My Righteousness

Our sermon today was good. It was on Romans 3:19-20 which reads,

"Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin."

Every mouth stopped. Why? Because when we stand before the Lord of the Universe in his matchless glory and perfection, we would never be able to come up with an excuse for our sin. When the standard is perfection, anything short of it is not good enough. "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." All. Everyone wants equality, well here we have it. All of us are equally imperfect. Some may say at this point, ok, then I'll start being good. I'll go to church. I'll give some money to the church every so often. Heck, I'll even read my kids a Bible story every so often...then he'll love and accept me, right?

"By works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight."

For me, it's thinking I have to have the perfect explanation of salvation. That's what keeps me worried. Somehow in my mind I begin thinking that my salvation is dependent on my articulating back to God perfectly all that Christ has done to save me and all that I am because of it. The only problem is I can't fathom all that Christ is and did and that is not what God requires for salvation anyway. What He requires is perfection. We must be rendered perfect before we ever make progress in being good (to paraphrase John Piper).

So what do we do? Keep reading in Romans 3:21-26 about the righteousness (or perfection) that God has provided for any and all who will trust Christ. It explains that God put forward Christ "as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith." In other words, God killed Jesus to satisfy his wrath against anyone who will embrace Christ as their only hope. "it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief; (Isaiah 53:10).

So when we come to grips with our sinful state before a Holy God...let, the apostle John tell us: "if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation ("Propitiation is the removal of the wrath of God against sinners by the death of Jesus" - John Piper) for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world." We must see ourselves as we really are - hopelessly lost under the wrath of God unless He does something about it (since we certainly can't do anything about it) before it will ever be good news that Christ is our Advocate in Heaven. If He, the perfect and righteous one is our attorney and he shows the Father the wounds through which his blood poured out to pay for our sin, then we need not fear. You see if Christ is our substitute and He perfectly fulfilled the law in our place and suffered and died to pay for our sin, then God no longer requires anything of us in order to be saved. Listen to John Bunyan:

"One day as I was passing into the field, this sentence fell upon my soul: ‘Thy righteousness is in heaven.’ And with the eyes of my soul I saw Jesus at the Father’s right hand. ‘There,’ I said, ‘is my righteousness!’ So that wherever I was or whatever I was doing, God could not say to me, ‘Where is your righteousness?’ For it is always right before him.

I saw that it is not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness IS Christ. Now my chains fell off indeed. My temptations fled away, and I lived sweetly at peace with God.

Now I could look from myself to him and could reckon that all my character was like the coins a rich man carries in his pocket when all his gold is safe in a trunk at home. Oh I saw that my gold was indeed in a trunk at home, in Christ my Lord. Now Christ was all: my righteousness, sanctification, redemption. (Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners)" (I took that quote from http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/thabitianyabwile/2010/01/07/1102/).

So God does not require of me ANYTHING. No perfect explanations, no good works, no resolutions. He has all that is necessary sitting by His Right Hand, my Righteousness and Propitiation, Jesus Christ. Embrace Him for yourself, whether for the first time or the hundred millionth time. He promises "whoever believes in [Jesus] will not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). If you are thirsty for perfection, forgiveness, for God, then "let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price" (Revelation 22:17). Drink of all that Christ is for you.

I especially need to hear that message and to preach it to myself moment by moment. I would always appreciate your prayers that I would indeed live in this glorious truth. I pray you will as well. For me, it is a battle each day to do so. That's what sanctification is - a battle for holiness, and a battle for resting in who we are because of who Jesus is and what He has done for us. He is our only hope. "You will know the truth and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32).