Would you look with me to John
chapter 16? John chapter 16. We have in past
few messages been hearing from the Word of God concerning the
work of the Holy Spirit as a comforter, an advocate, the great, as one
old writer put it, the great applicator of salvation. Each
person of the Godhead, as you know, has his office and duties
in the salvation of his people. God the Father representing the
sovereign rulership of the Godhead. The One who chose a people before
the foundation of the world. God the Son as the Redeemer,
the Mediator, the Substitute. The One who by Himself on the
cross, by his obedience unto death, put away the sins of his
people, by whose blood and righteousness sinners stand just before holy
God. And then God, the Holy Spirit,
who is the agent, sovereign agent, power, who brings God's people
under the preaching of the gospel, and then works to impart spiritual
life and knowledge to conviction, that's what we're talking about,
conviction of the Holy Spirit. Christ told his disciples here
in John 16 and verse 7, nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it's necessary,
it's expedient, needed for you, for his disciples, for his people,
that I go away, that he goes away. Where's he going to? He's
going to the cross. He's going to die for the sins
of his people. He's going to establish righteousness.
He's going to do what the prophet Daniel prophesied of. In Daniel
9.24, He's going to make an end of sin. He's going to finish
the transgression. He's going to bring in everlasting
righteousness. That's what He's going away to
do. And he says, for if I go not away, the Comforter will
not come unto you. The Holy Spirit will not come
unless Christ goes away. And what he's saying is the basic
truth that Christ's work on the cross, His righteousness alone,
is the ground of salvation. The Holy Spirit's work in the
heart, in the new birth, is the fruit. The effect, the result
of what Christ did and accomplished. He said, but if I depart, if
I do this great work, if I finish all of this, if I, he said it
in John 19 30, he said, it's finished. He said, if I do this,
I will send him unto you. And when he's come, he will reprove
or convince or convict the world of sins and of righteousness
and of judgment. Now the world there refers to
God's people out of every tribe, kindred, tongue and nation. It's
not every individual without exception there. And the reason
we know that is because not every individual without exception
comes to be convinced of these things, of sin and of righteousness
and of judgment. Now last week I dealt with verse
nine. The Holy Spirit will convince of sin because they believe not
on me. And I talked about the truth
about sin. The reality of sin as it's set
forth in the scriptures, that which is so offensive to us by
nature, which tells us that the best works of the best of sinners
here on this earth, when aimed at saving themselves, when aimed
at establishing their own righteousness before God, is an affront to
God. It's sin in the sight of God.
It denies His glory. You see, God's glory is wrapped
up in saving sinners by His grace through Jesus Christ. In Him,
in Christ dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily and you're
complete in Him. Now, if you don't believe you're
complete in Him, but you believe your completeness is somehow
accomplished by whatever you do, whatever you believe, then you deny Him. If righteousness
come by the law, Christ is dead in vain. That's what everyone
today who is seeking salvation from God based on anything but
the righteousness of Christ imputed and received by faith, that's
what they're actually saying, Christ died in vain. That's an
affront to God. And that's why it's sinful. It
denies the glory of God. It denies the preeminence of
Christ. It denies the necessity of what
Christ did on the cross. It says that his work was not
good enough, not complete enough to save me and to keep me and
to bring me unto glory. It gives sinners room to boast
and brag. You know, by nature, we just
want to believe in some way that we're the ones who make the difference
between saved and lost. And you know why we want to believe?
Pride. darkness, unbelief, and we can go on and on. But he convicts
us of sin, that without Christ, nothing we do is accepted before
God. Nothing we do measure ups to
righteousness. And then verse 10, that's what
I want to major on today, of righteousness, because I go to
my Father and you see me no more. I want to talk to you about the
truth of righteousness. This is the message that I preach
every Sunday. but I wanna delineate it for
you in the scripture. And I don't mind being ridiculed
for that, to be honest with you. I line up with Noah. You know
what Peter said about Noah? He said, Noah was a preacher
of righteousness. I told somebody, I said, well,
put that on my tombstone. Because to be a preacher of righteousness
is to be a preacher of Christ, because he is our righteousness.
And then next week, I'll deal with verse 11 of judgment. He
convicts us of judgment. because the prince of the world
is judged. Now, prince of this world is
judged. Do you realize how full and complete this passage of
scripture is concerning the knowledge that God the Holy Spirit gives
everyone who is truly saved? Randy and I were talking about
this, you know, concerning if we had to If we had to say, you
know, well, what does a person have to know? And this is one
of the scriptures that I would go to, to tell you what a person
must know, because this is what the Holy Spirit teaches when
He brings a sinner to conviction of sin. You've got to know something
about sin. If you don't know you have a
disease, you're not going to seek a cure. Isn't that right?
But now you start hurting somewhere. Start hurting in the stomach.
And you go to the doctor. And you find out you've got a
digestive disease and you need something of a medicine or an
operation. But you're not going to do that
unless you're aware of it. And it's the same thing in this.
The scripture says that Jesus Christ came to save sinners. Now if I'm going to seek Him
for salvation, it's because somehow I know something of the disease
that I have. And it's not just knowing that
I'm not perfect. Everybody knows. Everybody sitting
here knows you're not perfect. And you men, if you don't know
it, your wife does. You're not perfect. I'm not perfect.
None of us are. Wives included. But that's not
the issue that we're convinced of. It doesn't take us long in
life to find out we're not perfect. But we don't know anything about
the reality of sin and depravity until the Holy Spirit takes the
Word of God in light of God's holiness and convicts us of it.
But then this thing of righteousness. You don't need me to tell you
this morning, but I know that if you know Christ you want me
to tell you this morning, that the Bible has a lot to say about
righteousness. A lot to say about righteousness.
And then when you consider how Christ, Jesus Christ, the Savior,
the one Savior from all our sins, how he's identified in Scripture
many times. He's called twice in the book
of Jeremiah in prophecy, the Lord, our righteousness. He's
called in the book of Malachi, the son, S-U-N, of righteousness,
comes out of the east with healing in his wings. And we could go
on and on with that, couldn't we? That passage that Brother
Mark read two chapters before that, two Psalms before that,
we see a prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ as the suffering
Savior, dying on the cross, having the sins of His people charged,
imputed to Him, and accomplishing righteousness. They will speak
of his righteousness, it says at the end of that Psalm. And
then you have the Shepherd Psalm, Psalm 23, which talks about how
he will lead me in the paths of righteousness. And then the
Psalm 24 that Brother Mark read, who's going to ascend into the
hill of the Lord? He that is, whose hands are clean. Who has a pure heart? Who can
that be, ultimately, other than the Lord Jesus Christ? One old
writer said, the only way that that can describe the people
of God is as we stand in Christ, in His righteousness imputed,
and as the Holy Spirit cleanses our heart by the blood of Christ
as we look to Him. You know, the first time the
word righteousness itself, now there are derivatives and other
forms of it in the Hebrew, The first time the word righteousness
is found in the Bible is Genesis 15, six, Abraham. It says, and
he believed the Lord and he counted it, the Lord counted it, the
it there being righteous, being the promise of God to send the
Messiah, he counted it to him for righteousness. In other words,
what God promised Abraham in sending Christ into the world
would be Abraham, was Abraham's righteousness. before God. That's talking about righteousness
imputed there, the first time the word's mentioned. He counted
it to him. That's imputation. The next time the word righteous
is used is Genesis 7.1, God speaking to Noah. He said, the Lord said
unto Noah, come thou and all thy house into the ark. For thee
have I seen righteous before me, before God, not before men
now, but before God in this generation, right now, in Noah's time. God said, I've seen you righteous. Now, how did God see Noah as
righteous? Well, Noah just rose above the
rest of fallen, sinful, depraved humanity and he's just a better
guy. No. Anybody know the first thing
that is said about Noah in the scripture? When the first thing, when God
speaks of Noah, anybody know the first thing that's said about
him? I'm serious, anybody know it? Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. Now let me tell you something
about grace. If you can rise above the rest of sinful, depraved
humanity, you don't need grace. You're better than me. You're
better than the rest of us. But now see, I need grace because
I'm a sinner. And the Bible says this about
grace. It says it over in Romans 5.21, but it applies way back
in Genesis 7.1. That grace reigns through what?
Righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Now that's right. The biblical truth of righteousness
is as confused among people today as the biblical truth of sin.
And that's why these things have to be revealed to us by God the
Holy Spirit in the new birth. That's why we have to be convinced
by God of righteousness. And listen to what he says in
verse 10. I'm gonna give you several truths about righteousness
here. He says, of righteousness, because
I go to my father and you see me no more. Now here's the first
thing you need to see about righteousness. God is a righteous God and he
requires righteousness. He's a righteous God. He's a
holy God. In Isaiah's conversion, as he
described it, you remember the first thing he said? He said,
I saw the Lord high and lifted up, and his train filled the
temple, and he said, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. And
when he saw the holiness of God, the justice of God, the righteousness
of God, he said, I'm undone. That literally means I'm cut
off. I thought I was saved, I thought
I was near to God, but now when I see his righteousness, his
holiness, his justice, I see I'm a sinner, I'm alienated from
God, I'm a man of unclean lips," he said. And he said, not only
that, I dwell amongst a people of unclean lips. Isaiah chapter
6, read it sometime. Somebody said this about the
difference between holiness and righteousness, and I'm not gonna
get into an argument of terms here this morning. The word holy
simply means set apart. That's what it really means.
Most people, when they use holiness today, they're talking about
moral purity. And certainly, if you ever find
anyone who is morally pure without any contamination of sin, they
would certainly be set apart from us, wouldn't they? So holiness
can mean that. But one old writer said this,
he said, holiness describes more of who God is in his nature.
There's no one like God. There's no one to compare God
to. Righteousness describes more
of how God does things, how he works. When God created the world,
he did it in a way that's righteous. Everything was good. When God
created man, he created him how? Upright. That's another synonym
for righteous. When God judges, he judges righteously. There's no perversion, there's
no contamination. Abraham asked the question, shall
not the judge of all the earth do right? And the answer to that
is you bet he will in every case. God's gonna do what's right.
God judges according to truth, the scripture says. Most people
will agree with this, but their standard of righteousness is
not the same as God's. For example, what is it that
makes a person righteous or at least righteous enough to be
saved or to go to heaven or to be accepted with God? What does
it take? Well, what do men naturally think
of when they think about those things? Some would say morality.
Some would say religion, whatever it is. Some would even say faith.
Some say accepting Jesus as your personal savior. That's what
does it. Let me tell you something. Accepting Jesus as your personal
savior does not make you righteous. No, sir. Now, we who are saved,
we certainly do accept Him as our Savior. We believe in Him,
but it's not our accepting Him that makes us righteous. It's
what He did on the cross that makes us sinner-righteous. You know, we have all kinds of
examples where in the scripture where men pled before God something
other than the righteousness of Christ for the ground of their
salvation. I refer to this constantly, Matthew
chapter 7 and verse 22. Lord, Lord, haven't we preached
in your name? Haven't we cast out demons? Haven't we done many
wonderful works? Nothing of sin in themselves
in those things, but if you plead that as your righteousness before
God, your standard is way too low. The Pharisee in the public in
Luke 18, you remember he spoke that parable of those who saw
themselves as righteous and despised others. And the Pharisee, he
said, I thank God I'm not like other men. I don't do this, I
don't do that, I fast twice. Is that what makes a sinner righteous?
The unbelieving Jews boasted of three things as their righteousness
before God. Number one was their physical
connection with Abraham. That's how they would always
argue. gospel, we be Abraham's seed.
Second was their circumcision. The males being circumcised,
being the symbol of their sonship with God. And third was keeping
the law of Moses. We have Moses. None of those
things measured up. That was the problem. And when
Christ and his disciples came along and told him, now look,
to plead that as righteousness is sinful, what happens? That's
the light that men hate by nature. You mean to tell me. And all
my life I've been in my religion, sincere and dedicated, trying
to do the right thing and that doesn't count for anything? And
that's what the gospel says. Exactly. It counts for nothing
as far as righteousness. Now you're not going to believe
that and I'm not going to believe that unless the Holy Spirit convicts
us of that. Isn't that right? That's just
not in us. And especially when we go through
the same trial that every believer in every generation, the most
severe trial I believe that every believer in every generation
has to go through. You know what that is? Family. Isn't it? We all have family who aren't convinced. And that's
a hard thing to go through. And I'm going to tell you something,
it takes the grace of God. Your family thinks you're crazy.
Don't they? They think you've gone off the
deep end. They think you think you're the only one saved and
everybody in this world is lost. Don't they? I mean, you've heard
it and you'll hear it more. That's why the Lord Jesus Christ
made the statement, he that loves father, mother, daughter, son
more than me cannot have any interest in the kingdom of heaven.
Well, here's the second thing. Now, first thing, God is righteous
and he requires righteousness. Here's the second thing. Righteousness
is perfect satisfaction to God's holy law and infinite justice.
That's what righteousness is. It's not doing the best you can
do. Somebody said, well, I'll do
the best I can do and that's got to count for something. No, it
doesn't. What does God's Word say? Man at his best is altogether
what? Vanity. Salvation is not by works. Well, that just means the worst
works. No, that means the best works. It's not by works. The scripture
says, by deeds of law shall no flesh be justified. Now, are
there any exceptions there? By deeds of law shall no flesh
be justified. Before that it says there's none
righteous, no not one. Righteousness, like sin, can
only be measured by God's law. Now, technically speaking, righteousness
is not a moral quality of character. Now, moral qualities of character
are measured by the standard of righteousness. When I strive
to love my neighbor as myself, do I measure up in my love to
righteousness? And the answer's no. Why is that? It's because old Bill is still
full of self-love. You see, that's the problem.
That's why I have this warfare within. My self-love contaminates
my best efforts to love God perfectly and love my neighbor as myself.
I'm not to excuse that, I'm not to give way to it, but it's the
reality. It's what I have to live with
every day. In fact, there's none of us who
even really know what it is to love perfectly. We just don't
even know. Paul said that in Romans 7 when
he said, how to do good I know not. I don't even know how to
do it. I know I should do it. I see the standard of it in Christ
because of His perfect love for His people. But how to do it
in my heart? I've never experienced that.
And you haven't either. Listen, we who are saved, we
can honestly say that we believe God. believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ, but our faith, our believing is not the righteousness we plead
before God. Our faith is not yet perfect.
We have to struggle all the time. Let me give you this to chew
on too. You know, the moment you complain, that's unbelief.
You ever do any complaining? I do. That's unbelief. Our faith is not yet perfect.
All that we are and all that we do that is accepted with God
is accepted because of Christ's righteousness imputed to us,
charged to us, accounted to us. Not because of anything we do
measures up. Listen, I've sat where you're
sitting, listening to messages. Have you ever had to fight off
fleeting thoughts that come into your mind while you're hearing
the Word of God? That's sin. Did you know that? I mean, right now, we're all,
including me, and I'll tell you this, I've had fleeting thoughts
fly through this head while I'm up here, you know. We're supposed
to be sitting here in purity, feeding, totally consumed with
the Word of God. But I know you've got problems.
I've got them too. I know you've got things you've
got to do today. tomorrow, and all that, and don't
tell me you don't think about them, they come in. But that's
a diversion. And so what do we, that's part
of the warfare, the flesh and the spirit, you see. That tells
me that nothing in me or nothing I do measures up to perfect satisfaction
to God's law and justice. Now it takes the spirit of God
to convince us of that. Here's the third thing. And it
falls right out of the sack. Man by nature has no righteousness.
Romans 3.9. The scripture has concluded all
under sin. All under sin. Jew and Gentile,
there's none righteous, no not one. There's none that doeth
good, no not one. There's not even one who seeks
after God, no not one. That's man by nature. Ecclesiastes
7.20 says this, there's not a just man upon earth that doeth good
and sinneth not. I had a fellow tell me one time,
he said there, well, there's some people on earth that do
good. And I said, well, according to man's standard, you could
say that. But you can't say this, there's not a just man upon earth
that doeth good and sinneth not. You say, well, I'm not as bad
a sinner as that one. We'll give you the key to the
city. But that's not going to make you righteous. What is total depravity of man? Man has no righteousness, man
cannot work righteousness, and man doesn't want righteousness
God's way. He wants it his own way, a way
that glorifies himself. Here's the fourth thing. In salvation
of sinners, God's saving sinners, and you do realize this now.
And I think most people don't, but I know you who know the gospel
do. At the moment you say God saves
sinners, the moment you say God forgives sin, you've got a major
problem. Because God said, God said the
soul that sinneth must surely die. God said the wages of sin is
death. God cannot act in opposition
to his nature. He cannot judge unrighteously. He cannot look over sin. He cannot
deny sin. He cannot ignore sin. He's got
to deal with it and deal with it in justice. So in salvation,
here's the fourth thing, in salvation, God must act according to righteousness. In salvation, God justifies sinners,
the scripture says, the ungodly. But how can he do that and still
be God? How can he do that and still
be just? That's the question of questions. You know, that's
the heart question of the gospel. How can a man be just with God? How can he that is born of woman
be clean? You know, that one question there,
which is a rhetorical question out of the book of Job, tells
you that we're born in sin. We fell in Adam, we're born in
sin. Born dead in trespasses and sin. How can he that's born
of woman be clean? I had a fellow write me an email. He said, well, how in the world
can you believe that we're born in sin, born sinners, and it's
not just because of choices we make? And I said, well, I can
believe that because number one, the Bible says it. And that really
ought to stop the argument, shouldn't it? I believe we're born in sin
because this book says we're born in sin. But I went on to
ask him this question. I said, well, if you believe
that we all become sinners only by the bad choices that we make,
I said, have you ever met anyone or read of anyone in the history
of the human race that didn't make the bad choices. That didn't end up being a sinner.
I mean, you'd think that somebody would rise up out of that crowd
and do what's right. But we've all sinned and come
short of the glory of God. And that's the mystery of godliness.
How can God be just and still justify a sinner like me? How
can he be right? truthful, righteous, and just,
and still forgive a sinner like me who deserves nothing but death
and hell. How can he do that? Men cannot
accomplish this, but God can and he does. So hold on, here's
the fifth statement. The standard and only way of
righteousness before God is revealed in the person and redemptive
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. You hear that? The standard and
only way of righteousness before God is revealed in the person
and redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that's what
this means here in verse 10 of John 16. He's going to convince
you of righteousness because I go to my Father and you see
me no more. That's what it means. He's the standard. We read that
all the time, we quote it all the time, Acts 17 31, God's going
to judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained
and that he had given assurance unto all men and he raised him
from the dead. And when Christ finished his
work on the cross, what did he do? Why did Christ go to the
cross? He went to the cross, you can
say it several ways. He went to the cross to save
his people from their sins. That's what the scripture says.
He went to the cross to redeem us, to pay the price, to pay
the debt. We're going to sing at the end
of the service, Jesus paid it all. He went to the cross to
glorify his father, to enable him to justify the ungodly, to
declare righteous and not guilty sinners who deserve nothing but
hell. On what basis did God judge His
beloved, holy, uncontaminated Son on the cross in order to
exact the punishment down on Him? On what basis? It was the
sin of His people imputed, charged to Him. Listen, every groan, every bruise,
every tear, every drop of blood that Christ experienced on the
cross, every bit of it, which he had to experience, which he
did experience in the place of his people, was based on one
thing, their sins imputed, charged, accounted to him. That was the
only reason. Our debt charged to his account. And when he went to that cross,
he finished it. He finished the transgression.
He made an end of sin. He brought in everlasting righteousness
by his death on the cross. And that righteousness is that
which is imputed, charged, accounted to the people of God. We read
about it back in the 10 o'clock hour, how Abraham was counted
righteous before God. On what basis? the promise of
Christ coming into the world to do that work for him. Abraham
was righteous before God based upon the same righteousness that
we are accepted with God. Noah, God said in this generation
have I seen thee righteous before me. How was Noah righteous? By
Christ who was to come. And this is why the works of
men aimed at establishing righteousness are all iniquity before God.
It's proven by the fact that Jesus Christ came to earth to
work righteousness for his people, and he returns to the father
as the one who established that righteousness. He said, I'm going
away. I go to my father. You know what
he's telling him? He said, listen, I'm going to
the grave, but I'm not gonna stay there. He died and he was
buried and what happened? He arose the third day. Now,
on what basis did he arise? The establishment of righteousness.
He conquered death. He brought righteousness for
his people. Now, if righteousness could have
been accomplished by what men naturally think and do, then
Christ would have not had to have done that. That's what Paul
wrote in Galatians 2.21. He said, if righteousness come
by the law, By your works, then Christ died in vain. So here's
the last question. Just as in the case of sin, God
the Holy Spirit uses the gospel of Jesus Christ, salvation by
grace, to reveal the truth of righteousness to his people.
That's what Christ is talking about. When he's come, he's going
to convince the world of sin and of righteousness Paul wrote
it this way in Romans 1.16, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of
Christ, it's the power of God unto salvation to the Jew first
and the Greek also, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed.
What is the righteousness of God in Romans 10.4? For Christ
is the end of the law, the finishing of the law, for righteousness
to everyone that believeth. You see, when the Holy Spirit
convicts us of righteousness, what do we do? We run to Christ. We rest in him. We plead him
as our only righteousness before God, our only hope of salvation,
all right?