09-19-10 The Gift of Righteousness

Three weeks ago we pulled out of our study of Romans

partly because I had some other things I wanted to share with you,

and partly because I wanted a little more time to think through the Romans passage we were studying

before we moved ahead with it.

This morning we are going to return to that study

and see if we can make some more progress

in our understanding of one of the pivotal truths...

one of the pivotal works of God in the lives of His people.

Our study of Romans has brought us to the closing few verses of Romans chapter 5,

and let me read the whole passage for us

before we return to our study.

This entire passage actually takes up the last half of the 5^th chapter,

a passage in which Paul sets up an extended comparison between Adam and Christ Jesus.

He talks with us about the way in which, through one man, Adam,

and his one transgression

sin entered into the world and brought death to every person from then on,

but then through one Man, Christ,

righteousness entered into the world,

bringing the offer of redemption to all people.

But let me just read the final 5 verses of the passage to get us up to speed.

For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Rom 5:17-21

Now we have been focusing most of our attention when we were most recently in this study

on the final two verses where Paul says, The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord...,

but before we move ahead with this

I want to back up to a phrase that’s found earlier in this passage

because it was this phrase that caused me to pull out of this passage for the past two weeks.

It’s a phrase found in verse 17

where Paul talks about what he calls the gift of righteousness.

I have to tell you that this phrase

has forced me to think through some things

that I now believe are crucial for us to understand

if we are ever going to do justice to this portion of Paul’s letter.

Clearly Paul is telling us

that, in God’s design for us,

in the plan of redemption that He created for us

righteousness - moral purity

would come to us as a gift from God Himself.

Now, we’ve already made some progress in understanding what this means.

When we were in this passage three weeks ago

we talked about the way in which our discovery of the grace of God in our lives

creates within us a natural love response to our God,

a response that causes us to want to live a life that honors Him

and proclaims the truth about Him.

And that’s an important ingredient in this whole gift-of-righteousness thing

that takes place between us and our God.

But that in itself

is just a part of the whole picture.

And what I’d like to do for us in the next few minutes

is to try to put this truth into a simple,

clear,

unified picture of what’s really going on.

You see, true righteousness - true moral purity and stability in our lives

is a three dimensional work of God.

By that I mean

that it involves three distinct elements

that all go together to become this amazing gift of righteousness.

It involves our standing with God - how He actually sees us,

it involves our true spirit or heart identity - who we really are at the spirit level of our being,

and it involves our practical ability to live lives free from our former sin bondage - to live truly righteous lives.

So much of what I have heard from the Christian community through most of my life

has focused on the first two of those three.

Well, actually most of what I’ve heard from others

is pretty much limited to the first of those three.

For most of my life

I have heard preachers telling me

things like, “As a Christian, when God looks at you

He sees you through the blood of Christ

and because He’s sees you through the blood of Christ

He sees you as righteous.”

Now, I can understand why they’ve said things like that,

but to be honest that isn’t what God says to us.

What He says to us

is not that God SEES us as righteous

because He’s looking through some kind of Christ-tinted glasses,

like looking at the sun through polarized lenses that block out the light,

but rather that through Christ we actually become righteous - holy - morally perfect because of Christ.

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. 2Co 5:21

We are not just seen as righteous,

but we become righteous.

More than 50 times God calls Christians His HOLY ONES,

using the same word for holy

that He uses to describe Himself.

And he does that

because when we come to Him

He truly, literally, eternally does create

a new spirit within us,

a spirit that is no longer in rebellion against God,

a spirit that, as we will see when we move into chapter 7 of Romans,

is joined forever in a spiritual marriage union with the Spirit of Christ Himself.

What that means

is that from that time on

we truly are absolutely holy and sinless in our true heart or spirit identity.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. Joh 1:12-13

When God looks at us as Christians

He sees us as righteous

not simply because He’s looking at us through Christ,

but because He’s looking directly at our true identity - this amazing new holy spirit He himself has created within us.

That’s why every true child of God

has within themselves

a longing for a life that pleases their God,

and why they simply can never get away from that longing.

It’s there because it is who they are in spirit.

OK, that’s part of what Paul is talking about

when he talks with us about this gift of righteousness

given to us by our God.

God does step into our lives

and literally give us a new righteous heart.

But that in itself is not the whole picture

because the work God does within us

does not just stop with the creation of a heart within us that longs for righteousness,

it also involves His giving us true, practical righteous living.

It involves His giving us

the ability to live lives of real moral integrity

in a world that is morally corrupt to it’s very foundations.

And right here is where I’ve been churning the past few weeks,

trying to organize this truth

in a way that would help us get a hold of it.

And maybe I can do this easiest

by having us look at it from the personal level.

And to do this

let me begin by making you a promise.

If you are God’s child,

if your spirit truly has reached out to Him as your Savior

and He has created that new holy spirit within you

there is within you right now

what Christ described as “a hunger and thirst for righteousness”.

But that I mean simply

that you are keenly aware of moral battles in your life

and you are longing for freedom from bondage to sin in your life.

OK, here’s my promise to you - you WILL know that freedom,

and it will come to you ultimately

in the same way you received your righteous heart - as a gift from God.

He will give you the moral strength and the moral freedom you long for.

It is a part of the gift of righteousness

that He seeks to give to each of His children.

But He will do it

only when He has first been able to accomplish what He needs to accomplish

through the sins in your life.

And yes, I know that statement needs some explaining.

And to make sense of this

let’s back up just a step once again

to where we were a few weeks ago.

By now, if you’ve been with us in this study,

you will remember that Paul explained to us

this hideous situation that existed between us and the moral law of God prior to our submission to Christ.

In Romans 5:20 and 21

he told us that the Law drove us into sin, resulting in death.

Several weeks ago I pictured it as holding a lighted match over a can of gasoline,

but I have since learned that that was a lousy illustration

because gas in it’s liquid state will not explode.

So let’s picture it as tossing a match

into a room filled with gas fumes.

But my point obviously

was that when our spirits were in rebellion against God

the law ignited that rebellion

and drove us into sin.

But once we come to Christ

that explosive situation is eliminated forever.

Our spirits are no longer in rebellion against God.

And yet we still do fight sometimes intense battles with sin.

So why do those battle continue,

and why doesn’t God instantly give us the gift of righteousness in our practical living

at the same time He gives us the gift of righteousness in our spirits

at the point where He brings us into His family?

I believe at least part of the answer to that question

is found in understanding

what it is that God wants to accomplish within us through our sins

and also what He then needs to accomplish within us in order to bring about freedom.

And let me start with the first of those two - what it is that God wants to accomplish within us through our sins.

And yes, I do know how strange that may sound,

but the only way for us to understand this correctly

is for us to once again remember THE most fundamental truth

of everything God is doing in our world and in our lives.

Do you remember what it is?

God has created the world He has created

because it was the only way He could provide us with a means by which

we could discover the truth about our God -

so that we could see into His heart,

and know His mind,

and understand the true nature of His love.

The only way any of that could happen

is when we see our God’s response to us

in the face of our rebellion against Him.

For God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son...

Go figure!

That’s what we’re here for.

That’s what God’s is doing in our lives.

Most of us come trotting into the family of God

believing that God’s purpose is to clean up our lives,

to get us to be better people,

to change our behavior.

But it is not.

Our behavior will change,

but that isn’t the goal.

The goal is our discovering the truth about our God.

And here is one of the truly amazing things -

when we come to our God

one of the most effective teaching tools God will ever have in our lives

is our sin.

We come to Him

and literally give Him our sins.

That’s the deal He makes with us,

and from that time on they are no longer our sins, they’re His

to do with as He wishes.

And one of the things He will do with some of them

is to use them as powerful doorways through which

we can discover some of the most difficult discoveries we will ever make about our God.

You see, it is one thing to know that our God forgives us,

but it is a very different thing

to discover that His love for us never has and never will be in any way tied to our ability to perform for Him.

And for most of us

the only way for us to discover that kind of love

is through His continuing to love us,

and His pouring out His mercy and grace and kindness on us

in the face of some unresolved moral struggle.

And I know that there are times in the lives of many Christians

when God does not immediately respond to our prayers for freedom from some sin pattern

because we still believe that our God will only fully accept us,

and love us,

and treasure and cherish us

if or when we find victory over that sin.

And until we discover the truth about Him,

about His love for us that is absolutely apart from works of the law,

until we can just collapse in His love and grace and mercy, just as we are,

until the lie we are believing about Him is destroyed

He is not freed to give us the practical gift of righteousness we long for.

So that’s the first half of the battle - the things we need to discover about our God.

And then there is the second half,

the things He needs to accomplish within us in order to bring about the freedom we long for.

And let me begin here first of all

by saying that with every sin struggle in our life

nearly always God’s point of focus

and our point of focus are totally different.

Nearly always we are focused on the external actions - the overt sins that are driving us crazy.

But what we don’t realize

is that as Christians all of our overt sins

are simply external expressions of lies we are believing,

lies that are forming a flawed foundation within us.

And when our God looks at us

He focuses not on the outward actions,

but rather on the internal lies that are making those actions seem reasonable or necessary.

Only when those lies are brought out into the open

and we can see them for what they are

and then replace them with the truth

will our sin addictions loose their power over us.

Now, I know that my saying it that way

runs the danger of creating the misconception

that we can simply sift through our thinking processes

and find the lies we’ve been believing,

recognize them as lies,

replace them with the truth,

and then move on with our lives.

And that’s not the way it works

because the kind of lies I’m talking about

are not mathematical misconceptions,

they’re far more often powerful messages etched into the foundations of our lives,

messages that form the foundation pillars for our entire life.

I was in a conversation not long ago with a lady in her early 30's,

a lady whose entire adult life

has been an endless stream of tragic, pain-filled, blatantly immoral relationships.

She has been used and abused again and again

and yet continues to live out what is clearly a Biblically immoral approach to life.

In our conversation she referred to an incident that happened when she was just 4 years old,

an incident that told her she was a person who had no worth, no value,

a person who existed simply to be used by others.

That one lie recorded into her at that age

has determined the course of her life ever since.

When her God begins His healing process in her

He will not begin with the overt actions of “sin”,

but rather with the deep wound within her,

the wound that makes all of those sinful actions

seem not only reasonable but necessary.

A number of years ago I knew a man

who was born into a home environment

in which he was not wanted by either parent.

He was nearly aborted,

and literally from the day of his birth

he was given the message by both parents

that he was utterly unworthy of being loved.

As he moved into his adult years

it was impossible for him to enter into a love relationship with any other human being

because there was at the core of his being

the lie that he was unlovable.

The emotional pain this caused drove him into extreme drug and alcohol abuse.

His Lord’s healing process in his life

has only begun and will likely take years before he finds the freedom he longs for,

but here again

when His God works with him and in him

it isn’t simply the overt sin actions that He seeks to stop,

but rather His God seeks to free him from the deep lies within,

the lies that make those actions seem reasonable and necessary.

And with each of us

there are such lies imbedded within us,

lies that give the sins power in our lives.

And when we come to the King

He knows what those lies are

and seeks to break their power over us.

Once He’s accomplished that healing within us

removing the overt sinful behaviors that have grown out of those lies

is relatively easy.

So, here’s how it works...

there are four crucial areas of understanding

that must be in place in our lives

in order for God to then begin the healing process within us.

I mentioned those 4 areas three weeks ago

and will do so again this morning

because this is where Paul goes next in his letter.

But what I want us to understand

is that these four areas do not in themselves bring the freedom from sin,

or the practical gift of righteousness into our lives.

What they do is to create the framework,

the foundation upon which God can then begin revealing to us those lies

that are giving birth to the sin actions in our lives.

Once this framework is in place,

once we accept these truths and rest secure with our God because of them,

our Lord then seeks to lead each of us through an intensely personal healing pilgrimage

designed to break the power of the lies we have believed.

So then how does our Lord build this healing framework in our lives?

He has done it

1. by changing our true identity,

2. by changing our relationship to the moral law of God,

3. by changing our relationship to sin,

and 4. by changing our relationship to Christ Himself.

And that’s where Paul goes next in his letter.