Turn in your Bibles to Matthew
chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5. I want you to look with me 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 into the kingdom of heaven. The Scriptures say that in that
day, that is just prior to the coming and return of the Lord
Jesus Christ, that it shall be as it was in
the days of Noah. Our Lord says, but of that day
and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but
my Father only. But as the days of Noah were,
so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the
days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking
marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered
into the ark, and knew not until the flood came and took them
all away, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be." I was thinking about how that
at this time of year, so many will do the things that
they have done all their lives. There will be parties, family
gatherings, weddings, all different types of things, and I thought What ought I to
be doing in the midst of all of this? And it came to my mind that Peter
described this man Noah, who lived in the midst of a similar
time, as a preacher of righteousness. That's what Noah was doing in
that hour. God had not left himself without
a remnant, and he had not left himself without a witness, a
preacher of righteousness. And as I thought about that,
I thought about how that at this time of year, It seems to be the worst time
of year when the proud religious self-righteousness of men shines
the brightest. Someone showed me recently one
of those Christmas letters. which is nothing more than a
display of I, me, mine, and ours, of religious self-righteousness,
of all these things that are so contrary to what the Lord's
people are all about, and they just all reek with self righteousness." I want you to notice who is speaking
in this verse. It is the King Himself. The King of kings, the Lord Jesus
Christ, is saying something with regard to righteousness and with
regard to His kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God. And His words are to all who
hear them. They are words to us this morning. And they have to do, as I said,
with righteousness. And we all think that we have
won. That's right. I want to give you a definition
of one aspect of righteousness in the light of this verse. And I would say this. Righteousness
here is whatever you are depending on to be accepted by God, the basis upon which you believe
that you have been, are, or will be blessed by God, And the reason
why you think that you'll be granted entrance into His holy
heaven, His holy kingdom, both now and future. You see, our Lord here refers
to your righteousness. Look back. at our verse. You see, Isaiah was led by the
Spirit of God to make this plain statement. But we are all as an unclean
thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." That's where the title of my
message comes from, rags or righteousness. You see, though there is much
more that can be said about righteousness, I think that my definition is
accurate in light of what Christ says here. And if you never hear anything
I say, I hope you can hear what He says. He says, For I say unto
you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness
of the scribes and Pharisees you shall in no case enter into
the kingdom of heaven." This means something like this
at this present hour. Accept your righteousness. Exceed the righteousness of the
best of the most moral, of the most religious person that you
know, you will in no case enter into
the kingdom of heaven. You see, our Lord was using these
whom He knew that men viewed as the best of the best and the
brightest of the brightest, the purest of the pure, the most
moral of the moral, the most knowledgeable about God, of all
who claim to know anything about God. And he said, unless you've
got a righteousness that exceeds that righteousness, you'll not
enter into the kingdom of heaven. Our Lord says in another place,
in Matthew 7, not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom
of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is
in heaven. Not everybody that walks around
with honey dripping off their lips as far as being so sweet
and kind outwardly, so morally upright, so religiously zealous,
not everyone shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. Then he says by John in the Revelation
this, And there shall in no wise enter in, into it, anything that
defiles, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie. But they which are written, in
the Lamb's Book of Life. You see, a righteousness that
exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees is necessary for entrance
into God's kingdom. And he didn't use the scribes
and Pharisees. simply to identify them as individuals,
but he used them to point out a system or a principle of outward
morality or outward doing or anything that men do to please
God. Who were the scribes and Pharisees? Well, they were the most learned
of all the religious, and they were the most strict. They were separatist. They were
fundamentalist of the day. They were the teachers of the
law, and they were the moral purist of their day. And Paul was one of them. And he was from among them, not
only as a people, but as a group among that people. And yet, this
is what he says in Romans 10. He says, I bear them record that
they have a zeal of God. They're zealous. They're sincere. They're willing
to sacrifice. They do all these things. They
have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. They know a lot
of things, and they know a lot of things from the Scriptures,
but they don't know God. For they, being ignorant of God's
righteousness, The reason that they did not know God, the evidence
of it was that they did not know God's righteousness was this. They, being ignorant of God's
righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves
unto the righteousness of God. Why? Because that which is highly
esteemed among men, he says, is an abomination to
God. And they were admired by men,
and they highly admired themselves. That letter I read, they highly
admired themselves. They highly admired what they
had done. They highly admired what they
knew about God and the relationship they thought they had with God.
They highly admired themselves, and they trusted in themselves
in what they knew, in what they did, and in what they didn't
do. That's the Pharisees and the
scribes. Turn over and look with me in
Luke chapter 16. Luke chapter 16. I've already
mentioned this. Luke 16 and verse 14. And the Pharisees also, who were
covetous, heard all these things, and they derided him. They didn't have any problems.
deriding the Lord Jesus Christ face to face. And men and women
such as these Pharisees in every generation, they don't have any
problems doing the same thing to Christ. They don't have any
problems standing up and belittling the gospel of Christ, offering
their works instead of Christ. And he said unto them, You are
they which justify yourselves before men." That's all you're doing. You're
trying to show and display yourselves as righteous before men and in
the sight of men. But that's the only ones that
you're doing it before. Not God. Why? For that which is highly esteemed
among men, if men brag on it, if men think it's good, if men
think it's the way to heaven, if men think it's acceptable
to God, that which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination
in the sight of God. Look over in Luke's Gospel in
chapter 18. Luke chapter 18, beginning in
verse 9, our Lord again, and He spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves. You see that? They trusted in
themselves that they were righteous. And what was the consequence
of that? They despised others. They looked down their noses
at others. They belittled others. They mocked
others. They despised others. Why? Because
they trusted in themselves that they were righteous. And that's
who our Lord spoke this parable to. He said, two men went up
into the temple to pray. the one a Pharisee and the other
a publican. That's like having the top of
the totem pole and the bottom of the totem pole, the highest
rung in the social ladder and the lowest rung in the social
ladder. The Pharisee stood and prayed
thus with himself, And that's all the Pharisee ever
does. He prays to his God, which is himself. I thank thee that I am not as
other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as
this publican. I thank you that I'm not like
everybody else is. I fast twice in the week. I give tithes of all that I possess. I do all these things. And the publican, standing afar
off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven. But he smote himself upon his
breast. saying, God, be merciful to me,
a sinner. Literally what that says is,
God, be propitiated toward me, the sinner. Now, I want you to look at what
Christ said in response. He said, I tell you, this man
went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone that exalteth himself
shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself
shall be exalted. Here was a man who had a righteousness that
exceeded the righteousness of the Pharisees. Isn't that right? And yet, if you had looked at
these two men, You would have said, without a doubt, as far
as the natural eye is concerned, and as far as how men esteem
things, you would have said that surely by what he did, by what
he said, this Pharisee was righteous. But he was only righteous in
his own eyes. And this publican, he was righteous
in the sight of God. But if that be the case, how
is it that this man who was the least likely in the eyes of men
to be righteous, how was it that he was righteous and the other
one wasn't righteous? Where did he get his righteousness
from? It obviously couldn't be seen
by the natural eye. It obviously could not have been
measured by something that he did. But it tells us here exactly
how he got his righteousness. It says that he went down to
his house, or he was sent down to his house justified. What does that mean? Well, to
be justified means simply to be declared righteous. It means to be counted righteous
in the sight of God. It means to be declared righteous
by a free and sovereign act of grace from God. and to be done so justly." Why? Because the grace of God,
Paul says, reigns. Where sin has reigned, where
the devil, it appears, has reigned, grace reigns in righteousness. It means to be declared to be
righteous in accordance with God's holy justice. It has to
be. Why? Because he says in Proverbs,
he that justifies the wicked and he that condemns the just,
even they both are an abomination to God. And yet here is a man who outwardly,
and who like every other one by nature and in Adam, was wicked
and was unjust, and yet God counted him righteous.
How was that? In the Lord Jesus Christ. What I'm saying is this. There
is no other righteousness except that which is in Christ Jesus. And the only way that this man,
or any man, or any woman, in any hour, at any time, can ever
be righteous is to be justified by God. to be counted righteous by God
in the Lord Jesus Christ. If we are ever righteous in the
sight of God, it will be in one other than ourselves and outside
of ourselves. It is to be chosen in Christ
and taken into union with Christ, who became surety for us, and
to be made the righteousness of God in Christ. And I'm here to tell you this
morning, don't ever let anybody, no matter how subtle it might
be, Don't ever let anybody ever try to tell you that there is
any righteousness anywhere except in Christ. And that that righteousness,
which is called an everlasting righteousness, is made manifest
and was made to be to all of the Lord's people because of
His cross death. You see, our justification, our
being made righteous, is something that God does. I wish we could really see. It's
something that God does. It's something that He gives
as a gift. It's something that is in Christ
and Christ alone. It's all together in Christ's
person, in His pledge, and in His work of righteousness. Turn back to Ezekiel chapter
16. Ezekiel 16. I love these verses. Look down with me in verse 8. Now, when I passed by thee, who
is that talking? That's God talking. And the one
that He's talking to, He's talking to That individual, that one,
that individual person, his elect that he loved with his everlasting
love and chose in Christ, and who has made the righteousness
of God in Christ. He is talking to his people personally. Now, when I passed by thee and
looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love. And I spread my skirt over thee,
and covered thy nakedness. Yea, I swear unto thee, and entered
into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest
mine. Then washed I thee with water,
Yea, I throughly washed away thy blood from thee, and I anointed
thee with oil. I clothed thee also with broidered
work, and shod thee with badger skin, and I girded thee about
with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk. I decked thee
also with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thy hands, and
a chain on thy neck, and I put a jewel in thy forehead, and
earrings in thine ears, and a beautiful crown upon thine head." Thus was thou decked with gold
and silver, and thy raiment was of fine linen and silk and broidered
work. Thou didst seat fine flour and
honey and oil, and thou wast exceeding beautiful, and thou
didst prosper into a kingdom." What's that description? You
know, that's a description of the perfect, many-faceted, glorious
righteousness of God which He puts on His people. He takes language of Scripture,
language that draws our mind to the most glorious things the
glorious garments and decorations that we could ever have to enter
into our mind. And he is saying, this is what
I did for you spiritually in the Lord Jesus Christ. Look at that 14th verse. And
thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty, All you've
got to do is go back and look at the first part of that chapter
and see the awful condition that she was in and see what it is
now. And thy renown went forth among
the heathen for thy beauty, for it was perfect through my comeliness. Where was her beauty at? Where
was her perfect comeliness at? It was in His beauty and His
comeliness, He says, "...which I had put upon thee, saith the
Lord God." Nobody else may have said she
was beautiful, but the One who counted, God
Himself, speaks of her beauty, which is his own beauty, and
says, which I put on thee, saith the Lord God." It's the same thing in Isaiah's
day. He says to his people, every tongue that shall rise against
thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants
of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me." The servants of the Lord? Their
righteousness is of me, saith the Lord. And for that reason,
he said, when if anybody rises to condemn you in judgment, you
condemn them. Why? Because you have a perfect
righteousness. That even though Satan be the
accuser of the brethren, there is no one, especially in that
hour, that will be able to lay any charge against you because
you have a perfect righteousness. You've been made the righteousness
of God in Christ. You'll condemn them. He is near. That justifies me. Who will contend with me? My justifier is always near.
Who can contend with me? Let us stand together. Who's
my adversary? Let him come near to me if my
justification is near me. How near is he? Well, I'm in
him, and he's in me. The only righteousness I have
before God is by virtue of me being in Him. And the only righteousness
I have of myself, if we say that, is by virtue of Him being in
me. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? Bring them on. Bring them on. Next statement. It is God that
justifies. Who is He that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea,
rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand
of God, who also maketh intercession for us." Now, I'll tell you something
about that verse. That verse tells me that the
triune Godhead is involved in this matter of making the Lord's
people righteous. The way some people demand that
it be when they say that we were justified at the cross, they evidently think that Paul
got things backward here. Before God could justify us,
Christ had to actually die. then it would have to say, it
is Christ that died, and therefore it is God that justifies. But the truth of the matter is,
it is God the Father. And it is surely God the Son,
and it is surely God the Spirit who are involved in this work
of our salvation, therefore this work of our justification, therefore
there is an eternal sense of justification. There is a sense
in which we were justified through the death of Christ, and there
is a sense in which we are made to know and receive that by the
Spirit's work in our hearts, enabling us to believe. And Lee, the truth is, it's all
at once anyway in the sight of God. You see that? We're always kind of picking
and sequencing and all this stuff. It's sequential. It's progressive
in the matter of revelation of it to us. But it's all at once
with God. It is God that justifies us. He declared us righteous. through
and by the blood and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
to be justified is to be without condemnation. And it is to be
fit for heaven. It is to be accepted by God. It is to be holy and righteous
in God's sight. It is to be blessed according
to the righteousness of the man Christ Jesus and to receive eternal
life because of that righteousness. And so I'll say this, the only
righteousness there is, is the one revealed in the gospel. You know, when Paul says, that
which you do not in faith is sin, do you ever stop and think
about what that really means? Most everybody takes that to
believe that if you, whatever you do, if you, have not prayed
about it, and if you do it without the Lord's leading in it, the
Lord's will, and you do it without truly believing in it, that's
sin to you. I wouldn't do much then, and
everything I do is sin. What he's saying there is, the
only thing that we have that is not sin, we receive through faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Everything I have, everything
I do, sin. So the only thing that I have
that is without sin is this gift of righteousness which God has
given me and His Son. Paul said, For I am not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ. For it is the power of God unto
salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to
the Greek. For therein, therein what? Therein the gospel is the righteousness
of God revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall
live by faith. Paul said to him, that worketh
not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith
is counted for righteousness." That does not mean that faith
is our righteousness. It means that the one who true
faith lays hold of, the Lord Jesus Christ, He is our righteousness. And he's the only one we have. When Paul says in Romans 5 that
through the disobedience of one, the many were made sinners, and
through the obedience of one, the many were made righteous,
that word made there means constituted, viewed as, by God, righteous. and made the righteousness of
God in Christ. You see, if I'm a preacher of
righteousness, I'm going to have to say something about how a
sinner is made righteous. And that is by an act of divine
imputation. I heard somebody say, a while
back, that the Bible doesn't really speak of an imputed righteousness. Coming from who that came from,
I just want to just kind of fall over somewhere. It may not say imputed righteousness, but I can tell you that's the
only way you'll ever be righteous. Turn over to Romans chapter 4. And I'll ask you, to impute means
to reckon or to count as such because of another. Romans 4 and verse 6, even as David also describeth
the blessedness of the man, oh, this is a blessed man, unto whom God imputes righteousness
without works." Would it be fair to say that's an imputed righteousness? I think so. God imputes righteousness
without works. Why would anybody want to deny
that? Well, it's got another little agenda. Blessed are they whose iniquities
are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to
whom the Lord will not impute sin." How can He not impute our
sins to us? How can He not charge us with
what we are actually guilty of? By the same principle, He charged
Christ with it. And you know Christ has been
charged with them for a long, long time, even before the cross. When He stood there in that everlasting
covenant as the surety and took upon Himself all that responsibility,
it no longer was ours. And we were called by God from
the very first of God's elect that is mentioned in this book
as the righteous, but not in themselves. and not
in anything they've done, but because it is God who justified
them in Christ, and that through His suffering
and His blood. Paul says in Philippians 3, I
don't want my righteousness. He said, I count all that as
nothing but refuge trash and garbage and dung. I want to be
found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of
the law, which is based on a principle of my doing, but that which is
through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of
God by faith." I believe on Christ. I'm looking
to Christ. And my look into Christ, that
doesn't make me righteous. But the very fact that God has
justified me in His Son and made me righteous by imputing the
very righteousness of God to me in Him, that's the basis upon
which the Spirit of God brings me to believe on Him. What a glorious verse this is
in 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 21. For he hath made him to be
sin for us. How? By imputation. Who knew no sin that we, by the
same principle, by the same act of God, might be made the righteousness
of God in him." What we don't find is it saying
something like that we are made righteous by him, although there
is a sense in which that's true. But God always makes us to know
that we're made the righteousness of God in Him. Declared so to
be such, even though we're not that of ourselves. Paul in Romans 4 again, now it
was not written for his sake alone, that is Abraham's, that
it was imputed to him. but for us also, to whom it shall
be imputed if we believe on him that raised up our Lord Jesus,
Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our offenses
and raised again for our justification." He was delivered, it says, because
of our sins, our offenses. And he was raised again because
of our justification. Look at one more verse, if you
would, and I'll close. I Corinthians chapter 1 and verse
30. But of him, of God. Are you in Christ Jesus? How
do we get in Christ? He put us there by His grace.
He did it. Who of God is made unto us? He's made unto us. Wisdom and righteousness and sanctification
and redemption. Jesus Christ is of God, made unto his people
everything. Jeremiah said, This is the name
by which he shall be called, the Lord our righteousness. And
then a little while later, he said, and this is the name whereby
she shall be called. Who's that? His bride? What's the name by which she
shall be called? The Lord our righteousness. You see, the bride of Christ,
is said to be pure, a chaste virgin, unspotted. And in the Revelation it says,
and to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen,
clean and white. This bride is not going to be
dressed in rags. She's dressed in righteousness.
She's that described one in Ezekiel 16. For the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints. What will we have? What do we have? Rags. Do we look around us, or in our
lives, or anything to gain any hope, peace? Or anything that
we have done as these Pharisees inscribed? Or anything that we
know? Or anything that we have accomplished? we've not done
or abstained from? It's just rags. And the only righteousness comes as a gift of God in the righteous one. And that's
all the way through our days. I write unto you, little children,
that you sin not. But if any man sin, he has an
advocate with the Father. Who is that? Jesus Christ, the
Righteous. Accept your righteousness. Exceed
that. of the best, the most moral,
the most outstanding person you've ever known in your life, you'll perish. You'll not enter into the kingdom
of heaven. But I can tell you this, everyone
that God has made righteous in His Son, Every one of them will be there.
Every one of them will enter in. And none will ever condemn
them. Why? Because their righteousness
is the righteousness of God. And that's because they're in
Christ Jesus. Our Father, this day we give
you thanks and praise. for the goodness, the freeness,
the righteousness of your grace in Christ. And we bless the Godhead this
day for our justification, which
must surely redound to the glory of thy great name. Lord, help us to look to no other,
to repent of every other thing, cast off every filthy rag of
our self-righteousness, that stand in the glorious righteousness
of Jesus Christ that you in mercy have imputed to us. Lord, we look to him as that
Christ crucified to know and to see that you did not impute our sins to
us, but laid them on him. And by his knowledge, he did
justify many because he bare their sins. Thank you this day, Lord. We
know not why you lead and direct and appoint in these things.
They are for the most part never for the reasons we think, but
they are always for your reason. And we pray that you would bless
your Word. We pray, Lord, that you would help each one. We pray, Lord, for Sister Madeline's daughter-in-law,
the Pradonel's wife Anne, we ask that you might have mercy
upon them. That somehow in all these things
you might work honor and glory to yourself and reveal the gospel
of your Son in each heart. We thank you and we praise you
in Christ's name. Amen. Yeah.