I want you to turn with me in
your Bibles to the Old Testament, to the book of Jeremiah, who
was called the weeping prophet. The 23rd chapter of Jeremiah,
I'm going to read verse 6. Now, Paul said one time, to preach
the same things to you, to me, is not grievous. It's no great
burden to bear. I'm glad to do it, he said, and
it's profitable for you. And the message which I'm going
to bring from this scripture this morning will perhaps be,
and I say this quite confidently, regardless of whether I preach
it with liberty or no liberty, but the things I'm going to say
are vital, essential, and most important in your life. It'll
be, I believe, the most important message you'll ever hear. I hope
you'll listen to it. Now that's confidence, isn't
it? But I believe that. I'm speaking this morning on
this subject, the Lord, our righteousness. I could have no greater thing.
I could have no more vital thing. The Lord, our righteousness. Now listen to Jeremiah 23, 6.
In his day, Judah shall be saved. Now that's good news. Judah shall
be saved. That's what I want. Do you? And
shall dwell safely, and shall dwell safely under the hand of
God, under the blessings of God, and this is his name whereby
he shall be called, the Lord our righteousness." The Lord
our righteousness. Now, when we review, and this
is where we must start, we've got to start where sin started.
If we're going to deal with sin, we've got to define it. If we're
going to preach about sin, we're going to have to go back and
define it, where it started. Now, when we review the fall
of man, the first sin in the Garden of Eden. We discover how
great was that sin and how great was that fall and how infinite
our loss. Man lost everything in the Garden.
He lost everything. Starting with his flesh, he became
a corrupt, dying creature as a result of that fall, once strong,
now weak, once healthy, now sick, once always living, now always
dying. Pain, sorrow, sickness, old age,
death, it's appointed unto men, wants to die. All of this is
a result of that fall. How infinite, how great was our
loss. And then man lost happiness.
That's right, he lost happiness. He became a creature of fear. He became a creature of shame.
He didn't know anything about fear and shame before he fell. He didn't know anything about
hate. He didn't know anything about greed. Men can't live alone
and they can't live together. Did you know that? People are
so corrupt. We are so corrupt. We can't live
alone. We don't want to live alone,
but we can't live together in peace. Everybody's talking about
peace, but they're talking about it on a grand international scale. But we're not going to know anything
about peace on a grand international scale until we know something
about personal peace. That's where it all starts. I
hear these fellows talking about, why can't these nations get along?
Well, the same fellows that are talking about it are not getting
along in their homes. They're not getting along on
their jobs. They're not getting along in their social clubs.
They can't even play a game of golf without fighting with each
other. The reason nations can't have peace is because individuals
have no peace. We became unhappy creatures.
We became creatures of fear and shame and hate and greed and
all these obnoxious things as a result of that fall. And not
only that, but man lost fellowship with God. He was cast out of
God's presence. His sins separated him and God.
That's what the scripture says. Your sins have separated you
and God. Our Lord Jesus Christ came down
to this earth and they didn't know him. He was in the world
and the world knew him not. He came into his own, his own
received him not. He was despised and rejected
of men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, a nail to a cross,
the very one who made this earth. They didn't know him. He said,
you don't know me or my father. But now here's the whole problem.
I've talked about these different problems, the corruption of the
flesh, and the death of the flesh, and unhappiness, and lack of
peace, and lost fellowship with God. But underlying the whole
thing, here's the underlying problem of the whole matter.
And the sobering truth is this, that in man's fall, he lost his
righteous nature. That's what he lost. He lost
his holy, righteous nature. The Bible says when God created
Adam, He created Adam righteous. That means without sin. That
means without flaw. That means without fault. That
means without death. That means without one taint
of sin. He made man perfect. But as a
result of that fault, man lost that holiness. He lost that nature
of righteousness. He became a sinner. He became
a transgressor. He became ungodly. He became
a rebel against God. That's what happened in the garden.
Man lost his holy nature. Now, I know we like to talk about
the goodness of the creature. Preachers like to talk about
man's dignity and man's goodness. All of us do. We like to extol
our virtues. We do not want to admit the truth
of depravity. Very few people will admit the
truth of depravity. But let me tell you this. In
the sight of God, the scripture says, we all fade as the leaf. In the sight of God, the Scripture
says, we are all as an unclean thing. In the sight of God, the
Scripture says, there is none good, no, not one. That's what
God's Word says. The Scriptures declare that from
the sole of our feet to the top of our heads, there is no soundness,
that we're corruption, and that we lost our righteousness. We
lost our holiness. Now, Adam had it. Adam had a
perfect holiness, and consequently, he had access to God. God spoke
with him. God walked with him. God talked
with him. God fellowshiped with him. But
when he became a sinner, when he was filled with this nature
of evil, to whatever degree, but when he had sinned, God could
no longer fellowship with him. His sins separated Him from God.
You see, when our Lord died on the cross and bore our sins in
His body on the tree, the Father turned His back away from His
Son because His Son was made sin. Now that's what happened
in the fall. You take all these other things,
you know, and sum them up, and all the underlying root of the
whole thing is man lost his holy nature. Man lost his righteous
nature. He became a sinner. Listen to
what the Bible says, Genesis 6, 5. And God saw that the wickedness,
of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was evil continually." Now, we're
not comparing man with man. When we do that, we miss the
whole picture. We're comparing man with God.
You see, when God made man, he made him in his image, not in
the image of another creature, not in the image of an angel.
He made him in his And he made him holy and upright in his image,
in his sight. When man fell, he lost God's
image. He lost God's fellowship. He
became a sinner in God's sight. Now that's the only comparison
you can use. He can fellowship with each other
if he can stop fighting long enough. He can fellowship with
animals if he can keep them from eating him. But he can't fellowship
with God because he's lost his holy nature. And God is holy.
God is holy. God is holy. Listen to the scriptures,
Romans 3, 9. We've proved, Paul said, we've
proved that both Jew and Gentile, they're all under sin. There's
none righteous. No, not one. There's none that
understandeth. No, not one. There's none good. No, not one. There's none that
seeketh after God. Listen to Isaiah 1. The whole
head is sick. The whole heart is faint. Listen
to Ecclesiastes 7 and 29, the wise man Solomon said, Lo, this
have I found. You and I better find it out
too so we can have something done about it. This have I found
that God made man righteous. That's what upright means, righteous.
But men sought out many inventions. So here's my summary. We have
no righteousness, no holiness, no beauty in God's sight. Our Lord said, you are they which
justify yourselves in the sight of men. We are busy doing that. We want to build up our reputation
and build up our character and build up the opinion of men,
human opinion, but in God's sight. We justify ourselves among men,
but God looks on your heart. That's what he said. And that
which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination to God.
We have no righteousness. No righteousness. To offend in
one point of the law is to be guilty of the whole law. We may
stand in defense of ourselves and say, I've never done this,
never done that, never done something else, but wait a minute, have
you done this? Well, yes, to a degree. To offend in one point
of the law is to be guilty of the whole law. How many crimes
does a man have to commit to be a criminal? Just one. How
many sins does a man have to commit to be a sinner? Just one.
You see, it will depend on one point of the law. Then thirdly,
what we call righteousness. Now here's something, hold on
to your chair a minute. What we call righteousness, what your
preacher calls righteousness, what your church calls righteousness,
and what do they call righteousness? Giving, witnessing, singing,
singing in the choir, teaching Sunday school, besting, soul
winning, this is all righteousness. Our righteousnesses are filthy
rags in God's sight. I'm talking about in God's sight.
Filthy rags. You take all of my good works
and your works combined, and in the sight of God, they're
filthy claws, dirty rags. That's right. Before the law,
before God's holy law, we stand, my friends, condemned. What the
law saith, it saith to everyone under the law that Every mouth
may be stopped and all, you see these terms, every mouth, all
the world become guilty, guilty, guilty. There's no other plea,
guilty. It rises from every nation, guilty.
It rises from every tribe, guilty. It rises from every home, guilty.
It rises from every individual, guilty, guilty in God's sight. Now man, men have changed. We've
changed. We were created righteous, but
we've changed. We're unrighteous now. Unrighteous. Guilty before God. But God hasn't
changed. Now here's our problem. You see
where I'm going? God hasn't changed. What God has required, God still
requires. What God demands, God still demands. What God Almighty commands, He
still commands. He hasn't changed. There was
a time when we walked with Him, but no more. There was a time
when we fellowshiped with Him, but no more. There was a time
when we had accord with Him, but no more. There was a time
when we were accepted, but no more. He hasn't changed. He's
still the same. We've changed. And what does
the Lord thy God require of thee? That ought to be interesting.
Well, He requires the same thing He always has required. And it's
in Deuteronomy 10, 12. He requires of thee to fear the
Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways. All, not those that
please you, or the best you can, all his way, to love the Lord
thy God. And Christ said, with all your
heart, mind, soul, and strength. And fourthly, to serve the Lord
thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul. This hasn't
changed. This hasn't changed. God requires
perfection. He always has. He does now. He always will. Perfection of
heart. perfection of mind, perfection
of word, and perfection of deed. What God required of Adam and
what he got out of Adam before the fall, perfection is what
he requires of you. That's just so. There's no argument
connected with it because God hasn't changed. He can't change.
He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. He said, I am God,
I change not. I change not. So the scripture
says this, cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things
written in the law to do them. It's actually required of you
and me that we walk before God from the day we breathe, our
first breath, to the day we close our eyes in death. It's required
that we walk before God in word, thought, and deed in absolute,
unchangeable, infinite perfection. God cannot require anything else.
He can't be satisfied with anything else. A man must have a perfect
righteousness or God can't receive him. God can't have fellowship
with him. God can't even hear him when
he prays. God cannot look upon him. God is holy. God is holy. Psalm 24 says this. Now listen
to it. I'm being totally honest with
you. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? That's our
ambition, isn't it? All right. Who shall stand in
his holy place? That's our desire. I tell you,
the answer comes ringing loud and clear. He that hath clean
hands, and a pure heart." That's what it says. "...who hath never
lifted up his soul to vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. That man
shall receive blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from
the God of his salvation." So my friends, like the lawyer of
old, my case is clear. I have presented it, I think,
clearly from the Scripture. God is holy. Do you have any
doubt about it? Read Isaiah chapter 6. Holy,
holy, holy, Lord God of hosts. God is holy. He has not changed. He will not change. He cannot
change. Man has changed. Man is unholy. He's unholy from
the sole of his feet to the top of his head. Man at his best
state is altogether vanity. There's no good thing dwelling
in my flesh. In my flesh, I cannot please
God. I am unholy to the core, from inside out and from outside
in, from top to bottom. My whole head is sick, my whole
heart is faint, in God's sight. I may be just as moral as you,
but I'm not as moral as God. I may be just as righteous as
you, but I'm not as righteous as God. I've sinned and come
short of the righteousness of God, and I can't change it. It's
beyond my power to change. Can the Ethiopian change his
skin? The same prophet asked. Can the leopard change his spot? Neither can you do good that
are born to do evil. That's so. God requires a holiness
equal to his. You can't question that. He has
to and be God. He can't lessen his requirements.
He cannot lessen his demands and be just and holy. He can't
do it. He requires a righteousness without flaw. Christ said that.
He looked at his disciples one day and he said this to them.
He said, you see those religious Pharisees, the best men of your
day, outwardly speaking, if your righteousness does not exceed
theirs, those men who fast twice a week, give alms and tithes
of all they possess, who before the law, the written law, are
blameless, who serve about the temple, who've given their lives
to the service of the temple, the service of God. If your righteousness,
your holiness does not exceed theirs, exceed theirs, you won't
even enter the kingdom of God. It's got to exceed theirs infinitely
because it's got to be equal with God. What I'm saying is
before we can approach God, before we can be received of God, before
we can have fellowship with God or be sons of God or walk with
God, we've got to have what we don't have. We've got to have
what we can't produce. We've got to have what no man
can give us. No church can confer it upon you. No water can put
it upon you. No deeds can do it. Where is this righteousness
found, this holiness, this holiness without which no man will see
the Lord, this righteousness that God Almighty must have?
Well, let me point out first of all where it's not found.
It's clear that it's not found in us. Surely, surely. Surely there's no one out there
listening to me so deceived as to think that you're without
sin. There's nobody out there. Is there someone out there that
believes you're without sin? Listen to 1 John 1.8. If we say
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth not in us. Now,
you wouldn't fly in the face of that scripture, would you?
Well, what about the 10th verse? If we say we have not sin, we
make God a liar. Now, you wouldn't handle that,
would you? So we are sinners. In my flesh dwelleth no good
thing, Paul says. The thought of foolishness is
sin. Anything short of perfect righteousness, even in thought,
is sin. So it's not found in us. This
righteousness, I've got to have it, I want it, I must have it
if I approach God. Well, it's not found in me. And
it's not found in the law. I'll just give you one verse
to convince you that this righteousness cannot be found in the law. It
says, if righteousness comes by the law, Christ died in vain. Christ died in vain. You wouldn't
look for it there, would you? You wouldn't make the death of
Christ of no effect, would you? You wouldn't say he wasted his
time when he came down here and died on that cross, would you?
You wouldn't say that that was a foolish enterprise, would you?
Well, you're doing that when you try to find righteousness
in the law. Well, you don't find it in your works. Listen to the
Bible. No man, no man is justified before
God in the sight of God by the deeds of the law. No man. It's
not by works of righteousness which we've done, but according
to his mercy. When we've done all that we can do, or even are
commanded to do, we're still unprofitable servants. Augustus
Toplady wrote, in my hands, no price I bring, sent through the
cross of Christ I cling. Could my tears forever flow?
Could my zeal no longer know? These for sin could never atone.
Christ must save and Christ alone. You, you who would live under
the law, you who would seek righteousness in the law, you who would seek
holiness by the law, Paul says, do you know what the law says?
Do you have the faintest notion of what this law requires? Just
read part of it sometime. And if the Holy Spirit gives
you any insight whatsoever into the holy law of God, you'll throw
up your hands weeping before God and you'll cry for deliverance
from that bondage. Now listen to me. God requires
what he must require. Holiness. God requires what he
must require. Righteousness. God requires what
I do not have. Holiness. God requires what I
cannot produce. Perfection. God requires what
I cannot find. either in religion, or law, or
works, or ceremony, or ritual, or circumcision, or baptism,
or sacraments, or in the sprinkled water from a man's hand. He requires
what he must require, perfect holiness, perfect righteousness,
without which no man will see the Lord. I'm not talking about
you giving up a few sins and holding on to some more. I'm
not talking about you quitting a few bad habits and joining
the church. I'm talking about a perfect holiness. Your heart,
snow white in God's sight. Your hands, pure and clean as
the hands of the Son of God. Your mind and your soul without
one stain of sin. If you're going to stand before
God, it's got to be. It's got to be. Where is it found? All right? It is found only in
one place. It's found in God's own Son,
Jesus Christ the Lord. That's where it's found. That's
plain and simple. That's where it's found. Christ
is our righteousness. That's what my text says. is
our righteousness. The Lord is my holiness. The
Lord is my perfection. That's what I'm talking about.
That's where it's found. That's where it's found. I turn to Romans
3. I'm going to show you the gospel this morning, the gospel
of God's righteousness and holiness as clear as I can show it to
you. If you can't see it here, at least with the mind, then
you can't see it. These words are clear and plain
in Romans 3, 19. It says this, what the law said, It says to
everybody under the law that every mouth may be stopped. Let's
put a hand on our mouths and not say anything. No more alibis,
excuses, or self-justification. Let her go. That every mouth
be stopped and all the world become guilty, guilty, condemned
before God. That's where we are. We are,
whether we admit it or not, condemned, guilty. The next verse says,
therefore, because that's true, because our mouths are shut and
we're guilty before God, by the deeds of the law, by your own
works and efforts, no flesh, No flesh shall be justified or
righteous before God. And that's where we've got to
do business, before God. Now, you can go down to the front
of the church and deceive everybody in the whole crowd, you know,
make them think how holy you are, but before God is where
we're talking about now. But verse 21 says, but now, but
now, right now, there is a righteousness provided. There is a righteousness
of God. There is a holiness. It's available. without the law. What does that
mean? That means without your obedience
and my obedience because I've already shown you from the scripture
that we can't in the flesh perfectly keep God's law. There's a righteousness
without the law available and it's manifested in the scriptures,
it's revealed in the scriptures, it's taught in the scriptures,
it's preached in the scriptures. Where is it? Verse 22, it's the
righteousness of God which is accomplished by Jesus Christ
in his obedient life and death and is ours by faith in him.
That's where it is, in Jesus Christ. That's where it is. God's
Son, God's perfect, immaculate, infinite Son came into this world,
born of a woman, made of a woman. He who made woman was made of
woman. He became flesh, made under the law, subject to his
own law, that he might redeem us who were born under the law.
You see, by the disobedience of Adam, we were made sinners.
By the obedience of Christ, we were made again righteous, righteous. This is a faithful saying, Christ
Jesus came into the world for the sole purpose to save sinners
of whom I am chief. And as a human being, as a man,
born of a woman with flesh and blood, tempted in all points
as I am, yet without sin, he knew no sin, he had no sin, he
was holy, he was perfectly holy in God's sight. Men hated him,
God loved him. Men despised him, God received
him. Men rejected him, God Almighty honored him and exalted him and
gave him a name above every name. He loved God with all his heart. He loved God. He loved his neighbor
as himself. He knew no sin. He obeyed every
jot and tittle of every law perfectly without staining. That's right.
He did as a man in the flesh. And my friends, the life of Christ
constitutes that righteousness which his people need, which
God the Father requires, and wherein we stand. We're clothed
in his righteousness, we're received in his righteousness, we're accepted
in his righteousness. Now I know some people are pretty
clear on the death of Christ. They talk about the death of
Christ and the blood of Christ and the merits of his death,
but they do not understand the merits of his life. They do not
understand the merits of his human life, the human life of
Christ. He said when he went down into the baptismal waters,
I do it to fulfill all righteousness. He said I didn't come to destroy
the law, I came to fulfill the law. He lived on this earth 33
and a half years, subject to his parents, subject to the law
of the land, subject to the ceremonial law, subject to the moral law
of God. Our Lord Jesus Christ, from the
moment that he came into this world and breathed the first
breath in the flesh, he was going about the work of redemption,
establishing for us a righteousness, a holiness, until the day he
ascended to the Father, for he cried, I have finished the work
you gave me to do. That's what we're talking about
in Jeremiah 23.6, the Lord, our righteousness. And now God can look upon me
once again because I am righteous, not in myself. I say with Paul,
I'm less than the least of all the saints, I'm the chief of
sinners, but in Christ I'm holy. With his spotless garments on,
I'm his holiest God's son. When he walked on this earth
and met God's law and fulfilled it, he was my representative,
I did it in him. When he went to the cross and
died under the justice of God and under the judgment of sin,
under the wrath of God, I died in him. When he was buried and
rose again, in him I rose. When he ascended, I ascended
with him, and I'm seated with him right now on the right hand
of God." God has sent forth his Son to be a perpetuation for
our sins through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness
that he might be just and justifier of all that believe in Jesus. Abraham believed God, and it
was imputed to him reckoned to him, counted to him for righteousness. It wasn't written for his sake
alone, but for us also to whom it shall be reckoned if we believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where it is. God requires
it. You don't have it. Christ produced
it and purchased it. You'll turn to him or forever
be turned away from God.