Whose Righteousness? #1

How can I be made right with God? Who is it that can be right with God?

And what we find in this text is the answer to that question. It has been well said that Jesus not only saved us from our sins, he saved us from ourselves. Hello again, I'm Bill Wright, and we're glad you've joined us on The Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Today, Don will bring us part one of a message called, Who's Righteousness, from our series entitled, That I May Gain Christ. Let's join Don right now in The Truth Pulpit. What does it require for a man to be right with God?

Well, point number one, as we're going to see here, is this. It requires a rejection of your personal righteousness. It requires a rejection of your personal righteousness. What Paul is describing in this text is the pattern for every true believer, and it gives us insight into what the nature of the righteousness is that God actually requires. So look at it there in verse eight, where Paul says, more than that. In other words, with what I just said in verse seven, I've counted all things as lost for the sake of Christ, he's now going to go further in his assertion, and he says, more than that. Now, this is actually profoundly emphatic in the Greek text, and the emphatic feeling of it is hard to convey in the English language. He piles together five different Greek particles.

I have them here in my notes, but they won't mean much to most of you, so I won't read them out here. But the combined sense of them is an emphatic with an exclamation point, indeed, certainly. No question about it, in other words, as he is emphasizing what he had just said and coming along to expand it in what he is about to say. And what he is doing here is he is forcing us to think more deeply on his perspective. He said, all of my righteousness I have counted as loss, and now that I've said that, I want you to focus even more, and I want you to give your attention.

I want you to concentrate and meditate on this point far more deeply. And so he's forcing us with this emphatic statement, more than that, he is forcing us to think more deeply on the perspective that he is bringing to this, and what his perspective is explaining to us is what the nature of true saving faith is actually like. It's not simply his Jewish past that Paul is rejecting. It's not simply his Jewish righteousness that he is utterly forsaking here. He is forsaking everything that might be considered as righteousness in himself.

Look at it there in verse 8 with me. He says more than that, he's going beyond what he just said about his Jewish past. He says, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. What he's rejecting here is everything that is produced by self, everything that he does, everything that he thinks, everything that might look like morality or righteousness in the sight of men horizontally. He rejects all evidence, says I'm not trusting in any of that for my righteousness with God. In fact, I reject and forsake it all, he says. He is forsaking, you could put it this way, he is repenting of any tendency for pride in his own morality. This is a statement of utter, complete, unreserved, unqualified humility that he is making in his statement here. The pride in morality. Jews founded in their religion, people today find it in their acts of charity, especially now as they go by and drop a few coins in the Salvation Army bucket and feel good about themselves.

Pride in appearance and outward senses of what men think about them. All of this, all of this which we tend to look at and to consider ourselves at least better than someone else, or somehow God is acceptable, the good outweighs the bad in my life, all of that is to be rejected if you are going to have the righteousness that God requires. Now, for many people, this is just a stunning, stunning thought. If I reject my own righteousness, if I forsake everything good, supposedly, allegedly, so-called good about myself, then what is there for me? What then on what basis would God accept me?

And besides that, I think I'm pretty good as it is. I don't like this accusation that I am not acceptable before a holy God. Well, Paul, when he says that I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value, the verb is in the present tense, meaning this is my ongoing attitude toward it. This is the way that I have a settled way of thinking about it, and it shows his ongoing attitude toward the whole topic. Now, let me remind you, as I like to do from time to time, that what we're reading here is the inspired word of God. This is God telling us about the righteousness that he requires. God is expressing his view on all human morality through the words of Christ's appointed apostle, Paul. God looks at it all and says, unacceptable, deformed, defiled, unacceptable in my sight.

And Paul is showing us this ongoing attitude toward the whole topic. And look at how encompassing what he says is. He says, more than that, I count all things to be loss. It's an accounting term. I count it all as a debt in my column.

And what he's doing is this, and I don't want you to miss how comprehensive it is in its assertion. Paul takes anything and everything that might be considered as his own independent righteousness, that which would be considered a positive in the plus column of his life, and he says, I cast it all out. I reject it. It's not a plus. It's a minus.

It's not an asset. It's a liability to me compared to Christ. He is comparing his so-called righteousness with Christ and with Christ's righteousness, and he sees the difference, and it's the difference that you and I must see if we are to understand the true nature of true saving faith. Jesus Christ is perfect. God is absolutely holy, without blemish, without sin, without impure thoughts. He has revealed his righteousness in his law, specifically in the Ten Commandments. And those Ten Commandments come to us, and in their perfection, they require from us. I need to slow down here. We've got a long way to go.

I need to keep some energy for later on, right? As we read in our scripture reading earlier, the sum of the law is to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. The first four commandments expressing love for God, the last six commandments expressing that love in relationship to man, and it's an utter perfection, and as we're going to see in a few months, it's an utterly unattainable standard. We must understand the holiness of God and the majesty of the law to understand that it condemns all of our righteousness, that our righteousness does not meet the lofty standard of the law, that our righteousness is not fit, our so-called righteousness is not fit for the holy presence of God before whom Isaiah was deconstructed and he cried out, Oh, as me, I've seen God, and I'm a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and the holiness of God crushed his own prophet.

Well, then what hope do the rest of us have? And what Paul is saying here is that in light of who Christ is, anything that I might think about as being an asset of morality, righteousness in my own column, can't possibly measure up to the righteousness of Christ, and therefore I reject it all. Christ, my friends, Jesus Christ is superior and more excellent than the best that we would have to offer to him. He's infinitely superior to it all. He's infinitely better than any of our own righteousness. To have him is far better than to have our own righteousness. And so what Paul says here, look at it there in verse 8 with me, he says, I count all things about me to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

This is far better to know Christ than to claim my own righteousness. He says I've suffered the loss of all things, he suffered as an apostle in his service to Christ, and he takes all of the assets of personal morality, all of the sufferings that he had had as an apostle, and he casts it aside and says it's only so much rubbish compared to Christ. And that word rubbish in the original language is very graphic. One lexicon translates it as dung, as manure in other words. In any other context, this word being used would be a revolting, almost unmentionable word for human excrement. It joins Isaiah's picture of a menstrual cloth when he says all of our righteousness is like filthy rags in the presence of God. We react against the picture that Paul is using to describe how he assesses his own righteousness. Paul and the Bible react against the reality to which the picture points. The picture of excrement, the picture of a used menstrual cloth is giving us a picture of how God views human righteousness. And in God's eyes it is revolting, it is not sufficient, it must be cast away. What Paul is saying is this, listen to me carefully, and may the Holy Spirit help each one of us.

Oh God help us. Paul found the thought of his personal righteousness revolting when he compared it to the perfections of Jesus Christ. He found the idea of relying on his righteousness revolting compared to relying on the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And so what he is doing here is this, and stay with the graphic picture because we're only drawing upon a picture that Scripture itself uses, otherwise we wouldn't talk this way.

The body expels from itself that which is of no use. Paul expels from himself any claim to human righteousness so that Christ might be exalted in him. Paul says, you see, you consider these bodily functions, it's revolting, right?

Yes, it's revolting. Well that's how I consider my own righteousness. I reject it and I expel it from any reliance, any pride, counting it in any way as a measure upon which I might be made right with God. It's not simply his Jewish past. He flings away everything of his own credit in exchange for Christ. In other words, he looks at the Lord Jesus Christ and he says Christ is far better, infinitely better than any of my own accomplishments. Extending the thought, Paul is saying, listen to me carefully.

Please listen to me carefully. Here's what we are doing. Metaphorically speaking, here's a picture of what we are doing. There is life on earth and there's a gap and there's life in heaven. Or you could say there is the present age and there is the future age.

And what you and I are doing right now, what we are talking about in a word picture is we are hanging over the gap between the present age and the future age. And everything hangs in the balance as to what will happen to you and what will happen to your soul in how you receive and how you respond to these things from God's Word. It's no less important than that. This is of surpassing consequence.

This is of eternal, everlasting, immeasurable consequence far beyond anything that we've dealt with in the present. And so what Paul is saying here and what the Bible is telling us to do is that when judgment day comes and we anticipate judgment day in the present, what do we do with a coming judgment day? Paul says, I'm counting on Christ, not on myself. I throw away everything about self-righteousness.

I repent of it and I forsake it so that I might have Christ instead. What exactly is he saying? Well, he goes on and he expands it. It's more in verse 9 and you can see it laid out specifically here as he drops the word picture and speaks about it in the reality, speaks directly about the reality. He says, I want to gain Christ. I want to be found in Him.

Look at it there. I ask each one of you to look at the text of the Bible you have in front of you and see how critical this statement is. He says, I want to be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law. When it comes to being in the presence of God, I want to be found in Christ and I do not want to rely on a righteousness of my own. I am not counting on my obedience to the law of God as being that basis upon which God would accept me and receive me and count me as righteous in His sight. I don't rely on that. Everything about human obedience I forsake as being tainted, as being poisoned, as being unacceptable before a holy God. Everything about my external appearance of obedience, I reject that and I am not relying on that. I'm not counting on it.

I'm not trusting in that. He has made a personal, conscious rejection of everything righteous about Himself as He answers the question, whose righteousness will it be? He's stating as plainly as possible that salvation is not based on human obedience to God's law. It could not be because our obedience is broken. It's flawed. It's sinful.

It is not good enough. Our obedience is not good enough. And so, my friend, you do not go to heaven and you cannot go to heaven because you are good enough. You must stop thinking that way and repent of it. And I say repent, forsake it because it is a product of a fallen sinful mind that does not appreciate the infinite majesty of the holiness of God and has an entirely wrong perspective on human goodness. in the presence of that holiness. You do not accumulate merit with your obedience.

You can't do it. Let's look at just a couple of verses that we've looked at often in the past. I want you to go to a couple of books back in your Bible to Galatians. Galatians chapter 2 verse 16. This is the clear and consistent teaching of Scripture that our works cannot save us and we must stop trusting in them and we must stop boasting in them if we are to be reconciled to God because we're separated otherwise. Galatians chapter 2 verse 16. He says it three times, positive and negative, in this one verse, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Christ Jesus. Even we have believed in Christ Jesus so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law since by the works of the law no flesh will be justified. As it says in Romans 3, there is none righteous, not even one.

There is none who does good, there is not even one. In Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 and 9 in that familiar text, Ephesians 2 verses 8 and 9, it is 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 may boast. You see, my friends, unless you have been under the sound of the Bible and under the sound of the true gospel of Jesus Christ, everything that you've been taught about going to heaven is wrong because you have been taught and conditioned to believe that if the good outweighs the bad, God will accept you. You've been taught to believe that sin isn't all that serious to God.

He'll just kind of wave his hand and forget about it and everybody goes to a nice green place in the end. And it's not true. If it were true, Jesus would not have taught on hell the way that he did. He would not have taught us that hell is real, that hell is painful, and that hell is eternal. He would not have warned us about the broad way that leads to destruction.

He wouldn't have done any of that because he wasn't bluffing and he wasn't lying. He was saying those things because they were all true. And so this is a matter of great eternal consequence to everyone who comes under the sound of my voice and no one under the sound of my voice is going to have an excuse.

I say, well, no one told me. You're being told right now from God's Word what the truth is. You cannot go to heaven by being good enough. You cannot accumulate merit with obedience because your sinful heart and your fallen condition can never produce the perfection that God requires. And even if, my friend, even if you could start being perfect today in heart, soul, mind, and action, even if you could start today and be utterly perfect for the rest of your life, which you can't, but just say you could. What about the innumerable sins and iniquities that mark your past? What's going to happen to them?

How is there an accounting for them? And so we come to God's Word and we see that God's Word tells us that human righteousness does not qualify for what God requires. And that requires from you a personal recognition of that, an acknowledgement of that, that says whatever it is that God requires, I'm not going to rely on myself. I'm going to forsake all of that, and I don't trust in anything that I've done, nothing that I've given, nothing that I've done, no prayers that I've prayed, no communion that I've taken, go through all of the rituals, all of the human philanthropy that a person can do, and forsake it all. Don't cling to any of it, because we come to Christ, if we come to Christ at all, we come as those who are utterly bankrupt. Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God, Jesus said. You know what a bankrupt person is in the condition that they're in, right? They have a debt that they don't have the assets to pay. That's where each one of us is, in our own merit before the holiness of God and the holy demands of His law. We have broken it, we have a debt that is just continuing to billow up, and we can't pay it. And we can't pay it if we live 10,000 lives, it would just give us 10,000 more lives of guilt.

We're utterly lost. Now, and so, what we say is how can a man be right with God? Well Paul starts by rejecting any sense of personal righteousness.

Now, that might sound very depressing, and if you are inclined to trust in yourself and to boast in your own goodness, it is very depressing, because the truth is telling your heart that, you know, your life is built on a lie. But understand this, my friends, is that this passage is not a hopeless passage that we read here. Paul is not speaking without hope here, he's simply talking about a hope that is not based in himself.

It's based on something outside of himself. Salvation requires a firm reliance on the righteousness of Christ alone. A free gift from a holy God. Well friend, we pray this message has built you up in your faith. Pastor Don Green will have more edifying teaching from scripture next time on The Truth Pulpit, and we do hope you'll join us then. But before we close, here again is Don with a special word for those who might be in a difficult place in their lives at this time. Well as we close today, my friend, I just want to assure you that you are in our prayers as you listen to The Truth Pulpit.

And I recognize something as I say that, even though we probably haven't met face to face. Sooner or later, sorrow comes to each one of us. It comes in different forms, whether you're facing adversity in your home, your work, your school, or even in your spiritual life.

I just want to remind you of something as we part ways here today. My friend, know that Jesus Christ is a sympathetic friend to you in your weakness. The writer of Hebrews tells us that we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are yet without sin. Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. My friend, turn to the Lord Jesus Christ in your trials. He will receive you in kindness and in love. And let me just add one other personal note here. My friend, if you find yourself in the Cincinnati area, please know that we'd love to meet you at one of our services.

You can find the address and service times at our website. Thanks, Don. And friend, don't forget to visit us at TheTruthPulpit.com for more about our ministry. That's TheTruthPulpit.com. I'm Bill Wright inviting you back next time when Don Green presents more from The Truth Pulpit.