The Path to Righteousness

Today's passage is Romans 4:23-25, which says:

Now it was credited to him was not written for Abraham alone, but also for us. It will be credited to us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

Abraham's faith was "credited for righteousness." If we are to know what this means, a couple words have to be defined. The first is faith, which means trusting in God, putting His ways and, well, Him before everything else. Faith is not just blindly leaping off a cliff into the unknown, but is instead trusting a God who you believe is really able to hold you. That's what Abraham did when he first followed the Lord: he believed that God could really provide for him and lead him, so he followed. Faith is trust based on past experience, current belief, and future hope; the longer we believe in the Lord in our current situation, the more we will draw on past faithfulness He has shown us and the more we will be confident hoping in His future faithfulness. 

Another term is important to know here: righteousness. We are all sinners (wrongdoers, rebels against God's commands). Therefore, we are all unrighteousness before God, and He will judge us at the end of days on our righteousness (or lack thereof). That's the truth the Bible makes clear. The only way to avoid that judgment is to be seen as righteous before God when that day comes, and that is exactly what this passage details out. 

Abraham was no more righteous than you or me. He was a rebel against the Almighty, and therefore needed to be made righteous before God. These verses show that Abraham was made righteous not because of anything he did, but because of Who he trusted. He trusted, or put his faith in, God, and that trust in God throughout the rest of his life made him a righteous man in the eyes of God. And that is available to us, too. 

 If we believe in Jesus, our Lord and King, as raised from the dead to pay for our sins (delivered for trespasses) and defeat death once and for all (raised), we too can be righteous before God (for our justification). Again, it's trusting, it's putting faith in Jesus. Have you done that? Are you actively doing that with your life daily? Trusting in Jesus is the only path to true righteousness.

This is the entire message of every evangelist that ever was, from the apostle Paul to Billy Graham. This is the message that fulfills the Great Commission to go and make disciples, or followers of Jesus, of all nations. This is the message of trusting in the resurrection of Christ in order to be made righteous! This is the epitome of the power of God on display in the good news of Jesus: you can be saved! Trust it today.

Endings (Part 1): Exchanged

As those close to me should know by now, I have recently resigned from my position at Victory Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky. This post is not about that. Rather, this post is about what I want my legacy to be at VBC (or really, anywhere else that I ever teach and minister).

I am teaching through a series called "Endings" with the students over my last weeks with them. These six messages will attempt to drive home the six main things I have tried to teach them over the past fifteen months that I have spent as their student minister, and would be the six things that I would focus on more than anything if I were to remain there indefinitely. Thus, I will teach six statements that sum up everything I am about. This blog series will communicate that to whomever else would like to know my heart.

Here's the first statement: We were sinners before God, and now all He sees is Jesus.

That, my friends, is the gospel. That's the Christian's "good news." We were sinners before God, and now all God sees when He looks upon us is Jesus and His perfection. Where am I getting this?

He made the One who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. -2 Corinthians 5:21 (HCSB)

There's a few things of note in this verse that should rock your world.

1. He had no sin. The "One" with no sin was Jesus. He was without any blame or flaw (1 Peter 2:22), despite the fact that He was tempted in every way, just like us (Hebrews 4:15). It wasn't like the devil left Jesus alone on this Earth. Rather, he came hard at our Lord, and He maintained His holiness, innocence, and purity. He was separate from sin and exalted above all (Hebrews 7:26).

2. God made Him a sin offering. So, why does it matter whether Jesus was without sin? Who cares? Is there any reason for why He had to remain perfect and pure? Yes, as it turns out.

If one were to read the account of the first Passover (Exodus 11-12), they would see that in order for the wrath of God to be satisfied, a pure, unblemished male animal had to be sacrificed (Exodus 12:5). This would begin a long line of sacrifices that God would require of the Israelites--all involving lots of blood and killing and death of pure animals. Why was all of this necessary? As we can see in Leviticus 17:11, it is in blood that a creature's life resides, and it is by the shedding of blood that God allowed for atonement (the payment of sins) to occur. So animal after animal after animal was killed under the Old Testament law, and that was how sins were atoned for. However, God was merely foreshadowing to a greater Sacrificial Lamb.

Jesus became the Great Passover Lamb, dying upon the cross and spilling His blood for our sake. He became the ultimate sin offering, and took the wrath of God upon Himself on behalf of sinful men. Do you realize the weight of that? Jesus took the blow for our sin when He had none. He was all of those things that 1 Peter and Hebrews stated above, and yet He also, as 1 Peter continues to point out, was the sacrifice for our sins (1 Peter 2:24). He bore our sin upon the cross. Fair? No. But it was for a purpose.

3. We become the righteousness of God. This is the great exchange; this is the great news of Christianity! We were hopelessly sinful, and yet, He became sin on our behalf so that we may live in His righteousness. He essentially traded our sinfulness for His righteousness. He gave us His peanut butter and jelly for our rotten apple at the great lunchtable of life.

Take some time and look up these verses in Romans: 1:17, 2:13, 3:21, 3:24. They show our hopelessness that became the ultimate hope by receiving the righteousness of Christ. We gained His relationship with and standing before God the Father. That's ours. In fact, our relationship with God is so great that He made us His ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20). Doesn't that seem reckless on His part?

It should. However, this is how we must trust the righteousness that has been imputed to (put on) us. That is how we must see ourselves: as holy before God. He knows we still sin. I'll talk about that in another post. However, when it comes to our relationship and standing before Him, He sees Jesus and His sinless perfection. We cannot be removed from Him. We cannot be too sinful to read our Bible or pray. We cannot undo what Christ did. We cannot lose Him as our Father. We cannot expel the Spirit from our hearts when we mess up. We're as secure in our relationship with our God as Jesus is with the Father. That's some Trinitarian-tight bonds right there, and I am beyond thankful that I find myself amongst such a Trio. May we never doubt our relationship with our God and think we can undo the work of His offering!

Meditations on Psalm 1: The Roots of the Righteous Man and the Wicked Man

Have you ever seen a tree bend during a storm? The wind blows and blows, and unless it snaps the tree in half, the tree remains in place. There may be trash and cars and everything else flipped and thrown about, and yet a tree will remain standing. Why is this?

The tree is secured into the ground. Unlike a trash can or patio furniture, the tree has roots. A tree's roots go deep into the earth, securing its base into the ground and keeping it in place. This is obviously not the primary point of roots, but it certainly does function this way. Anyone who has dug up a tree understands the difficulty of pulling a stump up. Roots keep trees in place, and they keep us in place, as well.

Psalm 1 is only six verses long, but they are a huge six verses. Read with me:

¹ Blessed is the man
    who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
    nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
² but his delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and on his law he meditates day and night.

³ He is like a tree
    planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
    and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
⁴ The wicked are not so,
    but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

⁵ Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
    nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
⁶ for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,
    but the way of the wicked will perish.
          -Psalm 1 (ESV)

 Notice what verses one and two say about the righteous and wicked men: the wicked man is walking, standing and sitting with the "wicked," while the righteous man delights in and meditates on the Lord. The wicked man is engulfed in the foul, while the righteous man is shrouded by the fair. Then verse three takes the comparison further.

Here, we see a tree planted by the water, yielding fruit. The roots of this tree have gone down into the soft creek bank, drawing up rich water and nutrients and flourishing as a result. This is the righteous one; he draws his fuel from the Lord, and is filled with the everlasting water and life-giving nutrients of the Spirit. He yields greater fruit than any tree could dream of. Trees may bear oranges and apples and pomegranates and other tasty fruits, but these delicacies pale in comparison to the fruit of the righteous man. The righteous man brings forth love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. 

By contrast, the wicked man brings forth much less. He is compared to chaff. Now, those of us who do not live in the agricultural realm may not know what chaff is, so allow me to explain. Chaff is the dry casing that coats seeds, straw and grain. It is scaly, brittle and dead. Its purpose is to protect that which is growing. Chaff is the toenail of the plant world: a necessary protection, but not pretty. Chaff does not produce anything. It merely exists. Chaff has not fruit; it just hangs on.

Now, let us think for a moment about a fruit-bearing tree and a pile of chaff. We have a beautiful cherry tree overhanging a bubbling brook, and beside it lays a pile of husks, a pile of chaff left over from a boy's pulling apart of grass. The sun is shining and all is well. Both the chaff and the tree remain in place. What happens, however, when a storm rolls up on this peaceful scene?

It is obvious, is it not? The chaff will blow away. Like the seeds of a dandelion going forth from a child's blowing, the chaff will scatter in the wind, twirling about to and fro in the gale. The tree, however, will most likely stay in place. It may lose fruit and branches and leaves, but with all likelihood, the tree will remain standing. 

This is the future for the righteous man and the wicked man on the day of judgment. The wicked man, without having his roots firmly planted in the life-giving, supporting, loving Lord of all, will be blown away by the wrath of God. John the Baptist echoed the idea of the wicked being chaff on the day of judgment, saying that they would "burn with unquenchable fire" (Matthew 3:12). 

This, my friends, is the state of all men. We all have walked in the counsel of the wicked, stood in the way of sinners and sat with scoffers. We were the chaff, a synonym for trash in the ancient world. We were kindling for the fires of Hell, "but God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:4-7, ESV).

If you are in Christ, you are no longer chaff. You are no longer trash for the burn pile, and instead are now a tree. You have roots that continue to grow into Him as you work more and more to grow in Him. We now walk in the light, delighting the in law of the Lord and meditating day and night on God and His glory. We reject the past that we spent with the wickedness, and we continue to pursue Jesus.

As the calendar has officially changed over to 2014, we have a new year. We have a new calendar. If you are still chaff, if you have never been brought to life by the work of Christ on the cross, make this the time. Become the righteous man. If you are already saved by the work of Christ, then dig deep in 2014. Sink you roots further into God and His Word. Pray with greater fervor. Give more generously. Meditate on Him day and night. Regardless, the judgment is coming. Will you stand before Him, or be blown away? Where are your roots: in Christ or in your own wickedness?

Better Than A Pharisee?

"For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." -Matthew 5:20, HCSB

Yesterday I was in a discussion with a friend of mine about her weekend. She told me about how busy her weekend was, primarily because of church. Intrigued, I asked how it was that church had made her weekend so busy.

She went on to tell me how she was Catholic, and due to several factors she couldn't control, was late to mass on Saturday night. She told me that mass lasts for one hour, and after she missed the first thirty minutes, she felt like her attendance in mass "didn't count." Thus, she went again on Easter morning, to make sure that she was in a full mass service this weekend.

Now, I am not one to bash Catholics, but this conversation really got me thinking about one aspect of Catholicism that many Protestants deal with, as well: can we earn any good standing before God? This ranges from full-on works-based salvation to just improving how God sees us, based upon our actions. Is there any way to improve our standing before God on our own? Does God have a scoreboard, keeping track of our good deeds? Do we have to gauge whether or not our deeds count?

The answer is no. There is nothing we personally can do to improve our standing before God. We are all sinners, and according to the book of Isaiah, even our good deeds are merely dirty rags in the eyes of God (if you want Isaiah's version, look up the real meaning of Isaiah 64:6).

In the passage I included at the top of this post, Jesus is describing how He fulfills the law of the Old Testament. He describes how He is not the destroyer, but rather the completer of these writings, and how one must be more righteous than the Pharisees to get into heaven.

Now, let's review: the Pharisees were the group of people in New Testament Judea that held to God's law the closest. No one had all of the sacrifices and such down like these people. They gave, fasted and prayed according to the law. They practically lived in the temple.

And Jesus says we must be more righteous than that to enter heaven.

Can you see our dilemma? I don't know how righteous you think you are, but I know I have nothing on the Pharisees. When you've memorized the first five books of the Old Testament AND follow them to a T, lemme know. Until then, we're gunna operate under the assumption that the Pharisees have us beat on the righteousness scale. That is the level we must surpass to get to heaven. Seems impossible, right?

That, my friends, is Jesus' point. He knows that no one follows the law better than them. Jesus knew when He made that statement that all fall short of that level, much less surpass it. Thus, we must conclude that since no one is at a heaven-worthy level (not even the Pharisees are righteous enough), no one can get to heaven based upon their deeds. No one.

"...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." -Romans 3:23, HCSB

Jesus was preaching Romans before it was written. There isn't a person on Earth that can improve their standing before God with deeds, since we can't get to a level to save ourselves, and even our good deeds are dirty rags to God. This is why we depend upon Jesus alone for our salvation! He alone could be the one righteous enough to earn God's favor, since He was not polluted by sin. He alone could be the spotless Lamb, slaughtered for the salvation of the people of God. He alone could earn our salvation.

"For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—  not from works..." -Ephesians 2:8-9a, HCSB

We're saved by grace, not works. We have nothing to bring to God, but praise be to Jesus that He brings it all for us! We may rest in Him, knowing that He is the one responsible for our good standing before God, washed white with His blood before the throne of God!

In Christ alone, my hope is found.

He is my light, my strength, my song!