The Crown of Righteousness (Part 2 of 2)

Did you know that only bad people go to heaven? We're going to find out why that is today on Truth for Life, as Alistair Begg teaches about an urgent warning and an undeserved reward in a message titled The Crown of Righteousness.

It's from the series Guard the Truth. We're in 2 Timothy chapter 4 verse 8. The work of God within us is not perfected in us. It's not brought to completion until we're raised from the dead.

That's why we teach our children, isn't it? We teach one another the three tenses of salvation, so that we're able to put it very straightforwardly that in Jesus we have been saved, past tense, from sin's penalty, we are being saved, present tense, from sin's power, and one day we will be saved, future tense, from sin's presence. But in the meantime, in Christ, we're still sinners. We're still sinful. And there's not a day goes by without the fact that we're aware of that. And the evil one comes to accuse us and says, Well, you know, if you really were a proper believing person, surely you wouldn't have thought that, surely you wouldn't have said that.

I thought you would have done that and you've left it undone. What is the answer to that? Well, the answer is that we have been saved from the penalty of sin, and one day we will be saved from the presence of sin, but in the meantime, we are wrestling with the power of sin. There's not a question about ultimate victory, but it is a question about the ongoing battle. That's why Paul elsewhere says we're not wrestling against flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places. That's why he says, for the Ephesian church, they've got to make sure they have the whole armor of God, that their head is secure by the helmet of salvation, that the breastplate of righteousness is protecting them from the attacks of the evil one. There's nothing for your back. It's all for the front, the belt of truth and the sword of the Spirit and prayer and so on.

All of that is necessary. It's not calling in question the crown that it's there, but it is acknowledging the reality of what it's like to get there. Now, let me come back to this George Carlin thing, if I may. Life is tough, and then you die. It's usually said in a way that sort of defines life in that way. You know, you die, and there's nothing more to be concerned about.

You know, oblivion. What the Bible says—and this is what is so striking—is that it is appointed unto man once to die, and after this comes judgment. Now, you see, this is how Paul has framed this exhortation to Timothy. You'll notice what he says, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus. Notice the next phrase, who is to judge the living and the dead? The reason he says it's so important, Timothy, that you tell people this good news is because there is a judgment that's going to come, and now he comes back to it.

He's back again at the righteous judge. Now, to talk like this is to make oneself immediately vulnerable, whether you're in a pulpit, as I am now, or kind of one, or whether you're talking with somebody on the bus or on the train or whatever else it is. There's a great temptation, isn't there, just to draw back, just to pull out a couple of the little blocks, just not to say it all. Because it's very unappealing to people. And especially to our intelligent friends, they want you to be as intelligent as they are, and they've decided that if you're going to be as intelligent as they are, you're going to have to give up on some of this silly stuff. Why don't you take a couple of those bricks out?

Well, because you can't. When Paul, who wasn't exactly a dunce, was invited to address the intelligentsia in Athens, he didn't pull any punches. He was very skillful, he was gracious.

You remember what he did? Acts chapter 17, you can read it for yourself. He said to them, Well, I am delighted the opportunity to speak to you. And as I was wandering around the place this afternoon, I noticed that you are a very religious group of people, and that you have various altars and shrines and statues to all kinds of gods and goddesses. And I noticed that you have one that you've actually made to cover your bases to the unknown God. That's pretty clever.

You don't want to miss out. And he said, I'm glad you have that one because it gives me an introduction to my talk. The God that you don't know I want to tell you about. I want to tell you about the unknown God.

You can imagine their ears going up. They thought they knew everything. Whoa, he's going to tell us about the unknown God. And then what does he do? He starts with the doctrine of creation. The God who made the world and everything in it. So we are created by God.

Yes. And you are accountable to God. He's not accountable to you. I can just imagine him pausing, taking a breath and saying, so let me just wrap this up by pointing out, quote, God commands all people everywhere to repent.

How comprehensive is that? Exactly. God commands all people everywhere to repent.

And I'll tell you why, he says. Because he has fixed a day when he will judge the world in righteousness by a man he has appointed. So in other words, he doesn't back off from the reality of this, because he realizes that a world that does not ultimately reckon with the execution of justice is a meaningless world. When things are broken, they need to be fixed, and to get them fixed, somebody has to pay.

They do not get fixed without payment coming from somewhere. And our broken world is not going to be repaired apart from a payment. The execution of that which is necessary in order to restore that which is broken, which is dysfunctional, which is warped. And so he says, he has established this day. And it is this day that he's referring to here, the day when he appears, verse 8 of chapter 4. And this righteous judge will judge the living and the dead, verse 1.

Now, just in case you think it is going to be very, you know, you'll be able to slide by or I'll be able to slide by, no, it's much worse than that. Do you remember Ecclesiastes, the Old Testament book, which probably is, you know, the Old Testament equivalent in a longer version of Paul's speech to the Areopagus in Acts chapter 17, insofar as it begins with secular man and says, you're probably tempted to explain yourself in terms of intellect or in terms of your physical prowess or by growing plants and establishing gardens and wine, women, and song. And he goes down all those avenues and he says, a dead end down there and a dead end down there and a dead end down there. He gets to chapter 12 and he says, so you better remember your Creator before everything falls apart. Do you remember how he finishes that?

The close to the book? This is what he says. Okay, here's the end of it all, he says.

Let me give it to you in a nutshell. Fear God and keep his commandments. Fear God and keep his commandments. And then he explains why. Quote, for God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil. God will bring every deed into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.

Wow. And who's going to do this? The righteous judge. When is he going to do this? When he appears.

So it's the day that it's fixed? Yes. Will he do it fairly? Absolutely, he's righteous. Will there be any second chances?

No. It's final. Well, who is going to love his appearing?

Are you going to love his appearing? The righteous judge is going to come, he's going to execute judgment, it'll be completely fair, he won't get anything wrong, it'll be absolutely final, and he can't fiddle with it. Well, unless there's a way to deal with this, we are, without exception, completely busted.

Every one of us. Agreed? So you've got to find some way of dealing with this. One way to deal with this is, I don't believe it. I just don't believe it. There isn't going to be one. Thank you, have a great afternoon. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Talk to the hand, talk to the hand, talk to the hand. It's not going to happen. Well, I couldn't convince you, but the Spirit of God can convince you.

The Spirit of God will say to you in your heart, you better listen to this. Not because of the person speaking, but because of the truth that's conveyed. Have you followed that Silk Road trial, as I have done, with that young man who built, as a result of his amazing genius, a billion-plus marketing strategy throughout the world to sell drugs? And they caught him. And Friday or Thursday, they sentenced him. They found him guilty, as charged, 31 years old, clever, from a privileged background, with all of his life in front of him, took all of his genius and applied it in this way. His parents were present for the sentencing. Let me ask you a question. Do you think that he was sitting out in the anteroom, waiting to be brought back into the dock, and he was saying to himself, you know, I'm really looking forward to the reappearing of the judge.

I can't wait till she comes in. No, of course not. Because the guilty verdict had already been determined. Only the sentencing remained.

And he bowed his head and listened as Judge Katherine Forrest gave him a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Okay? So that's it. But without any desire for rhetoric or emotional manipulation, may I say to you on the authority of the Bible that that is nothing compared to the right execution of the judgment of God upon sin that will bear punishment that lasts eternally. My loved ones, that is why this is so crucial.

That is why the urgency of it is so real. This is why Paul says, listen, I am going to die, Timothy. You must tell these people. Tell them the amazing good news. What is the amazing good news? The amazing good news is this, that the righteous judge Jesus has come from the bench and has taken off his robe and has put himself in the place of the one judged and has borne the punishment that the judge deserved and has paid the debt that the judge cannot possibly pay. That's the story of the gospel, that it is a story of, first of all, realizing the predicament in which I find myself, and then the amazing news that God loves sinners.

That while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Only bad people go to heaven. Only bad people go to heaven. If you think you're going to heaven because you're good, which is the standard part, well, I think I'm probably good enough. You ain't going, I can tell you. But if you know you're bad, there's a chance, provided you look to the righteous judge who has done for you what you can do for yourself.

I mean, you've got to come up with something. What are you going to say? Well, I've always done my best.

I've never really harmed anybody at all. As if any of us could reach a standard whereby we could seriously argue our goodness before God. How could you argue your goodness before God? Even your spouse knows you're not that good.

You know you're not that good. Goodness gracious, how many times a day do we realize how messed up we are? And then we go to somehow or another face the bar of judgment and go, well, I think I can plead in my defense. No, the wonder of the good news is the wonder of good news.

If I had time and I don't, I'll take you all the way through Paul and show you the radical transformation in Saul of Tarsus, who was so stuck on his own righteousness. He regarded himself in relationship to law keeping as blameless. That's what he said. So he was right up there in the high ninety percent. He was doing a really good job. And then he says, but I regard that as a load of trash now.

Why? For the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ as my Lord. He says, I suddenly got it. That although my righteousness could never be put together in a way that I would be acceptable to God, a righteousness from God, Romans 3 21, has now been granted to us by faith for all who believe. He does it again in Philippians 3. He got to Titus.

It's the same story. When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy. You see, in the starkest of terms, the reason that we may look forward to a crown is because Jesus had a crown. His crown was a crown of thorns, in order that we might have a crown of righteousness. He bears our punishment. As Isaiah puts it, he was crushed for our iniquities.

He was bruised because we were the bruised ones. The thieves on the cross—I'm not sure there's many a day goes by I don't think about these two men, three men, Jesus in the middle and the other two, the one fellow giving Jesus a bad time. If you really are who you say you are, come down off the cross and get me off the cross. If you're a Messiah, that'd be a good time to show up and so on.

That's the kind of thing people say to me all the time. If you want me to believe in Jesus, let him do a miracle for me. Have him come down and do something.

He comes down to Chagrin Falls, I'll believe on Tuesday. Let me tell you something. No, you wouldn't.

You wouldn't. And the other fellow says to his friend, he says, hey, hey, hey, wait a minute. We are up here getting what our sins deserve. We are justifiably up here on this cross, but this man has done nothing wrong.

Why is he up here? Because he who knew no sin became sin for us in order that in him we might become the righteousness of God, that God pardons in Jesus all our sins, accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith. If you're a believer today, your righteousness is not a wee bit of you. It's not like a file in the computer of your existence whereby you open a particular file called the righteousness file and you see how much righteousness you've got in there. You don't have righteousness. Jesus is your righteousness. He's all your righteousness.

I don't have any other righteousness except the righteousness which is mine in Christ. That's why Paul says it's such an amazing thing. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old is gone, the new has come. He comes with all of this debt in the column. That debt is canceled as a result of the credit of Christ. It's an amazing story. And actually, this story, unlike most religious stories, because most religionists are either proud or they're despairing.

If you meet people who are into religion, you will find they're one of the two. They're either going around going, well, I'm pretty confident I've done such a great job and so on, or you will find that people are in absolute despair. I could never live up to it.

I could never do it. I don't know what I'm going to do. The gospel deals with our pride and with our despair. To us in our pride, it says, both morally and intellectually, you're going to have to rely on Jesus. That's going to take a humbling, isn't it? And to our despair, when we say, I think I'm so bad, there's no possibility.

It says, did you ever hear about the thief on the cross? Imagine that we go to Niagara Falls together, and we go on the Canadian side, because it's much nicer over there. Well, it is nicer over there. Everyone knows that. The flowers and everything are nicer.

I don't know why we don't clean our site up, but that's another story for another day. And as we go up there together, I notice that you are standing perilously close to the edge. And as I look at where you're standing, I realize that you're standing on a shaky foundation. And so I say to you, hey, don't stand there. That won't hold you. And you say, I'll take my chances. Or maybe you're offended, and you say, hey, don't tell me where to stand.

It's no reach for me to apply the analogy. By nature, we are standing close to the precipice on a rickety foundation. And the Bible says that will not hold you. Here is solid ground on which to stand. Are you going to say, I'll take my chances?

Are you going to say, don't tell me where to stand? Or are you going to say, hey, thank you so much. I didn't realize you've saved my life. That's the story. That's what's all wrapped up in this crown, in this day. It's a victory.

It's a certainty for those who come to Him in believing faith. Well, I wonder, have you done that? I was at a wedding last night, and, you know, they got married the way you usually do.

They did the doo-doo, doo-you-doo. Do you take him? I do. Do you take her? I do. And they doodled, and that was it.

They're all married up. It was a great to-do, actually. It was a to-do right there. And I like that analogy, because I often use it, don't I? But, you know, to finally close with Christ's offer of salvation, you have to do something.

It's not enough simply to process intellectually what I'm saying to you. You've got to finally come down on one side or another. And if you imagine the Father, it's a strange picture, but imagine the Father God looking down on Christ, and you standing beside Him, and He says to His Son, Son, do you take this sinner? And Christ says, Father, I died for her. And then He says, and you, do you take this Savior?

Well, do you? Have you? Will you? Get off your rickety foundation. I'm telling you, it will not hold you up, neither in time and definitely not in eternity.

I'm telling you this because I have to, because I want to. That is Alistair Begg warning us of the coming judgment and explaining how the Gospel deals with our pride as well as our despair. You're listening to Truth for Life Weekend. Alistair will be back in just a minute to close in prayer, so please keep listening. We just heard Alistair urging us to get off our rickety foundations and take Christ as our Savior. If you'd like to know more about the firm foundation of the Gospel, we invite you to the Learn More page on our website.

You will find two videos there. One video features Alistair explaining the Gospel. The other is an animated presentation called The Story that will walk you through God's plan of salvation.

Visit truthforlife.org slash Learn More. Part of our mission at Truth for Life is to encourage pastors so that local churches will be strengthened. In addition to Alistair's messages, we select books to help support this mission, and that's why we're recommending a book by Rico Tice. It's called Faithful Leaders and the Things That Matter Most. This is a book about Christian leadership. Rico gets right to the heart of the matter, explaining that as church leaders, we need to get God's word right and get our character right. Faithful Leaders is the perfect book for leadership retreats. It's short. It's only 107 pages.

There are questions at the back of the book to help you think about your personal and ministerial strengths and weaknesses so that you're able to improve as needed. Find out more about the book Faithful Leaders when you visit our website truthforlife.org. Now here's Alistair to close with prayer. Father, thank you that we are ultimately shut up to your word, that none of us invented this. It's not necessarily easy to say.

It certainly doesn't hold mass appeal in our contemporary culture. But we know that you are the God who opens blind eyes, shows us that if we are standing on rickety foundations, you soften our hearts. If we are tempted to say, I don't want you telling me what to do or where to stand, you are the pursuing God. So pursue us, Lord, like the hound of heaven, some of us in our intellect pursued like Louis, others of us in our despair pursued like the woman at the well. But pursue us and bring us to yourself, we pray, so that we may rest in the assurance that one day when we stand before you, we may do so unashamed and all of our answer will be away from ourselves in Christ. In whose name we pray. Amen. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening. Join us again next weekend when we'll learn why all Christians have the potential to backslide. Find out how you can resist the world's pull. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.