As we have seen in the Sermon
on the Mount, the Lord is continually here in this sermon setting things
straight to his audience, who is mainly made up of Israelites
who had been taught wrongly concerning the law. They've been taught
by the Pharisees that the law was a means of salvation by their
works, that it was a way that they could attain righteousness,
and that's the concept. You know, the issues of the gospel
has to do with the concepts, the truths, the issues of righteousness
and sin, and that's what people are missing today. If I were
to ask you, what is righteousness? You ask the average churchgoer
today, what is righteousness? You'd probably hear some things
like, well, going to church, giving your tithe, getting baptized,
things like that, being charitable. But that brings righteousness
to a low concept, which will not do. as far as justifying
a sinner. The term righteous, for example,
is the same as the term justice. And sin in the Bible is anything
that falls short of righteousness. Even good intentions. You know,
somebody said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Well, why is that? Because good
intentions will not work or make, work righteousness, or make a
sinner righteous before God. And so they say good intentions.
Well, good works, you know. When was the concept, for example,
when was the concept of righteousness first introduced in the Bible?
Well, it was in Genesis chapter two when God laid down the law
to Adam. And he said, you can eat of every tree of the garden
except one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That's good
and evil, righteousness and sin. And he said, in the day that
you eat thereof, you shall surely die. That's justice. In other
words, the penalty of sin was death. So the concept of righteousness
was established at the very beginning. And of course, Adam ate. He disobeyed
God. He being the representative of
the whole human race, he brought the whole human race into sin
and death. And that's what happened. And
then you ask the question, well, is it possible for a sinner then
to be made righteous before God? Well, that's when God introduced
the concept, the truth, the foundational truth of salvation by grace that
reigns through the righteousness of another, a substitute, a surety,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And he first introduced that
in Genesis 3.15 when he spoke of sending a messiah who is known
as the woman seed. And how that would be accomplished.
You remember Adam and Eve, they were ashamed. Nakedness in the
Bible is a metaphor for being without righteousness. If you
stand before God without righteousness, the Bible says you're there naked
before God, you shall be ashamed. And so God, you remember Adam
and Eve put on the fig leaf aprons to cover. But see, sin has to
be paid for. Justice has to be satisfied.
You just can't cover it over. You just can't hide it from God.
When David said, blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth
not iniquity, before that he said, blessed is the man whose
transgressions are forgiven, whose sin is covered. The covering
there doesn't mean covering over as if hidden from view. The covering
there is a direct reference to the covering of the mercy seat
in the tabernacle, which is just as satisfied. What did the high
priest have to sprinkle on that mercy seat? Blood, death, the
wages of sin. And of course, all that's a picture
of Christ. So God, what did he do? He removed those fig leaf
aprons and he slew an animal, which I believe was a lamb, and
made them coats of skin. That's a metaphor for what we
call imputed righteousness. Now what does imputed mean? It
means charged. And for the life of me, I cannot
understand how this generation cannot understand the concept
of charging. Good night. It's not a complicated word.
You go to the store, you don't pay with cash, you charge it,
and you run up a debt. And that debt is imputed to you,
charged to you, reckoned to you. Now if somebody else comes along
and pays that debt in your place because you don't have the money,
That's the same thing as righteousness imputed to you. I always use the term, the illustration
of the bank. You know, you owe a debt. You're
penniless. You cannot pay the debt. You
go to the bank and you throw yourself upon the mercy of the
bank, which you know will do no good. The guy said, the banker says,
well, let's open the books. And let's look in here, and here's
your name. And it says, wait a minute, you
don't owe that debt. Somebody came in here and already paid
it for you. Well, first thing you're going to want to know
is what? Who did that? I want to go thank him. You may even love him. And then the banker says, well,
hold on. Not only is your debt paid, this guy put a million
dollars in your account, charged to you. You've got a million
dollars that you didn't earn and didn't deserve. That's right. It's what Christ did for his
people on the cross. He paid my sin debt and gave
me his righteousness imputed. Now, my friend, that's the heart
of the gospel. that you do you know that is the the uh... that
is the as they say the sign kwan on you know that's that that
is the uh... kernel truth that sets true christianity
and i emphasize the word true the kernel truth that sets true
christianity apart from every other religion no other religion
as any concept of imputed righteousness and they asked me, well, why
do you emphasize imputed righteousness so much? Well, why don't you? Because it's what sets everything
that we're about apart. Somebody said, well, just preach
Christ. You cannot preach Christ without preaching the imputed
righteousness of Christ. So when Christ looks at these
people, and he knows who their religious leaders are, he's no
dummy here. He knows who they're following.
He knows who's teaching them and reading scripture to them
and praying with them and guiding them. He knows that. And here's
what he says to them. Look at verse 20. For I say unto
you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness
of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter the
kingdom of heaven. That's what he's saying. First
of all, it's clear here from this verse alone. It's clear
from the context, but it's clear here from this verse alone that
whatever righteousness he's talking about, it's something that gets
a sinner into the kingdom of heaven. Because if you don't
have it, you shall in no case enter the kingdom of heaven. You gotta have this to enter
the kingdom of heaven. So whatever righteousness he's
talking about is something that far exceeds what a human being,
sinful human being, can accomplish. In fact, the Bible teaches us
in Romans 3 and verse 10, there is none righteous, no not one. It even says this, it says there's
none good, no not one. And then it says down in Romans
3, 19, and 20 that righteousness and goodness cannot be attained
by works of the law. You say, well, I'm going to work
hard and be the best person I can be. Well, that's all right. You
ought to, but that won't make you righteous. Somebody says, well, now, these
scribes and Pharisees here, they were all just a bunch of mean,
self-righteous, religious people. No, they weren't. They were all
self-righteous, but then we all are by nature. They weren't all
mean and nasty and political and conniving. There were some
like that. We got them today, don't we? I can show you false
religionists who are some of the meanest people on earth.
Some of the most judgmental people on earth. But I can show you
false religionists who are some of the kindest, humble before
men people on earth too. But I can't show you one person,
no matter who they are, what they look like, what they do,
what they try to do, how they think, how much they give, how
much they give of themselves, whether they give their body
to be burned, I can't find you one person that's ever lived
in the history of humanity who has ever attained righteousness
by their works. It's not there. That's why the gospel, the good
news, Romans 1, 16 and 17, is the revelation of what? The righteousness
of God. Not the righteousness of man. Now, what is the righteousness
of God? Well, It involves the glorious
person and the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, who
is God in human flesh. But let me give you this. Now,
the scribes and the Pharisees, he says here, you know who the
scribes were. The scribes were like, you remember
when Christ said, woe be unto the lawyers? Now, Don and Robert
don't get scared now. I'll never forget one time I
had an old fella in our church who was going up to the local
county jail to preach to the prisoners up there. And he did
have a captive audience. The jailer of the county was
having a very public fight with the county attorney. And I'll
never forget this, it was on a Sunday afternoon, we were going
up, and I was going with the man who was gonna preach to the
prisoners, and the jailer asked me, he knew we were preachers,
he said, where is that verse in the Bible that says, woe be
to the lawyers? Well, he was wanting to use that
against the county attorney. So I told him, his name was John,
I said, John, I said, that's not talking about the kind of
lawyers you're dealing with today. That's talking about interpreters
of the law. That's the scribes. That's who
they were. They were interpreters of the
Law of Moses. They were like guys who write
the commentaries. That kind of thing. So, Don and
Robert, you're all okay. But that's what he's talking
about. That's who the scribes were. And the Pharisees, they
were the fundamentalists of their day. Remember the Sadducees? You had the Sadducees. They were
like the liberals. We got liberals today. Well,
that's the Sadducees. And then the Pharisees were like
the fundamentalists. And then you had another group
called the Zealots. They were like the political
arm. They wanted to gather the army
and overthrow Rome. You had another group called
the Essenes. They were the mystics. They were the star children,
you know, kind of thing. So this whole issue of the Pharisees
being just snaggle-toothed, horned, mean people, they all weren't
that way. It's just like religion today. But they all taught one thing
in common. They taught that a sinner could
be cleansed from sin by the ceremonies of the law, and that they could
keep the law and be righteous by their works. That's what they
all taught, whether they were sincere or whether they were
hypocritical, whatever. They were all self-righteous.
So Christ says, accept your righteousness, exceed that. Now, a lot of people
believe that this righteousness that exceeds is some kind of
inward cleansing we experience by the work of the Holy Spirit.
But the inward cleansing that God's people experience by the
work of the Holy Spirit, the inward cleansing, is giving us
a heart to admit that we're not righteous. That we have no righteousness
within us. That we're sinners. and giving
us that same heart to look outside of ourselves to Christ for all
righteousness. Now that's what it means. You
know when you talk about washed in the blood, saved by the blood,
cleansed by the blood, it's another equivalent term for imputed righteousness. That's really what it is. Because
his blood is just as satisfied by his death as he's the surety
and the substitute of his people. And so, he's not simply telling
these people, you've got to be better folks than the Pharisees. Now, should we be better than
the Pharisees? Well, we should be the best we can be, but that's
not our righteousness before God. Now, turn to John chapter
16. Oh, and incidentally, as you're
turning there, think about this. If we have this righteousness
that exceeds imputed, charged, accounted to us, and are given
life by the spirit to see that, to admit that, and to repent
of our sins, we take our places with those who are poor in spirit,
who mourn over sin, don't we? who submit to Christ. But look
at John 16 and look at verse 7. He says, nevertheless I tell
you the truth, it is expedient or necessary for you, for these
disciples, that I go away. What is he talking about going
away? Well, he's talking about going to the cross, dying for
their sins. being buried and being raised
again the third day and ascended into heaven, into the Father.
He says, for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto
you, but if I depart, I will send him unto you. Now the Comforter
there is the Holy Spirit, who gives life by the power of Christ. And that life, that giving of
life, that imparting of life, you can say, or imparting of
knowledge, is the new birth. You must be born again or you
cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. That's a necessary thing. But
our new birth is not our righteousness before God. What is? His going away. His going to
the cross. Listen to what he says in verse
eight. When He, the Comforter, is come, He will reprove, that
means convince or convict the world of sin and of righteousness
and of judgment. Of sin, verse nine, because they
believe not on me. If you don't have Christ, if
you're not washed in his blood and clothed in his righteousness,
in God's sight, everything you do is sin. You say, well, how
can that be? Well, we're going to see later
on in our study of the Sermon on the Mount, we're going to
see in Matthew chapter 7 some sincere, dedicated religionists
standing before Christ at judgment pleading as their righteousness
what they think God enabled them to do. Lord, haven't we preached
in your name? Haven't we done many wonderful
works? Haven't we cast out demons? only
to hear him say, depart from me you that work iniquity, I
never knew you. Now there's nothing wrong with
preaching in his name, that's what I'm doing right now, preaching
in the name of Christ. I don't think I've ever cast
out demons, but that's a good thing if God gives you the power
to do that. I know the Holy Spirit has cast
demons out of me, the demon of self-righteousness. And I still
have to fight it now, don't get me wrong. And done many wonderful
works, there's nothing wrong with it, but that's not our righteousness
before God. What are we going to plead at
judgment? We plead Christ. We plead His blood. We plead
His righteousness. We don't plead even what we believe
God has enabled us to do. We plead Him. Well, I think we're
going to sing that hymn this morning. I mean, my hope is built
on my favorite hymn. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus blood and righteousness. And so he says verse 10 of righteousness,
because I go to my father and you see me no more. He's going
away. Why? How can he go to the father?
How can he be raised from the dead and ascend to the father?
Because in his death is the establishment of righteousness, the debt of
the sins of God's people had been imputed to Christ, charged
to Christ, and he paid that debt in full on Calvary's cross. And
his righteousness has been imputed to them. In verse 11, of judgment,
because the prince of this world is judged. In other words, our
judgment has already taken place in Christ on the cross. So this Verse 20 back here in
Matthew 5 is not saying that we just have to be better people.
It's saying, he's saying that we need a righteousness we cannot
produce. And that's why the gospel is
such good news to a sinner. Because it is a revelation of
a righteousness produced for us by one who is God in human
flesh. How do I know that this righteousness
has been imputed to me? Well, let me give you these things
here. First of all, the righteousness that exceeds, remember he said
your righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the scribes
and the Pharisees. The righteousness that exceeds
is the righteousness of God found only in the person and work of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Jeremiah called him the Lord
our righteousness. Isaiah spoke of him. Noah preached
him. You know, the Bible says Noah
was a preacher of righteousness. That's how he's identified. Well,
what righteousness do you think he preached? Himself? Now it says in Hebrews 11, he
preached the righteousness of faith. Now what is the righteousness
of faith? Does that mean my believing makes
me righteous? No. The righteousness of faith
is the righteousness of Christ in whom we believe. There's a
difference. Most people today think faith,
believing is their righteousness. That's not. Believing is not
imputed to anybody. Believing is the gift of God
who receives Christ, the gift of God for us to receive Christ
as our only righteousness. Secondly, the imputed righteousness
of Christ is also the source of the new birth. Turn to Romans
chapter three, or chapter eight, rather. Romans chapter eight. See, today people, even who call
themselves Christian, have a low concept of righteousness because
they think righteousness is something they do or try to do or something
God enables them to do. What the Bible teaches in the
gospel is that righteousness is what Christ has already finished
for his people. It's already done. What does
that mean that we don't have to obey or we don't have to try
to be good people? No. Because that same righteousness,
which is the ground of our justification before God, being declared not
guilty, being declared just before God, is the source of spiritual
life within. How can I be born again? Because
righteousness has been established for me and imputed to me. And
this is what this is saying. Look at Romans 8 and verse 3.
He says, for what the law could not do, in that it was weak through
the flesh. Now what is it the law cannot
do? It cannot declare a sinner righteous based on his works.
That's what it cannot do. God sending his own son in the
likeness of sinful flesh, in other words, he was human without
sin, but in the likeness of, and for sin, or as by a sacrifice
for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. That's when Christ died. Verse four, that the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us. Now, how's that come about? Well, Christ died for his people. He substituted himself. He was
our surety. And he says, who walked not after
the flesh, but after the spirit. Now, what is it to walk after
the flesh? Listen, let's put it this way. Walking after the
spirit is walking by faith in Jesus Christ. That's what walking
in the Spirit is. Looking to Christ for forgiveness.
Looking to Christ for righteousness. A hymn alone. Now anything else,
no matter how it appears, is walking after the flesh. You
can be religious and still be walking after the flesh. That's
right. First Corinthians 13, you can
give your body to be burned as a martyr and still be walking
after the flesh. And so he says in verse five,
for they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh,
but they that are after the spirit, the things of the spirit. For
to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded
is life and peace. And to be spiritually minded
is faith in Christ, looking to Christ. Because the carnal mind
is enmity against God. It's against God. Anybody who's
walking seeking salvation and righteousness by their works
is at enmity with God. Because God is perfect and he
requires perfection. You say, well that's not fair.
It's just. But God has provided a perfect
righteousness. It's just not in you or in me.
It's in Christ. So he says, for it is not subject
to the law of God, neither indeed can be. Think about it this way.
Here's a person who reads the law and says, now I'm gonna do
my best to keep the law and to be saved, to be blessed, to earn
my way into God's favor, to be righteous. Do you know that person
is not subject to the law of God? Looks like they are, but
they're not. Because the moment they say they're
going to do all those things in order to be saved, in order
to be righteous, in order to earn their way into God's favor,
they're going against the law. Because the law says that's impossible. The law was given to show us
our sinfulness and our need of righteousness by God's grace
in Christ. So he says, In verse 8, so then
they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But you're not in
the flesh, but in the Spirit. Now he's talking to believers.
If so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man
have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Now look at
verse 10. And if Christ be in you, that is by Spirit and by
His Word, the body is dead because of sin. This human body is dying.
That's what we're going through. But the spirit is life, spiritual
life, because of righteousness. Now do you suppose that he's
saying there that God gave you spiritual life because you were
better than other people? No. He gave you spiritual life
if he's given you spiritual life, which means you have eyes to
see and ears to hear and hearts and minds to understand and believe
and repent. If he's given you, it's because
of what Christ did on that cross to establish righteousness, which
God has imputed to you. That's the righteousness that
exceeds. Thirdly, even as sinners saved by grace, to whom God does
not impute sin, but imputes righteousness, even as born-again believers,
we still cannot attain righteousness by our works. God has never put
us in a position where we can attain righteousness by what
we do. What does that mean? Well, that means we're continually
dependent on Christ. Somebody said, well, we're to
call on God when we're needy. We'll call on him 24-7 because
we're needy every day. That's us. We're sinners saved
by grace. And then fourthly, we who believe
in Christ and submit to him as the Lord our righteousness have
the assurance that one day we will be perfect in ourselves.
And that's when we die and go to be with him. But let me say
this, all right, in closing. Christ is talking about a righteousness
that exceeds. If the Holy Spirit has convinced
you of sin, you will know that you have no righteousness in
yourself and that you will continually look to Christ as your only righteousness
before God. And that being the case, pleading
Him, there is absolutely no doubt in our minds that our righteousness
does exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees,
for it is the righteousness of God. Isn't it? Now, if I'm looking
within trying to find righteousness, or based upon what I do, how
in the world could I ever be sure that my righteousness exceeds
theirs? I couldn't. And if I did, then
that's self-righteousness. Somebody said, well, I know my
righteousness exceeds theirs. Well, that's self-righteousness.
Now, I can say this. I know my righteousness exceeds
theirs because it's Christ, the Son of God incarnate, who died
for my sins, was buried, and rose again the third day.