How do you know? Because Abel
brought the blood of a lamb, picturing Christ, God's grace
in Christ. You remember when the Lord confronted
Cain about this issue? When Cain saw that his offering
was rejected, the Lord confronted Cain and he said, Cain, why has
your countenance fallen? Why are you looking like you're
looking? Sad and dejected, angry. He says, if you do well, you'll
be accepted. Well, what was it to do well?
Well, people, preachers today will tell you, well, Cain just
wasn't sincere enough. Well, let me ask you this. How
much sincerity is enough? How much sincerity would it take
for you to make you and me righteous? It's not that, is it? What was
it to do well? Do what Abel did, bring the blood
of the Lamb, the blood of sacrifice, the blood of Jesus Christ. You
come before God pleading the blood and righteousness of Christ,
you do well, you do righteousness. That's what this scripture's
teaching. And that's what the context bears out.