Sunday English Service – 20 JUN 21

Transcript

For the last few weeks we’ve been considering our great salvation, our great salvation. And I told you that this is the greatest treasure that we have as a believer. What’s the most valuable thing you have as a — you possess as a believer? I think is your salvation. By that, I mean everything that comes in and through salvation as well. And so starting last week, we started looking at the blessings of salvation, the most basic essential blessings of salvation. We looked at how we are forgiven, and cleansed last week. Things that sometimes we take lightly. Yeah, obviously we’re forgiven by God. Our sins are forgiven. We are cleansed from our sins, but I showed you what an amazing thing that is last week. 

And similarly, today, we’re going to see another blessing that comes through salvation. And that is that we have been made righteous. We have been made righteous, or in English in many translations, the word that is used is we have been justified. We have been justified. Now that is a blessing. That is part of the salvation package. The moment you were saved, you were justified. Now, let me just show you quickly. Romans chapter 1. I just want to read a couple of verses 2, 3 verses here to show you that this has already happened to you. If you are a believer, I believe I’m speaking to mostly believers. And even if you’re not, that’s okay, you can still benefit from this, but mostly who are believers. And if you are a true believer in Christ, the moment you became a believer, the moment you put your faith in Christ, you were justified. You have been justified. Look at Romans 5:1, therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord, Jesus Christ.

And again in Romans, if you notice the tense, having been justified, it’s happened, finished. Having been justified by faith. He’s talking about all believers. We have peace with God and so on. Romans 5:9, if you come down, having now been justified by His blood. He speaks of justified. That word justified simply means we have been made righteous, or we have been counted righteous by God. We’ll explain that a little bit later, but for now I just want you to see that this is something that has already happened to us. We have been justified. Another verse, 1 Corinthians 6:11. 1 Corinthians 6:11, I want to, first of all, convey the fact that if you’re a believer, this has already happened to you whether you know it or not, whether you understand it or not, whether you realize it or not, whether you accept it or not. 1 Corinthians 6:11. And such were some of you. If you truly believed in Christ, look at this, for such were some of you. He’s talking about Corinthians. He says, you lived a different kind of life, you were — lived a sinful life before such were some of you, but you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord, Jesus. And by the spirit of our God. Notice the past tense, you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified. All these are blessings that came upon you or came into you or that you began to possess the moment you got saved, you were washed. We spoke about cleansing last week, you were sanctified. There’s something else we may speak about it later, not today. 

You were justified, that’s what we’re going to talk about today. So we are looking at something that has already taken please right. Now, before I begin, let me just say this. I believe it’s very important that we turn our focus and our attention in these days to what we have, to what we have. Naturally, if you just leave us to think about things, we will think about what we don’t have. We will think about what we have lost, that our people have lost so many things. People who have lost their livelihood, people who have lost their loved ones. People have lost so many things. There are people who are scared of losing more stuff and more things, and this and that. And if left to ourselves, that’s what we would think about. We would focus on the things that are not there. The things that are missing, the things that are problems in our life and difficulties and challenges, but I’m asking you to put that aside and today, focus on the blessing that you received through salvation that you have. The reason is I believe that as you focus on this, as you turn your attention upon this, I believe your entire attitude will change. I believe instead of, if here you will get a confidence, I believe that instead of a sense of hopelessness, hopelessness, you will be filled with hope and courage. 

I believe that instead of complaining or murmuring, you’ll be filled with Thanksgiving. That’s so important my friend, in these days to guard our attitude, our heart and our thoughts from going into this sea of doubt and despair and murmuring and complaining. One of the easiest ways to do that is to see what you have. When you see what you have, when you realize how great that is, I tell you your heart will be filled with Thanksgiving and faith and courage and hope. So let’s begin to look at this, and let me break up the sermon today in three parts. One is, we’re going to talk about what this is. We have been justified. We have been made righteous. What does that mean? What does that mean? Because this is not as easy to understand, as we have been forgiven. Our sins have been forgiven. That’s an easier concept. So I don’t have to explain much when I talk about that, but this, when we say we have been justified that word itself, people don’t understand. So we need to know what it means. That’s what we’re going to spend a lot of time doing. 

Secondly, how did we get this? And thirdly, what are the benefits we derive from this? That the benefits we derive from this? So let’s begin, what is this? What is this justified? We have been justified. You need to say that. I think that’s an important word that you need to get in your vocabulary. If you’re a believer, English-speaking believer, you need to know this word justify, just open your mouth and say that word, justify. We don’t use it in everyday language, justified, we use it in a different sense, but the Bible has a specific meaning when it’s uses that word. And I’ll explain that meaning to you. What does it mean to say that we have been justified? Well, first of all, it means that it is much more you’ve received something that is much more than forgiveness. Well, let me stress this first. Justification or being made righteous is much more than being forgiven. Much more, much more. Why do I say it like that? There’s a huge difference between saying that your sins are forgiven and that you are justified. I say this because sometimes people, you will see that they make it almost like an equal thing. They’ll say justified means your sins are forgiven. In fact, in English, when some people explain the term justified in an easy way like this, they’ll say justified means it’s just as if you’ve never sinned. Have you heard that? It’s a pretty nice way to remember. Even I like it. Justified means it’s just as if you’ve never sinned, just as if you’ve never. Justified, just as if you’ve never sinned. And I like it because it’s kind of nice to remember. Easy to remember. But the thing about it is it’s not true because just as if you’ve never sinned is simply forgiveness. When your sins are forgiven and when God forgives you and cleanses you from your sin, what we saw last week, the state that you are left in is just as if you’ve never sinned. Think of it like this. If God just forgive us, that would mean like we’ve never sin. There is no sin in our account, if you think of it like that. But if God makes us righteous, not only forgives us, but makes us righteous. That means it’s not just that there’s no sin in our account, and it’s not just that we’ve never sin. Like we’ve never sin. That is a positive righteousness in our account. 

Justified means we are justified means there is a positive righteousness in our account. Let me illustrate this with a simple illustration. Let’s say, imagine that you owed someone one crore rupees. Or say $1 million, something like that, big sum. And you have no money. I mean, literally let’s say you have no money. Just imagine. You have nothing, zero. You’ve zero in your bank account. I’m just saying, as an example. Now, that’s a pretty bad state to be in owing one crore or $1 million, or something like that, or having no money, zero. Now, imagine that the person who lend you the money looks at your condition, and they take pity on you and have mercy on you, and they forgive your debt. Let’s just imagine that happens. Nobody does that. They want you to pay the debt with interest, not forgive you. But imagine that happens that the person forgives the entire debt. Now that’s amazing. You will be thankful for all your life if they just did that. But even if they forgive you, your bank account will still read zero. Before this, your bank account had zero and one crore in debt. Now the debt is gone, but the bank account still has only zero because to start with, you had nothing.

But let me switch that. Let me modify that illustration a little bit. Imagine something different happened, instead of simply forgiving you of this massive debt, this person went to another level, and he actually on top of forgiving you the one crore $1 million debt, he actually deposited, transferred into your account that amount, let’s say one crore or 1 million or something like that. So now this is different. He didn’t just forgive the debt, he then put money into your account. A huge sum into your account. That’s what I say this illustration, because I want you to understand this is something like the difference between forgiveness and justification or being made righteous. Forgiveness is like ending up with an account with zero, no sin, but it’s still zero, no positive righteousness in the account. But when you are justified, when you made righteous by God, that’s not like zero. That’s like having one crore or a million dollars, but actually having a lot more, you cannot put a price on it. Even thousand crores or billion dollars. If you put also, it is not equal to the righteousness that God gives you in Christ Jesus. It is something far more than forgiveness. That’s the first thing I want you to get. 

What is this righteousness, justification? It’s something far more than forgiveness. Something positive. It’s not just the absence of sin. It’s the presence of positive righteousness. Now let me further explain, what is it? The second thing I want to say about this is it is something that qualifies you before God. It is something that qualifies you before God, something that qualifies you before God. We all understand the idea of qualification. If you want a job, you have to demonstrate your worthiness, your qualification. So you submit a resume. Why do you submit a resume? Because there is, you may have the list of your qualifications, your accomplishments, your experiences, and all that. And so your goal is to prove that you’re worthy. You deserve it. You’re trying to say with the resume, listen, this is my — this is what I’ve accomplished. These are my experiences. I deserve to get this job. I’m worthy of it, accept me. And if the employer considers you worthy and deserving, they give you the job, not just a job, whatever you want. If you want to get admission into a higher degree in a college or whatever they want to see whether you are worthy. So you’ve got to demonstrate your worthiness. You got to have a certain worthiness, you got to be deserving of it. And so you submit your mark sheet, your grades from school or from a previous law degree. 

And they want to see how you’ve performed. They want to see your previous performance to determine your worthiness. And if they deem you worthy, deserving, qualified, then they admit you into the higher degree program. We’re used to this idea of — we were used to understanding in order to get ahead in life, in order to get something or go somewhere or keep progressing in life, you need to establish a certain worthiness. You need to demonstrate that you are deserving of it, worthy of it. And if you can do that, if you can be deserving and worthy of it, then you can go to the next level. You can get into a job or college and you can get married and you can get ahead in life. This is how life works. We understand that. And so when it comes to God, that’s the reason everybody everywhere, all over the world thinks the same way. If you want to go to God, if you want to have a connection with God, if you want to go to heaven. If you want God to accept you, you need to be deserving. You need to have a certain worthiness. You need to be worthy of it. You need to deserve his acceptance. You need to be qualified enough. So what is the, how do you prove your wordiness? It’s not a grades mark sheet or something like that, or it’s not a resume, but rather it is living a good life. How do you prove, or how do you establish a certain worthiness before God? How do people think of it? They think in these terms, they think if I live a good enough life, if I do enough good deeds, if I accumulate enough good works. If my good deeds eclipse my bad deeds, then God will accept me. That’s the way most people think. If you go out to people on the street and ask them, does God accept you? You going to get into heaven? A lot of people say, yeah. You ask them, why? They’ll say, well, I did a lot of good stuff, I’ve lived a pretty good life, yeah I had my shares of ups and downs, but mostly my good deeds eclipse my bad deeds, and overall, I got a pass score and God will see that and God – I’m worthy of God’s acceptance. God will take me in. That’s the way the world thinks, everywhere, every culture, every people, every religion, except the Christian gospel says, we’ve got a slight problem here. The Christian gospel says, yeah, you do need to have a certain worthiness to be accepted by God. But the problem is no matter what you do, no matter how good a life you live, that is not enough to make you worthy of God’s acceptance. That is not enough to qualify you to be accepted by God. It’s not enough to qualify you before God, your good deeds and your good life, and your good works, and your good this, and your good that, all that may be good in the eyes of the world. But before God, it’s not enough to qualify you before God.

Why? Because God’s standards are too high. He’s God after all. He’s God, my friend. I mean, think about the perfectionist that you know in your life. I mean, we’ve had — when you were in school or college, you know what that perfectionist type teacher. The one who wanted everything to be perfect, the margin to be this wide and the handwriting to be like this, and they demanded perfection and we got so irritated and we didn’t like them, did we? That perfectionist, the one you think is the greatest perfectionist in the world is nothing before God. He is absolutely perfect. Is holy, holy, holy there’s none like him. And he demands perfection from his people. He says, you got to be like this. Now people say, that’s unfair. Now, how can he demand perfection from us? That’s not fair for God to judge us by this very perfect, unrealistic standard. Okay, forget about his perfect unrealistic standard. Let’s lower the standard. Romans chapter 2, if you go, I don’t have time to read, but you go read it in your own. In Roman chapter 2, Paul says, God, doesn’t have to judge us by His perfect standard. He doesn’t have to judge us by the Bible. He doesn’t have to judge us by even the 10 commandments. Some people say, I don’t know even what in the Bible, how can God judge me by the Bible? Some people say I don’t believe in the 10 commandments, how can God judge me by the 10 commandments? Okay. We can put aside the Bible. We can put aside the 10 commandments. God doesn’t need all that to judge us. Our conscience alone is enough. Our conscience alone is enough.

The way we — let me put it like this, our standards alone are enough. People say God’s standards are not fair. Our standards are enough to show that we are not worthy. What do I mean by that? What we expect of others that itself we don’t do, do we? The way we think others should live. We say that is wrong, this is right, and we criticize others in a certain way. And we advise others, do this, don’t do that. Do we even live according to what we expect others to live like? To even live according to our own standards? One preacher, trying to explain this to people, he put it like this. He told them, imagine there is an invisible tape recorder hanging around your neck your whole life, imagine that. Invisible tape recorder hanging around your neck, your whole life. It doesn’t record everything you say, but it does record what you say about others. What you say to others, when you say to somebody, don’t do this, do this. It records that. When you say about others, that is wrong. They should have done this. It records that. In other words, it records your expectation of others, and your standards and the standard you set for yourself in your life and life in general. And so this preacher says, it records all this your whole life, and then comes to the end of life on the judgment day. God will take that tape recorder from your neck, and He will say to people, it seems I’m not going to judge you by the Bible, I’m not going to judge you by the 10 commandments. Forget about all that. Let me just make it easy for you. And let me judge you according to your own expectations, what you expected from others. Let’s see if you pass your own standards, and He’s going to hit play. Scary thought.

Maybe you are a very perfect person, but let me admit my imperfection. I told my son, not to do something, do it a certain way, not do it this way. And a couple of days later, he comes walking in very Cooley. He looks at me and he says, you told me not to do this, but you are doing the same thing here. It was a very disturbing to hear that. And to realize that the things we tell others, sometimes we fail to do ourselves. That’s what that preacher is trying to get at. That’s what Romans chapter 2 is trying to say, your conscience itself tells you what’s right and wrong. You know what you are to be living up to. And we all know that we miss the mark. We all know that we fail. That’s what the Christian gospel says. It’s very realistic. See every other people, group, every other belief and culture, and they all say, we can somehow do it. And to be accepted by God, the Christian gospel says, no, you know, you can’t look into your own heart, you know, you can’t. And then the Christian gospel offers the solution. What is the solution? The solution is because we can’t build up our own worthiness before God, because we can develop our own righteousness. And because that’s not enough for us to stand before God, God himself develops a righteousness himself, prepares it, and then gives it to us as a gift, and then qualifies us based on that and accepts us as righteous based on that. 

The Christian gospel identifies the problem as well as gives the solution. The solution is what? Because we cannot stand before God based on our own wordiness. We can qualify ourselves based on our good deeds. Therefore, God himself prepares a righteousness, a good track record, a good performance record, a good resume for us, and then gives it to us and then consider us only that and accepts us and approves of us. Let me see how does he do that. It does all that in Christ. He does all that through Christ and in Christ. What do you mean by that? Jesus Christ came and lived a perfect life on this earth. Think about that. He is the only one to live a perfect life. Now that means He did not only avoid sin, people think avoiding sin is perfection. No, not only did He avoid sin, of every kind. He also fulfilled all righteousness. He did everything that He was supposed to. He’s the only one who fulfilled the perfect will of God, the way God wanted it to be done. The only one, no one else can say, oh God, I have done your will perfectly and fully, but Jesus. That’s the kind of life He lived. Everything He did, everything He spoke, everything He thought was in line with the will of God. And He lives that kind of life, and He comes to the climax of it, which is His suffering and death on the cross. And that itself is actually the culmination of His obedience. The climax, the peak of His obedience is the cross because at the cross He humbles himself. 

Philippians 2 says, to the point of death, He obeys Himself. How does it say Philippians chapter 2, He humbled Himself, verse 8, He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death. He humbled himself, became obedient. Jesus obeyed the father all through his life. And the greatest act of obedience. The most difficult act of obedience, the climactic act of obedience was when he humbled themselves, submitted Himself to God’s will to the point of death and say, when Jesus said to the father, I will die to do your will, not my will, but yours be done. To the point of death, He submitted Himself to God’s will, obeyed God. Humbled himself, became obedient to the point of death. Even the death of the cross. His perfect life ends in a perfect death, meaning obedient death on the cross. I say all this to say, Jesus’s performance record is then imputed to us, transferred so to speak to our account. God counts that as our performance. That’s what it means when the Bible says, God has made us righteous, he has justified us. What does that mean my friend. God counts you as righteous in Christ. Meaning He sees in you the righteousness of Christ, not your own good deeds, but the good deeds of Christ, not your own imperfections, but the perfection of Christ. God sees you righteous, counts you righteous, accepts you as righteous. That’s the Christian solution my friend.

Look at Romans chapter 3, it talks about this. Romans chapter 3 gives you this. What I just said is, it comes out in Romans 3 from verse 20, very crucial passage in the Bible. Romans is an important book. And this passage specifically is right at the heart of Romans. And in the first 2, 3 chapters, Paul has been trying to identify the problem of the world. From the first chapter. He started talking about what is wrong in the world. What’s the problem here? What is the problem that has to be solved? And he explains it and he develops it and by the time we come to Romans 3:20, he has already developed it fully. And in 3:20, he states it as a summary. What’s the problem with the world for by works of the lord, no human being will be justified in His sight. Since through the law comes knowledge of sin. People think they can be justified by good works. People think they can be counted. Justified means. The basic meaning of the word is to be counted. Righteous, not to do righteous. No. To be counted righteous by God. To be considered righteous by God, to be declared righteous by God, to be righteous in His sight. That’s what the word means. It does not mean to do righteousness. You will see why it does not mean that here itself, because you can’t be justified or made righteous in His sight by doing works of the Lord. 

Now, what are works of the law? Let me put it short like this, law works. People think by doing good works, they can be counted righteous in God’s sight. Paul says, forget about good works. Even if you think you can do law works, law works means old Testament works. Old Testament works means the works that God himself told you to do. Even if you are of the mind where you say I’ll do everything God told me to do. And with that, I will build up a qualification and I’ll be worthy of God’s acceptance. You are dead wrong by works of the law itself, no human being will be justified in His sight. Look at how he says it. No human being, no human being will be counted righteous in His sight by doing works of the law. Why? Because nobody can do the law perfectly. That’s what he says before 20 verse 20, He says all have sinned and so on. And even after that, he says this, you can’t be justified, counted righteous by doing works of the law because nobody does it perfectly. And so nobody can be justified in this way in God’s sight, in God’s sight. That’s the key. In God’s sight. In human beings’ sight, everybody looks righteous and good and we appreciate them and all that. And we appreciate each other. That’s all fine. But before God, it just doesn’t, it’s not enough. That’s the problem. Now, what’s the solution?

It can’t come. This being counted righteous, being accepted by God cannot come by doing works of the law. How can it come? 

Verse 21. But now the righteousness of God, this qualification, this worthiness. Now, the righteousness of God, this performance track record that is acceptable. The righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law. Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. He’s saying the law cannot give you the righteousness because there’s nothing wrong with the law, but everything’s wrong with us, we can’t fulfill the law perfectly. So this righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law in a different way. It doesn’t depend on the law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it. So it’s not like the law is the thing that’s giving you the righteousness, but the law speaks about it. It witnesses to it. What is this righteousness. Verse 22, the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe, for there is no distinction for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. You see that. All have sinned. Fallen short, no human being will be justified by doing works of the law. So what’s the solution. It comes through faith in Jesus Christ. Do you see that? For all who believe. And then he says that again, verse 24, they are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. See that. How are we justified? How are we made righteous? How are we counted righteous? By His grace? Everybody say, by His grace, not by our works, by His grace. Not because we deserve it, grace, the very meaning of grace is, the most important meaning probably is unmerited favor or one of the most important meanings.

Grace means unmerited. We don’t merit it. We don’t deserve it, but still we get the favor, by His grace. We don’t deserve to be counted righteous, but He counts us righteous. We are justified by His grace as a gift, as a gift, freely as a gift, did you see that? It’s a gift. You don’t earn it. You don’t work for it. You don’t build up your own worthiness. It’s a gift by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. How did it come through the redemption? That means through the cross, through what Jesus did on the cross, because the next verse talks about propitiation and the blood of Jesus and all that. That means cross basically. So you are justified, made righteous, counted righteous by his grace as a gift. You got it just as a gift. You didn’t earn it. And you got it because of what Jesus did on the cross, His redemption, redemptive work. And how do you receive it? You simply believe. Verse 25, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith. It’s all received by faith. Look at another verse, Galatians 2:16, Galatians chapter 2 and verse 16, knowing that a man is not — look at how many times Paul is trying to make clear how we are not justified, how we are justified. I want you to see that. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Jesus Christ and not by works of the law, for by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified. How many times he says the same thing round and round. He’s saying you can’t be justified. Counted righteous, made righteous in God’s sight by works of the law. But what is the way? By faith in Jesus Christ? 

Everybody say by faith in Jesus Christ, if you have put your faith in Jesus Christ, if you are a true believer in the Lord, Jesus Christ, then you are justified. Meaning you have been made righteous in God’s sight. You have been accepted and counted as righteous in God’s sight.

Every true believer. This is true of every true believer. Let me also say that, even if you don’t understand this truth, if you are a believer in Christ, that’s enough, you’re still justified, counted righteous. Counted righteous. What God is saying through Paul here is that you can qualify yourself before God, God has to qualify you. You can qualify yourself. God has to qualify you. The world thinks they can — the whole world thinks if they just live a good enough life and they just do this and that in the end, God will accept them. The Bible says no, no flesh will be justified. Even by trying to do the best which God told to do in the old Testament, how much less can we think we’ll be qualified by doing our little list of good works? No, it doesn’t happen that way. Only one, by faith in Jesus Christ. You believe in Jesus Christ, you put your faith in him. What happens is not only your sins are forgiven. You are justified. You are made righteous. You’re accounted righteous by a divine act of God, freely as a gift by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. This is God’s own qualification. He gives you to stand before him. It’s something that qualifies you before God. So it’s much more than forgiveness of sin. It is something that qualifies you before God. 

Thirdly, what is this? [inaudible 00:36:27] talk about what is justification? What is this righteousness? Thirdly, it is something that qualifies you fully before God. I want to keep this as a separate point fully, fully. Everybody say fully. It’s one thing to be qualified, nothing to be qualified fully before God. I want to stress that here. Go to Romans chapter 5, believers often suffer from an inferiority and sense of unworthiness before God. Just feeling unworthy and just — I’m not worthy to come before you, God, I’m not worthy to stand before you, God. My sin is like this. My record is like this. I’ve messed up so many times, I’m not worthy. That sense of unworthiness is there. I tell you, it will never fully go away if you simply only believe in forgiveness of sin. If you only think your sins are forgiven for a time, the unworthiness will go away. But then it’s at the constant threat of keep coming back. And not only that, you will never achieve the kind of sense of worthiness that God wants you to have. God doesn’t want you to just stand there, feeling unworthy before Him, being humble before God is not the same as being feeling unworthy. No, God has made us worthy in Christ. And that’s what this righteousness is about. It has qualified us fully. That’s why I say it has qualified us fully. Everybody say, fully.

Look at this Romans 5, Paul. In Romans chapter 3, we read Romans 3, end of Romans 3, where he brings in this justification. He brings it in as the first blessing of salvation really? The problem is all have sinned. The solution is, we are justified. He doesn’t even talk about forgiveness, notice in Romans. Goes directly to justification because justification subsumes forgiveness. It includes forgiveness and goes much beyond it. So for justification is the first and main first blessing of salvation in Romans. Starts in the end of Romans 3, goes through Romans 4, he talks in Romans 4 about how Abraham was justified and how David was justified and then comes to Romans 5. Look at Romans 5, verse 1, therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord, Jesus Christ. Now, I’m reading this to show you that Paul takes justification and keeps that as the foundation. And on top of that, he keeps adding these other blessings. He’s saying, if you have this, then you have this and you have this and you have this. And what do you have? He says, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord, Jesus Christ. He’s just added another blessing now. Having been justified, some translations say since we’ve been justified by faith, because we have this justification, this righteousness, we have peace with God through our Lord, Jesus Christ. Now what is peace with God? Peace with God is not peace in your heart. No.

You will think peace in the heart is the biggest thing. No, it’s not the biggest thing. Even if you don’t have peace in your heart, let me ask you, do you have peace with God? Peace with God is not about what you feel, is about your relationship with God my friend. If you put your faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ, that means God has made you righteous. He’s washed away your sin and He’s made you righteous, and given you a qualification and a worthiness to stand before Him, and that has brought you peace with God. The enmity has gone away. We were enemies of God, the Bible says. Once we were enemies of God. We were not at peace with God. But now through the redemption that is in Christ, Jesus, we who our enemies have been brought near by the blood, washed, cleansed, justified made righteous. God is not now looking at us as someone far away in enemy. No, we have peace with God. Peace also means much has a much richer meaning. When you see the word peace in the Bible, even in the new Testament, you always have to remember that the background to that is the old Testament. The word peace is one of the most important words in the old Testament, the Hebrew word Shalom. That’s the background even for the new Testament, word peace many times. 

Shalom is a very greeting for the Jews. When they see each other, they say Shalom. What does that mean? Shalom means nothing missing, nothing broken, everything is whole the way it’s meant to be. Everything is good. Everything is perfect. That’s what Shalom means. And Paul is saying, if you got justification, if you got righteousness, then everything is well between you and God. You got peace. You got Shalom. Nothing is missing. Nothing is broken. Your relationship with God is as it should be. You’re standing with God, let me put it like that. You’re standing with God. The way God sees you, the way God accepts you. Peace with God. You see what an amazing thing that is. That’s why I’m saying, this justification is not just some qualification before God, it doesn’t just give you some wordiness to stand before God. It actually qualifies you fully. Everybody say fully, it gives you peace with God. Everything is the way it’s supposed to be. Are you a believer? That means you’re righteous in Christ. You’re justified. That means you got peace with God. Everything is the way it should be. Everything is well between you and God. You start thinking about this. You’ll get peace in your heart. Peace in your heart is not such a big deal. Most important question is, do you have peace with God? 

So Paul, I want to read a few verses here, Romans 5:1, because I want to show you how much this justification qualifies you. How it fully qualifies before God. This is huge. Now look at this Romans 5:1. Since we’ve been justified, he adds another blessing. We have peace with God through our Lord, Jesus Christ. And then now what’s this verse two through whom we also have access by faith into this grace, what does he talk next about? How we have access by faith into this grace, through Christ, we are justified and then we have peace with God and we have access. Now, what does that access? Access means you can go to God anytime you want. You got free access. Who is the most difficult person to get an appointment with, the president of a country or a prime minister or a dignitary? Who do you think is the most difficult person to get an appointment with? Much more than that, much greater than that is our God. And He says to every believer you got access, you got access. We have access by faith into this grace, in which we stand, access. This is a huge blessing. I don’t know whether you realize this. God makes you righteous means the next step is God is at peace with you. Everything is well between you and God, which means you got free and full and complete access to Him. You can go to Him anytime you want. Come boldly to the throne of grace, the Bible says. We have boldness to enter the holiest place by the blood of Jesus. All this is related. The blood of Jesus gives us boldness, how? Not just by forgiving our sin, but by making us righteous. If you look, come down in verse 9, you’ll see that. Verse 9, Romans 5:9, much more than having now been justified by His blood. The same blood which forgives you, cleanses you, justifies you also. So let’s come back to Romans 5:1.

So Paul says you got justification, which means you got peace with God. Everything is, as it should be, which means you got free and full and complete access to God. What more do you need? And then he keeps stacking other things on top of this watch, he says, “You got access by faith into this grace in which we stand.” And then he says, “Then you rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” You got righteousness that leads to peace. And that gives you access, and you can rejoice in hope of the glory of God means you can rejoice knowing the very end, the very end is glory. When he talks about glory of God, hope of the glory of God. He’s talking about the ultimate glory. When we will see the glory of Christ, when we will be changed to glorious being ourself and the whole earth, and the heavens will be recreated. There’ll be a new heaven and a new earth, a glorious creation. He is talking about, that is what he means by that. Hope of the glory of God. The final glory is what he has in mind. What he’s saying is if — Now watch what he’s saying now, I want you to get this. If you are saved, if you’re a believer, you are justified, which means you are righteous, counted righteous, accepted by God as righteous. That means everything is well between you and God. Peace with God. That means you got access free, full, complete access to God. And that means you can rejoice because the end is yours. The end is glory for you. Where he went from justification all the way to the end. It’s unbelievable. I don’t know whether you realize this.

What I’m trying to say is, justification is like the key or it’s like the door through which you go and it takes you into so many rooms almost, and really the main door, the real door is Christ. I don’t want to put justification on the level of Christ. We are justified only in Christ. What I’m saying is once you grasp this truth of justification, once this goes into you, once you’re convinced that you are righteous, God has made you righteous. You will realize that there is nothing you need to be worried about. Everything is well between you and God. You have access to Him. And therefore, no matter what happens in the end, you win. In fact, Paul in verse 3, he says, “Not only that.” He says, “We don’t just rejoice knowing the end.” He says, “We rejoice even in suffering. We glory in suffering, he says, very daring language. He says, knowing that I’m justified, I know that the end is good so much so that I can even glory in the middle of suffering, he says. Because I know that it’ll all work to produce a greater end for me. I don’t have time to read through it. You read through it and you see. It is all stacked on top of justification, but everything comes in and through Christ. 

Full access, full qualification. Qualifies you fully, everybody say fully. I’m saying all this to say, this is something that qualifies you fully before God, let me read one more verse regarding that, come down to verse 9. He works this thing up from justification to a climax. And if you come to verse 9, he basically says, what we’ve already seen, but he says in a different way, look at this, verse 9, much more than having now been justified by His blood, we shall be in the future saved from wrath through Him. He says, you’re already saved. Which means you are justified by his blood. That gives you greater certainty that we shall be saved from wrath through Him. He saying, look at them, what much more. He’s trying to give the believers here assurance, a surety. How do you know whether you will escape the judgment day? How do you know whether you’ll escape hell? How do you know whether you will end up in heaven in glory? How do you know that you will ultimately be accepted by God? He says, if you are accepted now, if you’re justified now, if you are righteous now, much more than we shall be saved from wrath through Him. See what He’s saying? If God has justified you now, you can be sure that he will ultimately count you righteous, take you in, accept you. Justification is full qualification before God, qualifies you fully, gives you a full worthiness, complete worthiness before God. 

It’s not because of what you did. It’s not because, you built up your own worthiness. Not because you added up all your good deeds. No, my friend it’s because Christ perfect record was put on your account. And then now God looks at you, accepts you, welcomes you, treats you as he would Christ himself. It’s unbelievable.  Fully qualified. So it’s much more than forgiveness of sin, is something that qualifies you before God, fully qualifies you before God. What does this lead to. This leads to God’s acceptance. God’s approval, full acceptance. God accepts you today. God approves of you today. God welcomes you today. God smiles at you today. God is pleased with you today. Believers sometimes have this idea that God just forgive them and said, okay, fine, just live, that’s not the way God looks at us. It doesn’t look at us and say, you’re forgiven, I forgive you, just live. Just be there. No, it’s a huge difference between forgiveness and being made righteous. Forgiveness says your sins are forgiven, you may go free, you’re not going to be punished. Righteousness says, justification says, you’re justified. You are counted righteous in Christ. You may come in. You are welcome into my presence. The difference, forgiveness says, you’re free to go, you won’t be punished. Righteousness says, you may come in freely. You’re welcome to come in freely, broadly, because I accept you and approve of you. And I’m pleased with you.

God’s acceptance. God’s approval. God’s favor. Every other blessing. You see this opens the world. Once you have a free access to God, once you have bold access to God, once God accepts you, approves you now and forever, and you know that my friend, there’s nothing else you need because this will bring everything else. It’s an amazing truth. Amazing blessing that you have already got as a believer. Do you know that? Do you believe that? You may say this is all too good to be true. How can God just accept me like this? Like He accepts Christ and how can, He just approve of me and do all this. This is all too good to be true. Well, it’s not. At least my final point, this is more than forgiveness. This is something that qualifies you before God qualifies you fully. It leads to God’s acceptance and approval, which means everything. Why? The greatest thing about this is this blessing says basically that being righteous means you have the perfect righteousness of Christ. Perfect righteousness. Think about that, the perfect righteousness of Christ. When God sees you, he doesn’t see your performance, he sees the performance of Christ. That is unbelievable. It’s like God took our resume file and pulled out our resume and put in Christ resume. 

Think about that resume. Think about the accomplishments of Jesus Christ. He didn’t just avoid, like I said, he didn’t just avoid sin, he was a brave and bold and courageous person and he proved it by going to the cross, His accomplishments, no one can match his accomplishments, His track record. And God sees that. He doesn’t look at your track record, my track record. If He does, we’re finished. So glad, He doesn’t. The perfect righteousness of Christ. That’s what I want to end this first point with. If you’re justified, when the Bible says you are justified, when the Bible says you are righteous in Christ. It means you have the perfect performance record resume of Christ. Not because you did anything, you don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve it. It is by the riches of his grace. Romans 5:19, for as by one man’s disobedience, many were made sinners. So by one man’s obedience, the many will be made righteous. By one man’s disobedience, many made sinners, one man’s obedience, the many will be made righteous. You’re made righteous, not by your obedience, but by the one man’s obedience, who’s Christ, Christ’s obedience. 1 Corinthians 1:30 talking about you have the perfect righteousness of Christ. 1 Corinthians 1:30, because of Him, you are in Christ, Jesus who became to us wisdom from God righteousness, sanctification, redemption. In simple language, this verse says Jesus became our righteousness. Jesus is our righteousness. The old Testament itself in the book of Jeremiah says, one day will come when the Lord will be your righteousness, can get a higher quality than this. You think you can do better. You think you can live a good enough life to work a better worthiness before God than this, my friend, not chance, don’t go down that path. Dangerous.

Believers go down that path often times. When they come Christ, they come empty handed. Say, God, be merciful to me, a sinner, and God accepts them and makes them righteous. And then they start getting a little overconfident. They say, well, I’ve been living a good life. I’m reading my Bible, praying, going to church, tithing, doing this, and that. It’s pretty good, and God accepts me because I’m living a good life. That’s wrong my friend. God accepts you now and forever never based on your good deeds, but based on Christ’s perfect righteousness, impunity. I’m so glad. That’s the way he accepts me. And he looks at me through Christ in Christ. Amen. All right. So that’s first. What is this? That’s took us a long time, didn’t it? But that’s because it’s important you grasp what this righteousness is. This justification is.

Secondly, how did we get this? Because it all seems just too good to be true, but how did we get this? I already showed you Romans 3, it explains how we got this. It says we got it by his grace. Remember Romans 3:24. We got it as a gift. We got it through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. And we received it by faith. You already saw that passage. I’m not going to go back there. So let me give you a couple of other passages. Go to 2nd Corinthians 5:21. How did we get this unbelievable track record, unbelievable righteousness to become our own. How does this become ours? 2nd Corinthians 5:21, the simple way to think about it, which you’ll see in this verse is, it becomes ours through an exchange. A great exchange takes place. When we receive salvation, when we were saved, when we put our faith in Christ, we exchanged our sin for his righteousness. These exchanges offers that they have. Tell you, bring your old phone and we’ll exchange it for your new phone. Some of the most useless offers most of the time. They give such a small amount for your old phone. Keep your old phone. 

But God gave us an exchange offer when He said come to Jesus, believe in Jesus, no matter who you are, come as you are, bring your sin and all of that and come to Jesus and exchange your sin for His righteousness, exchange your sin for His righteousness? 2nd Corinthians 5:21, for our sake, He made Him to be sin, who knew no sin so that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God. As the exchange. You see that? Jesus knew no sin, but God made Him to be sin. That’s very strong language, very extreme language. It doesn’t say Jesus became a sinner. No, He was made to be sin. He was made to be the very personification of sin. He didn’t commit any sin, so we can’t say He was a sinner, but on the cross, because he bought our sin, he became sin. He was made to be sin. If sin had a face, it was Jesus on the cross bearing the sin of the world. He was made to be sin for our sake, He had to be sin, so that. What’s the purpose of that? So that we can be forgiven. Is that what it says? No. So that in him, we might become the righteousness of God. See that? Jesus was made to be sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God, so that we can receive his righteousness. He received our sin. Our sin was counted to His account, so that his righteousness can be counted to our account. It’s a great exchange. It’s an exchange nobody will give you.

You can get it today. If you have not put your faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ. And if you are thinking I should leave this and that and then come, no, my friend Jesus says, come, I will take care of, I will make sure you leave all that. You exchange your sin for my righteousness. So how does it happen? Great exchange. Another explanation. How do we get this? One word you can remember is exchange. You get it by exchange. Another word is union, union with Christ. You get it through your union with Christ. We are in Christ, the Bible teaches. Christ is in us, we are one with Him, so much so that everything that belongs to Him belongs to us. And so His righteousness belongs to us by virtue of our union with Christ. Now, I don’t want to get into too much, but this is a very vast teaching, but probably later on, we may come to this. This is a much, this is a greater thing. This union with Christ thing. Because that is how we are justified. But let me just show you a couple of verses here, Romans 5:19. Again, Romans 5:19, these are very important verses and that’s why we read it again and again. Romans 5:19, for as by the one man’s disobedience, the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience, the many will be made righteous. You can see this union here. Two unions are here in this verse. One is our old union with Adam.

The whole world is in union with Adam, either you’re in union with Adam or union with Christ. In Adam or in Christ. And in Adam, if you’re in Adam, which is every unbeliever, his disobedience. Adam’s disobedience makes many as sinners. Even a baby that’s born into the world is a sinner before God. Not because the baby did some sin, even before that, he’s a sinner because of Adam’s sin. Adam’s sin made many as sinners through our union with Adam, we were sinners first, before even we sinned. We were sinners through our union with Adam. But now we have entered into a different union. We are not in Adam, we are in Christ and through our union with Christ, His obedience makes many as righteous. Because we are in Christ, we are all made righteous, counted righteous, considered righteous by God, just as all are considered sinners by God, because of Adam’s sin, all are now considered righteous, who believe in Christ and who are in Christ.

Another verse on union, 1 Corinthians 1:30, and because of Him – and we saw this earlier, 1 Corinthians 1:30, because of Him, you are in Christ Jesus. See that in Christ Jesus? You are in Christ Jesus who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Paul is saying, you are in Christ Jesus who became righteousness to us. You’re in union with Christ. And through that union, you have His righteousness. In other words, when God looks at you, He doesn’t look at you separately, He looks at you as in Christ. And when He looks at you in Christ, He sees His righteousness, not your unrighteousness. If you look through a red glass, everything appears red. You’ve seen that. If you look through a green film, everything appears green. If you look through the film called Christ, everything appears different. God looks at the believer through Christ, in Christ, never apart from Christ. The problem is believers look at themselves apart from Christ. God never looks at believers apart from Christ, only in Christ. Thank God, He does that.

You look like that I’m asking, I’m telling you to look the same way. Look at yourself as in Christ. That’s your identity. You’re in Christ. In Christ, you’re righteous. Yeah, apart from Christ, of course you are not righteous. I’m not righteous. We are still as unworthy as ever, my friend. Even a believer apart from Christ, we are nothing. But the thing is we are not apart from Christ, we are in Christ. The very definition of a believer is the one who is in Christ. Joined to Christ forever and always in Christ, whether he knows it or thinks it or understands it, you are in Christ. Open your mouth and say that I’m in Christ now and forever. I’m in Christ, I’m in Christ. God always sees you in Christ, in Christ. You are righteous. How do you get it? You get it by exchange. How do you get it? You get it by union. And this union is forever. And so you get to keep it. 

Finally, we moved to the benefits. There’s a lot more we can say, but I know that some of this has been heavy stuff, but now we get to the benefits spot. We saw what this is. We saw how we get it. Now, let me talk about benefits, how we benefit from it. We benefit from it. The greatest benefit is God’s approval and acceptance now and forever. That’s the greatest benefit God’s approval and acceptance of us, full approval, full acceptance now and forever. I mean, there’s no greater benefit than this. Approval is one of the greatest needs of a human being. If you look at a small child, nothing satisfies a child or makes a child happier than when their parents, their father, or their mother look at them and they say, wow, that’s good job. You’ve done it very well. You drew this very well, or you did this very well. When we approve of their actions or when we appreciate what they’ve done, or when we show that approval, that just lifts the spirit of the child. That just makes him so happy. And that just satisfies him in a way that nothing else can. That whole day, it goes better for him. 

Or when an employer looks at the employee and says, you’ve done a good job. That day for that employee, their job satisfaction quotient is way up. They feel so satisfied. Sometimes we deny that showing of approval thinking, or let them just do it. What we fail to realize is when we appreciate and approve and show the approval, it actually leads to better performance. I’m talking about, you have the full approval and appreciation of the king of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And He has shown it in this truth called righteousness in this blessing called righteousness. The sad part is people have not seen it, have not understood it. But righteousness finally says you are fully accepted and approved by the great God and king of Kings and Lord of Lords. There’s nobody higher. There’s no greater approval you can, get no greater acceptance. He doesn’t just not — think about this. Approval is not just pitting you. God is not just having mercy on you. No, it’s more than that. God is pleased with you. God approves of you, accepts you. He welcomes you, not because of what you’ve done, but because of who you are in Christ righteous. The thing is, as I said, many people don’t even pay attention to this truth of righteousness. They even speak ill of it. They reject it. They say, I only believe we are forgiven. We are not righteous and all this, but I’m glad that they are righteous. Even if they don’t think they’re righteous. As long as they’re a believer, they’re righteous.

But in this life, you can never really feel that full approval. That is only in the life to come. I’m talking about when you can feel this approval in it’s absolute perfection and totality, because we are not perfect. And our understanding is not perfect. We just don’t feel it as perfectly as we can and should. But one day we will. When we see the face of Jesus, you will see His approval of you. You will see Him smiling at you, welcoming you, accepting you, and you will feel that approval. You will know that you are approved by God. Now and forever, this blessing gives you this approval. Forever also, my friend. Make no mistake. That is how Paul teach us about justification. If you’re justified now much more, will you be saved from the wrath to come? Who can lay a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies, let every month be stopped. As long as God’s justifying, you are fine. Now and forever, you have His approval forever in eternity, you will feel it in a much greater way, but you can start getting good for tests, now itself if you start meditating on this truth on this blessing that you have my friend. So that’s the first great benefit. 

Second, when you understand this truth, when you understand what a great blessing this is, when you realize that God doesn’t accept you based on your good deeds and your performance, but based on who you are in Christ, based on the righteousness he has given you, based on the qualification he has qualified you with. When you understand and accept and submit to that. That makes you very secure in life. In all your relationships. It gives you a certain feeling of security and steadiness in all your relationships, your relationship with God, your relationship with others as well. Let me explain, many believers are, they are very insecure about their relationship with God. Sometimes they’re confident that God accepts them. That God loves them. Sometimes they’re just doubtful. Sometimes they’re afraid. Sometimes they’re thinking, will I even go to heaven. It’s like they go in cycles. For a period of time, they seem to be doing things well, living well, and then they mess up and they sin and they lose their confidence. They get shattered. And then they go into this doubt and despair. I’m not saying, everybody goes into a little bit of — I’m talking about people who really just go off into doubt and despair and just stay there. And then they’re afraid and fearful. And then, they come back and they ask for forgiveness of sins and then they’re okay for some time again, and they’re back into the same thing. There are in the cycle of forgiveness, doubt, fear, forgiveness, confidence, doubt, fear. They keep going around in cycles like this. There’s no steadiness in their relationship with God.

If you see those kind of people, they believe in forgiveness of sins. And then they believe in doing righteousness, living righteously. What they don’t believe is that you are righteous based on Christ’s righteousness. They don’t believe that. That’s the missing. That’s one of the crucial missing things for many people, many believers. They believe that God forgives you. So they believe you go confess your sin and God will forgive you. And so they go confess their sin, and God forgive them. And then they think now I got to live righteously and prove my worth to before God, myself. That’s the whole problem. So they go from forgiveness to proving their own righteousness, disastrous. You got to realize that God doesn’t only forgive you, but He has made you righteous, already made you righteous. And you are righteous now and forever in Christ, in Christ. God never looks at you apart from Christ. So when you realize that, that gives you a certain steadiness so that even if you sin, yes, it causes you to repent. In fact, I would say, if you are strongly grounded in this truth of righteousness, when you sin, you want to repent sooner. When you sin, you want to repent more wholeheartedly. It leads you to whole heart because you’re thinking despite all that I’ve done God still accepts me as righteous in Christ. And that drives you to repent faster and more wholeheartedly. 

This truth of righteousness will drive you to lead you to overcome sin. So it makes you secure in your relationship with God when you realize that no matter what you do, no matter what you’ve done, no matter how much you’ve messed up, you are still righteous in Christ. You believe that? No matter what you do, no matter what you’ve done, no matter how much you have messed up or may mess up, you are still righteous in Christ. 

Can you believe that? Do you dare to believe that? If you don’t, you have not understood this. Let me put it like this, on your worst day, you are still fully accepted by God as righteous in Christ. If you can believe that, you understood this truth. If you can’t, you’ve not. Now, when people hear things like that, immediately, they’ll say that means, are you giving a license to sin? Are you saying we can just have worse days and just do whatever? No, I’m not saying that. Of course. I’m not saying that. Who says that? Nobody says that. What we’re saying is this justification, this righteousness is not based on our own righteousness, is not therefore affected by our unrighteousness. It’s not affected, it’s not based on it. It’s not affected by it. It doesn’t change by it. It’s separate. Now yes, we do have to live righteously, do righteous works, do good works, all that is necessary, but don’t mix this, and that. This is not about that. Today, truth, righteousness in the new Testament is not about living righteously. This truth of justified. It’s not about how we should do righteousness. No, it’s about how we are righteous because of the righteousness of Christ. The new Testament talks about living righteously, living holy, doing works of righteousness, good works, all that. We’re going to talk about that maybe next week. That is connected more often to other things. When you’re made righteous, it leads you to do righteousness, but don’t mix the two in an unhealthy way. Meaning don’t make this about that. This truth is not about doing righteousness. It is about being righteous.

If you understand this, this will lead you to do righteousness. But even if you do unrighteousness and we all do at some times, it doesn’t change our status as righteous in Christ. And next week, I want to talk about other blessings which actually help us to do righteousness. This truth today, we’re talking about righteousness, justification. It’s only one of the blessings of salvation. It’s not everything. It’s only one of the blessings. There are other blessings like sanctification. Now that is about how we have been given power and enablement over sin, a new heart, a new spirit. We have been regenerated and so on. We’re going to talk about those things tomorrow — maybe another time next week or whatever. We’re going to talk about how that leads us to live an overcoming life and overcoming sin and all that. But the thing is, this is not about that. Today is not about that. It’s about being righteous. So it makes our relationship with God secure, just a few more things and I’ll close. It makes our relationship with others also secure. We are always seeking validation and approval from others, aren’t we? Simple proof is we are seeking likes. We want those likes. There’s nothing wrong in that. Those likes make us feel good. Those likes on Facebook or wherever. The thumbs up, the approval we get from others. That word of appreciation. It makes us feel good and it ought to. And it’s good that there’s nothing wrong with that. But the thing is when you become too dependent on that to the point where if you don’t get their approval, it crushes you, especially when they criticize you. And if you do get that approval, then only you fly sky high, then you know you’ve got a problem when your life is totally dependent on the approval of others and the appreciation of others. And when it is crushed by the criticism of others.

You know you got a problem when you can’t live without the approval of others. You know you got a problem when one word of criticism breaks you and crushes you. Why does that happen to people? Because let me tell you the root reason. It happens because we don’t get the approval from the highest source, because we don’t get enough approval from the highest source or because we don’t sense enough approval from the highest source, we seek it from lower sources. Psychologists talk about kids who, when they grow up, sometimes kids and I told you kids long for the approval of their parents. Sometimes they don’t get it. And that they say leads them to seek approval from others, their friends and so on. And that sometimes leads them on the wrong path. They’re ready to do anything to just get approval from somebody, just get word of appreciation, just be accepted in some group. When they don’t get the approval from their parents, the higher source, they seek the approval from the lower sources.

The highest source is God, not even your parents. When you are in tune with God’s approval, when you sense deeply that God fully approves of you, accepts you, welcomes you. God smiles upon you. When you have that deep sense in your heart, that God approves of me, then it doesn’t matter so much, whether other people are approved or not. Yeah, there approvals and appreciations kind of make you feel good, and that’s okay, but it doesn’t lift your sky high because only one thing lifts you that high and that’s God’s approval. And their word of criticism. Yeah, it hurts a little bit, but it doesn’t break you or crush you because you’ve always got this approval by God where He approves you, accepts you as righteous in Christ now and forever, and no criticism and no disparaging word can take that away. It keeps you steady. Next, another benefit. This truth of righteousness. When you meditate on this, when you pay attention to this, it keeps you or preserves you from getting a false confidence and a false security. It helps you stay away from a false confidence. What do I mean by that? There are some Christians today. Some believers even maybe who’re very confident. You asked them, does God approve of you? Does God accept you? Does God accept you as righteous? They’ll say, yeah, very confident. You ask them why? Why do you think God approves of you? Why do you think God accepts you? They’ll say, what do you mean why? I’m living, such a good life. I’m not like those other people. I go to church and I tithe and I fast and pray and I do these good deeds and that good deeds. I do all this. How could God not approve of me?

That’s false confidence because their confidence is in their own good works, is in their own righteousness. It’s not bad that they’re doing those things. It’s good that they’re doing those things, reading the Bible, praying, going to church, tithing, fasting, all these things are good. What is bad is putting your confidence in them thinking God accepts you because of those things. God approves of you because of — That is false confidence. That is a dangerous confidence to have because it will come crashing down soon enough. That kind of confidence comes when you’re never looking at this kind of truth, which says you on your own are undeserving unworthy, but you in Christ are righteous, fully accepted. Stay away from false confidence my friend. You should be aware, less we become like that Pharisee who prayed. Luke chapter 18. God, thank you that I’m not like these terrible fellows, these tax collectors and adulterous. I fast twice a week and I give tithes of all that I have, and I do. We give the Pharisees a bad rep. We’ve got to be careful that we don’t become like them. This truth preserves us from putting our confidence in the wrong place and keeps our confidence in Christ, in his righteousness, we always want to be found having your confidence in Christ, Philippians 3:9, Paul says, I want to be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own. That comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God. That depends on faith.

Finally, one verse, we close. One verse Romans 5:17, it’s final benefit is a broad one. I just want to point this out and close. Righteousness leads you to reign in life. Righteousness leads you to reign in life. Romans 5:17, for because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness, reign in life through the one, man, Jesus Christ. I want you to simply notice the word reign in life. He says the ones who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness. Notice that free gift, free gift of righteousness, reign in life through the one Man, Jesus Christ. If being under Adam caused us to fail in life. Being under Christ and in Christ will cause us to much more reign in life. This free gift of righteousness. Once you get that sense that you are righteous, God accepts you, approves you. It opens all kinds of doors. You pray different, you go to God different, you praise different, you thank God different. And you reign in life now and forever.