03) He Gives
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Today we continue in our preparation for Easter. We have been looking to God’s word to show and reveal to us what was accomplished on the cross on that day 2000 years ago. That fateful date that changed the world. For the believer and the unbeliever. As Christ hung on the cross, prophecy was fulfilled. The veil was torn and Christ was raised from the dead. What a time that would have been to live in?
To hear the new followers of the way that boldly claimed that the messiah had come salvation is here. Come and repent of your sins and believe. Then you would have those that would use his death to deny that he was who he said he was. That he was just another man claiming to be the messiah. Then you would have everything in between.
What an event and time to live in. Everyone would have been talking about it. My mind turns to 9/11. Many people know exactly what they were doing when that morning. I remember walking out of my room and seeing my friend staring at the TV. Mouth open, spoon in front of his mouth like time had stopped. I walked out and looked at the TV when the live video showed the first tower in flames and I watched in confusion as a plane hit the second tower. That event became the center of our country for a time. But what I find interesting as I look back is, how many different conclusions, theories, and interpretations of the facts arose. There are many irrefutable facts and many, many contradictory conclusions. I also am amazed at how quickly the event seemed to slip from the memory of the people of our country.
I picture many similarities surrounding the cross. Things that had never happened before happened. The facts of the crucifixion and resurrection were there. They were in plain sight for all. Many witnesses were telling of what they saw and heard. Testimonies and plenty of facts that were true but what came next were the different interpretations and conclusions. And it didn’t take time for all sorts of false ideas to come forth. Much of the new testament is pointing the new church back to the cross and the work accomplished there. Fighting against the wolves and false teachings. Fighting against the memory of these great things slipping away into the far and distant past.
Fighting against the sort memories of men. The Prophet Isaiah wrote:
15 For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.
God is the highly exalted one.
The way you view God will eventually show up in the way you live your life. Charles Spurgeon.
We have been asking ourselves about our view of God the last couple of weeks. We have looked at God’s great love that was revealed through the cross.
9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Seeing the overwhelming love of God will change the way you live for God. Last week we looked at the great forgiveness that was given to men through the cross. We see the depth of our sin. The chasm that the sinner find before them when they start to see their own iniquity. When the blinders start to fall off and the goodness of God is revealed. The sinner finds that they are in great need. The greatest need that they will ever have. They know what they have earned, death. The wages of sin is death. Earned by every action and thought that is against the Holy God.
So we found that in God’s great love he sent his son to pay the wages, the ransom for those who call on his name to be saved. This is a great blessing. We see his love and we see that he stood in our place and took the just punishment that he deserved. But is that it? is that the end of the work of the cross. It that all that there is for the good news of Jesus.
Let’s look at it this way. You have a brother who hasn’t made the best financial decisions in the past year or so. They have $10k in credit card debt. They are going to have their wages garnished and there will not be anything left to live off of. They come to you for help and you hear them out and decide that you can help them out. You love them so, you decide to help them out. You are not going to give them a loan, you are going to pay the creditor and wipe away the debt. They will be free and clear.
Is that good news, absolutely, but what about tomorrow or the next day. The debt is gone but will your brother change his ways? What will you do when he comes back in 6 months and asks for help again? Will you help again? Won’t you be thinking, after all that I did, how can he put himself in this situation again. You expected his behavior to change. You expected him to grow up and to be wise. You expected him to live differently. But what if he cannot change. What if he can only make bad selfish descisions that incure more and more debt. What if he is in need of more than just his debt payed for what if he is in a desperate need of something outside of himself to live in a new way?
The sinner is called to be Holy
13 Therefore, with your minds ready for action, be sober-minded and set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance. 15 But as the one who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct; 16 for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy.
The sinner has now been enlightened and are no longer ignorant, blind to their situation. Believers are to be holy as the one who called them is Holy. To be holy is to be obedient children. To be righteous. To live in a way that no longer incurs more and more debt. To be holy there must be something else given to the believer. And what is it. Righteousness.
Today we will look into the gift of righteousness that God gives to his children.
We will look at
Righteousness through the Cross.
Righteousness through Faith
Righteousness Through His People
Righteousness Through the Cross
Righteousness Through the Cross
21 He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
On the cross, Jesus took on the wrath and justice of God. Becoming sin for us. For the purpose, so that those that believe in him would become the righteousness of God.
I find that righteousness is a word that we use quite regularly in the church and in our lives but it seems to not be a word of much significance. It isn’t one that is spoken of much. But here we see that Jesus became sin so that we might become the Righteousness of God. What does that mean to be the righteousness of God?
In the English the definition of righteousness is: the quality of being morally right or justifiable.
This definition isn’t bad but it doesn’t get specific enough. The quality of being. A person can have lots of qualities. We describe people lots of ways but in the Greek this conveys the state of being morally right. It is something that is declared to a person. It isn’t something a person grows in. It is a state of being morally right. But to whose morals. To who’s rules.
Men and women have always been good at making up new standards to follow. To make up their own rules. This definition in English could be applied to each and every religion that is out there because it depends on what is considered moral. Which goes back to, what standard?
This is why a person can be called self-righteous. They set for themselves their own moral standard. They are puffed up because they constantly feel justified because the standard had been conformed their own way of thinking.
It could be called self-goodness. I am good because I have defined what is bad. The standard is subjective and up to the one claiming goodness. When the bible speaks of righteousness there is only one standard. Only one who gets to set the definition for good. Who gets to say what is wicked. That one person is the Triune God head. And standard is not just something set up external to God but it is the standard based on who God himself is.
21 Speak up and present your case— yes, let them consult each other. Who predicted this long ago? Who announced it from ancient times? Was it not I, the Lord? There is no other God but me, a righteous God and Savior; there is no one except me.
As the Psalmist praises.
17 I will thank the Lord for his righteousness; I will sing about the name of the Lord Most High.
People have no problem affirming God’s righteousness. Many religions will call God good and righteous but righteousness that we typically think of leaves out one of the core parts of the word and that is God’s Justice.
11 God is a righteous judge and a God who shows his wrath every day.
6 The heavens proclaim his righteousness, for God is the Judge. Selah
When we look at the root for the Greek word it is the word for justice and punishment or penalty. Righteousness is only found to be understood when looking at justice. Which is tied to a law. A law that communicates what is inline with the one who provided the law. Since the law of God is in line with God’s character, then righteousness is a state in which a person is in line with God. And is shown to be so when their behavior is in-line with God’s Law.
So for one to be righteous they just have to follow the law. We know that those that are unbelievers cannot submit and live to the law. So they cannot be righteous before God.
7 The mindset of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit to God’s law. Indeed, it is unable to do so.
The law revealed God’s justice but man could not follow it. Could never follow it, so God did what men could not do.
3 For what the law could not do since it was weakened by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering, 4 in order that the law’s requirement would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
In the cross, the sinner finds once again their desperate need of not only their debt paid but also their inability to do anything about continuing in the path, the need of something outside must come to create a new mindset and to give the person over to acts of righteousness. Not of their own doing but of the work of God himself.
The angst of sin is turned to great rejoicing.
10 I rejoice greatly in the Lord, I exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation and wrapped me in a robe of righteousness, as a groom wears a turban and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. 11 For as the earth produces its growth, and as a garden enables what is sown to spring up, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations.
We rejoice in the cross as it gives new life.
24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree; so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
There is a danger in our time to believe that it is our own work, our own mind, that follows God. That some how we have provided something to our salvation. That we are not as bad as the other man who sits in the other pew or stands on the corner. We must never forget that any righteousness that we have is from God’s kindness and work.
4 But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, 5 he saved us—not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy—through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
So how does righteousness get bestowed on a person. If you cannot earn it or work for it. How is it given?
Righteousness Through Faith
Righteousness Through Faith
There are two ways in which we look at righteousness in the scriptures and in our lives. The first is what is call positional righteousness. Where a person is declared justified before the Judge of the law. James says that any slip up makes a person a lawbreaker.
10 For whoever keeps the entire law, and yet stumbles at one point, is guilty of breaking it all.
So we know we cannot live without stumbling so how are we to be declared righteous before a righteous Judge if we know we are law breakers. Like last week when we looked forgiveness Paul uses another financial picture to help us understand
4 Now to the one who works, pay is not credited as a gift, but as something owed. 5 But to the one who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited for righteousness.
To be able to stand before the holy judge and be found to be justified it must be credited to him. Like forgiveness where someone must come and pay the penalty for the law breaking someone must also come and stand in their place and give them something they do not have, a life that has fulfilled the law.
15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.
What is a temptation? It is something that is put forth to draw one away from what is right. Christ had everything dangled before him but yet because his is righteous and he is God, he was never drawn to do anything outside of the father’s will so he was never unrighteous or a lawbreaker. This is the life of Christ which is given for those who have faith in him.
8 More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ—the righteousness from God based on faith.
It is a person’s faith in God that brings to the man a credit to his account. That credit is the credit of righteousness.
21 Wasn’t Abraham our father justified by works in offering Isaac his son on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active together with his works, and by works, faith was made complete, 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called God’s friend.
The most common chapter in Hebrews is Chapter 11. Many times called the hall of faith among other titles but it ties back to the encouragement in chapter 10.
38 But my righteous one will live by faith; and if he draws back, I have no pleasure in him. 39 But we are not those who draw back and are destroyed, but those who have faith and are saved.
By Faith
1 Now faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen. 2 For by this our ancestors were approved.
They were credited as righteous by their faith or approved. By faith Abel was approved as a righteous man, By faith Enoch was approved as one who pleased God, Noah by faith preached and became an heir to the righteousness that comes by faith, by faith Abraham, by faith Sarah, by faith Isaac, By faith Jacob, By faith Joseph, Moses, and the list continues.
39 All these were approved through their faith, but they did not receive what was promised, 40 since God had provided something better for us, so that they would not be made perfect without us.
We know that these men and women are not perfect sinless people. Their many sins are recorded in the scriptures but yet they were found righteous. So how are they approved before God, By faith. And it even says it is impossible to please God without faith.
6 Now without faith it is impossible to please God, since the one who draws near to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
It is through faith that all who believe in Christ will gain the gift of righteousness to stand before the righteous judge with no condemnation and as one who has never sinned because of the righteousness that was credited to his account.
17 If by the one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive the overflow of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.
God’s love demonstrated on the cross, the perfect sin sacrifice to remove the debt and payment that was incurred, and the perfect life that is credited to those who have faith. So that any one who calls on the name of the Lord before God is found to be lacking nothing. Every believer will stand in Christ’s life and his life alone.
I cannot endure the sight of God until I see him in Christ; and God cannot bear the sight of me till he sees me in Christ. Charles Spurgeon.
This should cause great humility for us. What do we bring to the throne of God? Faith Alone.
Righteousness Through His People
Righteousness Through His People
We come to know the truth that we take nothing before the throne.
But what about the Christian, the one who has been saved. Can they now live completely under the law without any other transgression?
If a believer is not given anything from outside of the flesh, there would still only be a life of unrighteousness. Isn’t it the experience of all believers to come to relate to the words of Paul.
14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold as a slave under sin. 15 For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good. 17 So now I am no longer the one doing it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it. 19 For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one that does it, but it is the sin that lives in me. 21 So I discover this law: When I want to do what is good, evil is present with me. 22 For in my inner self I delight in God’s law, 23 but I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
I think every believer find this same struggle to be a real one.
25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am serving the law of God, but with my flesh, the law of sin.
If this is where all people were left. With the flesh in their members and the understanding of the good in their mind. We would be miserable people. But God did not leave people there.
1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, 2 because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do since it was weakened by the flesh, God did. He condemned sin in the flesh by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh as a sin offering, 4 in order that the law’s requirement would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their minds set on the things of the Spirit. 6 Now the mindset of the flesh is death, but the mindset of the Spirit is life and peace. 7 The mindset of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit to God’s law. Indeed, it is unable to do so. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him. 10 Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through his Spirit who lives in you.
Those that live in the righteousness of God are not doing it of their own doing. It is from the Spirit of God that is alive and live in all regenerate believers.
We are to live in this reality and strive to live like Christ through the work and power of the Holy Spirit.
16 Don’t you know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey—either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17 But thank God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were handed over, 18 and having been set free from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness. 19 I am using a human analogy because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you offered the parts of yourselves as slaves to impurity, and to greater and greater lawlessness, so now offer them as slaves to righteousness, which results in sanctification.
To live in the new way of life. fleeing from the former one that lead to self-righteous arrogance and death.
20 But that is not how you came to know Christ, 21 assuming you heard about him and were taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to take off your former way of life, the old self that is corrupted by deceitful desires, 23 to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, the one created according to God’s likeness in righteousness and purity of the truth.
There is a life to live that grows in us and we are sanctified each and every day becoming more and more transformed into the image of our savior. We are positionally righteous but we are still to be living a life that conforms more and more to the law each day, month, year. We no longer live for ourselves but for the one that we own everything to.
13 And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness.
The life of a believer is to be affected by the work of God in their lives. I am going to leave this here today as the goal of today was for us to look and focus on the cross.
There is so much more to say about righteousness. From the first page to the last page is the justice of God, the breaking of the law and the just punishment. The one who made a way for those that transgressed the law to be reconciled back to God himself. It all is tied to God’s righteousness. So there is much left out of this message today but we will explore this in much more depth as we go through Romans.
Conclusion
Conclusion
When there is a low view of the work of God, is shows a distorted view of God himself. We will be tempted to believe that God won’t really punish me the way I deserve. A loving God doesn’t punish anyone. The sinner never comes the recognition that they need to be saved.
Others will not see that great gift of Jesus’ life that is credited to them and they are seen righteous. There will be those that still believe that every action that they do has dire consequences. They are consumed with their own sin. Never finding the peace that comes from knowing that nothing you do can change how you are seen by God if are a regenerate believer.
There are others who will see it as a license to break every law that they can and feel free to do so because they fail to recognize what was given for them and in reality likely points to an unregenerate person. The fire insurance profession.
There is a subtle self-righteousness that is in the church today. That is an attitude that only some of the scripture is to be followed or aligned to. That the commands of God don’t fully apply to myself. The mentality that I follow enough to be good and not feel bad about anything. This is pervasive in the church from top to bottom. Pastors that only preach what they want to preach. Churches that are in it for the money only and the recognition only. People who only want to follow the bare minimum of what is expected of them.
But there is the one who comes before God with a humble and contrite heart before God. They see the depth of their sin and look to Jesus in overwhelming gratitude that he would love them enough to pay the debt they owed. and they look to Jesus and his life as he has set you right before God because you could never earn it even if you debt was wiped out over and over again. You still would be unable in your own life to ever be in the presence of the Holy God.
And so they live for him. struggling along the way but depending on him to do the work as you put in the effort to be sanctified and conformed to the image of the Man, of God, of savior that hung on the cross and gave himself for you.
Prayer
Benediction
9 And I pray this: that your love will keep on growing in knowledge and every kind of discernment, 10 so that you may approve the things that are superior and may be pure and blameless in the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.
