A Spiritual Dead End #2

We will be judged by this holy God, and the question is, what's going to happen?

And He's going to render a verdict, either righteous or guilty. And to trust in your own righteousness is a spiritual dead end. Today, Don shows us that a righteousness which leads to salvation and an eternity in heaven has nothing whatsoever to do with our efforts and everything to do with the finished work of Jesus Christ upon the cross of Calvary. So, Don, when it comes to righteousness and salvation, it's evident God really doesn't need our help. How would you encourage someone who, although well-meaning, still feels like they need to earn God's love?

Well, Bill, that is a most important question because all of us are, in one degree or another, a legalist at heart. In our fallen nature, we think that somehow we can earn God's love by being good enough so that He has to love us in return. If you come from that spirit, my friend, let me encourage you with Scripture.

I'm going to challenge your worldview here today, okay? The message of the Bible is this. You cannot be good enough to earn the love of God.

You can't. God is too holy, and you are too sinful. The message of the Gospel, which is good news, the good news is this. The Bible does not tell you to try harder in order to earn the favor of God and enter into heaven on the basis of what you do. The Gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ is good enough for God, and God offers His love through Christ to you as a gift. The Bible says that by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works so that no one could boast. My friend, the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus your Lord. God offers that love to you as a gift, not as a reward for being good. Stay with us today and learn more as we open God's Word on The Truth Pulpit.

Thanks Don, and friend, let's join our teacher right now in The Truth Pulpit. We have seen Paul's privileges of birth. We have seen his accomplishments by choice, and now we're going to see Paul's assessment of it all. Paul, you could say, was the perfect Jew, and how did he assess that in his spiritual past? Look at verse 7.

It's stunning. He says, but, he's going to give a contrast here. For all of the perfections of my Jewish experience and my Jewish qualifications, let me tell you something by way of contrast. Whatever things were gained to me, in other words, those things that contributed to the sense of self-righteousness that I had, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

He's using terms of accounting here. His prior righteousness he talks about as beforehand he considered them to be spiritual credits on his account. I had built up this bank of righteousness based on who I was and what I had done. And, he says, everything that I thought was a credit to me was actually a debt. It was actually something that was working against me. It was something that was creating bankruptcy in me rather than advancing me in righteousness. Now, you say, how could that be? Why would a man say that about his prior life?

Well, you have to go back and make this two-fold understanding. First of all, remember the assessment that Scripture makes about our self-righteousness. It's not acceptable to God.

We cannot be good enough. We cannot meet legal requirements and satisfy what God requires. We are sinners, sinners by nature, sinners by choice. We are born into a corrupt human race. And David says, go back in Psalm 51.

Go back to Psalm 51 for a moment. In Psalm 51 verse 5, he says, Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. In other words, from the moment of my conception, my nature was corrupt. As I developed in my mother's room and she gave birth to me, I was corrupt from birth. I was corrupt from conception. There was never any time in my physical existence where there was anything good about me. It was always corrupted by sin and by the transmission of sin going back all the way to Adam.

This is utterly hopeless. And so Paul, going back to Philippians chapter 3 now, Paul recognizes that this outward assessment of righteousness is horribly misguided. First of all, it's not a real righteousness that qualifies us for the presence of God. It is not a real righteousness. It is not a genuine righteousness in the eyes of God that he accepts and can have communion with. And it could never be that way because we are corrupt from birth. Even if you're born into the right family, that does not excuse or separate you from the sinfulness which your parents transmitted to you.

You can't do it. And not only that, and I can certainly speak from this, speak about what I'm about to say from direct personal experience, looking back in my own testimony and the way that the Lord worked in my life, when, here's the shocking truth of it all, beloved, the shocking, disorienting, very deeply troubling truth is, is that when you think you are righteous, when you think that you are attaining spiritual good, that sense of external morality and that self-assessment that I'm basically a good person, that is keeping you separate from Christ. And if you persist in that judgment, it will send you to hell. You will die in your sins if you think that you are righteous, if you think that there is something good about you.

It doesn't work that way. That is not the assessment of God. Now look, here's the problem and here's where men go astray on this very point. We get into that horrible, misguided, damnable mindset by comparing ourselves to others or by comparing ourselves to the wrong standard of morality. My outward life is better than this man over here, as they used to say from where I came from.

I don't smoke or chew or go with girls who do, you know? And so there's just this sense that by what I do, I am more righteous than someone else. Or for some, for me, it was the fact that I hadn't committed certain sins. And you know, and by the fact of what I had not done, outwardly in the flesh, I somehow, that made me a better person than the next person and I relied on. There is no doubt about it, I trusted in my own righteousness based on sins that I had avoided. Well, the Bible condemns all of that.

The Bible condemns all of that. And the problem is, is that where men go astray and women go sadly astray on this, is comparing themselves to other human beings. Rather than comparing themselves vertically to the great holiness of God. Who lives in unapproachable light. Who when men saw him, they fell on their face shattered in their personality because they couldn't handle it like Isaiah chapter 6.

You know? Or comparing ourselves to the perfect unalterable standard of God's moral law as it is summarized in the Ten Commandments. The first four commandments in a vertical sense of our obligation toward God. The last six commandments are our obligations toward men, which are actually obligations to God because this is what he requires us to do before men. And understanding that the law in the tenth commandment goes so far as to prohibit us from coveting, prohibiting us from even inward jealousy, inward thoughts that are impure and unrighteous. So the holiness of God, the holiness of his law, and we compare ourselves to these things and we realize how brutally far short we fall. It's not a question of whether you satisfied the standards of religion. That's irrelevant.

That has nothing to do with it at all. The question is, does the law of God condemn you for your lies and your adultery or your adulterous thoughts? Your stealing, your lying, your failure to worship God in the way that he deserves.

The answer is yes, it does. It condemns every one of us. The only way and the reason that I want to preach from the Ten Commandments soon is that we need to have that law brought to bear on our conscience so we would see ourselves for who we really are from the perspective of God rather than resting in a false sense of self-righteousness that can only condemn us. You say, well, man, preacher, you're being pretty harsh on everybody here and I'm not sure that that's really what Scripture says. Well, it is what Scripture says and let's look at the words of Jesus even in Luke chapter 5.

I want you to turn there and see this. Christ makes this abundantly clear who it is that he came to save and Scripture exposes us in these things. Jesus in chapter 5 of Luke verses 31 and 32 said this. He said, it is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick.

He's making an analogy from the physical realm to the spiritual realm and comparing himself to a physician. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. In other words, if you think that you are righteous and satisfy the requirements of God, Christ has nothing to do for you or with you.

Christ comes to call those who know that they are sinners, who openly confess it and who desire the cleansing and the forgiveness of sin that we were talking in our opening. I'm a lost and miserable sinner. Christ, have mercy on me.

I can't save myself. Christ, I don't deserve heaven. I don't deserve your kindness. What I actually deserve is to go to hell for my guilt before God. And I offer nothing by way of self-justification. I offer nothing in self-righteousness.

I simply call out to you for mercy to save me because if you don't have mercy on me, I will be eternally and miserably lost. Now, going back to Philippians chapter 3, with all of that said, you can see why Paul would say the things that he says here. In verse 7, Philippians chapter 3, he says, Whatever things were gained to me, in other words, whatever contributed to my perception of self-righteousness, those things, those things pertaining to self-righteousness, I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Those weren't assets.

Those were liabilities. I write them off that I might gain Christ. His prior spiritual credits, using air quotes around credits, were actually debts because if he offered them to God in terms of righteousness, God was going to reject them. God rejects that kind of self-righteousness. And people think that this is how they get to heaven, but I like to use this very homely example. You know, to talk about going to heaven because you're a good person, that's like going somewhere with monopoly money and trying to buy things at the store with monopoly money. It's not real currency.

It is not recognized as that which has purchasing power. And your righteousness has no purchasing power with God to bring him to accept you. Your righteousness is like a filthy minstrel cloth that needs to be discarded and thrown away.

That is what it is like in the sight of God. And if you're clinging to self-righteousness, then that is keeping you from Christ because you're trusting in yourself rather than him. And so when Paul speaks about his Jewish heritage, he says, that heritage did not impart to me the righteousness that God requires.

It was an unclean, man-made counterfeit. It was not the righteousness that God gives. It was not the righteousness that God demands.

And so Paul, by pointing to his own testimony, has shown that these Judaizers were leading the church to a spiritual dead end. They were leading people into a system that could not produce any righteousness that had currency in the throne room of God. The only righteousness, my friends, the only righteousness that God accepts is the righteousness of his own Son. And you are not as righteous as Christ, and you cannot be and you never will be in your own effort in what you do with your life. This is a righteousness that has to be given to you.

It is a gift, as Paul said in Romans 6, it's something that has to be given to you and you receive it by faith, not earning it by what you do. And my friends, this discussion that we are having right now is eternally significant. The ramifications of what we are talking about reverberate throughout all of eternity, not simply here on earth, and it has ramifications for each one of us. What was true of the apostle Paul is also true of you and of me. Gather up all of your goodness, put it in a pile, count it out if you want to, as if you're counting out pennies, and the reality is it doesn't add up. You and I are not righteous before a holy God, the holy God who will judge us one day, the holy God before whom every one of us will one day stand and give an account of our lives. We will be judged by this holy God, and the question is, what's going to happen?

And he's going to render a verdict, either righteous or guilty. And to trust in your own righteousness is a spiritual dead end. You do not have in yourself the goodness that God requires. It does not matter. It does not matter that Paul was born to the tribe of Benjamin. It does not matter if you were born to a good Christian family. That does not give you the righteousness that God requires. It does not matter if you associate with the right Christian church. That church cannot give you the righteousness that God requires.

It does not matter what your private morality may be. You do not have the righteousness that God requires. Self-righteousness is literally a spiritual dead end.

And so, my dear friend, please hear me well and understand why we were singing earlier about the great joy of the coming of Christ. There is only one kind of righteousness that God accepts, and it's nothing that we do in ourselves. The only righteousness that God accepts is the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to you as a gift.

It is not something that you earn. It is humbly received by faith alone. Self-righteousness could not and did not save even the apostle Paul. And so do you see, my friend, that your righteousness cannot begin to save you either? If any of us are going to be saved, if any of us are going to go to heaven, it must come by this single, lonely, narrow path, not the broad way, but the narrow way. We come before God, and we forsake all claim to personal merit. Lord, there is nothing righteous about me.

I am before you as a bankrupt sinner, and I have nothing to offer to you. And from that position of humility, receiving Christ by faith alone. What is faith?

Faith is, as the Westminster Catechism defines it, faith is receiving Christ and resting in Christ. In other words, you recognize that Jesus Christ is God, that Jesus Christ lived a perfect life in full, absolute, undiminished obedience to the law of God, and that on the cross he offered up that perfection to God and offered up his perfect life as a sacrifice for sinners like you, and that God judged Christ as a substitute who was bearing the penalty for everyone who would ever believe in him. You accept Christ, you receive Christ on those terms. He is God in human flesh. He is the God of all righteousness. His shed blood washes away all sin, and you say, I receive Christ on those terms. I receive him as Lord. I submit to him, and I trust in his righteousness alone as the currency which God would accept on my behalf. You receive him like that, and the other aspect of the Westminster definition, you rest in him. In other words, you don't try to add to what Christ has done.

You don't rely on subsequent conversion works. Christ is all of your righteousness, and you trust in him and in him alone, and you rest in him. And what's the promise? What's the promise that's given to those who put their faith in Christ like that? Well, look at 1 John 1.

Just as an example, 1 John 1. You see, the whole presupposition of the gospel is that we're guilty before God and need forgiveness, not that we can earn our way. We need forgiveness. We need our sins washed away, and we can't do that on our own. And so in 1 John 1, verse 7 there at the end, the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we're deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, if we confess and forsake our sins, if we freely acknowledge our guilt before a holy God, both individually and our whole condition, if we freely acknowledge that in faith in Christ, what does God do?

What is his response? What is his gift? Verse 9, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. The sin which was previously a barrier to going to heaven and reconciliation with God, all of it taken away, all of it borne by Christ, and God accepting his Son on your behalf. And so what is this gift of Christ of which we spoke, and what was the spirit in which God gave it?

1 John 4, verses 9 and 10. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent his only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through him. How great our joy, great our joy. Joy, joy, joy.

Joy, joy, joy. My sin has been taken away by Christ. He paid for it at the cross, and he freely shares his righteousness with me so that God accepts me as righteous and holy in his sight, as righteous and holy as Christ himself is, but not based on what I have done, based on who Christ is and what he has done.

And I trust in his merit, not my own. And this is the great love gift of God to humanity, that forgiveness of sin can be found in Christ. Look at verse 10 there in 1 John 4. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. My friends, are you trusting in your righteousness or the righteousness of someone else, the righteousness of Christ?

Look at Paul and see the dead end that you are, that the dead end that your righteousness is, and turn around, turn around from that dead end and run to the open arms of Christ who is freely offered to everyone who would believe in him. Father, I ask for the help of your Holy Spirit upon each heart today. For those that are in Christ, Father, may they be renewed in the joy and the encouragement of complete forgiveness of sin, of the promise that you have made to your children that our sins and our lawless deeds you will remember no more. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. A powerful message on the true source of salvation for mankind. You've been listening to The Truth Pulpit with our teacher, Don Green, and we're so glad you could join us today. We pray you'll be with us next time for more from God's holy Word.

Right now, though, here again is Don with a special closing word. Well, my friend, if today's broadcast has helped you, can I ask you for a simple favor in return? It's more important than you could possibly know. Please just go to our website, thetruthpulpit.com, and tell us where you heard the broadcast. Sounds easy and simple, I know, but it's really important for us. You can do that at the website under our Contact Us link. You may wonder whether such a simple act really matters, but I assure you that it does because it helps us know that our resources are rightly placed to reach you in ministry. Thanks, Don. And again, friend, our webpage is thetruthpulpit.com. I'm Bill Wright, and we'll see you next time for more from the Truth Pulpit.