Now I want you to turn in your
Bibles, turn to the fifth chapter of Matthew. I'm going to read a verse in
just a few moments. I feel very strong about my subject
today. In fact, I planned, the Lord
willing, to not only preach it here this morning, but preach
tonight in Lexington at American Avenue Baptist Church, this same
subject, the righteousness of God, the righteousness of God. Now, there are two kinds of preaching
that are worthless. There are two kinds of preaching
that are worthless, absolutely worthless. And I've been exposed
to both kinds many times, and especially of
late. There's that preaching which
really says nothing, nothing, just entertains, entertains people. You get a real dose of this on
television, entertaining. They're all leaving the pulpit
now and walking up and down in front, carrying their Bibles
and going up the aisles. It's entertainment, but it really
says nothing, teaches nothing. lays no foundation. And then there's that preaching
which is so intellectual and so complicated, so utterly complicated,
that the people don't understand anything. They understand nothing.
When the preacher gets through, he's said a lot of things, you
know, intellectual, theologically correct, used some big words
and proved it by the Greek, but nobody knows anything, nobody
understands anything, and that's worthless. Now, I'm not here
to entertain and I'm not interested in filling in the time with high-sounding
religious talk and words of man's wisdom. Paul said, I'll not succumb
to enticing words of man's wisdom. I'm not going to use that. But I want very much to address
a subject, a subject, and that subject is the Lord our righteousness. And I pray and desperately, earnestly
pray that God will give me some wisdom that I might preach in
wisdom, that he'd give me some grace that I might exalt and
magnify his grace and give me some understanding of his righteousness
that I might teach you. I believe I can if you'll listen.
And I believe I can do it in simplicity. Now whether or not
a person receives it and believes it is another matter, but at
least I believe when I get through you will understand this subject
a little better perhaps than you have before. And the subject
is the righteousness of God. Oh, how important it is. He calls
his name the Lord our righteousness. That's his name, the Lord Our
Righteousness. One of the seven full names of
Jehovah is Jehovah Our Righteousness. Our Lord Jesus Christ set forth
four ultimatums. You're familiar with these, but
let me just touch them lightly. He said, except a man is born
again, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Now most of you have
some conception of what he's talking about there. He's talking
about regeneration. He's talking about a new life
and a new birth, a new nature. When I was born the first time,
I was born of natural parents, and I live physically. When I'm
born the second time, I'm born from above. I'm born of God,
born of the Word of God, born of the Spirit of God, and I live
spiritually. That gives me the life of God.
and an understanding of the things of God. See, all right. All right.
Secondly, our Lord said, except you repent, you'll perish. Except you repent. Now, most
of us, we may not be able to accurately define repentance,
but Barnard said one time, when you define something, you kill
it anyway. It's like love. Who can define love? But I think
some of us know something about it. Faith. Can you define faith? I can't really define it for
a person's satisfaction, but I believe God's given me the
joy of faith and the gift of faith in some of you. But repentance
is a change. It's a change in mind, it's a
change in attitude, it's a change in spirit toward God, toward
yourself, toward his word, toward everything, toward life, toward
things in general. It's a change. It's a change
of attitude and actions and spirit and nature, just change. I've
got a different attitude about this whole thing. I used to seek
pleasure, now I seek God. I used to seek my own honor,
now I seek his glory. You see what I'm saying? It's
a change, different. Our Lord said, thirdly, he said,
except you be converted, converted. Now, conversion is a word that's
used frequently, but here he says, except you be converted
and become as a little child. In other words, humbled before
God. Humbled. Brought down from arrogance
and pride. It's like I get a picture of
conversion when I see Paul riding on that, I imagine it was a white
stallion. And he being who he was, knowing
the high priest as a personal friend, and had letters and papers
to go to Damascus and put in prison, anybody who believed
the gospel, he was somebody. And he was riding high on that
horse, leading that whole army to go down and straighten out
these people that believed in Jesus Christ. And God unhorsed
him and put him on his nose in the dust. blinded in darkness,
staggering around there and couldn't see. Now that's conversion. And that's what I, we know conversion
being brought down on it. Come off your high horse, come
out of the clouds, come off your pride. We are nothing, have nothing,
know nothing, really. We're just playing games in this
world, you know. I listen to these fellas that
exchange ideas. They're so smart, you know. I've
listened to those Bork hearings, and everybody sounds so smart.
And they really don't know anything. If you don't know Christ, you
don't know anything. Christ is the wisdom of God. They're just
exchanging these ideas, you know, and everybody exalts them and
lifts them up on a plane. They're just men, ignorant, natural
men, that their memories will perish with them, and their ideas
too. We've got to come down, down,
down, down, down, down at the feet of Christ. become as children. Lord, I'm just a child, teach
me. Don't you love your teachers? We've got a lot of teachers in
here. Don't you love that age when they're just so eager to
learn? Don't you, when they're little children, when they sit
in front of you and ask you questions, and they don't know anything,
and they know they don't know anything, and they want to learn.
Well, that's what he said, except you be converted and become as
a little child. But now here's another one. I
want you to look at this one, Matthew 5.20. Listen to this.
Matthew 5.20. I say unto you, I say unto you that except your
righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees,
you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Now, this
is serious. We know a little bit about being
born again. at least mentally. We know what
it means to repent, at least mentally. We know what it means
to be come down, to shut up, to be stripped, to be broken,
to be converted. Well, what's this? What's this
he's talking about? And here the Master's addressing
the multitude here. He's addressing the multitude
in this statement. He's addressing the people. He's
addressing the Jews. These disciples were Jews, and
the people around them were Jews. And these Jews held their leaders
in high esteem. They held their leaders, their
religious leaders, and their religious laws and rules, they
held them in high esteem. And our Lord says to these disciples,
and to the people in general, unless your righteousness exceed,
and he turned and he said the scribes, Now these scribes were
held in high esteem by these people. The scribes. Who were
the scribes? They were scholars. They were scholars. They were
real scholars. They were employed in writing
out and expounding the scriptures and the law. They were men who
sat for hours and hours and hours and days and weeks and months
dip in the quill and the pen and writing the scriptures. These
were scholars of the scripture. They could answer any question
anybody had about the scriptures. And you can imagine these poor
fishermen and laborers and stonemasons and iron workers and men with
calloused hands and dirt under their fingernails and didn't
go past the second grade, you can imagine what high esteem,
in what high esteem they held these scribes, these men who
were up there in the temple, who sat at the feet of Gamaliel
and these other teachers and who translated and wrote the
scriptures, or rather expounded the scriptures. And then our
Lord turned to the Pharisees, and he said, Except your righteousness
succeed the Pharisees. And the Pharisees were the strictest
sect among the Jews for outward religion. These were the men
who wore the robes and the phylacteries. Much like the Pope, who recently
came to our country, and you saw how he was dressed. differently
from everybody else. He had on the religious garb.
He had all the different things that are supposed to have meaning
and significance. He had the cross. He wore the
coned hat. He was surrounded by all of this. And that was the Pharisees. These
men were the strictest sect among the Jews for outward religion,
for morality, for that gentle spirit, for that personal righteousness. They were the strictest. Our
Lord speaks to these common people and he says to them, now, accept
your righteousness. Exceed is far above, exceed,
far above these men whom you hold in such repute and esteem,
these scribes and these Pharisees. You won't enter the kingdom of
heaven. That's shocking, and it shocked the men. And he's simply saying this,
and I wish we could get it clear in our minds, there never has
been on this earth, never has been on this earth, never will
be on this earth, one son or daughter of Adam good enough,
holy enough, righteous enough to inhabit the kingdom of God.
Did you know that? I look over this congregation,
some of you I've known a long time, and I admire you, and I love you. And some of you
are like parents to me, and others brothers and sisters to me, and
some of you the dearest, closest friends I have in this world.
But I say unto you, there's not a single one of you going to
be in heaven or in the kingdom of God because you're good. You're
not going to be there. And there's nobody you've ever
known that's going to be there because they're good. Because
there's not now and never has been and never will be one person
on this earth Who is good, righteous, or holy? That's what the Bible
says. There's none good, no, not one. There's none righteous. There's none that understand
it. Every imagination of the hearts of men is evil continually. You know, I find in the Bible
the very best among men. Now, if you want to talk about
this a little bit, who would you say have been the best among
men? Well, Moses. Well, Isaiah. Well, Job. God said Job is an
upright man that hates evil. But Job himself said, I abhor
myself, I repent and sackcloth and ashes. Job said that. Isaiah
said himself, I'm undone, I'm cut off, I'm a man of unclean
lips. Job said that himself. What about Paul? Paul said, O
wretched man that I am. Every one of them bemoaned and
lamented their evil hearts and natures. And here we're talking
about how good we are. I believe we can get the word good
out of our vocabulary in reference to any human being. Now can you
do that in reference to any? Quit saying my good mother. I
love my mother. I preached my mother's funeral,
and I sat right here as her tabernacle or tent lay in a casket before
me. I said before this whole congregation,
what a fine mother she was, what a sacrificial mother she was,
but she's not good. She's a sinner who needs a Savior. Is that clear? And now my father
lay right here too, and I preached his funeral, and I said to this
congregation, the man worked as no other man I've ever known.
to feed his family during years of depression. Your daddies worked
that way. You love them, you appreciate
them, but they're not good. Can we get that out of our vocabulary?
They're not good. There's none good but God. None
good. None good. I wish we could, maybe
we could take a chisel and a hammer and work on these hearts and
heads of ours. Well, let me try to give you
what the Lord is saying here. So accept your goodness. Accept
your righteousness. Accept your holiness. Yours,
now yours and mine. Exceed the best son of Adam who
ever lived. We're not going to enter the
kingdom of God. So let me try to present this clearly. And
you take notes if you want to, but I have four points on this
message. Well, number one is righteousness
lost. Righteousness lost. And the second
one is righteousness required. Never has changed yet. And the
third one is a righteousness provided. A glorious, spotless, wonderful
righteousness provided and imputed. And then fourthly, a righteousness
that's imparted. not only imputed, but imparted. First, righteousness lost. Now,
turn to Romans 5. I'm going to make this so simple
and plain that these children are going to understand what
the preachers say. Righteousness lost. Now, in the fall, man lost
something. Our Lord referred to his sheep
as being lost. They lost something. God said
to Adam, in the day you eat, you'll die. You'll die. So he suffered, man suffered
a threefold loss when he sinned against God. The first loss was
this, he lost a righteous nature. You know, Adam, before he fell,
had a righteous nature? Yes, he did. He had a righteous
nature. He was made in the image of God.
Isn't that correct? God created man holy and upright. Isn't that what he said, Charlie?
Upright. Righteousness. And Adam had a
righteousness. He was holy. He walked with God. He talked with God. He stood
naked and knew no shame. He stood in the presence of God
and felt no guilt. And he knew perfect love and
perfect strength and perfect health and all those things.
And then, look here at Romans 5.12, "...wherefore, as by one
man sin entered the world, and death by sin, so death passed
upon all men for all sin." What happened to Adam? Turn to Romans 5.19. Look at this, "...for as by one
man's disobedience many were made sinners." Immediately when Adam fell, He
realized he was naked, and he knew shame. He's not holy
anymore. His righteous, holy nature is
gone. See, he was naked, and he felt
no shame. He's still naked, but now he
feels shame. So his righteous, holy nature
is gone, and he has an unholy nature only. He knew no guilt. He stood before God and didn't
run. Now he's running from God and
hiding. So he's lost his righteous nature. Is that clear what I'm
saying? Before, he had communion with God. Now he's blaming God
for his condition. He has hatred. He has hatred
for Eve. He's righteous. He's holy. He's
no longer righteous. That's what I'm simply saying.
See that, Ronnie? He's no longer righteous. He's no longer holy.
He has an unrighteousness. That righteous nature is gone.
He's everything he wasn't. He's the opposite now of what
he was. He lost that. Secondly, he lost this. He lost
a legal righteousness in the sight of God. For God put him
out of the garden. God separated Adam from himself. He's no longer welcome in the
presence of God. Why? He has no obedience. He
has no legal righteousness. And in the flesh, no man can
please God. Adam couldn't please God in that.
Before he fell, Adam pleased God, but not in there. Turn to
1 Timothy. Let me show you something. 1
Timothy 6. 1 Timothy 6. Now, this is so important. This is the heart of our gospel.
1 Timothy 6. Now, watch this. Verse 15. 1
Timothy 6.15. Which in his times he shall show. Jesus Christ in his time shall
show who is the blessed and only potentate, the King of kings
and Lord of lords, who only hath immortality, dwelling in the
light, the light of holiness, the light of purity, the light
of truth, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto.
Why? Because man has no standing before
God. He has no righteousness before
God. He has no welcome to the presence of God. He's out. Did
you know that? Out. He's out. He can't come to God, whom no
man had seen. He can't see God. He can't know
God, nor can see, because he has no righteousness, to whom
be honor and power everlasting. You see, I'm going to show you
this in a few moments, but God is so infinitely beyond and above
what we think he is, it will be startling to us now when we
find this out, in his holiness. The seraphims of heaven even
cover their eyes and their feet in God's presence. So Adam lost the righteous nature.
His nature is to do evil. His nature is to hate. His nature
is guilt. His nature is shame. His nature
is lies. All men are liars. They're liars
by nature. They may tell the truth once
in a while, but basically they're liars. They may think a good
thought once in a while, but basically their thoughts are
evil continually. That's us. We're that way. We've
lost that righteous nature. And then we're put out of God's
presence. God can't have any dealings with or doings with
people who are unrighteous, who have no legal righteousness.
God put Adam out, out of the garden, out of his place. Your
sins have separated you and your God. Well, here's the third loss
that he had, and this is as tragic as the other two. Adam lost his
understanding of righteousness. He lost his understanding of
righteousness because ever since he fell, he thinks he has a righteousness. Now, get a hold of this. When
man had a righteousness, he never gloried in it. Ever since he
lost it, he's pretended to have one. That's exactly right. Adam had a righteousness and
never gloried in it. He never had anything to say
about it. He gloried in God. But when he lost his righteousness,
he began to make him one out of a fig leaf. Turn to Romans
10. Let me show you this. If you
can get hold of these three things, it will prepare you for the rest
of what I'm going to say. Romans 10. In Romans 10.1, Brethren, my
heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might
be saved. Truly, no God. I bear them record,
they have a zeal of God, but it's not according to knowledge,
for they are ignorant of God's righteousness. Man not only lost
righteousness, he not only was separated from God, lost legal
righteousness, but he doesn't have the faintest knowledge or
understanding of what righteousness is. He doesn't know what it is.
A lot of people think it's wearing certain black clothing down to
here, you know, and clothing and certain things on your head,
and they make it an outward thing. Then other people think it's
abstaining from certain things you drink, whether you drink
it out of a glass or a cup or a mug, or whether certain places
you go, certain people you're with, or certain magazines you
read, or certain days on which you do it even. They don't want
righteousness, they call it holiness. They call it holiness. They don't
know what holiness is. Man is totally ignorant of what
holiness is. Did you know that? The two-fold condemnation of
natural men is this, they have no righteousness and they think
they do. Now that's a sad shape to be
in. Somebody said it's real bad to have cancer, but to have cancer
and not know it is worse. It's real bad to have heart disease.
disease, but it's worse to have it and not know it. And this
is the shape men are in. And that's the righteousness
lost. I hope you understand what I'm saying. Adam lost his righteous
nature. His nature. He's incapable of
thinking holy thoughts. Incapable. And that's us. He
lost his his standing in the presence of God, his legal righteousness,
acceptance. We've been kicked out. We've
been disowned, did you know that? We've been disinherited, the
whole human race. And we're out there in darkness
and we're calling it life. We're out there with no communication
with God, with no knowledge of God, with no understanding of
God, and all these TV preachers and Prophet preachers are talking
about how much God loves us and how much we love God, and it
ain't so. We've been separated from God.
We've got a God, but he's not the living God. We've got a form
of worship, but it's not the worship of the living God now.
It's not a relationship with the living God. And we're going
to find that out at the judgment when we hear him say, I never
knew you. I never knew you. Yeah, wait
a minute, but we know you. But I never knew you. The God
you worship is not my name. We lost something, all right?
Now, here's the second thing. Righteousness required. Holiness
required. A man's definition of holiness,
his definition of righteousness, depends entirely on his understanding
of God. Did you know that? Did you hear
that, Charlie? When these fellows that say holiness,
well, the Amish people, bless their hearts, that they wear
all this black and they won't drive in buggies and they won't
turn the clock back 200 years and call it holiness, that's
born of their image and thought of God. They think their God
is satisfied with this kind of holiness. And the poor holiness
people of this town in Pentecostalism, Church of God, and these things,
they think holiness consists in abstaining from certain meats
or drinks or days or duties or responsibilities or laws. That's
born of their idea of God. That's where they got it. They're
God-like themselves. The problem with our generation
is they've never known God. They've never had God preached
to them. They've never had God introduced to them. They've never
had God defined. They've never had God Almighty
presented to them in his utter, absolute, infinite holiness of
nature, spirit. You see what I'm saying? Isaiah said, I saw the Lord high
and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. And the cherubims
and seraphims cried, Holy, holy, holy. Holy in thought. Holy in
love. Holy in purpose. Holy in nature. Holy in truth. Holy is the Lord. Holy Spirit. His very Spirit is called the
Holy Spirit. Job said, I saw the Lord, and
I put my hand over my mouth. I said, I've heard of you now,
and I seeth thee, wherefore I hate myself. You know, only God can
please God. Only God can please God. In the
flesh, no man can please God. And we've been riding through
our lives thinking because we haven't committed the grosser
sins and we haven't been connected with the most evil people and
we've always gone to church and paid our tithe and served our
time and taught our class and read our daily Bible readings
and bought our This, that, and the other, that God's well pleased.
God's never been pleased with anything you've said, thought,
or done, or given. Never. Only God can please God. This is my beloved Son in whom
I'm well pleased. When we've done everything we're
called upon to do, we're unprofitable serpents. Did you know that?
And what's given birth to this whole twisted conception of holiness
is a twisted conception of God. Did you know that? I tell you, if a man can get
a right notion of who God is, the holy throne on which God
sits, the nature of God, the nature of His Holy Spirit, what
holiness is, who holiness is. Holiness is God. We'll get an
understanding of what sin is. It'll put you in the dust. Woe
is me, I'm cut off. And that means the man that's
climbed the highest in religion, claims to know the most in religion,
has conferred upon him the highest honors of religion, and has the
most religious gifts and talents, that man can cry, woe is me,
I'm cut off. and so can those under him. Turn
to Galatians 3 and listen to this. Galatians 3, verse 10.
I tell you what God says, to be accepted it must be perfect.
That's the reason I say, Mike, only God can please God. Galatians 3, verse 10, as many
as are of the works of the law are under the curse, for it is
written, curses. God cursed, damned by God, that's
exactly what this is saying, cursed of God, is everyone, everyone,
everyone, everyone, that continueth not, always, ever and always,
past, present, and future, that continueth not in all things,
not his favorite, but all things that are written in the book
of the law, to think well of them, no, sir, to do them. That
puts us in bad shape, doesn't it? What does God require? God requires
God's own nature. God requires God's own holiness. God requires God's own perfection. And I'm so far from that, it's
astounding. It takes my breath away. It really does. It just absolutely
takes my breath. And it makes all of our religious
pretense and professions and claims to be less than nothing. Thank God, here's good news.
There's a righteousness provided. Turn to Romans 3. Well, preacher,
where are we going to get this righteousness? Where are we going
to get this holiness? Where are we going to get this
perfection? Where are we going to get this nature restored,
this legal righteousness restored, this understanding restored?
Where are we going to get this holiness that will bring us into
the presence of God? Where are we going to get it?
Here we are, Romans 3, verse 19. Now we know that what things
serve of the law sayeth God's word. It saith to them who are
under the law, that every mouth may be stopped." Every mouth,
that's mine, that's yours. Every mouth. Let every mouth
be stopped. Come on now. I mean plumb stopped. But no, no sir, stop. And all this world become guilty. Guilty. You know what that is
in my Bible? Center reference, subject to
the judgment of God. I mean the condemnation of our
holy God. Cast out. God wouldn't send me
to hell. You just wait and see. Subject to the judgment of God.
Guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the
law, by the works of religion, there shall no flesh, no flesh,
male or female, Jew or Gentile, young or old, white or black,
no flesh justified in his sight. For by the law is the knowledge
of sin, a revelation of sin. But now, right now, 1987, the
righteousness of God, the holiness of God, this God-perfectness,
God-perfection is manifest without the law, without my obedience
to the law. Don't give me something to do
to be holy because everything I do puts me deeper in the hole. It doesn't do me any good to
stand still. It doesn't do me any good to move. It doesn't do me
any good to sleep or be awake. I keep getting deeper into it.
Deeper into it. Deeper into it. Don't give me
something to do. Don't call me down an aisle.
Don't let me go into the water. I'll just make a fool of myself
before God. Don't give me something to do.
Don't preach tithing to me. It won't save my... It just makes
me a self-righteous hypocrite before God. Give me something
to do, I can't do anything. But the righteousness, the holiness
of God, without the duties, without the deeds, without the law, without
the profession, without the doings, is manifested and it's witnessed
back here. It has, let every word be established
by two or three witnesses, it's witnessed back here. It's even,
it is even the holiness of God Himself. Which is by the faithfulness
of Jesus Christ. It's by the act of another. It's
by the life of another. It's by the obedience of another.
It's by the holiness of another. It's by the death of another.
Not me at all. It's all done outside of me.
For me. On behalf of me. In my stead. That's what he says. And it's
upon all that believe I can do that. I can't work, but I can look.
I can't labor, but I can live. There's no difference. For all
is sin can come short of the glory of God, but being freely
justified by His grace through the redemption that's in Christ
Jesus. You know what Christ did? He took my sins and paid for
them that I might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
He paid my sin debt. Secondly, it's not enough for
a man to be pardoned. He's got to keep the law. Did
you know that? He's got to keep the law. In other words, if Adam,
when he sinned, if he could have paid the debt, he still couldn't
have stayed in God's presence because he's got to continually
keep the law, and he couldn't do it. He lost his ability. Jesus
Christ did have the ability, and he kept the law. By his righteousness
and by his obedience, Christ Jesus made me acceptable to God. And then not only that, turn
to Romans 4. He has imputed, he has, you know, all this he
did by himself before God. His obedience as a man in the
flesh, his death on the cross, he took every bit of it and charged
it to my account. He imputed it to me. And the
father looks on Christ and his obedience, and he sees it, believe
it or not, as my obedience and as my death. You see that? That's
exactly what the gospel says. That's what this says in Romans
4 about Abraham. Now watch it. Verse 3, Romans
4. What says the scripture? Abraham
believed God, and it was counted to him. It was charged to him,
reckoned to him, imputed to him for holiness. holiness, perfect
holiness, without which no man will see the Lord. No man is
welcome into God's presence. Read on, read verse 5. But to him that worketh not,
but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted
for righteousness, holiness. Look at verse 6. Even as David
also described the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputed,
imputeth, charges, reckons, righteousness without work. Look at verse 20,
verse 21. And being fully persuaded of
what God had promised he was able to perform, therefore it
was imputed to him for righteousness, holiness, God's holiness. Now,
that was not written for Abraham's sake alone, that this righteousness
was imputed to him, but for us also to whom this righteousness,
acceptance, holiness shall be imputed if we believe on him
that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead. holiness, God's
holiness. Richard, you talk about God,
yeah, in Christ. I know God in Christ, you do.
You believe you have fellowship with God in Christ, in His righteousness
and holiness, not in myself. I've never prayed a prayer that
God could accept without Christ. They've all been shot full of
sin, did you know that? I've never done a deed, not one
single deed, that wouldn't have sent my soul to hell. in and
of itself without Christ. That's right. He is our righteousness. He is our righteousness. I'm
not ashamed of the gospel. It's the power of God unto salvation
to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first, also to the Greek,
for therein is the righteousness, the holiness of God revealed
from faith to faith, from one degree of faith to the other.
I'm telling you the truth. And when Adam, representing the
whole human race, when he failed, He lost a righteous nature. In
Christ, we have it restored. In Adam, Adam lost the legal
righteousness that let him stay in God's presence. He got kicked
out. In Christ, we're accepted in
the Beloved. And God can love you, embrace
you, bless you, commune with you in Christ. Because you have
a perfect holiness. And in Christ we have restored.
Adam didn't. In the fall, men don't know what
righteousness is. Some of us do. You know why we
know? Because we've seen Christ. Face
to face, we've seen the glory of God in the face of Christ
Jesus. I know holiness is not in doing and deeds and clothes
and drinks and meat and feast days and Sabbath days. It's in
attitude and spirit in Christ. which makes these things that
you do acceptable. But fourthly, there's a righteousness
imparted. Now turn to 1 Peter 3, and I'll
quit. 1 Peter 3. And I want to sound
this loud and clear. 1 Peter 3, verse 10. Listen. 1 Peter 3, 10. For he that will love life, and
see good days, Let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his
lips that speak no guile. Let him shun, that word is shun,
evil and do good. Let him seek peace and follow
it, for the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous. That's
what he calls us now, the righteous. Did you know that? We're righteous. You say, I am in Christ. Yes,
sir, and also you are righteous if you know Christ. No, I'm not
saying you're perfect, far from it. I'm not saying you're without
sin, far from it. I'm not saying that anything
you do is acceptable to God except in Christ. But I do know this,
if a man's in Christ, he's a new creature. Now, he's got a new
direction. And I'll tell you this, he's
an honest man as far as he's able to be. He's a truthful man,
you can bank on his words, he'll tell you the truth. He'll deal
honestly and truthfully. He minds the things of God. He's
a new creature. He minds. The things of God are
his interest. That's his interest. They that
mind the things of the flesh are not of God, but they that
are of God mind the things of the spirit. What do you mean,
mind those things? They're interested, vitally interested and involved
in the things of God. Yes, they are. They love Christ. They love each other. Any man
loves not, he knows not God. Love is righteousness, isn't
it? Believers identify with the things of God. Believers hate
sin. They long to be like Christ.
Believers are generous and kind and humble and merciful, and
they grow in those things. They have a righteousness imputed. Yes, sir, perfect holiness, perfect
standing, only in and of and by Christ. But I'll tell you
this, it's not a dare-die doctrine, it's a living experience. And
God imputes to them a change in attitude, actions, and aim. Did you know that? And they stay
in that path, too. They stay in that path by the
grace of God. Do you understand a little better God's holiness?
God is my righteousness in Christ. I want all of you to hear what
we heard Wednesday night. Mike, if you'll go to the piano,
and Bridget's going to Use that microphone over there and sing,
My Faith Looks Up to Thee. And that'll be our closing prayer
and our benediction. My faith looks up to thee.