Unrighteous - 2

Why are you Righteous

Welcome back to Unrighteous. Last week we talked about Cultural Christianity, the idea that there is a version of “fake Christianity” out there, even though Fake Christianity doesn’t exist. Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 7 that Not all who say Lord Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, and some will say back, Lord haven’t we prophesied in your name, cast out demons, and done miracles. and he will say, Depart from me I never knew you..

That last line is a big kicker, because we misunderstand what eternal life is so often, we think it is this going to heaven and fishing with Jesus, or playing music or doing what we love forever, and that is simply not it.

In John 17:3

John 17:3 ESV

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

We see that eternal life is having a relationship with Jesus. Nothing we say or do will change anything about our salvation, unless we have that personal relationship with Jesus.

with all that last week I attacked the question, Why are you here? Why are some of you here?

This week we will look at another personal question and that is,

“Why are you righteous?”

What does Righteous mean?

dikaios “observing divine laws, innocent, faultless”

Our world: “very good, excellent, morally right or justifiable”

Now, we aren’t righteous, but many of us like to think so. We like to think we can do whatever we want and then when time comes we deploy our pocket sizes Jesus in an instant.

Paul dealt with this same issue over and over again, and let’s be completely honest, if we were still with Paul today, we would get letter after letter after letter after letter after letter.

Pretty much all of Paul’s letters are sent to churches who can’t seem to get out of there own way and think they know better than God. Think about that. That is the reason for his writing, and we definitely deserve a letter.

But Paul has seen this, just what we fall into so often. in Galatia, there were people infiltrating churches and bringing false doctrine, these evil men were saying that the Galatians had to follow Jewish law, and then follow Christ, they had to be circumsized, and then follow Jesus.

This is evil, because it distorts the love and message that Jesus truly brought. Jesus said, you must repent, and follow him. Nothing more, nothing less.

Galatians 3:1–6 ESV

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”?

Paul uses some strong language here, O foolish Galatians,

Isn’t one characteristic of following Jesus, being gentle and kind?

Here’s the thing, when someone falls into sin consistently, there is no room for kindness, Jesus came to make us new, not to make us nice.

This rebuke of these people is necessary because they are falling away from the things they have been taught time and time again.

These people know what they should be doing, but they are not doing it!

Paul’s like, I know you got it guys, I know you know what to do. But did you even give yourself 3 seconds to use your brain and think about it?

He asks a simple question, Did you receive the spirit by some works, good things you did? or by the faith you had?

Are you that dumb? you had the spirit, before, the gift of god, before… but now we think we have to have works to confirm that? was everything God gave you then, good for nothing, unless you, a sinful being proved God right?

What have you been taught time and time again? At Church ? at home?

Why are you righteous? What do we think makes us right so often

You have learned that you should read your bible and pray every day, but you are not doing it? You know you should surround yourself with Christian people who truly live out their faith. but you take the comfortable route right, not changing who you spend your time with even if it does take you further from Christ!

We know how it works, we’ve been told, we have seen it done. But for some odd reason, we don’t care to follow through with it ourselves....

We don’t care to follow Jesus wholeheartedly, and when things go wrong we turn to blame God.

BUT GOD LOOK, I WENT TO CHURCH! I READ MY BIBLE MORE THAN USUAL

I DO WHAT I AM SUPPOSED TO, I FOLLOW RULES, I LISTEN TO THE ADULTS...

How many of you have read your bible, today or yesterday.

What did it say...

How many of you understand this enough to say that you absolutely want to be in heaven one day?

when you die, you want to be with Jesus.

THEN WHY DO YOU NOT CARE ABOUT THIS TODAY, WHEN TOMORROW ISN’T GUARANTEED.

wE CANT EVEN READ THE WORD OF GOD, BUT EXPECT TO HOLD A PLACE WITH HIM????

James 4:13–15 ESV

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

If it is the lords will, I will do this or that.

here we go, think about this with me. How much of your life would change, if you simply did what God actually called you to do?

If you think not much, then maybe you are already following Christ. If you say. A lot would have to change, then ask yourself, why are you not doing it.

Our life is but a vapor. Who knows what is coming, what will be or what wont be.

But we think we can put off truly knowing Jesus til after high school? yea man, I am just a teenager, What does it matter, I am gonna make mistakes.

But you don’t have to. If you are telling yourself that, you ultimately have no will to follow Jesus. And let me just be real with you, that Matthew 7 verse, where the people are standing at the gates and Jesus says, depart from me I never knew you, That was people who thought they actually followed Jesus. you are not in that group, if you think you are just a teenager, you can fix it all later, im gonna make mistakes so what does it matter, Im 14-15-16-17 even in college, what does it matter,

what does it matter? every bit of it matters.

Jesus knows your heart. he knows where you want to follow him, and where you don’t

But here is the thing, back in Galatia, there is another issue, that has already been addressed, but this situation proves, that it is not just the gentile people

We have our good old friend, Peter, Jesus’ right hand man, in Galatia, in a city called antioch, and he and Paul are now at odds,

Peter, one of the 12 disciples, who was next to Jesus for at least 3 years, probably the closest man to Jesus in his time.

and Paul has to set him straight too.

Galatians 2:11–14 ESV

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

Peter was being effectively racist, because he wouldn’t eat with the gentile people, the Galatians, and he only did this because he started to follow through into what the evil Jewish teachers said. He also forgot, that he was given spirit through the faith he had in Jesus Christ. Maybe he didn’t forget, but he was following the crowd into sin.

Peter knew right and wrong, in Acts, peter leads the charge on setting up the church, He had a vision where God showed him that No one was unclean or impure based on Jesus’ love for everyone. This guy should know!

I share this with you for two reasons,

in this, we see that even the strongest Christians can fall when Christ is not the center

and

We are to keep each other upright, in the name of Jesus

do you think it was easy or comfortable for Paul to call out Peters crap?

is that easy? do you want to get on your friends for doing wrong?

No, you don’t want to be labelled a snitch or something else if they respond poorly, but it is necessary.

These people in Galatia are falling into false beliefs and teachings.

they are not trusting wholeheartedly in God and his word.

They are allowing their faith to waiver and fail, when they have the power of God living inside of them. Why?

because they are not allowing God to be in control of their lives. They are living on their own terms, pursuing the things of the world. Here’s the thing, pursuing the world, doesn't just mean running after sex, drugs, alcohol, people relationships and so on,

Pursuing the world means to be pursuing anything that is not Jesus.

Because let’s face it. It is either Jesus, or the world.

Matthew 16:24 ESV

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

What does this mean?

Jesus carried his cross but he hadn’t even been crucified yet, so what is Jesus talking about

In their culture, people who were crucified were the worst of worsts,

we now see a cross and think of it as a symbol of peace, salvation, forgiveness. but to them, it was a symbol of death. The people Jesus is talking to in this moment have all probably seen someone being executed on a cross. they know it means death.

This is saying, We have to deny ourselves, our personal wishes, hopes and dreams, go away. They do not matter anymore.

Taking up our cross means, our death is what we carry, they wouldn’t have known this metaphor yet, but our death is life in Christ when we do follow him.

Object lesson, take up cross, and follow him. BIG CROSS

Briefcase/Money

Phone

Basketball/Football

Friends

Family

So why are you righteous?

How can you be righteous?

There is only one way. It is through living the life Christ calls you to. Nothing else.

BIG IDEA Living without God’s calling is Living a life pursuant of eternal separation from God.