Beautiful song, beautiful hymn. It's a pleasure to be with you.
Good to see everybody. If you want to turn with me to
my text, you'll find it in Romans chapter 3. Paul's epistle to Romans chapter
3. It's where I'll be reading from. I'm going to read several
verses. I'm going to begin in verse 10. And read down through verse 28. Romans chapter 3 and verse 10. As it is written, there is none
righteous, no not one. There is none that understandeth,
there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of
the way, they are together become unprofitable, there is none that
doeth good, no not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher,
With their tongues they have used deceit. The poison of Asp
is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed
blood. Destruction and misery are in
their ways, and the way of peace have they not known. There is
no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what thing soever
the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every
mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before
God. Therefore by the deeds of the
law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law
is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of
God without the law is manifest, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets. even the righteousness of God,
which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all of them
that believe, for there is no difference. For all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by
his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom
God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to
declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are
passed through the forbearance of God. To declare, I said, this
time his righteousness, that he might be just, and the justifier
of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is
excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay, but
by the law of faith. Therefore, we conclude that a
man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. I want you to think with me just
for a few minutes on some things concerning this text. And I wanted,
first of all, to look at this little phrase the Apostle Paul
uses here that he often uses in his epistles, but especially
in the Book of Romans. And that's here where he said,
the righteousness of God. He mentions that different times
in this text. In verse 21, now the righteousness
of God. That's my first point. And then
my second point I want to look at, when we see what that is,
I want us to look at what that is, then see why we need such
a righteousness as this. And while we in and of ourselves
can't attain to the righteousness which God requires of us, and
if there is a righteousness that will save a man and justify a
man, then how do we get it? How do we get such a righteousness?
And then one of the effects of that, that's some of the things
I wanna look at tonight, but I wanna look at this little phrase,
the righteousness of God. Martin Luther, when he was a
monk in the Catholic religion, he said when he read this phrase,
he was reading it over in the first chapter where Paul said,
I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it's the power of God to
salvation to all that believe. And then he made this statement,
he said, for therein in the gospel is the righteousness of God revealed. And Luther said every time he
read that statement, the righteousness of God, he thought of the absolute
holiness of God. that which we see in God, the
justice of God, the purity of God. God is light, and in Him
is no darkness at all. And he was reading Augustine,
and Augustine said, when we see this phrase, the righteousness
of God, we must not think of it as what is found in God. that divine, eternal attribute
of God of holiness and justice. He said that would drive us to
despair. He said when we think of the
righteousness of God, we must think of that righteousness which
God hath provided for believing sinners to remit their sins and
to justify them. and give them a perfect standing
before God. Now that's the righteousness
that Paul was talking about when he said the righteousness of
God. Now can we define that righteousness?
I think the scripture is very clear on it and I want you to
turn over here in the fifth chapter and the Apostle Paul tells us
exactly what the righteousness of God is. Look what he says
in the fifth chapter in verse 18 and verse 19. Therefore, as by the offense
of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so
by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all men
to justification of life. For as by one man's obedience,
as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners, so by
the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. This righteousness
of God that the Apostle Paul often mentions is the Lord Jesus
Christ himself and his perfect obedience in the days of his
flesh. That is the righteousness of
God. Now, perfect obedience to God,
you and I don't know anything about that, do we? Has your life
upon this earth been perfect and complete? Who of us can make
such a claim? So we stand condemned of God,
don't we, and worthy of hell's heap. But here we have a man,
the Son of God, who came down from heaven, was born of a virgin,
took our humanity to Himself, and in that humanity rendered
to God everything that He required. He satisfied the law's demands
in the days of His flesh. God will not accept anything
less than perfect obedience. And that's what the Son of God
rendered to His Father on behalf of elect sinners. When the Lord
instructed Saul, King Saul, to go down and kill Amalek and all
of his family and all of his animals, King Saul brought back
Amalek and brought back some of the best of the sheep and
the goats. Remember that? And Samuel Went to him and said,
have you obeyed the voice of the Lord? He said, I've obeyed
the voice of the Lord. And Samuel said, what's the meaning of these
sheep bleeding? He said, oh, I brought those
back for a sacrifice. Remember that. I'm going to sacrifice
them to God. And Samuel told him, does God
have as much delight in a sacrifice as He does obedience? To obey
is better than sacrifice. There's no substitute for absolute
and perfect obedience. And this is the righteousness
of God which our Lord Jesus Christ rendered to the law and to justice. Brother Scott Richardson used
to make this short little statement, but it's so full. And it's concerning
the righteousness of God. He said, the righteousness of
God is the doing and the dying of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the righteousness of God. How often do we hear our Lord
Jesus say, I came down from heaven to do. I came to do the will
of my Father. A body hast thou prepared me,
lo, I come to do thy will. And what was that will? Well,
he tells us there in Hebrews chapter 10 and Psalms chapter
40, I come to do thy will, yea, thy law is within my heart. The law required perfect obedience
from our mother's womb till we breathed out our last breath.
And the Lord Jesus Christ supplied that obedience. That's amazing. You and I know nothing about
this, do we? Sin is mixed with our best obedience. But here
is a man, 100% man, the Son of Mary, the eternal Son of God,
and He did everything for the glory of His Father, and He rendered
to the law of God absolute and perfect obedience. Two times
the Lord Jesus made this statement. It is finished. Remember John
chapter 17 when he was praying to the Father? And he said, Father,
I finished the work which you gave me to do. There's that to
do again, to do. I come to do. And he said, I
finished the work that you gave me to do. Well, the very next
day, he made almost the same statement hanging from the cross
of Calvary. And he said, it's finished. He
was speaking of two different things. In John chapter 17, when
he said, Father, I finished the work, he finished his perfect
obedience in living out what the law required. Father, I've
done it. I've magnified your law and I've
made it honorable. And the father answered him,
he said, Son, I'm well pleased for your righteousness sake.
You have indeed obeyed my law. You made it honorable again.
And then there on the cross of Calvary, just before He breathed
out His last breath and poured out His blood, He says, It's
finished. It's finished. So in His lifetime,
He rendered perfect obedience to everything the law demanded.
And on the cross, He died as a transgressor of that law which
He kept. But He never did it for Himself.
He did nothing for Himself, did He? Everything He did, He did
it as a representative to His people and for His people. I've often thought, what does
it take to keep God's law perfectly? What does it take to render perfect
obedience to that law? The first thing, you have to
know what it requires. I don't even know everything
the law requires, but the Lord Jesus Christ did. He had perfect
understanding of the law. It was in his heart to keep it,
to uphold it. You got to have a zeal to do
it. You got to have a will to do
it. And what did he say? My meat is to do the will of
him that sent me. That's my burning desire to do
what my father sent me to do. And he did it. He did it all.
And in John chapter 17 verse 4, he said, I have glorified
you in doing it. I have pleased you. I have satisfied
you well. And then, here is a righteousness
that's worthy of the name, the righteousness of God. It's a
divine righteousness. It's a spotless righteousness.
It's a righteousness that has already been accomplished. It's
a broad righteousness. It covers all God's demands and
covers all the needs of the sinner. And it's a righteousness that's
everlasting. Daniel said the Messiah shall
bring in an everlasting righteousness. It'll never be diminished. It'll
never be made void. The one who accomplished this
righteousness is now in heaven, and it's secure. Ain't that wonderful? That's the most wonderful thing
I can imagine. John Bunyan said, it's a marvelous
thing that I, a poor sinner upon this earth, have the righteousness
of a perfect man who is in heaven. I tell you, angels one time were
righteous, weren't they? There were some holy angels and
they sinned and lost everything. Our parents were holy and happy
there in the garden and sinned and lost everything and plunged
us all into misery. But here is a righteousness that
will never be lost, that will never be diminished because he
that performed it is there in heaven and it's secure. And that's
the righteousness that Paul here calls the righteousness of God. Why do we need it? Well, that's
a good question, isn't it? And he tells us here in the text
that I read to you, starting in verse 10 of our text in chapter
3, I love the way the Apostle Paul is led here of the Holy
Spirit. If we're talking about righteousness,
what's the first thing he's going to say about us? There's none
righteous. There's none righteous. You know,
really, there's no sense to go any further, is there? No sense
to talk about our goodness. No sense to talk about what we
do. Is it acceptable or is it not?
We're not righteous. If we're not righteous, that's
it. Nothing we do, nothing we think, nothing we can imagine.
That would be nothing but sinful. We're not righteous. We're not
good. There's no fear of God. Our feet
are swift to shed blood. We're just a miserable mass of
fallen humanity. That's why we need this righteousness. That's why God has provided it
for us. I thought it rather amusing one
day I was reading somebody and they said they felt like the
Apostle Paul had just gotten a bad mood and people was persecuting
him and finally he just let loose and said, you guys are unrighteous.
There's none of you good, no not one. This wasn't Paul's opinion
of humanity. This wasn't what he seen when
he looked upon humanity. You know there's a lot of people
Well, there's not a lot, but there's some that I know. And
you watch them in their daily life and they seem so kind. They
seem so generous. You don't see any of what we
call total depravity manifested in them. But you see, God don't
see as we see, does he? This is not Paul's opinion. This
is not our estimation of humanity. God looked down from heaven upon
the children of men to see if there were any righteous. This
is what God said in Psalms 14. There is none that understandeth.
There is none that doeth good. There's none righteous. We may
look upon somebody and say, boy, he's a pretty good fella. But
God looks upon the heart, doesn't He? And when God sees the heart,
He sees sin, He sees rebellion, He sees unbelief. The heart is
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. That word
means it's incurable. God don't even care it. He gives
a new one, doesn't He? He gives a new one. Why did God
provide this righteousness for us? We're in desperate need of
it, brothers and sisters. We're such sinful, hell-deserving,
hell-bound people. And if God had not provided us
a righteousness, hell would have been our eternal home. We need
this righteousness. I think it's safe to assume that
your neighbors and your friends and probably most of your family
knows nothing about what they are by nature. If people really knew what they
were by nature, if people looked in the Bible and saw how God
describes our fallen nature, our very hearts, the very center
of it, they would not rest so easy in their conscience. We are guilty before God. Isn't that the way he summed
this up in verse 19? Now we know that whatsoever things
the law saith, it saith to them we are under the law, that every
mouth may be stopped, and the world become guilty before God. That's why we've got to have
this righteousness that Paul calls the righteousness of God.
We are guilty. The law has condemned us. It
searches every deed we do and it says you're guilty. You've
not lived up to God's standard. You're guilty, you're guilty,
you're guilty. People don't even know that,
do they? I never knew it and you never knew it until God come
and opened our minds and showed us that we were guilty before
God. Luther, Martin Luther, I love him. He's one of my favorite
old preachers and writers. I love his epistle on the book
of Galatians. But that man lived, eat up with
guilt. He lived in a monastery. He would
go to confession and he would spend hours in confession. Six hours sometime in confession. He wore the poor father priest
out that he was confessing to. He confessed sins for six hours. He would get out of the little
confessional booth, and on his way back to his little room,
he'd think of a sin he forgot, and down he would go again. He'd
turn around, and they said, No, Martin, tomorrow. You can't confess
anymore today. And then, oh, the guilt would
eat him up again. He did everything he could do to alleviate his guilt. What
Martin Luther had a keen sense of was this law. You remember when that lawyer
came to the Lord Jesus and said, what's the great commandment
in the law? And he said, this is the first and great commandment
our Lord did. Love the Lord your God with all
your heart, with all your mind, and all your strength. And you
and I look at that and we say, nobody can do that. We sort of
brush it off, don't we? Martin Luther never could do
that. He said if Jesus Christ said this is the first and great
commandment and for a man not to do it, he's worthy of hell. He's worthy of guilt before God. He couldn't brush it off. And
the second is lacking to it. Love your neighbor as yourself.
Who do we love? We love ourselves. And that's
why Martin Luther said, we love ourselves. We cannot keep the
law. But he had nothing else to look
to but the law because he did not have the knowledge of the
Son of God. So he lived in utter despair
and guilt before God. That's why we need this righteousness
that's called the righteousness of God. Because we're sinful. We're guilty sinners before the
law of God. Here's my third point. Why can't
sinners like us establish a righteousness of our own that God will accept
us in? Why can't we do it? Well, verse
20 tells us, doesn't it? Therefore by the deeds of the
law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. Well,
by the law is the knowledge of sin. We can't meet the demands
of God's holy law. When we try, it just reveals
more sin. The more you try to keep it,
the more sin is revealed to you. Because the more good you try
to do to be accepted, the more sin you commit. I want you to
look in chapter 4, how the Apostle Paul said it here in chapter
4. And look down in verse 4. Now to him that worketh, is the
reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that
worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness. To him that worketh, for a man
who is working his way into God's presence, working to try to establish
a righteousness that God will accept us in, you're just getting
farther and farther in debt. Another day older and deeper
in debt, O'Erney used to sing, didn't he? Luther said those months, and
he included, he said we were so desperate that we would pull
off all of our clothes in the wintertime and sleep on a brick
floor. He said we fasted ourselves almost
to death. trying to alleviate this guilt,
trying to fulfill the law of God, trying to rid ourselves
of inherited sins. They sat on sharp sticks to cut
their backsides. And Luther said some of those
monks got so desperate because the more they did, the more guilty
they were in their conscience. And he said some of them committed
suicide. Some of them went stark raving mad. And here's the thing,
brothers and sisters, try our best, and the harder you try
to create a righteousness that God would accept you in, the
worse off you get. The more you pay, the more you
owe. To him that worketh is the reward
not reckoned of grace, but of death. And the Pharisees never
could understand that, could they? I fast twice a week. I pay tithes of all that I possess.
A man can do a lot of commandments of men. You can keep a lot of
traditions. But when it comes to what God
requires, we have to go to this holy law. Those two great commandments. Loving God with all your heart. all your soul, loving your neighbor
as yourself, on these two commandments, hang all the law and the prophet.
If we could keep one of those, if we could just keep one of
them, what about the other one? If
we could keep one of them, how long do you think we could keep
it? An hour, a minute, a second? We can't even do that, can we?
Why can't we create a righteousness that God will accept us in? The
law's too strict, it's too holy, and we're too fallen. We're too
sinful. You bring this holy law and you
bring a sinner's heart together and you've got wrath. You've
got guilt. And that's where we're at. That's
where we're at. We cannot establish a righteousness
that God will accept us in. Is there no way then for us to
be delivered, for us to be saved? Yeah, there's this righteousness.
There's this righteousness of God, the perfect obedience of
the Lord Jesus Christ. I was talking to my dad. I tell
the church this often. My dad was a Freeway Baptist
preacher. And I was talking to him one
day about Abraham believed God. And it
was imputed to him, it was counted to him for righteousness. And
he said, how do you get this righteousness? And I said, you've
got to believe on Christ for it. And he said, well, I believe
on Christ. I said, there's one more thing,
Dad. When you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you count
your own righteousness as done. And you know what my dad told
me? Never will forget what he told me. He said, Son, I could
never stand before God, I'd be afraid to, without something
of my own. How do we get this righteousness? It's not by working. How do we get it? It's not by
believing plus something we do. We get this righteousness by
believing in the Lord Jesus Christ I love how the Apostle Paul said
this in our text, in verse 20 or verse 21, but now the righteousness
of God without the law. Ain't that wonderful? The righteousness of God without
my obedience to the law. without me being obligated to
keep the law. There's a righteousness that
will justify me apart from whatever I am and whatever I do. It's
a righteousness that will justify me when I sit in that bench and
do nothing but believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our forefathers
used to call this a naked faith. They said the faith that lay
hold of Jesus Christ and His righteousness is a naked faith. That means you can't put anything
on it. It's a single faith that looks
to Jesus Christ alone to be made righteous. And that's the way
God gives us that righteousness. I was raised a pretty well Baptist.
And I know what free will Baptists believe. I've dealt with them
all my life and still deal with them on occasions. And sometimes I'll ask them a
question. Do you believe God is holy? Oh,
everybody believes God's holy. Oh, God's holy, God's just. Do
you believe you're a sinner? Well, they can't deny it. They
don't know what sinners they are, but they go, oh yeah, I'm
a sinner. Then you being a sinner and God being holy, how will
God accept you and remit your sins and justify you? And one
of the first things they'll say, well, I believe you have to believe
in Jesus Christ. But they don't stop there, brothers
and sisters. I believe you have to be a believer
in Jesus Christ and you need to be baptized. And you need
to come to church. And you need to be faithful.
But when we're talking about getting this righteousness of
Jesus Christ, we must do nothing. We must not lift a finger to
justify ourselves. We must sit still and believe
in Jesus Christ alone. Now our text tells us that, doesn't
it? Look what he said down in verse 28. Therefore we conclude
that a man is justified by faith, by trusting in Jesus Christ without
the deeds of the law, without my own obedience whatsoever. Boy, that just opens the door wide
open for salvation for any sinner, doesn't it? People accuse us,
you Calvinist, you just shut the door on people. We open the
door wide open. Look to Jesus Christ, look away
from yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ. There's a righteousness
that God will give you. One that he's satisfied with.
He will justify you. He will remit your sins. He'll
give you a perfect standing before God in the court of heaven. And you get it by trusting Christ,
by believing the Lord Jesus Christ. I love this, don't you? You can
preach it to saints, you can preach it to the lost, and the
saints love it. And when God breaks the sinner's
heart, they need it. And he made this statement here
in our text. He said, but now the righteousness
of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and
the prophets. I was listening to a rabbi, a
Jewish rabbi, and he calls Paul a renegade," he said, the Apostle
Paul. He reads Paul's epistles and
he says, listen to this Pauline doctrine. That's what he called
it. He said, this is Paul's doctrine, the righteousness of God. He
said, you never read about this righteousness anywhere else in
the Bible. It's just Paul. He was a renegade. He said Christ didn't call him.
Christ didn't send him. This is not Christ's doctrine.
You don't find this in the Old Testament or in the books of
Peter or James. He said this renegade man. That's
what he called him. This is Pauline doctrine. Paul
said no. This righteousness of God, everywhere
in the Old Testament, in the law, You find it in the law,
in the writings of Moses, and you find it in the prophets.
Look in chapter 10 right quickly, and I'll just keep you a few
more minutes. Look in chapter 10, and we see that here. Look in chapter 10 and look in
verse six. Look in verse five. Paul had
just said Christ is the end of the law for righteous and everyone
to believe it. In verse 5, For Moses describeth the righteousness
which is of the law, that that man which doeth those things
shall live in them. That was in Leviticus 18.5. This
is what Moses said, listen to it. Ye therefore shall keep my
statutes and my judgments, which if a man doeth, he shall live
by them. That's the righteousness which
is the law. Do, do, do. But who wrote verse 6 and verse
7? But the righteousness which is
of faith speaketh on this wise. Say not in your heart, who shall
ascend into heaven? That is to bring Christ down
from heaven. Or who shall descend into the deep? That is to bring
Christ again up from the deep. But what saith it, the word is
near you, even in your mouth and in your heart, that is the
word of faith which we preach. Who said that? Moses said that. In Deuteronomy chapter 30, he
said that. Moses bore witness of the righteousness
of God, which is in Jesus Christ the Lord. Did the prophets talk about it?
My goodness, they talked about it everywhere, didn't they? Abraham
believed God and it was counted to him, imputed to him for righteousness. Listen to what King David said
about the righteousness of Christ. Deliver me, O Lord, in thy righteousness,
and cause me to escape. I will make mention of thy righteousness,
even of thine only. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth righteousness without works. That's what David
said. And Jeremiah said this, this
is the name where he shall be called, the Lord our righteousness. You and I are poor sinners upon
this earth and we have the righteousness of a perfect man who is in heaven. I could not ask for any more
than that, could you? That's the most wonderful good
news I've ever heard in my life. And we turn to every word in
the Old Testament and the New Testament. And everybody that
wrote by the Holy Spirit is bearing witness to this righteousness.
It will deliver you. It'll save you. It'll justify
you. It'll wash you. It'll give you
perfect standing before God in heaven. And listen, it'll never
change. You'll never lose it. It's not
yours to begin with. I may not be the best gospel
preacher in the world, but you can't beat the gospel I preach.
I love it, don't you? You just sit and soak it up,
don't you? You folks are just soaking it up. Oh, you just get
in your heart. Sometimes you feel like Donny
Bell. You just want to jump and lay down and rest on the floor. Lastly, my two last points is
this. Why would God come up with such
a scheme to save sinners? And why would the Lord Jesus,
to His own hurt, work out such a righteousness for us? And it
comes down to this one word, doesn't it? It's found in God. The reason He provided it was
because of His righteousness. He tells us that in verse 23,
24, being justified freely, freely by His grace. It's all about grace, isn't it?
God don't have any debts to pay. He don't owe us. He's not obligated
to do anything in the way of saving us or even upholding us. He owes us nothing. He comes
to us graciously and in great love and opens our minds and
said, look what I've sent my Son to do for you. And He saves us by His grace. And one of the chief fruits of
all the things that we've been saying here tonight is found
down here in verse 27, chapter 3 in verse 27. I guess this is
why this world don't like this gospel. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Works? No, if it's by works,
we would boast. Nay, but by the law of faith.
Everything that saves us is outside of us. Everything that's been
done for us has been done by somebody else. We can't brag
at all, can we? We can't boast. There in heaven, all the saints
are around the throne and they take off their crowns and they
cast their crowns at the feet of the Lamb. Remember reading
that? Worthy is the Lamb, for you've redeemed us. We can't boast, brothers and
sisters. He's done it all for us, hasn't He? He chose us. You didn't choose me. I chose
you. He redeemed us at a great cost
to Himself. He called us. He's washed us.
He's justified us. He's clothed our shame. He's
did it all. Why wouldn't we take our crowns
off? They're His crowns. And we cast them back at His
feet and said, not unto us, Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name
give glory. You're worthy. Father, thank
you. Thank you for such a great privilege
to come here and meet with your dear children, your saints. and
worship with them, worship you, the living Christ, the living
Lord. Oh, thank you, our Father, for
letting us preach your gospel to your dear saints, to magnify
the name of our Savior, to humble flesh, to cast contempt upon
us, and to look out of ourselves and see your smiling face. What
a thrill to our soul. What confidence, what assurance,
what a good hope. Thank you for this, dear people.
Meet their needs. Oh, you're so wise, you're so
full of grace. Meet their needs according to
your riches in glory. For Christ's glory and for His
namesake, we pray. Amen. Brother Mark, thank you,
dear brother.