Amazing Righteousness

Welcome to Worship in the Word with Pastor Robert Morris. Today Pastor Robert is continuing his series, Amazing Grace, with a message about what righteousness is and how God deposits His righteousness to believe in Him. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm your host, Janae, and I'm here with my co-host, Patrick.

Hey, what's up? I'm excited for today's message because Pastor Robert is taking concepts like grace and righteousness, which can sometimes be a little difficult to grasp, and he makes them so relatable and simple. I'm looking forward to hearing him break it down and tell us what righteousness truly is. Hey, and you know, the word righteousness is not a word we often use in our everyday conversations. Sometimes the word righteousness can have a religious or churchy connotation, but when I heard this message, it totally changed what I thought about it and gave me more of an understanding of what it really means. Well, let's join Pastor Robert now and hear what he has to say about the amazing gift of righteousness. So this week we're going to talk about amazing righteousness. Amazing righteousness.

And you may not be amazed yet about righteousness, but hopefully in a few minutes you will be. Romans chapter 4, verse 1, what then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. Now remember we talked about this last weekend. No one's going to boast in heaven.

Let me put that in Texan. There ain't going to be no bragging in heaven. Verse 3, for what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. But to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.

Now I want you to think about how amazing this passage is. If the world doesn't know anything about this, those that don't know Christ, they'll understand this because if they did, they won't accept Christ. That you can believe in Jesus and sin is taken out of your account and righteousness is put in your account. It's accounted for righteousness.

That's amazing to me. Think about if you go out on the street to a mall or sports game or something and you just interviewed some people that don't go to church, that have never been taught the Bible, and you said to them, what do you have to do to go to heaven? What are you going to hear? What's the answer you're going to hear? Be good. Be a good person.

Right. And some will say it like this, do more good than bad. Hopefully at the end of your life you have more good in your account than you do bad and then you get to go to heaven. Well the only problem with that is that God's standard is not good.

It's perfect. So how am I ever going to get to heaven? Let me ask you this. I know no one will raise their hands on this first question. I'll ask you too, but no one will raise your hands on your first one. I know that because is there anyone here that has broken every law?

Every law. Well, let me read you a scripture and I'm going to read out the living Bible. I know this is a paraphrase and the guy wrote it for his children to be able to understand the Bible, but I think it helps us understand this scripture a little bit.

I like the way the wording is. James 2 verse 10 says, and the person who keeps every law of God but makes one little slip is just as guilty as the person who has broken every law that there is. Okay, here's the second question. See if anyone raises their hands. How many of you have made at least one little slip?

Can I? Cats kind of like the death rate, about a hundred percent. And actually I'm a little shocked. You're a bunch of sinners. Got a church full of sinners, Pastor David. New King James says it the same way.

Whoever shall keep the whole law and yet stumble in one point, he's guilty of all. Okay, so if God's standard is perfect and none of us have been perfect, how do we get to go to heaven? It's really simple.

It's real simple. We believe in the perfect one, the one who did keep the whole law, Jesus Christ. Now, look back at verse 3 because we want to key in on this scripture for the whole message, all right?

It says, for what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God. That's one part that I want to talk about.

You know how I am. I like three points, so that will be one of the points. Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him, there's the second part that we're going to talk about, for righteousness. And that's the third part that we're going to talk about.

But I want to flip them. I want to start with righteousness and work backward, all right? So, here's point number one. What is righteousness? So, righteousness is, let me explain it. I asked the question, what is righteousness? Righteousness is right standing with God, okay? That's the easiest definition of righteousness. Righteousness is the state of being right with God.

Right standing with God. Okay, now, can a righteous man do an unrighteous deed? Well, if you have any wonderment about that, look in the mirror, because you've done a lot of unrighteous things, right?

Even since you believed in Jesus. Okay, so a righteous person can do unrighteous things. Can an unrighteous person do a righteous deed? Yeah, an unrighteous person who hasn't been saved yet can do right things. But, does the righteous deed that the unrighteous person does make him righteous?

Okay, let me give you an illustration. Let's say there's a guy who, he's not a believer, he's not a Christian, does not believe in Jesus, does not attend church anywhere, and he goes out of town on a business trip, and he has a really good day. And he signs up a lot of new accounts, and one account that he signs up is the largest account he's ever signed up. And so he eats dinner, and then he decides to take a walk, and he's feeling really good about himself and his day, and he's walking by this playground, and a ball comes over the fence from the kids, and he picks the ball up and he throws it back. And then he gets to the corner, street corner, and there's a little old lady, two great big sacks of groceries, so he carries the groceries for her, helps her cross the street, you know, and then goes a few blocks with her and takes the groceries to her house.

And then on his way back from there, he sees a homeless man sitting on the street, and he pulls his wallet out, and he says, I'm so sorry about your plan. I understand you can get down on your luck and all, and I've had good fortune, and so I want to help you some, and he gives him, you know, some money. Those are good things.

Wouldn't you agree? Those are right things. Okay, let me tell you about another man. He's a believer. He loves the Lord. He attends Gateway Church, okay?

We're going to give him a few extra points, okay? And so he goes out of town on a business trip, and he has a bad day. He loses several accounts, even his biggest account. And so after dinner, he takes a walk, and he's walking beside a playground, and the ball comes over the fence, and he kicks the ball in the street, and a bus runs over it. And he gets to the corner, and there's a little old lady, and she's asking for help, and he says, Lady, I don't have time, and he kind of just shoves her out of the way, and she falls down, breaks her eggs, and falls in a mud puddle.

And then on his way back to the hotel, he sees the homeless man asking for some money, and he kicks him, and says, you know, you ought to get a job, and he even says a curse word, okay? Okay, this guy doesn't go to Gateway Church, okay? Let's take that out, but he is a Christian, okay? He is a Christian, okay?

Because I know none of you would ever do anything like that. So, okay. Now, let's go back, unrighteous and righteous man. Does the righteous deed that the unrighteous man does, does that make him righteous? Does that make him in right standing with God?

Does it? Because he does something right. No. He's got to accept Jesus Christ. Now, listen to me, though. Does the unrighteous deed that the righteous man does, does that make him unrighteous? No, because I'm righteous by my position, not by my performance.

Now, it's wrong to do those things, and I'll suffer consequences from doing those things, and I can even go down a road to where I could actually destroy my life if I allow anger to stay in my life or something. You see what I'm saying? But I'm put in right standing with God by the blood of Jesus. You're listening to Worship in the Word with Pastor Robert Morris, and before we get back into the rest of his message on righteousness, we want to let you know that if you missed the first message in this amazing grace series, you can listen to it and other messages online at pastorrobert.com. You know, for so many of us, when we first accepted Christ, we were so amazed by God's grace. But I wonder how many of us are still amazed by grace.

You know, that's a really good question. I think the enemy tries to get believers caught up in doing things to become righteous. We start serving in the church, we start reading our Bibles, we start praying, and we don't do as many overtly bad things, and we lose that wonder and awe that initially wowed us.

Yes, and I really love what he said. I'm righteous by my position, not by my performance. My position as a child of God and a believer of Jesus is what makes me righteous. For so many of us, that's a big weight off our shoulders. Definitely.

Well, I can't wait to hear more, so let's dive back in. Pastor Robert has more great insight for us about how God sees righteousness. Okay, so that's what righteousness is.

Here's question number two. Did Abraham earn it? Did he earn it? Well, when you go back to Romans 4, verse 2 says, If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say?

Abraham believed God, and it was accounted, and we're going to talk about this, to him for righteousness. Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. And this word, counted, accounting, means to keep records of credits and debits. It's accounting. It's the class you did not like in college.

Some of you did, but not many. So that's what it means, keeping records of debits and credits. So here's what it says. Now to him who works, it's not counted as grace, but as debt.

Here's what that means. It doesn't mean that it's bad for you to do good works because we're saved to good works. To do good works is what Ephesians says. We're not saved by good works, but we're saved to do good works, okay?

So it doesn't mean that we shouldn't do good works and that's counted against us. What it's talking about God, it's saying if Abraham had done works, then God would have owed him. It would have been a debt to God.

God would have owed him payment for his good works. In other words, like if someone came and did a job at your house, landscaping or something like that, after they do the job, you owe them. You owe them. It's a debt to you.

You owe them for what they did. So what he says is God didn't owe Abraham. He did not owe him, and God doesn't owe anyone.

So what's he going to do? How am I going to go to heaven when I have sin in my account, Debbie had sin in her account, Abraham had sin in his account, and you have sin in your account? How am I going to go to heaven? And Jesus has righteousness in his account. Well, here's what happened two thousand years ago. God took the righteousness out of his own son's account, and God put the sins of the whole world in his son's account. And that's why his son was condemned to death. Because the Bible says God took the one who knew no sin and made him sin.

That we might be made the righteousness of God. So when Jesus died for our sins, you have to understand something happened very amazing. A lot of people don't realize this. Jesus shed his blood, and the blood of Jesus erased our sins.

Completely. And not only our sins, listen, the blood of Jesus erased the sins of the whole world. A lot of people don't realize this. Jesus died for the world. It said God was in Jesus reconciling the world to himself.

Listen to this. Not imputing, this is the same word for accounting. Not accounting their sins, not counting their sins against them. God took away the sin of the whole, and I know you think, well, I don't understand that then because I know some people aren't going to go to heaven. That's correct, because God gave you a will, and you have to choose whether you're going to receive what Jesus did for you or not.

But here, I'm going to make a shocking statement. People don't go to hell for sin because Jesus already paid for their sin. They go to hell for unbelief.

That's why they go to hell. So, God put all of my sins in Jesus' account, and he erased, he erased my account. No sin in my account, but there's also no righteousness. But when I was 19, I believed in Jesus, and God put righteousness in my account. When Debbie was 9, she believed in Jesus.

God put righteousness in her account. When Abraham was 75, he believed, and God put righteousness in his account. When did you believe?

Have you believed? And here's what James tells us about Abraham. It says Abraham put works to his faith. In other words, his faith was active because faith that's not active is dead, the Bible says. In other words, when God said move, Abraham moved.

He started obeying. So, it's not enough to believe with just your mind because there's a whole lot of people that do that, but they still do what they want to do. When you really believe, you start following Jesus Christ.

Welcome back. If you're just tuning in, you're listening to Worship in the Word with Pastor Robert Morris. You know, it's interesting to think of ourselves as having spiritual accounts. I don't know if I want to see all the things showing up on my account.

Yeah, me neither. But it's crazy how no matter how many good or bad things we've added to our account, if we don't believe in Jesus and his sacrifice, it all looks the same to God. Not perfect. Isaiah 64 says that our individual acts of righteousness are like filthy rags. You know, that's not exactly what you want in your ideal spiritual account.

No, it's not. But that's what makes Jesus' sacrifice and God's grace really hit home. No matter how hard we try, none of us can be perfect. It's impossible. We all have sin.

Right. And Jesus was the only perfect person ever. His account was spotless. Now, let's get back to the message as Pastor Robert tells us a compelling story about his wife, Debbie, and shows us what we need to do to be righteous.

Here's point number three. How did Abraham get it? What did Abraham have to do?

What did he have to do? He had to believe. John chapter 6, verses 28 and 29, Then they said to him, What shall we do that we may work the works, notice plural, of God? Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he sent. This is the only thing you have to do. You have to believe.

But it has to be in your heart, not just your head. Okay, but let me tell you something about this story that a lot of people don't get. We read about Abraham and we think Abraham was a really good guy. And we read about people in the Bible and somehow we make them super human. They're not like we are.

They don't go through what we go through. They were these super humans that God chose. Well, read your Bible a little closer. They were regular people.

And they had S's in their accounts. And to help you a little bit with Abraham, God shows up in Genesis 12. That's when God spoke to him. That's when Abraham believed and righteousness was put in his account. But can I tell you about Abraham before Genesis 12? Abraham, now this is going to shock you, Abraham was a heathen. A heathen. He was a part of a heathen nation.

Let me help you understand this. How much of a heathen he was. After he believed, after he believed, he's going to a city and his wife is real pretty. And so he lies about his wife and says, she's my sister.

So that the king could take his wife and make her one of his harem and abuse her sexually. And by the way, Abraham did this twice. You know he got chewed out the first time about this and he does it again. He does this after he believes. I'll tell you something else he did after he believed.

He sleeps with the housekeeper. He sleeps with his wife's maid and has a child out of wedlock after, he did this after he believed. What was he like before he believed? So God shows up one day, Abraham has no concept of God, none, and he just shows up to talk to him. I've often wondered what would happen if God said to him the day before, hey tomorrow I want to talk to you. How well would he have slept that night? How well would you have slept if God said he wanted to talk to you before you were a believer?

And what would you think God wanted to talk to you about? So God shows up and in essence this is what he says to Abraham. Abraham, this is going to be hard for you to believe. Considering what you've heard about me and what they write about me in the media and the secular papers, this is going to be hard for you to believe what I'm about to tell you. But I did not come today to judge you. I didn't come to condemn you. I didn't come to clean your clock.

And I could. I came today for one reason. I came to bless you. You read it, Genesis 12. It's the only reason I came, God says. I came to bless you. And Abraham believed and when he believed, God took sin out of Abraham's account and put righteousness in his account.

And Romans 4 says that's what God does for you when you believe. Now you've heard my story. Let me give you just a little bit of Debbie's story. The way Debbie got saved is that her grandmother planned a sleepover for a week during the summer for all the grandkids.

And her grandmother was a real godly woman but she planned it for a specific week. She had all the grandkids over at her house. They played. They had fun. But after dinner, she had all of them sit down and she turned the TV on because that was the week that the Billy Graham crusade was on TV.

And she planned it and all of them watched. Now, I kind of hate to tell you this because it dates me, but back then, it's going to be shocking to many of you, we only had three channels. I remember because if the president was on speaking, you know, your whole night was shot. I mean he was on every channel, you know.

You couldn't go to something else. And so, Billy Graham, though, did something really brilliant. He rented one of the channels from 7 to 8, the other channel from 8 to 9, and the other channel from 9 to 10. So Debbie said, we sat there and watched Billy Graham from 7 to 8 and when it finished, she thought, and my grandmother got up and flipped the channel and there he was again.

And we watched him three times every night for the whole week. And then she said at the end of the week, her grandmother gathered all the grandkids and she said to them, I'm not going to be here forever, kids. I'm not going to be on this earth forever. And more than anything in the world, I want all of you to come to heaven so we can be together forever. And about a year later, she passed away from cancer.

And Debbie remembered and she thought, I want to be with my grandmother in heaven. And I believe what she told me. I believe Jesus is the Son of God. I believe He died on the cross for my sins.

I believe it. And at nine years old, she gave her life to Jesus Christ. And the same grace that got me out of all the sin that I was in, kept my beautiful wife from ever going into that lifestyle. It's the same grace. And it's amazing. Wow. And to think, belief is the only thing we need to be counted as righteous. That's it. You know, no matter when or the circumstances that led you to believe in Jesus, God's grace and the righteousness He deposited into your account changes absolutely everything.

Yeah, it changes everything. Well, we hope you've enjoyed Pastor Robert's message today. If you would like to get a copy of this message or any of the messages in this amazing grace series, visit pastorrobert.com or call 833-933-WORD.

You can get the complete eight-part series for yourself, a friend, or a family member. So be sure to visit pastorrobert.com or call 833-933-WORD. You can also follow Pastor Robert on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. Make sure to join us next time as Pastor Robert continues this series on amazing grace with a message about God's unchanging nature. Thanks for listening and your support of this station. We pray you have a blessed week.