I'll add my welcome to Winston's.
It's good to see you all out this morning. I trust that the
Lord will bless us all through the preaching of his gospel.
Well, as you can see, I'm continuing one more time in this series
of messages that I started quite a few months ago called The Righteousness
of God. This is part seven, and this
is going to wrap it up, I believe. So, y'all, whether you've been
enjoying them or not, they're about to be over. This is going
to be the last one. And you can see today I've subtitled
this message, Do Well, Be Accepted. We're going to be talking about
God's righteousness as an eternal righteousness. When we look in
Genesis 4, 1 through 7. Here's my statement for today.
The righteousness of God is perhaps the most single important piece
of information we need to know, understand, and learn about. today because the righteousness
of God is eternal. In other words, the righteousness
of God is the only way. It's the only basis upon which
God has ever accepted or will ever fellowship with sinners
like you and me. So that's what we're going to
be talking about overall, generally. Let's think about that subtitle
for a minute. Do well, be accepted. The thinking of all of us by
nature is do well in order to be accepted. That's what we all
think. You do, you're accepted. Doing well comes first to us
by nature. Then, and only then, can you
be accepted. In other words, if you do what
you should, If you do well, God will accept you. That's our thinking,
my nation. A message on a local marquee
in front of a religious gathering place I was reading one day this
week. It affirms this thinking. It
reads this. Obedience always precedes blessing. The assignment of this establishment
is for spiritually dead sinners to do what no spiritually dead
sinner can do, obey in order to obtain the blessing of God.
The theology taught in this place leaves sinners going about to
establish a righteousness of their own and on a way that can
only end in eternal death. Thankfully, God has not left
all in this mentality. He's delivered some to His way
of grace. Thankfully, He's taught some
that to do well, you must first be accepted. Now, that might
even sound strange to y'all, but it won't when I'm done with
this message. Doing well is the evidence that you see your acceptance
in the obedience of another. That's what we're going to learn
today. The Scriptures are clear that God chose a people before
the world began. And it's clear that He blessed
those that He chose with all spiritual blessings. Look at
this familiar passage here in Ephesians 1 verses 3 through
6. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath
chosen us in him before the foundation of the world. that we should
be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated
us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according
to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of
his grace wherein he hath made us accepted into the love." Now,
you see I underline three statements right there in that context.
First, God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places in Christ. He has chosen us in Him before
the foundation of the world. And He has made us accepted in
the blood. Now, there's no denying that
God did this. If you look at the Scriptures,
if you study the Scriptures and learn from the Scriptures, there's
no denying God did this. There's no denying that God,
before the foundation of the world, chose and blessed Some. He didn't choose and bless all,
but he did choose and bless some. The question I want us to consider
today is this. How could God do this and be
just, be doing right to do that? How could it be right for God
to choose one sinner and not another sinner? How could it
be right for God to eternally bless one sinner and not another
sinner? Did God look ahead through what
some call a telescope of time? Did He look down through the
corridors of time and see what one sinner would do or what they
would refuse to do and bless them on that basis? Or is there
some other reason? Well, according to the Scriptures,
there's only one right reason why God could choose and bless
one sinner and not another. You see that reason in verse
6 there at the end, that statement I underlined right there in verse
6. All that's stated in these verses is stated to the praise
of the glory of God's grace. In other words, all that God
has done is to His praise. And all that he has done is to
the honor of his character because the sinners he chose, the sinners
he eternally blessed are made to be accepted in the beloved. They're not accepted based on
what they do, they're accepted based on what their substitute,
their surety did for them. They're not even blessed based
on anything that God foresaw them doing or not doing. Not
one of us has any deservedness in ourselves. We don't deserve
the least of God's favor based on the best of our hands. That's
the truth taught in this Word. The only worship from sinners
that God has ever accepted is from those who are already accepted,
already righteous in his sight. That's the lesson taught in the
scriptures from the beginning. We're going back to the first
account of sinners after the fall. The first account of sinners
approaching God for worship. Look with me now, Genesis chapter
4, verses 1 and 2. And Adam knew Eve his wife, and
she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man
from the Lord. And she again bare his brother
Abel, and Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller
of the ground." Now we see these two brothers. Abel, the youngest,
was a keeper of the sheep. He was a herdsman. He was a shepherd.
Cain, the eldest, was a tiller of the ground. He was a farmer.
Look on in Genesis 4, 3. And in process of time it came
to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering
unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of
the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof. Both
sons came to worship God. Now both had been taught the
right way for a sinner to approach God. Adam and Eve had relayed
God's instructions to their son. You remember God slayed an animal. And he clothed Adam and Eve after
the fall with the coats of the skins of that animal. So they
pass those instructions on. If you want to come to God, you
have to come by blood sacrifice. You come, you come bringing the,
the, the best lamb, the blood of the best lamb in the flock.
Cain, he just disregarded these instructions. His approach to
God was contrary to what he had heard and been taught. He came
his own way. He came his imagined way. He
came the way that seemed right in his own eyes, but that way
that ends in death. Abel, on the other hand, he regarded
his father's instruction. He came the way both sons had
been taught. He came God's prescribed way. Abel did well. And he found acceptance. Look on at Genesis 4 and verse
4b. It says, And the Lord had respect
unto Abel and to his offering. God first accepted Abel's person. You see that? He had respect
unto Abel. Then he had respect unto his
offering. He accepted him, the sinner,
first. Then he accepted the offering
he brought. In other words, God accepted
Abel's offering because he had already accepted his person. You can't get that backwards,
because if you do, you'll think your offering's got something
to do with God accepting you, and it doesn't. Now we're going
to look at the specific details of this in the message a little
later on, but let's go on to Cain here. Go on to Genesis 4,
verse 5a. But unto Cain, and to his offering,
God had not respect. You see, same thing. God first
had no respect of Cain, of his person. He rejected his person,
and then he rejected his offering. He didn't receive Cain, and he
didn't receive the offering Cain brought. Look on at Genesis 4,
verse 5 through 7. It says, And Cain was very wrought. Cain was angry, and his countenance
fell. You can see it in his face, his
anger. And the Lord said unto Cain,
Why art thou wrought, and why is thy countenance fallen? If
thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest
not well, sin lieth at the door, and unto thee shall be his desire,
and thou shalt rule over him. God asked Cain a question here.
If you do well, Cain, won't you be accepted? And the understood
answer to that question is, most certainly. If you do well, you'll
be accepted by God. The lesson is that all who do
well will, without fail, find acceptance in God's sight. God's
question could be read as a statement. Do well, and you will, without
fail, be accepted. The question to be answered here
is, what is it to do well? What does a sinner need to do?
What do we have to do to do well? Well, before a sinner can do
well, that sinner first must be well. To do well, we first
have to be righteous in God's sight. You see, God first accepted
Abel's person. He did so because Abel, his person,
was righteous. That's what we see the Scripture
saying of Abel, that he was righteous. That's what Christ declared of
him in Matthew 23 verses 34 through 35. Now this is before Christ
went to the cross. This is before Christ had actually
come in time and established a righteousness. But listen to
Christ's declaration of Abel. He says, Wherefore, behold, I
send you prophets and wise men and scribes, and some of them
you shall kill and crucify, and some of them you shall scourge
in your synagogues and persecute them from city to city, that
upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from
the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son of
Barakias, whom you slew between the temple and the altar. You
see, Christ declared of Abel that He was righteous. His blood
was righteous. And then the writer of Hebrews
says that God Himself declared Abel to be righteous. Look at
Hebrews 11 and verse 4. We're talking about Abel's person
now. being accepted by God first.
Abel himself was righteous. Look at Hebrews 11.4. It says,
By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than
Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying
of his gifts, and by it he being dead yet speaketh. Abel was righteous. Now, how could Abel be righteous? How could he be just in the sight
of God? Wasn't he a sinner? Of course
he was. We're all born of Adam. We've
all sinned and come short of the glory of God. How could Abel
be righteous? He could be righteous the same
and only way that any sinner can be righteous before God.
It's by having the righteousness that Christ worked out in His
obedience unto death, charged, imputed, accounted to us. That's the only way any sinner,
that's the only way God has ever declared any sinner to be righteous
in His sight. So when we see the Scripture
saying that Abel was righteous, We know it was based on the imputed
righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is one of God's
greatest blessings towards sinners. This is how David the prophet
saw it in Romans chapter 4 and verses 6 through 8. Paul writes
here, Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto
whom God imputeth righteousness without works. It's a blessed
man who has righteousness imputed to him without any works from
his hand. Verse 7, David saying, Blessed
are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. The chosen of God have been blessed
with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places before the
foundation of the world. This is eternal blessedness.
And this blessedness necessarily includes the non-imputation of
sin and the imputation of righteousness. There's only one explanation
why sinners are righteous in God's sight. We're righteous
because God has made us righteous in Him, in Christ. Look at this
familiar 2 Corinthians 5.21 here. For God the Father hath made
Him Christ to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be
made the righteousness of God in Him. That's how sinners get
righteous. God makes them righteous. He
accounts them righteous by the imputation of Christ's righteousness. Earlier in this same chapter,
2 Corinthians 5 and verse 19, we see this statement. that God
was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them. When was God in Christ reconciling
the world? That's the world of his chosen
now. When was He in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing
their trespasses unto them? When did He make Christ to be
sin for us? When were we made the righteousness
of God in Him? The answer is from the beginning.
Not from the beginning of time, but from the beginning of eternity,
which has no beginning, so forever. God has always, He was always
in Christ, not imputing the trespasses of those He chose unto them. Because in eternity, He imputed
their trespasses, those that He chose and blessed in Christ
before the world began. In eternity, He imputed their
trespasses unto Christ, their substitute and surety. And in
eternity, He imputed the righteousness of God, the righteousness worked
out in the body and soul of Christ. He imputed that righteousness
to them in eternity. Although the elect are justified,
that is, they're viewed and declared righteous by God from the foundation
of the world, although that's true of the elect, those that
God chose and blessed. Yet, like all others, we fell
in Adam. And like all, we're born ignorant
of the righteousness by which God justifies. We're not seeking
God by nature. We're not fellowshipping with
God until God causes us to walk in the light. Look at 1 John
1, 5-7, we'll read about this light. This then is the message
which we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is
light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have
fellowship with God and walk in darkness, we lie and do not
the truth. But if we walk in the light,
as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another,
that's a sinner with God, fellowship together, one with another, and
the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. Only those who walk in the light
have fellowship with God. What light is John speaking of?
He's speaking of the light of the gospel. That message wherein
the righteousness of God is always revealed. It's the same light
John wrote about in the Gospel of John. It's the light which
those who insist on continuing on in evil, even though they've
come unto the light, they go on in evil. It's that same light.
They hate it. Look at John 3 and verse 19.
And this is the condemnation that light is coming to the world,
and men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds
were evil. For everyone that doeth evil
hates the light, neither comes to the light, lest his deed should
be reproved. That light. It's the gospel message
of God's free grace in Christ. It's a revelation of how God
is just to justify ungodly sinners based on Christ's work alone.
And that light discovers. We see some things right here.
That light discovers. It reveals some things. First
of all, it reveals the only ground of salvation. It reveals Christ's
righteousness is imputed as that ground. It reveals how God is
just to justify a sinner based on Christ's finished work, His
righteousness and that alone. But it also reveals the condemned.
You see it in this verse right here. Those who come under the
light but reject the light. Those who go on in their evil. They are revealed to be among
the condemned. See, if you align yourself with
them, you're aligning yourself with the condemned. The gospel
doesn't condemn those sinners who reject it. It just makes
it known. It exposes their condemnation.
But thankfully, that same light reveals the justified as well.
If we look on at John 3 and verse 21, we'll see the contrast between
those who do evil and hate the light and those who do truth. It says, But he that doeth truth
cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that
they are wrought. in God. Doing truth is the opposite
of doing evil. Doing evil is rejecting the gospel. It's rejecting the righteousness
that gospel reveals, and it's going on trying to establish
a righteousness of your own, which is a man's only alternative
who rejects the righteousness revealed in the gospel. Doing
truth, on the other hand, is valuing the righteousness revealed
in the gospel and repenting of ever trying to work out a righteousness
of your own by your obedience. That's the light Paul wrote about
in 2 Corinthians. It's the light under which the
Spirit of God regenerates and converts His people. Look at
2 Corinthians 4 and verse 6. For God who commanded the light
to shine out of darkness, that's back at the beginning in creation.
God commanded the light to shine out of darkness. And that same
God has shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Now that's when
a sinner is regenerated and converted. When God shines that light in
a sinner's heart and persuades them that their only hope of
standing before God and being counted righteous is based on
the righteousness of Christ alone. Abel knew where to find righteousness. He knew how he, his person, could
be righteous. He knew because God had brought
him to the light. He saw righteousness in the woman's
seed spoken of in Genesis 3 in verse 15. He saw righteousness
in the slain animals that slain animal and the coats of skins
that God made to clothe the nakedness of his parents. Under this light,
the Spirit of God gave Abel life and faith and a value for the
righteousness Christ would come in time and produce. We can know
this because Abel's sacrifice, the offering he brought to God,
pictured the righteousness he needed. The sacrifice didn't
make him righteous, but it pictured what he needed. His offering
pictured the righteousness by which he approached God, and
the righteousness by which he expected to be accepted. You
see, when Abel came, he wasn't coming wondering whether God
would accept him or not. He was coming with confidence.
He expected God to accept him, because his offering pictured
the righteousness of God. It pictured the righteousness
Christ would come in time and produce. Abel knew what every
regenerate sinner in every generation learns from God. He knew that
Christ and Christ alone is righteous. Look at 1 John 2 and verse 28.
And now, little children, abide in Him, that's abide in Christ,
that when He shall appear, we may have confidence and not be
ashamed before Him at His coming. If you know that He, Christ,
is righteous, you know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born
of Him. If you know that He, if you know
that Christ is righteous, and He alone, in all the universe,
there's only one place to find a righteousness which God will
accept, and that's in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. My
righteousness resides in Christ at the right hand of the Father,
and yet I'm declared righteous based on that righteousness accounted
to me. And that's what every regenerate
sinner's hope is, to have Christ's righteousness accounted to them.
Doing righteousness is the product of being righteous, not vice
versa. You don't become righteous because
you do righteousness. You are righteous because you
see your righteousness in the doing and dying of Christ. Abel
knew what Abraham declared to his young son Isaac. What did Abel tell Isaac when
he was up there on that mount? And Isaac said, I see the wood,
I see the altar, but where's the sacrifice? Abraham said God
will provide himself a sacrifice. Abel knew that. And Abraham and
Abel knew that in that sacrifice, which God would provide himself,
they would find the one righteousness by which God could declare sinners
righteous in His sight. Abel did well. He brought the
one offering that declared him to be righteous. Now, understand,
Abel's offering is not what made him righteous. He brought what
God commanded. He brought the blood of the Lamb.
But that's not what made him righteous. His offering declared
him to be righteous. He was not righteous because
he did well. He did well because he was already
righteous. And his offering gave evidence
of that. Because Abel had learned where
to find righteousness, because he knew how he could be righteous,
he knew how to do righteousness. He brought the sacrifice that
declared him to be righteous. God's further testimony of Abel
is that his works, not only his person, his person was righteous,
but his works were also righteous. God's testimony of Cain is that
his works were evil. Look at 1 John 3 verses 11 and
12. For this is the message that
you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another,
not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother.
And why did he slay him? Because his own works were evil,
and his brother's were righteous. Cain disregarded righteousness. He was taught, but he had no
regard for righteousness. He just came with the works of
his hands. He said, surely God will receive me if I just bring
the best I can. No, I'll tell you as God told
Cain. God will not receive any sinner
based on the best of our hands. We need a righteousness that
answers the demands of God's law and justice, and we don't
have it. If you read the context of 1
John 2, Let me talk about Abel first.
I said Cain disregarded righteousness. He had no value for righteousness.
Abel, on the other hand, he brought the sacrifice which proved that
he valued the righteousness that had been made known in the gospel
to him. He did righteousness. Cain did
evil. If you read the context of 1
John 2 and 3, you'll understand that to do righteousness is simply
this. It's to remain to abide in Christ. It's to find all your hope in
Christ and in Christ alone. Rest your whole salvation in
Him and nowhere else. Disregarding all accounts from
your hands, rest in Christ alone. That's what it is to do righteousness.
In the story of Cain and Abel, we see the two religions that
exist in this world in every generation, their grace and works. Abel came pleading the righteousness
of another. He came pleading the imputed
righteousness of his substitute and surety, the Lord Jesus Christ
alone. That's grace. That's the religion
of grace. Cain, on the other hand, came
attempting to establish a righteousness of his own, brought the best
of his own hands. That's works. It's been the same
in every generation and will be as long as this world remains. What must a sinner do? to do
well? Well, first, we have to learn
of and value what God has done in the person and work of Christ
that makes it right for Him to declare otherwise ungodly sinners
righteous in His sight. Learn what God has done through
Christ that enables God to be just and justifier. Learn and
value God's righteousness. Now this is brand new knowledge
to a sinner that's never heard anything about it. We know nothing
of God's righteousness by nature. The only righteousness we know
about is one we think that we have established by our doing.
We start out believing and are taught by this world's religion,
just like that marquee I read you before. Obedience always
precedes blessing. That's the religion of this world.
It's a religion I learned by nature. But the gospel is about
what Christ alone has done to save His people from their sins. We learn of God's righteousness
only in the gospel that reveals it. And we value that righteousness
only when the Spirit of God comes to us under the gospel and grants
us life and faith and godly repentance. So the first thing we have to
do if we will do well, we have to learn how a person like me,
a sinner like you, can be righteous in God's sight. We have to learn
of the righteousness He's provided in the doing and dying of Christ.
The second thing a sinner must do to do well is come to God
pleading nothing but that righteousness Christ worked out. Come with
the confidence of one who's offering What am I bringing to God? I'm
bringing the blood of Christ. I'm bringing the righteousness
of Christ. And I come before God as one confident that God
will receive me because I'm coming the way He said. I'm coming the
way that He says a sinner can be righteous. Now as simple as
that sounds to know of God's righteousness, and to come by
righteousness, as simple as that sounds, it takes a radical change
of mind. It takes a radical change in
our thinking to come to God that way. What would Cain, what would
any sinner have to do to do well? They have to change their thinking
about how, upon what basis, God saves and blesses sinners. Cain
did not, nor does any one of us by nature, know that God requires
perfect, infinite, unchangeable righteousness to declare sinners
righteous in sight. I didn't know that until God
brought me to the gospel, and you didn't either. Do you know
what the scripture says about Cain's mind, as well as the minds
of all of us by nature on this subject, salvation? Look at Jeremiah
17.9. The heart is deceitful above
all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? On the matter
of salvation, there's nothing more deceitful. Nothing more
wicked than the heart of natural man. We can't divorce ourselves
from the idea that we must do well in order to be accepted. See, we can't get away from that
by nature. We have to come to the gospel. We have to learn
of a righteousness that God has provided before we can be divorced
from such thinking. Our minds have to be changed,
and God is the one that has to change them. Look at Jeremiah
17.10. He says, I, the Lord, search
the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to
his ways and according to the fruit of his doings. God will
change the mind of each of His elect in each generation on this
subject of salvation. He will bring them to the light.
He will bring them to the gospel. He will persuade them that He
is just to justify sinners on the basis of Christ's work alone.
That will be the fruit of their doings. God will judge us by
the fruit of our doing, but that will be the fruit of our doing.
We'll come before God resting in Christ, confident that he
will accept us based on Christ's work alone. Abel is the first
sinner in the scriptures that God clearly declared to be righteous. He declared him righteous first
in Genesis when he had respect unto him, his person, and then
respect unto his offering. He declared him to be righteous
in Matthew 23 and Hebrews 11, those scriptures we read earlier.
The only basis on which God declares able or any sinner righteous
is the imputed righteousness of Christ. He declared able-righteous
on the basis of the righteousness Christ, the surety of the sheep,
would come in time and establish by His obedience unto death.
He could declare able-righteous because able was one among a
multitude. a number out of every kindred,
tongue, tribe, and nation that no man can number. Abel was one
among a multitude who was chosen and blessed with all spiritual
blessings in Christ before the foundation of the world. Abel
did well. And all the elect will do well
in time because they already are well. They are already accepted
in the Beloved. And in time, in each successive
generation, they will prove, they will give evidence of their
acceptance in the Beloved by resting in the merits of Christ's
work alone. Listen to Galatians, look at
Galatians 6 and verse 9. Paul encourages the church here.
Let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap
if we faint not. Let's not be weary in this Gospel
message. I know it repeats often. I know in every Scripture we
hear of Christ's person, His work, His accomplished salvation,
the righteousness He worked out, how God is just. Let's don't
be weary in delivering this message to the world. This is what sinners
need to hear. Do well. Rest your whole salvation
in the righteousness God has been looking at from eternity.
Be accepted. Find yourself accepted in Christ
and in Him alone. That's my encouragement to you
from this message. Thank you.